Why some people can read and understand...

[R@gnaroCker]

and others doesn't? I posted my first story ever recently. Three gave me a great rating, having apparently understood it completely and liked my imagination. Others just couldn't comprehend what I was saying, like I was speaking a foreign language. I was using Windows Office Word 2007 to help with my spelling and grammar, so I wasn't as bad as some of the stuff I've read here and at asst.org. Still it bugs me. Anyways, I was also using hyperlinks too, as in "a picture is worth a thousand words" sort of thing. Thought I was being innovative, but people here still wanted descriptions. That brought back to thinking about the old radio dramas and how they engaged the imagination. Okay, fine.

Anyways, I got fairly mad at the criticism & retailiated with continuing to my story, and I found a beautiful plot emerging. The old (first) part being 10,840 words long will have the pictures yanked and descriptions put in. But I read a bit of it again after being away working on the new part, I had to agree, it still needed polish. Still, it ween't like as unreadable as some stuff I've read.

The new portion is currently 13,155 words long and I'm afraid, it's going to be huge. The story would likely end up as three parts and an epilogue. All told, at least 50,000 words estimate.

With proof reading and the effort to keep this thing readable, I may submit the revised extended story by May. Given the effort then, as the first part was supposed to be a light effort and offered for free.I'm wondering how much I'd get paid if I submit it that way?Who buys it and for what site those it goes to?

[MrHHH]

The BEA used to try to buy stories from people. But they weren't interested in what people were offering.

RTE-23 is looking for short stories around either 20 or 40 pages long.

Neither site would publish a story that's been available for free. It really angers customers.

[R@gnaroCker]

Aye, well it's a place for practicing at least. If I can post my revised and extended story and not get nary an insult, I figure I'll be ready to try a sci-fi story for publication. I'm not an professional, so that would take me years. It's funny how people can read books all of their lives and not notice the composition and punctuation that makes a book a pleasure to read. The ones who could read past my bad grammar thought I had imagination. I've always wanted to express myself by the written word, and the Windows Word 2007 has at least given me at least a shot at it.
It seems though that I just needed practice and a drive to do better. I'm hammering out the kinks in the first part as we speak. Funny how one can see the glaring mistakes more clearly after a short absence. Whole weekends gone though. About halfway through the rest of the story before I stopped for repairs.
Soon I'll have a new netbook, and since I'm a security guard guarding a single blinkin' parking lot,with not much to do. I'll soon have my weekends back.

[MrHHH]

I just read this the other day, I think you might like it:

Advice for new writers.

[PaulG]

I just read this the other day, I think you might like it:

Advice for new writers.

That is ... surprisingly clever Also, not to play devil's avocado* here, but — chances are you'll never hit it big, so "don't sell the bike shop yet, Orville". Granted, the odds are better than playing in the lottery, but for every published writer, there are thousands of others who'll languish in obscurity.

On a wholly different, more technical note (and please take that with a grain of salt, it's just my own unqualified opinion): Dump Word. Then douse it with gasoline, and set it on fire.

My rant below sounds like some paid advertising shill. Sorry about that. I just really, really like the software. No, I don't get remunerated for that.

I've switched from a text editor to an "author tool" where, instead of a continuous long text, I'm working with "pieces" (mostly paragraphs, sometimes chapters) that can easily be rearranged, removed, inserted, rated, labelled, where I can add notes or "stickies" to keep ideas on etc. It made writing much, much easier.

There are few of these specialized tools, but (for me) it makes a difference. I started out with my first three stories in WordPad (or rather, its Mac equivalent "Bean"), but as stories grow longer, you soon lose the distance and oversight. I shelled out some forty bucks for a shareware tool after I tried it and was blown away by how writing changes if the tool's right.
The one I'm using: http://www.literatureandlatte.com/ (which is for mac)
They have an interesting collection of links on that page, too - writer's resources, info about (self-)publishing and stuff.
If you're into Windows, a rough equivalent is this one (haven't tried it yet, but it looks similar)
http://www.softwareforwriting.com/

Just in case, here's a screenshot as I'm writing on my next story. You might glance a spoiler from the structure tree on the left
http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/4031 ... ersnap.png


*yeesh, yes, it's "advocate". Cut me some slack, willya? Down with a cold. Snot-clogged brain thought it's hilarious.

