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Post by Robin on Jan 3, 2006 11:28:30 GMT -8
I'm not sure about that part. It just didn't look "grammatically correct" to just have "now let me in." I don't know. If he's holding back anger, he's probably going to be talking very slowly and with a lot of pauses. But I really don't know.
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Post by Robin on Dec 31, 2005 10:14:48 GMT -8
I'm writing it for the story that I've already posted, and I wanted to know if it was natural sounding. It has a lot of cursing in it, and references to intercourse, so don't read if if you'd be offended by that kind of thing. I don't want to tick anybody off.
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When he finally made it to their apartment, he was thoroughly soaked. He turned the handle, and the door was locked. He knew Elena was home, though. She worked Monday through Friday, but he knew that she got off work at four ‘o’ clock in the afternoon. It was six ‘o’ clock then.
He tapped his foot impatiently for a moment before banging on the door with his fist. “Elena!” he shouted. “Let me in! It’s fucking freezing out here!” He knew she was peering through the peep-hole, probably laughing her ass off. Robert sighed. “Damn it, Elena,” he said, banging on the door again. “Let me in!” This time, she responded. “I’m not letting you in.” Her voice was chilly, but he could tell she was just masking her inner amusement. “Come on, Elena, why not?” “You won’t screw me,” she said. She was making her voice quivery and tearful, now. “That’s the stupidest reason I’ve ever heard,” Robert said impatiently. “You’re a middle aged woman, not a high school brat. My high school girlfriend was less sex-crazy than you.” She was silent, then. “Please let me in,” Robert said, trying to catch her while she was thinking of a snappy answer. “I’m not letting you in unless you promise to do it with me,” she said. Her voice was still faux-whiny and sniveling. Robert sighed and relented, knowing that she probably would forget about it before he was asked to follow through on his promise. “I promise,” he said. “Now, let me in.”
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Post by Robin on Dec 31, 2005 9:54:49 GMT -8
Yes. The plot is extraordinarily weak, and it's filled with way too many cliches. There are always orphaned witches, and there are always poor thieves.
While you don't need to fill in the meat right now (it is just a summary), I think it would help you to write down some notes about how all this will come about. Try to think of an original way. I just read an amazing book calling The Tower of Ravens that involved a tomboyish girl in a girly girl world. Now, that sounds very cliche (like your story), but the author (Kate Forsyth) made it so that the girl was raised in a family of "satyricorns," who are very rude and boisterous. She came up with an original crossbreed ("saytricorn" and human), and also with an innovative way to make the character seem more original. If you can find original reasons for all of this happening, such as a good way for Braelyn to run away, then your story would be rather interesting to read.
The plot you have, while weak, appeals to all audiences. It's familiar, and familiarity breeds love before it breeds contempt.
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Post by Robin on Jan 11, 2006 16:44:40 GMT -8
This is a synopsis of the story I've been pimping for awhile. It's too long to make people read, so I'll ask for opinions on my synopsis/summary thing.
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Set in 1990's New England, the story follows the story of a man entering middle age without much to show for his life. He lives in a small house, paying the rent with welfare and unemployment checks as well as whatever money he can beg off of his friends.
He is addicted to alcohol and marijuana, and this shadows his life as well as an insecurity about his sexual orientation. He was raped during his early twenties by a man who he had believed to be his best friend, and has since declined viciously. When the story opens, his only companion is a black man haunted by his own demons who is really only his friend for the free marijuana that the man, Tobias Shepard, gives him.
As the story progresses, Tobias's life spirals out of control with a visit from the man who raped him. Distraught, he visits a bar and is restrained from getting into a fight with another man in the bar by a man named Adrian Parrish. Adrian becomes the only stable leg of Tobias's life, and he serves as a confidante to Tobias throughout the story. After a confrontation with the man who raped him, Adrian and his family take Tobias into their home for short period of time while he recuperates both emotionally and physically.
While the story focues on Tobias, the story of Robert Dolman, the man who raped Tobias, is also told. Robert lives in a nice apartment with his love interest, Elena Madden, although his life is also endangered when, after a stressful day and a confusing few moments of foreplay with Elena, he rapes her.
When Elena becomes pregnant from this forced coupling, Robert kicks her out of the apartment in another moment of bewilderment and rage, thus forcing her to go find a new place to live. Fittingly, she is taken in by Tobias Shepard, and they develop a close relationship, although Tobias is really interested in Brenda Parrish, Adrian Parrish's seventeen year old daughter, and Gloria Parrish, Adrian's wife.
After a confusing time, the then seven-months-pregnant Elena and Tobias visit a bar and are followed by a nerve-wracked, distressed Robert. His guilt about the prior incidents with Elena and Tobias had caused him to have a breakdown, and though he isn't insane, he is mentally unstable, although that's no surprise, because he had been temperamentally unstable for most of the story.
