A new begining

[cheeseo]

Ok, taking a bit of a leap of faith here, but something tells me I need to try posting this. It's really strange to find myself writing, largely because my english scores are never very high to begin with. One thing I need to know is if I have any talent at all the only feedback I have thus far is parental which, though it may be trusted, isn't always correct and it could just be mom being happy her child is doing something creative. So, here goes...(as a side note, this is the begining of the book I am attempting to write.)



“Miss Materson, I would like to see you after class.” declared Mister Douglas to the entire class.
“What did I do?” Clair yelped in protest.
“You will have to come after class to find out.” Mr. Douglas replied with a slight grin.

Try as she might Clair simply could not shake the sense that she was about to be unjustly punished for something she never did. Her history teacher Mr. Douglas was one of the well liked teachers at the school, mostly because he never ended a day with a ‘meet me after class’, so this was really throwing Clair for a curve. Every time she sees him she’s kind of freaked out, he’s always staring at her. He tries to hide it by looking away at the last second, but she always sees this happen. When she remembered this her mind began to wander around what that might mean. That was far from helpful; now not only was she worried that she was about to be unjustly punished, but now she had it in her mind that being unjustly punished would be the better ending to this day.
“Class dismissed!” Mr. Douglas shouted over the bell. “Don’t forget to read chapters thirteen and fourteen tonight!” he yelled over the bustle of everyone leaving. Clair took the opportunity the confusion created to attempt to get away which was thwarted by a call above the noise: “Not you Clair, stay here a bit, I would like to talk to you.”

This was the end! She was doomed! Doomed!!! “Oh relax, you aren’t in any trouble.” Mr. Douglas tried to calm her nerves, however this did just the opposite. At that she tensed up even more. “Uhh…Clair? Are you feeling all right?” he asked.
“So…umm…what exactly am I here for?” she asked in reply.
“Ahh yes, I was going to ask you if you would like to hear a story I have been working on for a while now. I can’t ask just anybody, I tend to be paranoid about people stealing my idea for themselves.”
“So what makes you trust me?” she began. “I might just take the idea for myself anyway.”
“I doubt you would do that. Your eyes are very much like that of an old friend of mine. She was very trustworthy, and thus I find myself willing to trust you.” He answered staring off into space with a dumb grin on his face.
“So what’s this story about? Some kind of history lesson?”
“I guess you could say that, but it’s more fantasy then anything else. Also I should warn you, it’s a very long story, I won’t be able to finish it in one day.”
“So what does that mean?”
“It means that you will have to come back if you want to hear more.” the history teacher finished with a wink.
“That’s it? You just want to tell me a story? Nothing else?” she questioned.
“Should there be?” he replied.
“No, just making sure.” she said.
“Would you like to start today?”
After a short pause she gave her reply, “Sure, why not?”
“You seem a little hesitant, but every good thing in this life starts with a little step of faith. Ok, in that case you should call your parents and tell them you are going to be a little late coming home. I can give you a lift if you need it.”
“Sounds good, I’ll give them a call now.” She finished as the walked to the back of the classroom pulling out her cell. After a few minutes she returned saying that she had to be home by six for dinner. “Now then, shall we start?” she asked
“Ok, follow me then.”
“Where are we going? She questioned suddenly suspicious.
“The roof, after all, nothing can beat a good story accompanied by a good view.” he explained as he made his way out of the classroom. A few seconds passed and she weighed her decision: she didn’t really know what waited for her up there, but something nagged at her heart, something told her this was important, she had to follow, she had to hear.
As soon as they arrived on the roof the story began. “This story, like any good fantasy story, is about a great hero. Set apart at birth to lead the people around him into bliss and harmony, can’t get much more cheesy then that right?. The one thing that makes this character different from everyone around him is that he is old, but doesn’t appear to be any older then myself. When I say he is old I mean that he has been around since the beginning of the earth. Taught from the age of twelve how to be a leader, he was the greatest lord that land ever had. This story is the story of the legend known as Yenos.

 

[tjguitarz]

Great beginning Cheeseo. It read fluidly like a normal book, but here are a few things I'll just spit out in one obnoxious paragraph.

The first one is that I don't know the age of either of the characters. And I don't know very much about them. I suggest you tell me more about Mr. Douglass right from the beginning. To put it bluntly, my first impression is that Mr. D is a pedophile preying on a sweet little girl. It's very important to present your character, especially a critical one that has nothing but good intentions, as a GOOD person. Maybe you could mention some of the things Clair has heard about Mr. D, or things she has seen herself. Maybe he works at her church. Maybe he's a small group leader. Maybe he organizes food drives. Somehow, I need to know he's a good person with good intentions.

My next question is, why would Mr. D ask Clair to stay after in front of the whole class? Maybe you could have her answer a question in a fashion that might seem rude to him. That would make more sense.

Next, stick to one tense. You stay in past tense most of the time, but I see you stray into the present tense after the first dialogue.

For the CGA forums, make sure you space things out nicely. Make sure there is a line between big paragraphs. To save space, you can keep all the dialogue together. At least that's how I see it.

That's all I can think of right now. It's great to see you posting on the forums. Never hesitate to post things. You don't really know any of us, so you can always expect truthful feedback. Remember that I'm not trying to be mean or anything. I'm a writer too, and I am overly sensitive to criticism. Also, I'm just some fool hyped up on caffine, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

Oh, and I really like your plot, what I can gather so far. I'm interested to here this story. Make sure you describe your setting well. You also might want to describe the setting in more detail for the normal part. If it's in the present day, mention her staring at a digital clock, watching the seconds tick by as she waits in agony to find out her punishment.