[R@gnaroCker]

"Live somewhere cheap". Thanks HHH, I've read that snippet you've sent me, and the link after that to Tobias. One, can always hope to be the next, J.K. Rowling, get millions, hell get a bloody theme park. Let's face it, for the most part, this world sucks. Author's are poor I believe because they have a hard time dealing with the world, as I do. I hate to work, and live cheque to cheque doing shift work that will never amount to anything and leave no legacy. I'm 48 and I'm gonna die a nobody.

That said, until this writing bug hit me not two/three months ago, I had absolutely no ambition to engage in this awful world. What matters most to others seems to me to be shallow, self serving and somewhat twisted even. Unfortunately, that means I'm not doing anything to try to improve the lot of this world either. I've lost faith in mankind even. My handle indicates just that.

On the flip side the defining spirituality of humans is in imagination. We have it in spades when we're kids. I believe that there's a before life and an afterlife, and that's where imagination originates. Children are blessed with imagination as their egos haven't fully formed yet, therefore they are more free to revel in it. It's the primary reason then, why adult humans are aghast when they find out how some kids are molested or raped. Innocence is the source of imagination and it gets violently taken away. It's why authors here (Besides it being the law) don't mess with subjects younger than 16 years old.

But I digress, I want people to see my imagination, and I want to leave this world a legacy. Even if it's just a single published novel. I have wisdom and it must be heard.

On a more technical, less ranting note. I'll take a gander at that software you've mentioned. Can't see how it'll improve on copy, cut, paste for editing, but I'll look at it when I get my new notebook.

[R@gnaroCker]

Okay PaulG, just looking at that screenshot sold me. You think I can import my current scribbles into the windows version?

[PaulG]

Okay PaulG, just looking at that screenshot sold me. You think I can import my current scribbles into the windows version?

Should work, but I'd really recommend downloading the demo version first and trying it out. I just did, and I've got to warn you, PageFour left me more than a little disappointed. I'm used to Scrivener (the one in the screenshot), where I can edit the snippets in a "combined" mode (i.e. I click on a chapter=folder, and the text window shows all the snippets of that chapter as one continuous area with grayscale backgrounds to indicate break points). That Windows tool (they're from different companies, I really wished there would be a PC version of Scrivener) only let me edit one snippet of text at a time, which - in my opinion - is utter bollocks. Then again, maybe that's just my way of working not being compatible with PageFour's editing concept.

Importing an existing file in Scrivener is rather easy. Either copy/paste or import it, and it appears as a single snippet/card/item/whatever. I then go through that original text and cut it up into separate elements wherever I see fit (it has a keyboard shortcut for this, so this is pretty quick to do). Internally, my single long text file is now stored as a number of RTF files - one file for each snippet, and the computer maintains an index of the snippet's position in the text hierarchy, so I can now drag-and-drop to reorder them in the tree/sequence list. I guess it's the same for the other tools as well. PageFour can import directories with text files in them, so if you already use that kind of approach, it should be good to go.
What I found annoying was that there's no simple "break apart here" function in PageFour, seems you've got to "add empty file, cut/paste". It seems to be more of the "Write a chapter in each file" kind of editor. Granted, that's already much more helpful than "All things stuffed into a single .doc", but I really like the granularity that Scrivener offers.

I usually start a story by creating a whole lot of empty snippets and then jot down the planned content into the snippets' comment fields. Later on, fleshing out or rearranging these scenes or parts of scenes is a piece of cake.

Like I said, I haven't found a Windows version of Scrivener yet, but there may be one out there. I've just downloaded WritersCafe http://www.writerscafe.co.uk/ but I don't "get" its system either.

http://www.writewaypro.com/productinfo.html looks rather promising, but they've got one "simple" version which is limited to 1-3 "acts", and a pro that can handle "1-9 acts". WTF? If they're building a text editor geared at novelists, why not let the author decided how many "acts" (or chapters, or parts, whatever) he wants? I wanted to give this a try (it's got this nice tree view), but their download form seems broken at the moment.

Sorry, I might've been not particularly helpful today...

[MrHHH]

Just curious, are you planning on writing hard sci-fi or soft sci-fi?

Also, if you need a cheap Mac, I've discovered that you can buy a cheap netbook and install OS/X on it. I just saw an ad for one on the Denver Craigslist for 225$

http://denver.craigslist.org/ele/1620148358.html

[R@gnaroCker]

Hard/soft sci-fi. Not sure I know the meaning unless it's sexual in nature. Lets just say, I wish mankind was a space fairing species. I'd be out there in a one man freighter. Like today's trucker.

