Razor (story) and creative writing blog.

Robbyn

This is a link to a creative writing blog I started recently. My new story there is called Razor. I'd like to get everyones thoughts and opinions on it on it. It also has another of my stories (fluoxetine) which is posted in a thread in this forum. I will be posting more stories there. And various things to do with creative writing and inspirations. Do have a look if your interested.

http://webothcanspeakintongues.tumblr.com/

EileenG

A couple of pedantic notes first: The 16 bus doesn't finish in the city center. It ends at Santry or Ballinteer, depending on your direction. And a "blonde stranger" is female. A male has "blond" hair.

It was interesting, but I thought it started far too slowly. Was the story of the bus journey really necessary? It would have worked just as well if he first smelled the guy in the queue for Razor.

Why did the bouncers let him in?

In this night club, everyone is a stranger. How come the blond is a "mysterious stranger"? What makes him stand out from anyone else?

To be honest, I could have lived without Alex. There was nothing remarkable about him. Have you considered making the blonde girl the narrator? She's closer to the action all the way through.

Robbyn

EileenG wrote: »

A couple of pedantic notes first: The 16 bus doesn't finish in the city center. It ends at Santry or Ballinteer, depending on your direction. And a "blonde stranger" is female. A male has "blond" hair.

It was interesting, but I thought it started far too slowly. Was the story of the bus journey really necessary? It would have worked just as well if he first smelled the guy in the queue for Razor.

Why did the bouncers let him in?

In this night club, everyone is a stranger. How come the blond is a "mysterious stranger"? What makes him stand out from anyone else?

To be honest, I could have lived without Alex. There was nothing remarkable about him. Have you considered making the blonde girl the narrator? She's closer to the action all the way through.

Yeah I know about the sixteen bus thing but the story wasn't set in Dublin, It was more like a fictional city. "Route sixteen" is a generic, ficticious bus route. I suppose I could have made that clearer. Yeah I understand about the blonde thing.

I used the bus journey to show what the night was like weatherwise and the full moon and the time, and to build up Alex's curiosity about Mattiew to give him a reason to follow him around the club. rather than just smelling a funny man in the queue and forgetting about it when he got into the club.

The bouncers saw that Mattiew was of age and alone, so unlikely to cause trouble. and let him in. Looking at it now I would make it more believable. maybe in an edited version.

The blond (:D) stranger was mysterious because he was the one Mattiew was looking for. That's what made him "mysterious" to Alex.

I used Alex to show a complete outsiders view on the events of the night. So the story would be told from a strangers point of view, from seeing Mattiew for the first time, getting intrigued by him to ultimately following him out of the club. It was centered around how Alex saw the events unfolding from an outsiders point of view and how he got mixed up in it.

Thanks for the comments

EileenG

The thing is, you had too much build up. You need a more dramatic opening than a smelly man on the bus on a wet night, or the reader will lose interest. If you hadn't asked me to read it, I wouldn't have read on.

Bouncers employ a pretty ruthless dress code. There's no way a tramp would pass it. He's exactly the type who would cause trouble. I couldn't wrap my mind round a tramp in a trendy night club, surrounded by all the young boppers.

I can see why you want an observer, but if you used the girlfriend, you'd get that, but from a more dramatic viewpoint. Imagine going out for the evening, and your date is approached and attacked by a wild guy who then turns into a wolf!

I'd have used "smelled like wet dog" less often, it was a bit heavy handed a hint.

Robbyn

I appreciate you reading on regardless and telling me your opinions

I didn't intend him to seem like a tramp. More like somebody normal who had let themselves go, but I do see how I could've made that clearer.

Yeah I see what you mean there too but I wanted alex to get involved to see the whole thing from his own point of view and see how his curiosity led to him witnessing and becoming involved in the interesting strangers.

EileenG

I just wonder would anyone do that? I can't say that I've ever watched someone that attentively unless i thought they were about to attack me in some way.

When you are rewriting, I think you need to cut some of the introduction, either the bus or the long walk to the club. In the club, you could expand the strangeness of the two men.

But I still think your best bet is to use the girlfriend as the view point. What happened to her anyway? You left her hanging.

Robbyn

Oh I would get curious about people. especially if they were heading to the same place I was I would take a look if I had nothing better to do. sense of adventure and all that

I will definitely take that into account and again, thanks a lot for reading

I did indeed I'm fond of open endings.

EileenG

I like open endings too. In my novel, my heroine proposes marriage at the end, and the reader doesn't get to hear the answer. But the guys all have an open ending, the girl has a loose end.