Also, something I found that can help a reader connect more to the story is using the senses. Describe the temperature of the room. Maybe the kid sitting next to Clair hasn't showered in awhile. Maybe there's a constant hum from the air conditioning in the back of the room. She might have the gross aftertaste of a Twinkie in her mouth. Things like that will make the reader smile and realize that they aren't just reading words, they're diving into a story.

Ok, I'm sorry. I've got starbucks coursing through my veins. I can feel my red blood cells riding on angry horses. I guess I'll go work on my own book now. Keep up the good work and I'll make sure to keep reading yours!

 

[cheeseo]

Good to hear feedback, I really get what you mean, I really didn't elaborate on my charecters yet. That said, Mr. D is going to be the main charecter, but you are right in saying that I really present him in a wrong way, at least at the begining of the story. One thing I keep forgetting is that the readers don't know the charecters like I do yet, something I really need to keep in mind when writing. I would like to mention that the bulk of the next bunch of chapters (not sure how many yet) are going to be about his childhood so to speak. As for the spacing, it looked all pretty on Word >_< I will make sure to use Post Preview next time. Thanks for the help, I know I needed it.

edit: I forgot to mention the age thing. Frankly I don't know his age, when it comes right down to it, to know his age you would have to know the exact year the earth began >_< bit of a problem. He dosn't even know his own age after the first thousand years or so you tend to start to forget that kind of thing. But I do know that he looks to be in his late thirties.

 

[tjguitarz]

the readers don't know the charecters like I do yet

And they never will. You've got to try your hardest to describe them the best you can. And boy, oh boy, it can be difficult.

 

[dorkelf]

And they never will. You've got to try your hardest to describe them the best you can. And boy, oh boy, it can be difficult.

Definitely a difficult challenge. Keep in mind that the reader learns best about characters from what they do rather than an explicit description of their physical appearance, social status, history, etc. But on the other hand, description can be a powerful tool for helping to introduce character, not as a substitute for character action but in conjunction with it.

How you relate information about a character to the reader is really where the 'art' of writing comes into play. There are many ways to approach it, but always important to remember that every attribute of your characters, including their physical attributes, age, etc., must be what is best for the plot. This means you will sometimes have to modify characters for the sake of the plot.

Paul

 

[Amicus Dei of [FoG]]

Ok, taking a bit of a leap of faith here, but something tells me I need to try posting this. It's really strange to find myself writing, largely because my english scores are never very high to begin with.

Being an author has little to do with English classes and tests. Those things are based on your knowledge of hard facts of the language. An editor serves the purpose of taking your mistakes out and making sure that anything you don't know about English doesn't get broadcasted to the world when you publish something. As does spellcheck
Anyway, writing only requires enough knowledge of the things you learn in Enlish classes and are tested over for you to communicate your message with readers. As long as you can make an awesome storyline, all you need to get a masterpiece is the ability to form sentences and make them catchy. Being able to say something really wordy and being correct about everything in fact makes books sound less appealing to the general person.
I love it how you don't stick to the rules in your writing. Your uses of "!!!", "umm," etc. really make the book more readable than if you make the dialogue flawless. There are many times that people read books and get masked in the inability of characters to stumble on words. If you ever watch TV and count how often a monologue includes "uh," "um," or "er," you'll realize that people can relate subliminally to dialogue that includes breaks for thinking about words. They do it so much they don't realize it!
I think what you're working on right now is focused on more of an average Joe audience. The passerby on the street would probably find it very down to Earth and enjoy it.

 

[Amicus Dei of [FoG]]

And they never will. You've got to try your hardest to describe them the best you can. And boy, oh boy, it can be difficult.

I don't know, my characters seem to go along with "Actions speak louder than words." They tend to describe themselves past what I describe (for example, I can take paragraphs to define one person by how they look and talk but until they start reacting to things the reader really doesn't understand who they are. I have more description of how: how things happened and how they said this, as opposed to what I have of what they looked like... I tend to overdefine the tone the characters speak in o.0 (i'll explain who said it, use a special word for said for how they said it, and then describe what emotions they felt or the volume of the voice, etc. It gets out of hand.)

 

[tjguitarz]

Being an author has little to do with English classes and tests.

Anyway, writing only requires enough knowledge of the things you learn in Enlish classes and are tested over for you to communicate your message with readers. As long as you can make an awesome storyline, all you need to get a masterpiece is the ability to form sentences and make them catchy.

And the greatest example of this ever: Harry Potter. I once heard it called "the most asinine writing ever."

 

[cheeseo]

I love it how you don't stick to the rules in your writing. Your uses of "!!!", "umm," etc. really make the book more readable than if you make the dialogue flawless.

I like the idea of making it sound as the reader would actually pronounce it. Nobody I have ever talked to actually talks with a deep pronouncation of every single word. nobody ever says something like "that is a bad idea!" rather "that's a bad idea" it just makes more sense to me to write it like that.

I think what you're working on right now is focused on more of an average Joe audience. The passerby on the street would probably find it very down to Earth and enjoy it.

I'm not sure that's entirely true the first part that you just read (which has had a lot added to it I might add) is just the intro, most of the actual story is going to be taking place in more of a fantasy setting. That said, it's going to take place in a reality setting as well.

 

[Amicus Dei of [FoG]]

Most average Joes I know are fantasy fans...