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Gamefreak
08-06-2003, 10:01 AM
hey! kinda new to these fourms and such. just wondering what you guys thought of my writing. heres a sample of it from a novel i'm helping my friend write. i've named it The Assassain's Son. heres the intro. thanks a bunch!

The red beam of light, brighter than the sun at high noon, cut through the human’s soft, white flesh easier than a hot knife through freshly baked bread. As blood gushed out, the heart didn't seem to understand that death was inevitable and continued to frantically pump blood, trying to recover the blood that was dousing the helpless victim. This didn't seem to matter much to the criminal who had simply killed another person without after-thought. Consciences were for the weak. And unlike so many of his partners, he didn't stay awake at night knowing he had ended another one's life, something that had taken approximately 11,680 days to come to bloom, and had been, unsaddly to him, cut short. Nor did he think of the victim’s family, if he could sleep it off, they could to. Or he would happily send them to the grave with their beloved son. Just another human, just another body. The police would be after him, but then, they always were. Just another inconvience. And the additional death would be added to him sentence, not that you can make the death sentence any worse, and certainly to the reward. Not that anyone had dared to try to capture him after what he had done last time.

The woman, having heard the last scream of the recent-victim, and last sound of her life, hurried in the room from which it came only to see her son dead and a man above him. What she didn't know was that this "man" really was no man at all. The shadows seemed to swirl around him making a clear glance at him hard on the eyes. This coped with his all black coat and black studded armor made it even harder on her weak human eyes.

She wanted to scream, to ask why, to question. Why would someone kill anyone? Why her son? In this split second she asked herself this question she too was cut apart. And thus her last thought, and thought her other son would soon think, why?
This "man" had never thought this in his life. He receives a mission, he fulfills a mission. There is no why to a mercenary, an assassin. There is only how, and who. Time to go, the sooner he could collect his pay, the sooner he could pay off his debts. The evil debt's that had gotten him into this mindless business in the first place...

What he didn't know was that another inconvience was heading home to see his wife and kid. As he jumped out the window, shattering the cheap glass into many pieces, the father caught by surprise, looked up and dropped his bag. The bag with the project he had been working on all day. Not just any project, a secret project that was the "why?" in this case. Luckily, or unluckily for him, the "project" didn't break. As soon as he had unsheathed his sword his arm was off, withering on the floor.

"Is this it?" the shadow "man" asked. This only caused the man to get up and try to attack the shadow again. He nimbly and effortlessly dodged as he was trained to. Unfortunately, the man didn't. This would be the last mistake of his life. Another red beam, glowing brightly in the dark, moonless light, cut the man at an angle from the waste. The body, as if to say "Where are my legs?" fell over and instantly killed him. He calmly pulled a short, black dagger, the symbol of his employers, and stabbed it into the door. The shadow then picked up and bag and walked calmly off. He didn't know that this would eventually bring about his death . He didn't understand he had just taken apart most of a family without as much as the blink of an eye. Just another body.

jhertsch
08-06-2003, 11:11 AM
Number one writer error on this list: Forgetting to proofread. I've hit others for it, others have hit me for it, and now I'm hitting you for it. I read maybe a third of the way through your piece. Found two misspellings, one incomprehensible sentence, and one run-on sentence. Remember to clean those up before you try to submit this to a real editor.

--JH

winterhawk11
08-06-2003, 12:08 PM
I'll reiterate the proofreading comment. There were far too many misspellings, punctuation errors, and awkward sentence constructions in here, and it made it hard for me to get through the whole thing.

Second thing is, I didn't find the narrative very compelling. You've got three deaths in this short passage, but I didn't get any real sense of menace, of emotion. Something like this should be visceral, emotional, immediate--it should hit the reader hard. As it was I felt like I was reading through a list of "this happened, then this happened, then this happened." I suggest breaking up the narrative a bit more, using shorter sentence to convey urgency, and using more emotional language to engage the reader.

Good luck with it! It sounds like an interesting idea.

Gamefreak
08-06-2003, 12:23 PM
yes, editing is one of my weak points. i find it more compelling to move on rather than going back if that makes sense...

i kinda know what your saying about it being unemotinal but i was kinda trying to make it that way so that you see this guy just really doesn't care at all that hes killing if that makes sense. he just becomes devoid of any feelings for anyone else.

Ineti
08-06-2003, 12:26 PM
"This didn't seem to matter much to the criminal "

I read this, the fourth line in the story, and was immediately bored with the story. I think it's one of those subliminal cues that plays with your brain.

If the main character doesn't care, why should the reader? The tone of the piece was indifferent, and that's how I feel about it after reading it.

