Narratives by Herculine

[dezdimona]

Have you Read Goethe's "The Sorrows of Young Werther", Sienkiewicz's "With Fire and Sword" (Pol.: "Ogniem i mieczem" [its Polish patriotic trilogy from XVIII century, about fighting for freedom during one of biggest mess of "our" History])? You can chose topic like this, something like from real Romanticism.

Also It could be War, Difficultes of life, Problems of "unnormal families" (drugs, alcohol, violence, You know what I mean, I just dont know to say it in eng.) etc. etc.

 

Well, I have nothing against those modes of writing, per se, but they're just not my forte. My head's in the clouds, you might say. Fantasy and adventure with the right touch of erotic romance... now that's something I can do. Swords and sorcery. That's why you're finding it posted HERE.

 

 

honey as a narrative it rocks,but you can slowly add characters,nothing wrong with that.If you need some help I'd be more than happy to give you some tips or ideas. Love ya lots, Dezi

[Herculine]

Have you Read Goethe's "The Sorrows of Young Werther", Sienkiewicz's "With Fire and Sword" (Pol.: "Ogniem i mieczem" [its Polish patriotic trilogy from XVIII century, about fighting for freedom during one of biggest mess of "our" History])? You can chose topic like this, something like from real Romanticism.

Also It could be War, Difficultes of life, Problems of "unnormal families" (drugs, alcohol, violence, You know what I mean, I just dont know to say it in eng.) etc. etc.

 

Well, I have nothing against those modes of writing, per se, but they're just not my forte. My head's in the clouds, you might say. Fantasy and adventure with the right touch of erotic romance... now that's something I can do. Swords and sorcery. That's why you're finding it posted HERE.

 

 

honey as a narrative it rocks,but you can slowly add characters,nothing wrong with that.If you need some help I'd be more than happy to give you some tips or ideas. Love ya lots, Dezi

 

Thanks. I'll have to do some soul-searching to see if I still have the ambition...

[Maharg67]

Herculine, any of us can give you good advise but please be yourself and, if you have to, fight to be true to yourself, to your individual talent as a writer. You are doing fine as you are and are developing as you need to. Taking heed of advise is good but please do not let it swamp your own talent or turn you away from writing. If you have to start with bits of narrative, if that is your path, then go ahead and do so.

 

Choose your own voice as a writer first and on that basis then listen to the advise of others.

 

Its harder to do than to say but it is the only true path to your own genuine stories.

[humanbean234]

The thing that struck me foremost about the piece is the utter lack of dialogue; it's all narrative of action and desription of terrain, with rare description of the character... it's not even until page 5 ("left hoof, right hoof") that you even begin to suggest that the character is other than human.

Granted, it's a fragment of an intended larger work, but if it's to serve as the introduction of a longer tale, I'd recommend that the character exposition focus more quickly on who/what the character is, rather than a description of the character's past deeds (particularly with fantasy fiction, the number of made-up words is best kept to a minimum... they make it even more difficult to follow the story... worst offender in that area that I've ever seen was Anthony Burgess in A Clockwork Orange... have you ever tried to read that book? It required a full glossary of terms in the back to decipher it...)

 

It's got potential, but like any writing, could do with a rewrite. Don't be upset that your early work doesn't stand up to...say...Isaac Asimov's yet... mine doesn't either (though I can write technical specifications and Operations Orders like a champ...lol...)

[Herculine]

The thing that struck me foremost about the piece is the utter lack of dialogue; it's all narrative of action and desription of terrain, with rare description of the character... it's not even until page 5 ("left hoof, right hoof") that you even begin to suggest that the character is other than human.

Granted, it's a fragment of an intended larger work, but if it's to serve as the introduction of a longer tale, I'd recommend that the character exposition focus more quickly on who/what the character is, rather than a description of the character's past deeds (particularly with fantasy fiction, the number of made-up words is best kept to a minimum... they make it even more difficult to follow the story... worst offender in that area that I've ever seen was Anthony Burgess in A Clockwork Orange... have you ever tried to read that book? It required a full glossary of terms in the back to decipher it...)

