New writer mistakes I've seen

[RobertBMarks]

I decided to turn a series of VA scripts into a short story so I really do have a pile of dialog and almost nothing else. Sometimes, it's just a discouraging slog to edit it and flesh it all out. It's not been as much fun as writing with nothing but white space in front of me.

You have my sympathy, sir.

[DasIstWunderblyat]

Character not acting like human beings

Jokes on you they aren't LOL

[RobertBMarks]

Jokes on you they aren't LOL

That's absolutely true. They are not - they are constructs we create for the purpose of telling the story. If we do the job right, they come alive and surprise us.

However, for the reader to buy into our fantasy, they must appear to be human beings, and have the form and aspect of human beings. If we fail there, the reader will walk away from our fiction and find the work of somebody who succeeds.

[DasIstWunderblyat]

I don't expect you to answer seriously (that was a joke), but yeah. The characters are probably aliens pretending to be human. Hell, check if the writer is an actual human

Though it kind of put me off when sapient non-human creatures behaves exactly like modern humans do, especially those non-humanoid and/or should not have any human influence in their civilization.

[RobertBMarks]

Though it kind of put me off when sapient non-human creatures behaves exactly like modern humans do, especially those non-humanoid and/or should not have any human influence in their civilization.

In fairness, I am talking about characters who are supposed to be human. You are absolutely right about getting it wrong going in the other direction.

[YS_og]

Not giving the narrative room to breathe. I think I've seen this the most often - the writer hits the ground at a sprint, racing through plot points at breakneck speed. ...

I have been one to fully agree with the point of not rushing things (and I still pretty much do stick to it), but MAN have I been reviewed by a lot saying my story takes too long to get going (3 chapters are spent setting things up). These were done through DM review swaps and said the story got boring after 2 chapters and no action or plot upstarts, saying they lost interest without seeing anything major going down to kick the story off.

Is it the blind leading the blind conundrum or is there something else to the issue?

[IndigoShirtProd]

Not giving the narrative room to breathe. I think I've seen this the most often - the writer hits the ground at a sprint, racing through plot points at breakneck speed.

This was a worry for me when I started writing my novella. I had planned it as a short story so I knew going into it that I wasn't going to spend much time on extraneous subplot' everything is pretty self contained. I think my story is pretty well paced, but in a situation like that, where the story would be a quick read anyway, how would you keep from speeding through it, hitting plot points one after the other since there's nothing else for the story to do?

3 chapters are spent setting things up

Was it a situation where plot points were introduced but not weaved together? Like point A happens followed by point B then point C but the connecting tissue isn't apparent? And did the inciting incident, or at least one of them, happen within the first 2 chapters, or did it occur later on?

[YS_og]

It's a rather simple startup, not too much to weave as far as complexity goes. The complaint I got wasn't disjointedness but a lack of action. A lack of the big problem, a lack of the "oh wow! here we go!" kick-off.

[IndigoShirtProd]

So I can assume the inciting incident, or the thing that kicks off the plot, happened a little later in the story?

[YS_og]

Right, 4th and 5th chapter got that going. Was told that's too long, needs to be Chapter 1 or 2.

Now again these were DM review swaps. The discord I belong to has a majority of members who are in agreement with OP and so far I am yet to really change anything but those comments do linger

[RobertBMarks]

Right, 4th and 5th chapter got that going. Was told that's too long, needs to be Chapter 1 or 2

That sounds like that's your problem. What's generally a good idea is to have your inciting incident in the prologue or first chapter, and then develop your characters around their reactions to it.

So, for example, in Re:Apotheosis, there's a dual inciting incident in the prologue and first chapter, and then the next seven are character development leading to the first major confrontation (which starts in chapter 9). So, there's a lot of character moments, but they are happening in the shadow of the inciting incident, if that makes sense.

[YS_og]

There is a major incident but it's not involving the MC just yet as it would make no sense to have them involved without any clue as to how or why they get there. So. of course, there are initial reactions and developments that draw the MC to the issue. There is no action, though. That's what I am trying to point out. There are no fight scenes or chaos blasting directly through MC's world right off the bat.

[RobertBMarks]

There is a major incident but it's not involving the MC just yet as it would make no sense to have them involved without any clue as to how or why they get there. So. of course, there are initial reactions and developments that draw the MC to the issue. There is no action, though. That's what I am trying to point out. There are no fight scenes or chaos blasting directly through MC's world right off the bat.

I fear I may not have explained it well. It's not the lack of action that would be the problem - it's the lack of conflict (and conflict is nothing more than something standing in the way of the protagonist - it doesn't have to involve an action sequence). The inciting incident is what starts the main conflict by forcing the protagonist to react. So, you have to have an interaction as soon as possible. And, this interaction can literally be the MC receiving a text about it on his phone, scowling, and then ignoring it - but the ball has been set in motion, and tension has been created in the reader's mind as to how this reaction by the MC will cause things to play out.

Does that make more sense?

[YS_og]

You did, and I have that. I don't have action or anything that serves as an action genre's "hook"(?) was the critique I often received. I think I wasn't clear enough perhaps. Drama buildup with dialogue and characters headed toward conflict is boring in the eyes of action genre readers perhaps?

Again, I was told I need to kick things off with a bang sooner. I feel it's too much like a Hollywood B movie to just jump in guns blazing left and right just because. But perhaps I was wrong? That was what I was trying to convey initially.

[RobertBMarks]

Okay, I think I see.

I've subscribed to your story, and if I have time this weekend I'll take a closer look and see what I can make of it. No promises, though.

[YS_og]

Ah no worries, I appreciate the notion but it's still on the back burner for a some key edits and grammar fixes later on. I know of some things to fix that aren't related to the above concerns but rather cleaning up, enhancing, and refining what I already have going, so you won't be seeing anything polished as yours or other more versed authors here.

Again, I was only trying to agree with your take I still feel it's wrong to go flying full speed into everything from the get-go, and was only conflicted by said comments in the past.

[RobertBMarks]

Actually, I was just taking a quick look, and I think I may have spotted one of the problems. In episode 3 you've got this extended passage of Sam watching news feeds, and that just slows the narrative to a crawl. It's basically infodumping a bunch of worldbuilding that ends with Sam declaring that she's just wasted her time (and since the reader takes what they're going to think about something from the POV character, if she thinks it's a waste of her time, what are they supposed to think?).

I'll bet if you either removed that passage or reduced it to her flipping through the newsfeeds and just muttering "Columbia, terrorists, nope; new mech, nice, don't care...", etc., that would clear up part of your pacing problem at the beginning. Anything relevant from that section can just be sprinkled into the narrative once it becomes relevant.

[YS_og]

That's actually something I have been yet to hear. Incredibly simple fix it seems. Damn. Thanks!!! Marked down on the list

[enderman78777777]

I've made a lot of these mistake when I was first writing, I'm still new at writing(only really finished my first book),but I wanted to use advice my teacher gave me.

1:I did this very often, I've now learned how to execute this better, I mostly just left that stuff at the end and even then when I had a character who died a bit early on when introduced; I still wanted to give them some sort of character.

2: I still feel I struggle with this a little, I mainly try to describe the character,environment,etc. I feel the main issue I struggle with is body language. Mainly when characters are performing certain actions.

3: This is also a somewhat issue I also face, but it's mainly due to how well the viewer will relate to how the character talks and their actions.

4:This is something I really didn't focus on, in my next project this is my main focus. Hopefully that can be used as a good steeping stone.

This advice is really useful, I'll make sure to keep note of it

[system]

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