When Elena and Tobias walk out of the bar around midnight, they are frightened by a gangfight happening nearby. They are even more frightened when they see that Robert had been caught in the crossfire.
Robert is shot in the stomach, and the gangs, who had only been letting off steam, flee. Elena and Tobias, despite their past troubles with Robert, run to his side and listen to his last laments, hoping, perhaps for an apology. They don't hear one, and neither of them think to call an ambulance. In about thirty minutes, Robert is dead, and Elena and Tobias don't feel any better about themselves.
They flee the scene, and the novel closes after a few chapters in which Elena and Tobias attempt to remedy their hurts, and become romantically involved with each other to help the pain (they don't, of course, actually DO it - she's seven months pregnant, it wouldn't really work). By the end of the novel, they haven't worked out their problems, but they don't feel half as bad.
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Post by Robin on Dec 31, 2005 9:59:03 GMT -8
I can see an interesting story coming from this.
You took a much-abused stereotype: the girl who doesn't like makeup or clothes but instead wants to pursue a male-based career, and made it original. Flying is a generic wish, but it works in the position you placed it.
The only thing I don't like is the first-person thing. I understand that this story needs the deep level of intimacy that first-person requires, but I think that third person would work just as well for this.
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Post by Robin on Jan 2, 2006 19:40:06 GMT -8
I just think that prologues shouldn't tell the story of the main character. They should tell the story of a person who doesn't really come into the story, but the story should tie into the main plot really well.
They shouldn't just be used as cliffhangers. It's not their purpose.
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Post by Robin on Jan 1, 2006 18:04:05 GMT -8
I don't think you even need a prologue.
I mean, prologues are kind of pointless, especially when you don't seem to have any material that needs to be in a prologue. This part could easily be part of the first chapter.
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Post by Robin on Jan 1, 2006 12:00:17 GMT -8
Yeah. It might help if you changed it.
With so many vampire stories starting out on the exact same note, you'd have to do a lot of tweaking to make it sound like a story that wasn't filled to the brim with vampires.
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Post by Robin on Dec 31, 2005 10:04:24 GMT -8
I've seen too many vampire stories like this.
I do admire you for making the woman the dominant one in the relationship. Usually, people end up with a Christine/Billy type relationship, a Beverly/Tom type relationship. The male is usually the dominant one. I'm not a feminist, but I like change, and this change is a particularly refreshing one.
A lot of it is awkward, like the one finger scratching his face. I think a quick, brutal slashing of the face with all five fingers would be much more...natural? These people aren't natural, but they still need natural emotions/actions most of the time.
And what was the deal with her squeezing the maid's hand and making her pass out? It feels like you didn't really think it through.
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Post by Robin on Dec 29, 2005 18:48:42 GMT -8
It's a very good beginning. It's a little too personal for my taste (with the second person words and such), but it gives the story an edge that most authors are afraid to add to their work.
Of course, whether or not the story will be good depends on where you take it, but with a beginning like this, you have quite a few options. I can see this story going down the horror path, down the angst path, down the romance path, or down the "feel-good" path.
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Post by Robin on Dec 31, 2005 9:45:37 GMT -8
I agree with what's already been said.
It's kind of sad when writers "waste" their talent on a Neopian Times Article, simply because you can't go anywhere with something written about Neopets, unless, of course, you want the avatar.
And there were a lot of things that didn't make sense, such as why the captain insisted on carrying her like a sack of potatoes.
Kurai's right, you need to work on displaying emotions without saying "She was sad. She was frustrated. She was angry." A little bit of that never hurts, but it's not that difficult to water down some of that.
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Post by Robin on Feb 2, 2006 15:16:22 GMT -8
Does not wanting to type up a piece of stuff I have written out count as Writer's Block?
I think it does. Because I was grounded from the computer for a week, and I wrote a lot on one of my stories, and until I get the motivation to type it up, I can't write.
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Post by Robin on Jan 1, 2006 12:09:29 GMT -8
I don't remember reading your idea.
I just know, from experience, that trying to derive inspiration from movies/comics only leads to failure.
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Post by Robin on Jan 1, 2006 12:03:09 GMT -8
I listen to music.
I don't do any of this "watch a movie/read a comic" nonsense. Doing that only leads you to come up with cliched, lukewarm ideas.
Everybody who listens to a song gets something different out of it. Thus, ideas that a song scratches out of your head are bound to be good.
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Post by Robin on May 26, 2006 15:25:57 GMT -8
Sounds like a wacky sitcom to me!
Naw, it'd be a good idea, I think. But it'd be kind of hard because it's a collection, and people don't usually go for that stuff - or do they? I don't, usually, but I guess that's just me.
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