First Work

[coraxwolf]

Not actually written anything since I left high school at the end of the last ice age.

Finally managed to write something and wanted to share here. It's only a small slice of life type vignette, but it is a start at least.

Feedback is welcome. Try to be gentle please.
The Printer Call

 

[Khafra]

Obviously, as with all art, there aren't really any rules to writing. But I can give a few pointers as if this was a sample of a popular fiction, because that particular aspect of writing has some things you could call good practices.

You use internal dialogue a lot, mostly to provide exposition, sometimes on things that are obvious to the reader, ("Clackers, ma'am?") and sometimes for things that make it sound unnatural and could be better shown through narration instead.
Internal dialogue can be a great tool to let your audience inside of your character's head - for example when highlighting emotions or contrasting things they say with the opinions they keep to themselves. However, overusing it, especially in places where it can be substituted by regular narration, lowers the quality of writing, in my opinion.
"Show, don't tell" may not be the ultimate writing rule some consider it to be, but it was and is very helpful for me as a fresh writer - and it definitely applies to much of internal dialogue people write.

There are some places with slightly jarring repetitions. To be fair this is less of a concern in English than some other languages, but you should still try to avoid bundling similar expressions together too much ("office space, [...] office workplace." or two ", but"s in a single sentence). This is partly something that comes with practice, but a thesaurus comes in mighty handy when writing even for the most experienced authors. Using a large vocabulary can also improve the quality of your writing in general, not just to avoid repetitions. Makes for a more fun and engaging reading experience.

From what I understand, this is meant more as a sample or flexing of your writing muscles, so perhaps this last one is not a fair criticism, but I would say that even stories like those could benefit from some more substance. Slice of life is fine, but I feel like by the end of the story, we don't learn that much about the characters, their world or setting apart from very basic things, nor did they go through any particularly memorable moments. Giving the story a bit of a purpose will not only make the readers more engaged, but also help you write efficiently, giving you clearer goal in mind.

There are a few other things I could touch up on, but those are the points you could ponder. Writing isn't talent after all, most of it is just long hours of practice, and short stories are a nice way to do just that.

Still, all of that is just my opinion and I'm just a hobbyist. Feel free to hit me up if you wanna talk about it or if something isn't clear to ya.

 

[coraxwolf]

Obviously, as with all art, there aren't really any rules to writing. But I can give a few pointers as if this was a sample of a popular fiction, because that particular aspect of writing has some things you could call good practices.

You use internal dialogue a lot, mostly to provide exposition, sometimes on things that are obvious to the reader, ("Clackers, ma'am?") and sometimes for things that make it sound unnatural and could be better shown through narration instead.
Internal dialogue can be a great tool to let your audience inside of your character's head - for example when highlighting emotions or contrasting things they say with the opinions they keep to themselves. However, overusing it, especially in places where it can be substituted by regular narration, lowers the quality of writing, in my opinion.
"Show, don't tell" may not be the ultimate writing rule some consider it to be, but it was and is very helpful for me as a fresh writer - and it definitely applies to much of internal dialogue people write.

There are some places with slightly jarring repetitions. To be fair this is less of a concern in English than some other languages, but you should still try to avoid bundling similar expressions together too much ("office space, [...] office workplace." or two ", but"s in a single sentence). This is partly something that comes with practice, but a thesaurus comes in mighty handy when writing even for the most experienced authors. Using a large vocabulary can also improve the quality of your writing in general, not just to avoid repetitions. Makes for a more fun and engaging reading experience.

From what I understand, this is meant more as a sample or flexing of your writing muscles, so perhaps this last one is not a fair criticism, but I would say that even stories like those could benefit from some more substance. Slice of life is fine, but I feel like by the end of the story, we don't learn that much about the characters, their world or setting apart from very basic things, nor did they go through any particularly memorable moments. Giving the story a bit of a purpose will not only make the readers more engaged, but also help you write efficiently, giving you clearer goal in mind.

There are a few other things I could touch up on, but those are the points you could ponder. Writing isn't talent after all, most of it is just long hours of practice, and short stories are a nice way to do just that.

