Need help with a Writing Problem, Please

[Starbeam]

*sips coffee* Sorry if I was too brusque, but Liger asked for help and advice. I don't think anyone gets any better by being told "go ahead and write crap" without being shown *how* to improve. It's hard to ask for help, so I try to at least honor the person's courage with whatever worthwhile suggestions I can offer.

Perhaps it's just my own pet peeve about asking for critiques and getting "it's good." with milque toast smiles. If I ask for your input, it's because I feel it could be better and can't figure out how to get there with my own POV, so I need your honesty. Patronizing or coddling someone who is trying to improve helps no one.

/Grumpy

S'not just your pet peeve; it's one of my biggest ones and why I don't share my writing.  I've gotten variations of "this is good" and "can't wait to read more" instead of anything constructive.  Meant to come back to this thread and got sidetracked.

Going back to this:

Here is a sample of the prologue,
     The rain fell in a soft patter around a tall, shadowy figure as he pulled his coat tighter to keep the cold off his body.  Hurrying through the dimly lit street, the figure only paused to check over his shoulder.  The moon shown faintly through the cloud cover, revealing the shadowy man moved briskly through the cold night.  Suddenly coming to a sharp halt under one of the street lights, the man turned and looked behind him, searching the dark rain.  With a short nod to himself in satisfaction that he had not been followed, the man continued down the road a little further until he came to a narrow alley with a short, stubby door at the far end.  Turning off the street and walking down the alley, the man worked his way past half-full trash cans and broken beer bottles to the other end of the alley and the door.  Pulling a set of keys out of his pocket, the man squinted in the dark as he fumbled around with his keys.

I agree with the telling, and that you don't give much of anything that makes me want to really keep reading.  With the sentence structure, I meant varying it is a good thing to indicate pacing.  Also, you use a lot of adverbs (-ly words), and more often than not, those can be cut without changing the meaning of the sentence. Some of the wording could also be condensed, like "With a short nod to himself in satisfaction that he had not been followed" could be changed to "Nodding in satisfaction that he hadn't been followed," which also flows a bit better.  Unless you're wanting it to come across as stilted.  And these are my opinions, other people might say differently.

[Murphy's Stunt Double]

S'not just your pet peeve; it's one of my biggest ones

Thank you, Starbeam. I was beginning to think I was just coming across as bitchy.

[meh]

Thank you, Starbeam. I was beginning to think I was just coming across as bitchy.

Not bitchy; perhaps a bit tangential.

[Murphy's Stunt Double]

Well, I AM the Queen of Thread Highjack. 

[shades of grey]

*bows to the threadjacker*

[meg_evonne]

*passes a box of chocolates to MSD*  Hey, bitchy is my middle name.  Don't knock it.  Anyway, can we get Michael A Stackpole to run a genre writer's workshop before or after Tuscon?  Hoping there are plenty of author writing sessions there during.  Still have your signed book bag by the way.

My pet peeve?  Giving a nice critique and not getting one back...  I need to ramp up the inner bitch! 

[Liger]

Thanks MSD for saying your honest opinion.  I'm not gonna lie and say hearing your writing is boring and holds little interest is fun, but I need to hear those things so I can improve.  And yeah I would rather have people tell it to me striaght than say they thought it was good and lie to my face.

[meh]

Thanks MSD for saying your honest opinion.  I'm not gonna lie and say hearing your writing is boring and holds little interest is fun, but I need to hear those things so I can improve.  And yeah I would rather have people tell it to me striaght than say they thought it was good and lie to my face.

This is where choosing your test readers gets critical.   

It's not really very hard to write something that would be -truly-OMG-gripping-whirling-in-spin-cycle- to some while boring others to tears.

[Murphy's Stunt Double]

Thanks MSD for saying your honest opinion.  I'm not gonna lie and say hearing your writing is boring and holds little interest is fun, but I need to hear those things so I can improve.  And yeah I would rather have people tell it to me striaght than say they thought it was good and lie to my face.

You're welcome, and try to resist the urge to add more into what I (or anybody) said than what I (or anybody) actually says.

I would never say "your writing is boring and holds little interest." That would just be rude and unhelpful. I will, however, tell you specifically what is missing that if you put it in, might make it  less boring and uninteresting  .

To eleborate a little bit, when I said "you've given me nothing to really give a damn about this person," it's because that's how you hook a reader. A good writer makes the character attach itself to the reader's mind right out of the gate. (Hello! Harry Dresden, Wizard, I'm in the phone book.) Doesn't matter if the reader loves the character or hates it (sometimes hate is even better to establish. Can you say Morgan??), if you don't hook your reader like a fish, hard and fast, they'll nibble and escape.

And sometimes being able to do that comes in the second, third, or even fifty-third drafts. Once the character reveals itself to YOU, you can go back and insert the little hints and clues that are the hook for the reader. Good writing is work, but I think you've got the basic talent necessary to build a skill - IF you're persistent and can assimilate feedback without making it a personal judgement of your self-worth. It's just guidance. Just suggestions. And 75% of it is likely to be crap, so take what works and let the rest fly!

[Aakaakaak]

I think it's one of those unhappy mediums. Some people look for the encouragement to keep going while others legitimately want a good critique. Sometimes the translation gets lost between the writer and reader. Other times they just don't want to hurt anybody's feelings.

Writing crap (not saying this is crap work) for the sake of continuing a story is fine, since you're going to go back and edit anyway. The important part is to get it all down on paper so you have a document to work with.

Critiquing someone on their writing style before a work is finished is fine too. By reminding them about certain phrasings to avoid or employ you can shape their future writing so it requires less editing. (AKA Nipping it in the bud)

[belial.1980]

Whenever I critique someone's work I try to be as honest as possible. If something sounds awkward or doesn't work, I'll say so. Otherwise, I'm not doing the writer any good. But I try to be very gentle and use phrases like, "You might want to look at this..." or "I felt like this scene could've been improved by..."

I've noticed that some people tend to be very blunt when reviewing other's work. I'm not convinced that saying "I really didn't care one way or another whether this character lives or dies" is any more effective than saying, "I had troubles empathizing with this character."

I also try to find something good to comment on. If a writer is doing something that  does work, I want to point it out to them. Even if I thought the work sucked, I'll find the very best (or least awful) thing I can and show some encouragement.

Overall my critiques tend to be around 75-85% commentary on things I think need improvement. The rest as praise for things that worked. I don't put a conscious effort into this ratio but by in large it just tends to work out that way. If I think a work is pretty good then I tend to get pickier. If a writer's doing good things, I try to push them to be even better in a constructive way.