Timewaster's Guide Archive

I don't know of any courses, but I can give you some advice about getting started on your actual story.  For me personally, I like to outline.  After I have brainstormed and I know what I want to happen in my story, and in what order, I make out a bullet point outline with events and short notes.  Once I have a loose outline and the story in my head, I sit down and write as long as I can or until the story stops coming easy.  When the story stops coming easy, I start reading through it from the beginning to see if that will kick start the creative juices when I reach the point where I left off.  If it doesn't, I stop writing for a bit and do something else.  Don't try to force it because, at least in my case, it ends up sucking.  But since you have an outline and a start, you can come back to it when your brain is refreshed and be ready to hack at it again.  Sometims you have to leave a story alone for a little while, but make sure you come back to it.  

Then you throw it to the wolves... aka a reading group.  Your first story is probably going to be messy, but you'll learn a lot from it, and from the feedback you get about it.  Perhaps it will eventually turn into something publishable, but don't expect that from the first draft or even the first version.  The final, best version of the story may only have a vague resemblance of your initial draft, but that's okay.  Re-writing is like that.

Anyway, that's how I go about it.  I'm sure other people have different methods.

I'd like to submit a piece on Monday.  The title is... in fluctuation at the moment.

I had a couple of questions:

1)  What do you do with people who are on the email list, but haven't submitted anything in like, six months?  Does the list ever get trimmed down?

2) Is there a more user-friendly way to paste all those email addresses into your email browser?  Or do I need to put them in a word document and then edit out the names?

I was also a little confused at how a street urchin manages to be dating a prince. 

A lot of that background/motivation is very significant to the overall plot so I hesitate to reveal it all at once. I do plan to giving it all eventually, but maybe it does need some more details now if you all had a problem with it. I hoped this scene at least showed that whatever motivation Mordin has, it isn't love as he is a bit of a jerk.... Yeah, all these characters are pretty important, so I'll be working on it and anyone else critiquing be sure to give me your 2 cents. 

On this point, I can understand holding back the background until later.  I guess I needed a bit more warning.  In the story, when the prince first mentions Mordin, Raven says "'And he’s a wreck and you’re always perfect,' Raven guessed."  It makes it sound like Mordin is a stranger.  There needs to be some recognition (not visible to the prince, but in Raven's thoughts), something that hints that she knows Mordin personally.  That way when she meets up with him, it's not as much of a surprise.  You do say that "His reference to Mordin had made her nervous though she was determined not to show it.", but that doesn't really hint that they have a relationship, just that she's nervous.

About the Genie/Aishia relationship, I think the part that bothered me was where he goes out back to pull the weeds.  Her initial wish was for him to help her make clay for pots.  I thought Genies were pretty stringent on keeping to the letter of the wish and no further.  In this case, he went on to pull weeds and make the actual pots... the pots I could understand, but who likes to pull weeds, seriously?  Maybe if he really wanted to make pots and she strikes a deal with him that in exchange for the weeds, he can make them, that might be more in line.  You kind of do that now, but there's no bargaining, which I think the Genie would insist on.

I have to agree with Silk in that the Lord giving the "sentence" was a little too chatty.  I don't think that he would have talked so much about his brother, but I also realize that you are using that to set up the introduction of the brother.  I think it might be enough if he merely mentioned that he had a brother with who reminds him all too much of this young girl... and then have her "hide her alarm at the mention of [insert name here]'s name." 

I was also a little confused at how a street urchin manages to be dating a prince.  I know you introduced both of these characters just now, but that's a lot to swallow without some background.  It almost would have been more beleivable if the brother had shown up in court, pretended to be "turning over a leaf" and escorted her out, then they have their little moment.  Somewhere along the line you could give some background, or you can keep it like it is, but somehow you have to make this bit somehow more believable.

I also second the rest of Silk's comments, although I did have one concern about the Genie/Aishia interaction.  It's almost like Aishia tricks the Genie into doing more work than he originally agreed (ala Aladdin).  Is she that clever?  Is the Genie that dense?  Does the Genie have a soft spot, because he seemed pretty selfish to me.  I'm just trying to figure out why he would make the pots unless there was some mischief he could channel.

Anyway, those are my initial thoughts.  I'll finish my second readthrough and post more.

So I've never reviewed for this site before, nor have I been reviewed, so here's hoping I'm not overly harsh or soft in my critique.  That being said, here are my thoughts on the short story:

The good:

1) The idea of a Golem tearing it up downtown is cool.  Kudos for a good idea for a story.

2) The action was clear and concise.  I knew exactly what happened, although a description of a police car getting crunched would be fun

The bad:

1) The introduction is confusing, and not in a good way.  You begin by describing a Golem in modern day, so yes, from the Golem's point of view, he would not understand much of what is going on or what he is seeing.  Because of that, the Golem could not accurately describe much of what she sees.  However, some things will be familiar (smells, people, common things that have not changed over the millenia, i.e. chairs, stone/pavement floors, light shining off metal etc.).  In the beginning your descriptions are vague, and it felt like you were trying hide the fact that the Golem was in modern day by purposefully being vague.  I would rather see you have the Golem describe the familiar as best she could before approaching the things she can't explain, or at least give a good mixture of the two.  Otherwise, it is hard to picture what is going on, which should not be the case.

2) The orientation in time was confusing.  After two reads, I finally figured out that the middle portion is a flashback that occurs before the opening scene.  I'm okay with flashbacks, but there needs to be some type of clue in the opening scene that previous action has occurred.  From the initial paragraph, I thought that for some bizarre reason this Golem had mysteriously awakened next to a bus stop.  There needs to be some cue letting us know that the Golem just arrived on the scene, and some idea of where he was or what he was doing before hand.

3) I needed some more background to explain the way the Golem is acting.  For example, where does she get her moral compass?  Why is killing humans bad if the humans are trying to harm her?  Why is it important that he obey the "rule" not to harm humans, but okay to break the rule of not breaking and entering?  Why can't the Golem recognize fear, or the fact the people might be afraid of it (surely not everyone back in Babylonian times saw a Golem everyday at lunch...)?  What is the Golem made of?  How can it cry?  Why does it breathe?  Why does it assume the bus is a monster and not a chariot?


Okay... I need to stop there.  I made copies on the original document using MS Word's track changes if the author wants me to send them to him.  I hope my comments helped   Oh, and I'm not trying to trash your story--I thought it was good--I just always dissect movies and books to make sense of them.  You don't have to answer all of the questions above, but some of them should be answered so that your reader is not confused.

Best of luck!

Oh come on, your radar is way off.  Anytime someone with a Terry Pratchett userpic says "Please, oh please . . ." anything, you should know they are, by definition, already being snarky.