Nah, I'm a PC kind of guy by-the-way. I'll check out the local office supply stores, see what they got. See, I had to declare bankruptcy near seven years ago. Ran into one of B.C.'s famous "leaky condo's". No credit card to order on-line stuff. May be just as well.

[Big Kahuna]

The bug hit me a few years ago, as well, and I find myself vexed that I didn't begin earlier, as I had vastly more time to write then as I do now. I plot and file my research with Storymill, and compose with Word. At some future point I might move entirely to one program, but my present system suits me fine so I'll stick with it.

As to the slings and arrows of your critics - you have to develop a thicker skin, but at the same time you must listen to them. Critics are members of your audience, and since you choose to publish your work you cannot credibly say that you are writing for yourself alone. My first work, The Peripheral Cocksucker (160,000 words over 3 books), was very well received, and I was warmed by the nice words, but looking back over my story I find those nice words were all too forgiving. Crikey, what a frickin' train wreck it is at times. But amidst those nice words was some constructive criticism, which I took to heart. With each succeeding work I find I'm getting a little better at this, but I also realize that I have a long way to go, and it is thanks to my critics that I may someday get there.

As to JK Rowling, I love her writing, but in all truth she is not a great writer. She does however have a great imagination, and a depth and thoroughness to her work that is severely lacking in other authors. People have maligned her for her (excessive) use of adverbs and her descriptive attributions: he spat, he swore, he responded, he ejaculated, but people seem to forget her target audience is primarily children, and watching your split infinitives and using words like chiaroscuro just ain't important in that milieu (oooh).

Use this arena to practice and to hone your skills. The rules for porn are the same as for mainstream, it's just that the breasts are bigger.

[MrHHH]

Hard sci-fi means real science. Maybe one or two things we don't know or think is impossible (Faster than light travel). However, you have to have an aptitude for science and be good at researching. The movie "The Island" is a good example. The trailers were completely misleading though.

Soft Sci-fi is like Dr. Who. You can make him a time wizard with a magic wand and you'd have the same show. The biggest problem with soft sci-fi (and fantasy) is that it can make the writer lazy. You can come up with a half baked solution to any plot point.

[R@gnaroCker]

My book, when I stopped to answer my critcs, was into the second chapter. But like I said, he's a bit of a dreamer in a one man freighter. He doesn't have a crew to spout of techno babble to. He could talk about his engine like any other trucker would I suppose, but 'out there', he only has a computer to relate to. It'll more likely be spouting techno babble to him.

But I understamd 'lazy' particularly when it comes to Star Trek. With all that techno babble, you'd think they'd have a writer whose knowledgable about the technology, or even chronology. That last movie was a disaster. As a for instance, any Trekky would know that the transporter range isn't all that great. Yet they managed to send two guys to a warping star ship, that's been traveling for what must have been at least three hours.

But I digress. If one can create a universe, one has to make sure he remembers all of the details. Too many details, and they'd trip you up.

[MrHHH]

Transporters in Star Trek are pure magic. Techwise, I'm surprised the "Red Matter" didn't bother you. And why would you need to drill a hole through the crust of your target to drop the stuff in?

Plotwise, the HUGE PLOT HOLE that bugged the hell out of me:

Spoiler: show

The Captain and crew of the Narada were sent back in time, after the destruction of their planet. They can now SAVE their planet! Or at least the people on it! They run around in their superior tech mining ship and blow up other ships instead. Waiting for Spock.

Oh yeah, they get Spock, the "Red Matter" that was going to be used to save their homeworld, and then don't use it to save their homeworld.

[Solidus]

i thought this site paid for stories too....

[R@gnaroCker]

Here's another for you. Kirk, fresh out of the academy, takes command of the Enterprise. What? Is the whole crew of the Enterprise ensigns fresh out of the academy? Their's no second, third, fourth in command who'd object? What navy allows for an ensign to command?

But you're right, I'd thought of that plot hole too. Hell, one could just send a message from the past where they went, some scientists has decades to figure out how to stabilize the star, or evacuate, and then. Uh oh. No Harada gets sucked into the past. Paradox time.

We could write better than that drunk.

[MrHHH]

i thought this site paid for stories too....

Nope, just the BEA and RTE-23. And the BEA stopped checking the stories.

[PaulG]

i thought this site paid for stories too....

Nope, just the BEA and RTE-23. And the BEA stopped checking the stories.

So does it still make sense to check the "trying to get paid" box when uploading? Not that I think I'll ever qualify; just asking out of curiosity.