Still, all of that is just my opinion and I'm just a hobbyist. Feel free to hit me up if you wanna talk about it or if something isn't clear to ya.

Thanks for the comments. This was an attempt to just write something. I kept wanting to and then getting to worried to go through with actually writing for one excuse or another.

This started from a flash fiction and was supposed to be something like less than 500 or 800 words. I didn't succeed on that part of the prompt, but it is why I kept it short and pulled out a few things (nothing or special note though and it wasn't related to 'event' per say). The help used number of sentences to limit you. That's one reason I tried to pack as much as I could into each sentence.

Do have a question. I used the internal dialogue intentionally as I wanted this to explore more of my fursona's character. I am not sure why I kept using 3rd person instead of first. Think that's why I didn't give the other person any internal dialogue. That and because I didn't really have her character developed more than a single trait. My excuse out of the way. How is internal dialogue different from exposition? In particular when you're wanting to convey the character's thoughts and/or thinking process. I am asking cause I am using it a lot in another work that I am starting that'll be longer and my goal is to show the mind set and thinking of the character and don't know how I'd do that without showing his thoughts. I am not very happy as I seem to be writing the story in the 2nd person more than first. I am also finding that the internal dialogue is starting to turn from an internal monologue to a internal discussion/debate with himself.

I greatly appreciate the feedback that you gave. Thank you for that.

 

[Khafra]

Thanks for the comments. This was an attempt to just write something. I kept wanting to and then getting to worried to go through with actually writing for one excuse or another.

This started from a flash fiction and was supposed to be something like less than 500 or 800 words. I didn't succeed on that part of the prompt, but it is why I kept it short and pulled out a few things (nothing or special note though and it wasn't related to 'event' per say). The help used number of sentences to limit you. That's one reason I tried to pack as much as I could into each sentence.

Do have a question. I used the internal dialogue intentionally as I wanted this to explore more of my fursona's character. I am not sure why I kept using 3rd person instead of first. Think that's why I didn't give the other person any internal dialogue. That and because I didn't really have her character developed more than a single trait. My excuse out of the way. How is internal dialogue different from exposition? In particular when you're wanting to convey the character's thoughts and/or thinking process. I am asking cause I am using it a lot in another work that I am starting that'll be longer and my goal is to show the mind set and thinking of the character and don't know how I'd do that without showing his thoughts. I am not very happy as I seem to be writing the story in the 2nd person more than first. I am also finding that the internal dialogue is starting to turn from an internal monologue to a internal discussion/debate with himself.

I greatly appreciate the feedback that you gave. Thank you for that.

When it comes to giving characters an internal dialogue - for most types of narration, it should be limited to the PoV character, of which there usually is one per scene or even chapter or entire story - so your hunch of keeping it limited to the protagonist was correct. The only type of narration where the thoughts of all characters would be revealed to the reader is third person omniscient, end even then, it can easily get confusing to have the thoughts of many people thrown around like nobody's business. In third person limited or first person limited narration, we see the world through the perspective of one of the characters, and thus can't know what other characters are thinking, though we can learn what our PoV character thinks others are thinking.

There's a difference in using internal dialogue for exposition and for exploring a character. A lot of it comes down to the "show, don't tell" rule I mentioned earlier - a quick Google search will tell you all about it, better than I can anyway, but in short - plainly giving away information feels both unnatural, and less engaging for the reader. When you think about it, we rarely speak or think about things obvious to us. This conclusion is most often wordless, comes afterwards, and is best left up to the reader themselves. For example, the expression "This is a Sunday, the day the office is closed." doesn't tell us much about the character whose thoughts we're reading, and only provides us with the fact that today is a Sunday and most people don't work. (Unless the point is that the character has robotic mannerisms and works off pure logic - but in that case, it'd be nice to underline that for the audience through other means as well). It shows the logical conclusion one's brain would come to, but it'd be more interesting if it showed how that conclusion was formed. For instance, what do you think about this variant (not saying this is how it should be written. It might not fit the character you have in mind):

He raised an eyebrow and double-checked his memory with a calendar hanging in one of the cubicles. It was indeed a Sunday. Who in the right mind would want to work on a Sunday?