Definitely proofread and get an editor to look it over.

And I'm pretty sure "unsaddly" isn't a word.

Gamefreak
08-06-2003, 12:44 PM
Originally posted by Ineti
"This didn't seem to matter much to the criminal "

I read this, the fourth line in the story, and was immediately bored with the story. I think it's one of those subliminal cues that plays with your brain.

If the main character doesn't care, why should the reader? The tone of the piece was indifferent, and that's how I feel about it after reading it.

Definitely proofread and get an editor to look it over.

And I'm pretty sure "unsaddly" isn't a word.


ya like i said i'm a horrible editor (when editing my own pieces at least)

as far as why should you care if he doesn't, shouldn't that make you care? i mean the guy just killed a whole family without CARING... somethings wrong there eh?

jhertsch
08-06-2003, 01:01 PM
Originally posted by Gamefreak
ya like i said i'm a horrible editor (when editing my own pieces at least)

as far as why should you care if he doesn't, shouldn't that make you care? i mean the guy just killed a whole family without CARING... somethings wrong there eh?

Did you ever see Hot Shots: Part Deux? One scene featured Charlie Sheen dressed as Rambo mowing down an entire village full of bad guys. A video-game like indicator on the screen kept a running body total. This pretty much sums up the American attitude toward killing in the media.

Lack of passion over killing is nothing new. High body counts are nothing new. You have to infuse the work with passion. Screaming at your readers about not caring won't help.

If you'd like inspiration, check out Stephen King's Dark Tower series. King has a wonderful talent for making sure each death hits you in the gut ... or leaves you aghast at the killer's lack of remorse.

--JH

jhertsch
08-06-2003, 01:06 PM
One more follow-up.

You said you're co-writing this with a friend. Before you even think of submitting your manuscript to an agent or publisher, you need to hire a professional copy editor to go through and spruce up your manuscript. If you and your co-writer are bad at catching your own errors, you'll need the assist.

--JH

Ineti
08-06-2003, 01:09 PM
Originally posted by Gamefreak
i mean the guy just killed a whole family without CARING... somethings wrong there eh?

Possibly. If you think so, show it in the writing. Show me there's a reason to care about this automaton.

Gamefreak
08-06-2003, 01:27 PM
Originally posted by jhertsch
One more follow-up.

You said you're co-writing this with a friend. Before you even think of submitting your manuscript to an agent or publisher, you need to hire a professional copy editor to go through and spruce up your manuscript. If you and your co-writer are bad at catching your own errors, you'll need the assist.

--JH

ya he hasn't looked it over quite yet. what we worked out is that we both have a sort of character and we basically write about them and what they do. they overlap at some key points i.e. my guy kills the other guys family and trys to get him and the eventualy showdown. auctually i haven't gotten ANYONE to edit it except my occasional glacing over.

and you do have a point about america not really caring at all. i think i'll go back and spice things up a bit if you get my meaning.

thanks alot for the advice!

jhertsch
08-06-2003, 01:34 PM
Originally posted by Gamefreak
ya he hasn't looked it over quite yet. what we worked out is that we both have a sort of character and we basically write about them and what they do. they overlap at some key points i.e. my guy kills the other guys family and trys to get him and the eventualy showdown. auctually i haven't gotten ANYONE to edit it except my occasional glacing over.

and you do have a point about america not really caring at all. i think i'll go back and spice things up a bit if you get my meaning.

thanks alot for the advice!

I'm always glad to offer a nickel's worth of free advice ... and if you do this professionally, keep in mind that good copy editors are expensive.

Incidentally, remember that spicing it up isn't just about carnage. If I were you, I wouldn't start with the laser beam. It's a nice image, but it's more special effects than passion.

jhertsch
08-06-2003, 01:37 PM
By the way, if you get a chance, surf down to "Throwing my writing to the wolves." I put a little sample there, and I could really use feedback. Everybody else on this list has given some good remarks, and I think I'm going to rip up what I wrote and recast it based on the feedback.

I damn near killed my creative-writing ability with newspaper copy editing, and it shows.

--JH

Gamefreak
08-06-2003, 02:22 PM
thats a flash forward type thing at the beggining kind of like an introduction. thats really his sword (magicly glows red) after he takes a new form on (long story) that makes him quite fast and gives the impression that its a laser beam. and yes i don't want any more carnage anyways, gets boring fast :D


ill check that thread you wrote...

Gamefreak
08-06-2003, 05:44 PM
maybe try this: compare THIS writing to the one on the writing challenge and tell me what you think...