Robbyn

OOOh I like the sound of that, are you published?

EileenG

I've been published in various things, but this is my first novel, and not published yet. Still working on that.

Robbyn

Ahh I see, hope it works out

EileenG

So do I. I've rewritten so often, I'm sick looking at it.

Robbyn

Have you made major changes to the story as a whole? or just minor tweaks. I always wondered whether Authors went back and completely rewrote novels two or three times before the final version.

EileenG

Let's see: My space vampire started out as Sarah Palin, running for President of America. She's now a pink haired student in Paris. One of my love interests started out as a bondage freak, he's now a slightly kinky ex-Marine with a totally different ethnic background. My baddie started out camp and is now a cross between Spike and Captain Jack. My female influence started out as a label-obsessed spin doctor, she's now a farmer who curses too much and wears too much make-up. And I killed another character completely.

Robbyn

Ahh i have to say I have always had a soft spot for the space vampires running for president thing, even if it is a bit cliche.

Even more so when it involves "sightly kinky ex-marines". I find that description hilarious.

pickarooney

EileenG wrote: »

I like open endings too. In my novel, my heroine proposes marriage at the end, and the reader doesn't get to hear the answer. But the guys all have an open ending, the girl has a loose end.

Dammit, use spoilers!

I'll give this a read in a couple of days when I'm less busy. Remind me if I haven't got back to this thread by Monday next.

As for rewrites - I'm not even sure why I bothered with the first draft of my book. It's changed so much in the five subsequent revisions that I might as well have started a completely new one. It's a bit like my computer actually - I've changed about 90% of the parts at this stage and [philosophy]I don't know at what stage it stops being itself and becomes something else[/philosophy].

You can see similes and allegories are not my strong point.

EileenG

I still regret that I couldn't leave her running for President. But when you think of female presidential candidates, you see Sarah Palin or Hilary Clinton, and neither are good images for a space vampire. Something very creepy about Hilary sucking the life force from a baby.....

EileenG

pickarooney wrote: »

As for rewrites - I'm not even sure why I bothered with the first draft of my book. It's changed so much in the five subsequent revisions that I might as well have started a completely new one. It's a bit like my computer actually - I've changed about 90% of the parts at this stage and [philosophy]I don't know at what stage it stops being itself and becomes something else[/philosophy].

You can see similes and allegories are not my strong point.

I reckon there are about three paragraphs of my original story still intact, everything else got revamped. The trouble is, you fix one thing, and it shows up the problems in the other bits.

pickarooney

EileenG wrote: »

I still regret that I couldn't leave her running for President. But when you think of female presidential candidates, you see Sarah Palin or Hilary Clinton, and neither are good images for a space vampire. Something very creepy about Hilary sucking the life force from a baby.....

Robinson, Finbogadottir, Meir, Bhutto... all their work undone by an Alaskan half-wit.

EileenG wrote: »

I reckon there are about three paragraphs of my original story still intact, everything else got revamped.

Dear oh dear...

Robbyn

Pickarooney heres a link to that story itself instead of the blog as a whole, So you don't have to trawl through posts

before you guys revamped the stories did you let others read them to get their opinions? or just re-read it yourself?

http://webothcanspeakintongues.tumblr.com/tagged/story%2C

EileenG

Believe me, if it had been up to me, I would not have rewritten my first chapter from scratch 13 times. Everything I write is perfect, isn't it?

I do read everything out to my kids as I write it, and just reading it out loud often reveals some mistakes, but not all.

I'm lucky, I've got a friend who is prepared to read the same thing over and over, and honest enough to tell me when it's crap. And I whinge everytime she tells me something is not working, but she's always right.

Robbyn

Ahh I see

Good to have others opinions. Wow thirteen times :O

EileenG

Worth it though. I know it's standard to send three chapters to agents or publishers, but the truth is that most of them will have made up their mind within the first three paragraphs if they are going to accept it. They might read a bit further, but if the first impression doesn't grab them, the amazing stuff on page 46 will never get read.

Robbyn

The sad truth*

although maybe a good thing, there won't be any boring books out there.

Snappy openings are the way to go

pickarooney

Robbyn wrote: »

Pickarooney heres a link to that story itself instead of the blog as a whole, So you don't have to trawl through posts

before you guys revamped the stories did you let others read them to get their opinions? or just re-read it yourself?

http://webothcanspeakintongues.tumblr.com/tagged/story%2C

I rewrote mine 5 times before I showed it to anyone. Bad idea, I wasted lots of time on minor details instead of the major problems that became obvious once I showed it around. It can be very difficult to get people to read a full manuscript and if you try push 100,000 words or more on someone they'll most likely not read any of it. Give out a few chapters instead, and not your favourite ones, and let different people read them so you get a good overview of what you're doing right and wrong.

