Quote:Bluemage wrote:
Every time I was just getting into the story, I'd come across a clunky sentence, and fall right back out of it. It feels like most of your sentences go on for a clause or two too long, and a number of phrases get repeated in a slightly jarring way.
I agree. Let me put it this way - when I read your story, I kept running out of breath. Lack of oxygen kind of prevented me from enjoying your work.
Okay. I should explain that. See, a common editing trick is to read your sentences out loud. As if they were spoken. You don't have to dramatically deliver your written lines to an empty room, just sounding the syllables out quietly will do the trick. Or read them to yourself in your head, but with a voice,
as if you were speaking.
Once you do that, you'll be able to see where the pauses and natural breaks should be. This is most important for dialogue, but it should make your sentences more readable in general. Right now, it seems like when you begin a sentence or paragraph...you're not sure when to stop.
You have content. It's even pretty good content. What you need to consider is presentation and flow.
EDIT: I realise it's probably a pretty big dick move to comment just on the writing from a technical point of view, while giving zero feedback about the plot, narrative, and things like that. I DO think this has potential, and would like to see more. The world needs more BattleTech fanfic. Unfortunately, like Bluemage, I really couldn't get immersed in the story. My editor-sense just kept tingling.
EDIT 2: Alright, another comment. You've got big meaty paragraphs from the perspective of the jumpship captain and the Shadowcat pilot. That's good, that shows you've thought about the motivations and views of your character.
The trouble is, these are infodumps. These are HUGE paragraphs, longer than your other paragraphs. And they're basically just massive downloads of background information to the reader. That's not ideal, that's not compelling. Now, I'm not saying you should never do this. There are no hard and fast rules for writing.
But it may be better to show rather than tell. Have it come out in dialogue, give contextual clues. Have the character think about some of that background stuff...when he or she is actually reacting to something, so there's a natural reason to insert that information.
EDIT 3: Thinking about it...in comparison, the earlier section with the kid and her grandparents was somewhat better than the following sections. It felt more natural in revealing what was going on. You had some background infodump there, but not a lot - most of it came out in context and in dialogue between the characters. That was better. I enjoyed the first post.
-- Acyl