It's not much, but we learn a tiny bit about the character here - he's either forgetful or unsure of himself, hence he checks whether his memory is correct before forming an opinion, and he doesn't like the idea of working on a Sunday, which begs the question of why is he himself on call, while also establishing that he's at odds with his interlocutor. All while still telling the reader that it's a Sunday, a day which is unusual for office work.
This example also has a different structure - it starts off with regular narration, and then transitions into the character's mind with the last sentence, without the need for italicised text or a "he thought" tag, making it a bit smoother, though that's just purely personal preference. You can then resume normal narration like nothing happened.

I found this article, which goes in detail about the strengths of internal dialogue, the many forms it can take, with many examples, so you don't have to learn about it from my bias: https://www.janefriedman.com/internal-dialogue/
Again, some searching about the topic of writing internal dialogue will give you much more to work with. There's even many threads on the FA forums that helped me immensely with this kind of stuff, though they are rather old and you might need to do some digging.

 

[Khafra]

Also, internal debates aren't necessarily a bad thing, it is a way of showing conflict after all. Just make sure you don't overuse them - they will lose their impact if they pop up every other page.

 

[coraxwolf]

When it comes to giving characters an internal dialogue - for most types of narration, it should be limited to the PoV character, of which there usually is one per scene or even chapter or entire story - so your hunch of keeping it limited to the protagonist was correct. The only type of narration where the thoughts of all characters would be revealed to the reader is third person omniscient, end even then, it can easily get confusing to have the thoughts of many people thrown around like nobody's business. In third person limited or first person limited narration, we see the world through the perspective of one of the characters, and thus can't know what other characters are thinking, though we can learn what our PoV character thinks others are thinking.

There's a difference in using internal dialogue for exposition and for exploring a character. A lot of it comes down to the "show, don't tell" rule I mentioned earlier - a quick Google search will tell you all about it, better than I can anyway, but in short - plainly giving away information feels both unnatural, and less engaging for the reader. When you think about it, we rarely speak or think about things obvious to us. This conclusion is most often wordless, comes afterwards, and is best left up to the reader themselves. For example, the expression "This is a Sunday, the day the office is closed." doesn't tell us much about the character whose thoughts we're reading, and only provides us with the fact that today is a Sunday and most people don't work. (Unless the point is that the character has robotic mannerisms and works off pure logic - but in that case, it'd be nice to underline that for the audience through other means as well). It shows the logical conclusion one's brain would come to, but it'd be more interesting if it showed how that conclusion was formed. For instance, what do you think about this variant (not saying this is how it should be written. It might not fit the character you have in mind):

He raised an eyebrow and double-checked his memory with a calendar hanging in one of the cubicles. It was indeed a Sunday. Who in the right mind would want to work on a Sunday?

It's not much, but we learn a tiny bit about the character here - he's either forgetful or unsure of himself, hence he checks whether his memory is correct before forming an opinion, and he doesn't like the idea of working on a Sunday, which begs the question of why is he himself on call, while also establishing that he's at odds with his interlocutor. All while still telling the reader that it's a Sunday, a day which is unusual for office work.
This example also has a different structure - it starts off with regular narration, and then transitions into the character's mind with the last sentence, without the need for italicised text or a "he thought" tag, making it a bit smoother, though that's just purely personal preference. You can then resume normal narration like nothing happened.

I found this article, which goes in detail about the strengths of internal dialogue, the many forms it can take, with many examples, so you don't have to learn about it from my bias: https://www.janefriedman.com/internal-dialogue/
Again, some searching about the topic of writing internal dialogue will give you much more to work with. There's even many threads on the FA forums that helped me immensely with this kind of stuff, though they are rather old and you might need to do some digging.

Thanks! Your feedback is wonderful and I really appreciate it.

I see where I could have used character action and description to better show. dialogue and those little movements you do when talking are definitely a weak spot for me.

