Young Writers Society

Posted: Tue Nov 01, 2005 12:01 am Post subject:

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William Faulkner said, "the young writer is … demon-driven and wants to learn and has got to write though he don't know why, he will learn from almost any source that he finds. He will learn from older people who are not writers, he will learn from writers, but he learns it."

Posted: Fri Nov 11, 2005 6:44 am Post subject:

She wished the day would never end. Okay. But usually that requires some knowledge of why she wishes the day will never end. When you're young, you don't think, "I hope this day never ends." That indicates that you understand that time is fleeting and this is the only time you'll be able to do something in the same circumstances. That requires maturity.

But your character seems to want to have shoulder rides. Your very mature tone would be great for a teenager. In fact, just by reading this, I know that you are a mature teenager. Even if I didn't know you, I would know it just from this.

So how can you make it in character?

I know this sounds really hard to do, but I would suggest changing it in third person. I know that, for me, FREAK used to be in first person. Unfortunately, just as this story, my character became too smart, and I had a freaky genius. Good... but not for my story. So I had to change it in third person after two years of writing it in first. Yep. Your eye is probably twitching from the thought of changing it.

Another idea is to see it from a child's view. This is incredibly difficult to do. We know what it was like, but to go back to child like narratives are hard. That would make everything ten times more difficult. Even so, there's several things you can do. If you are learning and struggling with a foreign language, you are aware of what simplistic writing is like. Sometimes I write something in Spanish and then translate it into English just so I can achieve that simplicity.

Yep... I'm a geek.

But I would suggest third person.

The other thing: your description sucks.

I know, I know... I'm not supposed to be mean. But when I was reading this, I was thinking, "Oh man! This idea is so awesome! If only she described this more..."

How can you solve that?

Once again, the easiest way to do this is going into third person. But there's something even more crucial. All description should somehow pertain to the character. For instance, you have a lot of well-thought dialogue. But what does the character think about that?

I imagined a sort of back and forth head movement. She hears this. She's scared. She surpresses a scream. Something of that sort. You have to describe your main character's reactions though!

For instance, check out this:

Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2005 2:19 am Post subject:

Oooh... that was scary... Shocked

Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2005 2:26 am Post subject:

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May you have enough happiness to make you sweet, enough trials to make you strong, enough sorrow to keep you human, enough hope to make you happy.

Posted: Sun Nov 27, 2005 3:12 am Post subject:

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"Most of us have far more courage than we ever dreamed we possessed."
- Dale Carnegie

This thread was created on April 3, 2005	Young Writers Society Forum Index » Fantasy Fiction	All times are GMT Goto page Previous 1, 2
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