I'll throw a very quick bit of feedback while I have a few minutes.

Alex sat on the last route sixteen bus bound for the centre of the city on that particular night, a lucky catch.

From the outset you use too many words. "City centre" is both shorter and more natural. "Bound" and "route" are arguably unnecessary. I find it a little bit strange to use 'catch' to refer to anything other than a fish or a boyfriend/girlfriend, but that's just me. You might show us this by Alex being out of breath rather than telling us Alex was lucky to catch it.

The only other occupants were two young girls; dressed to the nines and no doubt in for a night of reveling, and of course, the driver. Alex sat at the very back, the foot of his right leg planted firmly on the seat in front, impatient. He was on a night out, escaping from a particularly boring week. He needed to unwind.

'occupants' is usually used for buildings. The semi-colon is misused. Use a comma instead or a pair of dashes either side of the clause. It's kind of pointless telling us there was a driver, so you might change 'occupants' to 'passengers' and ditch the mention of the driver. "His right foot" is less awkward than "the foot of his right leg". If his leg is bouncing up and down it gives us a better idea than telling us he was impatient. We can deduce that he needs to unwind from the previous sentence.

He looked out the window to his left as the bus rolled on, not that much could be seen through sheets of rain at such a late hour, except an array of distorted lights that could come from any number of sources; buildings, streetlights, houses, apartments. One that he was sure of was the full moon. So bright and steadfast in the black sky.

Punctuation marks are almost all wrong here. They should be a full stop, nothing, a dash and a comma in that order.

"could have been coming from" is more grammatically sound than "could come". Otherwise the passage is good.

Next paragraph is fine, even the punctuation is spot on so you do know how to use it

And then it's all off again in the next one - commas for full stops all over the place. (this is obviously very minor stuff, so take it as positive!)
The passage is very good, just try to vary "rain" a little bit.

Use one sentence rather than two to tell us the man smelled like a wet dog. Don't tell us he's scruffy when you're describing all the scruffy aspects of his appearance.

The man, immediately after paying his fare to the driver with his head bowed headed for the back of the bus. He drew closer to Alex and the smell got stronger. The man looked up, noticing Alex sitting at the back and halted mid stride. Their eyes met for a split second. The man’s face was scarred and pock-marked, but his eyes shone bright blue from beneath his mane of black hair. He looked away instantly and took a seat in the centre of the bus.

The first sentence is hard to read. Reorder it more logically, e.g. "The man paid his fare and shuffled, head bowed, towards the back of the bus."
You've already told us he has long, black hair. You might want to leave this out of the initial descrption and drip-feed the details such as this.

I'll try comment on the rest tomorrow. My keyboard is about to run out of batteries Stupid wireless crap.

Robbyn

Improved punctuation and less words.

Basically I think I have to make the whole thing flow a little better.

EileenG

A lot fewer words at the beginning. Bearing in mind that a story should grab you early on, I honestly think you could cut the whole bus journey and just see him queuing to get into the club.

pickarooney

Or at least begin with the end of the journey. Alex suddenly notices this passenger who must have been aboard for at least the last few minutes, even though Alex was facing the door.

I got a little lost/bored in the club myself - I would say that unless a character has something particularly interesting about his/her appearance, leave out the description. For example, what bouncer is not heavy set with a dark suit, glasses and an earpiece?

You'd also expect lound dance music in a club, so unless you want to describe a particular piece of music or the way it makes a character feel, cut down on the description (so easy to give this advice, so hard to take it!) .

Robbyn

Yeah I understand about the story having to grab you early on but I want to show Alex's curiosity building up from when he firsts notices Mattiew to ultimately following him around the club.

I like the idea of beginning with the end of the bus journey.

I'll have to make obvious descriptions seem less . .obvious I suppose, and I am very grateful for the advice, its good to hear it from more experienced people. Especially on the quality of the writing itself.

EileenG

Just make sure the reader is equally curious, or she will stop reading before the pay-off. Remember you are competing with Lost or BGT for your reader's attention.

Robbyn

Sorry for late reply. No internet the weekend :P

and yes i will busy re-writing razor so I should have a better version soon.

also the lost or bgt thing is so true :')

pickarooney

What's BGT?

Robbyn

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