I am regretting the content I pulled out more now. It was there to show that he's not even tech support for them but the contracted bookkeeper, thought it may not of done that very well. The Sunday comment was meant to explain why someone wouldn't be answering support calls (not on call 24/7) that wouldn't imply they were lazy.

I didn't like the number of tags that I used but felt I couldn't drop them and hoped the italicized text alone would show it wasn't spoken. I like dialogue that doesn't have tags, but I also found that I get confused without a tag every so often to keep who's talking straight when I read.

 

[Khafra]

What's there to regret? If you want to change any part of the story, FA will easily let you update it your submission with a new file.

When I write something, I often leave it rest for a moment and the come back to read it again, only to find it ugly. I find I made strange decisions, used bad vocabulary, or that the point I was trying to make didn't come across at all. It's pretty normal - one of my stories took me over 12 full rewrites of ~30k words before I decided it was good enough. So don't be afraid to make some tweaks, experiment and see how you like the alternative, and develop your preferred style. Read books and samples of other people's work, and pay attention to how they solve the things that give you the most trouble, like you mentioned with small gestures and actions during talking. Inspiration can come from weird places.

I also wouldn't sweat much over formatting. Tags too, to a certain degree. Everyone has their own style and sometimes certain things don't work. The content is most important anyway.

And again, remember that all this is just my opinion lol. I'm sure there's other people who think differently. In the end, what matters is how you like the story, though opinions of readers can be useful for getting another perspective on things.

 

[coraxwolf]

What's there to regret? If you want to change any part of the story, FA will easily let you update it your submission with a new file.

When I write something, I often leave it rest for a moment and the come back to read it again, only to find it ugly. I find I made strange decisions, used bad vocabulary, or that the point I was trying to make didn't come across at all. It's pretty normal - one of my stories took me over 12 full rewrites of ~30k words before I decided it was good enough. So don't be afraid to make some tweaks, experiment and see how you like the alternative, and develop your preferred style. Read books and samples of other people's work, and pay attention to how they solve the things that give you the most trouble, like you mentioned with small gestures and actions during talking. Inspiration can come from weird places.

I also wouldn't sweat much over formatting. Tags too, to a certain degree. Everyone has their own style and sometimes certain things don't work. The content is most important anyway.

And again, remember that all this is just my opinion lol. I'm sure there's other people who think differently. In the end, what matters is how you like the story, though opinions of readers can be useful for getting another perspective on things.

I am seeing what you mean by a work looking different after some time.

I don't know if I'll rewrite this. I was working from a prompt/assignment and it was suppose to be one place one scene. Even if I started it from the beginning (the phone call) wouldn't be much more of a story as it'd still be a random thing that happened on a normal Sunday. Although, if I did rewrite I could break out from the limits I was following. I am not sure there's much value in writing about something so ordinary or with no real consequence. This 'Slice of Life' concept interests me but I can't recall ever reading any. Of course my reading has been limited mostly to published books. I need to see what's on sites like FA and SoFurry and see what different types of works are created by people.

I appreciate your opinions. Feedback like yours helps me see things differently than I look at them myself. I am still happy with the work. Glad I shared cause otherwise I wouldn't of gotten your feedback which is making me think outside of the way I was before and considering new ideas.

 

[Khafra]

I am seeing what you mean by a work looking different after some time.

I don't know if I'll rewrite this. I was working from a prompt/assignment and it was suppose to be one place one scene. Even if I started it from the beginning (the phone call) wouldn't be much more of a story as it'd still be a random thing that happened on a normal Sunday. Although, if I did rewrite I could break out from the limits I was following. I am not sure there's much value in writing about something so ordinary or with no real consequence. This 'Slice of Life' concept interests me but I can't recall ever reading any. Of course my reading has been limited mostly to published books. I need to see what's on sites like FA and SoFurry and see what different types of works are created by people.

I appreciate your opinions. Feedback like yours helps me see things differently than I look at them myself. I am still happy with the work. Glad I shared cause otherwise I wouldn't of gotten your feedback which is making me think outside of the way I was before and considering new ideas.

It can still be a good way to provide insight into the character's mind. The current setup works fine for that. Though, if you have your bigger project in the works, might be better to focus on that.