 

It's got potential, but like any writing, could do with a rewrite. Don't be upset that your early work doesn't stand up to...say...Isaac Asimov's yet... mine doesn't either (though I can write technical specifications and Operations Orders like a champ...lol...)

 

Thank you for the advice, I really do appreciate it.

 

But... she's alone in a wilderness. Who should she be talking to?

[Herculine]

Herculine, any of us can give you good advise but please be yourself and, if you have to, fight to be true to yourself, to your individual talent as a writer. You are doing fine as you are and are developing as you need to. Taking heed of advise is good but please do not let it swamp your own talent or turn you away from writing. If you have to start with bits of narrative, if that is your path, then go ahead and do so.

 

Choose your own voice as a writer first and on that basis then listen to the advise of others.

 

Its harder to do than to say but it is the only true path to your own genuine stories.

 

Thanks. I think this is the soundest advice I've ever heard given to a new writer.

[humanbean234]

Thank you for the advice, I really do appreciate it.

 

But... she's alone in a wilderness. Who should she be talking to?

If the character is intended to be stoic, one of very few words, then silence makes sense. During character exposition, however, a bit of dialogue, even if the character is just talking to herself, or trying to encourage a stubborn mount, goes a long way towards establishing a personality. (I.E.; cursing the mount for its weakness, or speaking to it kindly, or mumbling some sort of trance-chant to help endure the cold, or what-have-you... one of the great weaknesses of Eragon, if you saw that film, was that the characters had no real differentiation in their dialogue... their speech-patterns, their choices of words... the young naive hero spoke exactly like the grizzled veteran spoke exactly like the evil wizard spoke exactly like the flippin' dragon, f'r chrissake... dialogue goes a long way to establishing a personality.)

 

One thing that kept me from being even slightly sympathetic to the character was the basic lack of reaction to the death of her mount; she basically abandoned it as quickly as one would discard of an empty disposable lighter... some quick prayer for the dead beast would establish a personality that celebrates life, or a quick skinning of the animal to wrap herself in its hide would establish a resourceful pragmatic personality... the two combined would give a conflicting view to the character, and serve to make her seem even more un-human... how does her race view death, anyway? You could answer that question very quickly for your readers with her handling of this situation.

[Herculine]

Thank you for the advice, I really do appreciate it.

 

But... she's alone in a wilderness. Who should she be talking to?

If the character is intended to be stoic, one of very few words, then silence makes sense. During character exposition, however, a bit of dialogue, even if the character is just talking to herself, or trying to encourage a stubborn mount, goes a long way towards establishing a personality. (I.E.; cursing the mount for its weakness, or speaking to it kindly, or mumbling some sort of trance-chant to help endure the cold, or what-have-you... one of the great weaknesses of Eragon, if you saw that film, was that the characters had no real differentiation in their dialogue... their speech-patterns, their choices of words... the young naive hero spoke exactly like the grizzled veteran spoke exactly like the evil wizard spoke exactly like the flippin' dragon, f'r chrissake... dialogue goes a long way to establishing a personality.)

 

Thank you again for taking the time to give me such in-depth feedback.

 

I wholeheartedly agree that dialogue should be differentiated, i.e. the peasant and the nobleman have two very distinctly different vocabularies and speech patterns. And I also agree that dialogue is, in both writing and even more so in films, very important in conveying the personality of the character.

 

When I wrote this passage, or "scene" if you prefer, I wanted to convey to the reader exactly how alone this character feels at this moment, so dialogue just never found its way into the mix. I suppose she could say something to the animal, but it's just a rented beast she's really not attached to.

 

But, either way, you've given me things to think about so I again give you my thanks.

[humanbean234]

Extrapolating culture from physiognomy; her specie has hooves, and manipulative members with only two digits? Not likely to have developed intricate machinery, or musical forms that go heavily into intricate melodies... maybe heavy on the singing and percussion, but with only two fingers per hand, they're not gonna' develop multistringed instruments (harps, etc) or woodwinds/flutes with a great many holes.... most complicated melodies they'd be able to produce would be on something akin to a xylophone.

 

Anyhow, good luck with it, and it's always better to see a story continue than to see one end, y'know?