PeteMorris Posted October 3, 2011 Share Posted October 3, 2011 Hello everyone, I've just uploaded my story. It's called the Ghosthunt. Being October, I thought it might be very apt, as it's about Halloween night. I't s way too long for this months competition, but I thought I'd upload it anyway. It's rather odd for me, because I'm not an avid reader at all (not books anyway), and I've never done anything like it before. So it's an absolute 'first' for me. I hope someone enjoys it. I know it's not perfect, and probably needs some work, but hey ho. We shall see! Please feel free to comment upon it (but not too harshly). Happy Reading! (That;s rich coming from someone who doesn't habitually read) http://sheffieldwriters.ath.cx/SFStoryArchive/1317638302.pdf Regards Pete Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
De Batz Posted October 5, 2011 Share Posted October 5, 2011 Pete, I've downloaded this but I haven't had chance to read it properly yet. Hopefully I'll have some feedback for you by the weekend, but there's the small matter of a small baby to contend with at the moment. Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeteMorris Posted October 6, 2011 Author Share Posted October 6, 2011 Thanks Andy, I'll look forward to your comments. Yes I know it's not like scanning through a 500 word short story! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian Rivedon Posted October 6, 2011 Share Posted October 6, 2011 Hello Pete, I read your piece. It is well written, and in quite a good 'pacey' style. However, I found it very predictable, and that caused my attention to wander, as I knew what the ending would be almost from the point where he bought the ticket. I found it difficult to continue reading the detail, but I perevered, in the hope that there was going to be a huge shock at the end. But unfortunately, it never came. Having said that though, it would not be too difficult with the characters that you introduced, to revise the ending to one that is shocking, and unique. If this really is your first attempt at writing, then well done! Keep working, and bear in mind that a writing project is never actually completed, and that revision is good. Best wishes, IR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeteMorris Posted October 6, 2011 Author Share Posted October 6, 2011 Hi Ian, Thanks for your comments and I sort of agree that it is a little predictable. Of course a good portion of it comes from my experiences in and around the 'ghosthunting fraternity'. Obviously the ending never happened to me, and that's pure fiction. Funnily enough I did have several ideas about events that could have been added to the proceding and various twists and turns. But somehow they didn't come to fruition, mainly because I wondered who the heck would want to read it, and what would I do with it, once I'd done it? I may well revisit it, with renewed vigour, as I 'sort of' have an outlet for my musings on here! Oh and by the way. Yes it is my very first attempt at anything like this! Thank you so much for your comments, they are much appreciated and very constructive. Pete Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
De Batz Posted October 28, 2011 Share Posted October 28, 2011 Here are some more detailed thoughts. One or two of them are technical in nature, but might be of use. This is quite an involved piece of writing that does keep you reading until the end. There are some instances of quite taut and tense writing, although over the sixteen pages this isn't sustained. In one sense, it's too long (for me), and in another, not long enough. This sort of intermediate length of piece requires great precision to work properly, because you're denying yourself the room for development that you have in a novel-length piece. But in contrast to the really short pieces we write for the 500 word competition, though, you do have room to develop the voice of the main character, whose narration we are reading. You have a fairly easy style which lends itself well to this sort of first-person narrative. But there are a few occasions when the cadence of the sentences is lumpy, often when a comma is used without its pair or when - in a struggle to get a set of good ideas in - you shoehorn things in and upset the flow: "Last but not least was Leanne, who seemed very young, was rather pretty with dark hair, cut into a bob, but seemed to giggle a lot, which I concluded for the benefit of the doubt, was nerves." This is two distinct thoughts, one about her appearance and one about her giggling. You do not sacrifice pace, and you might even improve it, by chunking it up into two distinct sentences. And here: "I was rather glad when the groups dispersed off to their own individual areas, as some were most inconsiderate and insisted on shining torches in others faces, and so blinding them and being able to see nothing but white spots for the next ten minutes or so!" The twists and turns of this sentence are hard to keep hold of. How about replacing the 'and' after 'inconsiderate' with a full stop and 'They insisted on shining their torches in others' faces, blinding them and stopping them seeing anything but white spots for several minutes." The exclamation mark in explanatory writing of this sort is a bit distracting as well, although I can see why it's there. He isn't actually speaking even if it's written as if he is. You do this a lot throughout this piece, and you need to think of a way of making sure that the sentences themselves carry the exclamation. There are a few places where your punctuation makes me have to read the sentence a few times to get it properly understood. I mentioned the commas already. This is a weakness in your technical skills that you have to practise to iron out. Your use of multiple clauses in your sentences - often several main clauses as well as subordinate clauses - adds to this difficulty. As an exercise, try (re)writing a paragraph (from this story) without having any sentences with several ideas in them. See if the original or the replacement is more punchy. As a further thought on style, you use a series of what might be called formula phrases or (ungenerously) cliches, with a tendency for the stress to fall on the choices of words rather than what actually happened. If you're happy with the language, fair enough, but I'd suggest that it comes across as rather purple in places. There is a sense that your narrator is trying to show off his command of language, rather than tell a story. I wonder if you set out to do that? You've got the makings of a good thriller here. But could it be divested of the narrator's interjected opinions, making it more pace-y (and a deal shorter)? Or could you take it as the springboard to write a novel-length piece (with no more fundamental story than is here), filling in some of the missing details, fleshing out some of these characters - the various members of the group, Mort perhaps? - and giving it a really grand realisation? Anyway, I look forward to reading more. If you get a sense of overwhelming criticism from what I have written, look back to the first sentence. I kept reading until the end. You can work on your technical skills, but you have the important bit sorted, which is that you have something to say! Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
De Batz Posted October 28, 2011 Share Posted October 28, 2011 And as an afterthought to what I've written, I can't recommend highly enough reading, both in the style to which you aspire and outside it. Try Stoker's Dracula or Shelley's Frankenstein for the genre-defining pieces. Think about it like this: could you be a great (or even a good) musician without listening to music? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeteMorris Posted November 2, 2011 Author Share Posted November 2, 2011 Sorry for the delay in my response Andy. My, my, you did read it thoroughly! I don't take any of your comments as critisism, in fact more the opposite. I always knew it wasn't perfect, and I have to say you've given me some real food for thought in the way I structure things and construct sentences etc. For some odd reason I sort of have this need to write, as I would talk. As though I was actually telling a story to someone. Rightly or wrongly, it just seems to 'come out that way'. I don't really know if any other authors, or budding authors do it that way cos as I said in an earlier post, I don't read an awful lot, and especially novels. If I read someone elses novels as you suggest and decided I liked the writing style, and then tried to emulate that. I don't somehow think that would 'work' for me. I may be completely wrong. I'm no expert, as you very well know! Thank you soooooo much for reading it, and actually getting to the end!!!! I do really appreciate your thoughts, and will revisit the piece and try to improve it. Pete Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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