A general answer and a specific answer.

Subject: A general answer and a specific answer.
Author: Neshomeh
Posted on: 2022-12-11 19:16:38 UTC

The path to becoming a better writer is:

Listen more.
Read more.
Write more.
Repeat steps 1-3.

We learn how to write convincing human beings by paying attention to how the real people around us behave and how other writers portray them, then applying your observations to your own writing. All this stuff is a little bit subjective, because no one's life experience is exactly the same, but the more you listen and read, the broader your experience becomes, so the better you can make informed decisions when you write.

To be clear (which I didn't have time to do earlier; sorry), there's not a ton of as-you-know-Bobbing here, but there's a little bit in the first dialogue exchange:

“So, Alexa,” said the brother

I've never heard anyone address a person they know by name like this in casual conversation. There are only two reasons I'd ever use my brother's name like this: 1) if we were in a group of people and I needed to make it clear I was talking to him specifically, or 2) if I were using a teasing or ironic tone, to tip him off that I was about to say something non-serious.

Same goes for other family members, friends, spouses, etc. And just in general, people in American, English-speaking culture don't tend to casually call each other by name a whole lot.

The way to fix that is just... don't make characters refer to each other by name in casual conversation unless there's a reason for it.

So that's one thing you'd also want to apply to the next bit:

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she added, her mismatched eyes twinkling, “Christmas dinner in the Perkins family is always fun! I remember when you put salt in your hot cocoa thinking it was sugar, Clayton, and spat it all over the tablecloth!”

Alexa doesn't need to use Clayton's name here. They both know "you" refers to Clayton in this speech, so it's weird for her to make a point of it.

In addition, referring to your own family Christmas dinner as "Christmas dinner in the [Surname] family" doesn't sound quite natural. It sounds like someone from outside the family commenting on it as an observer, not someone who's part of the family talking about her own experience. The AYKB here is that Alexa and Clayton both know they're part of the Perkins family, so there's no need for Alexa to specify that's who she's talking about.

I'm assuming that's in there because you, the author, wanted us, the audience, to know that the siblings' surname is Perkins. I'd argue that the important thing here is the siblings' feelings about their family, not the name of it, so the best way to fix the problem in this case is just to leave that information out. Alexa could instead say "Our Christmas dinners are always fun," for example. The rest of her dialogue could fill us in that she's talking about "our" whole family, not just the siblings: "I remember the time you put salt in your cocoa instead of sugar and spat it all over Grandma's dress!" ("I was six years old.")

However, in general, exposition is the way to introduce background information the audience needs to know, but that it wouldn't make sense for the characters to discuss with each other. How to do graceful exposition is another topic, though, and this is all I have time for right now.

I hope this helps!

~Neshomeh

Reply Return to messages

Jump to this post's position in the thread ↴

December Writing Prompts by Novastorme on 2022-12-03 11:18:25 UTC Writing Reply

Yep, they're back.

So, a while ago I used to post monthly writing prompts on the Board and I mentioned doing them again and people seemed to have a positive reaction to that so here they are for December:

- One of your characters accidentally hits something with a snowball.

- A change of schedule causes a last minute flurry of activity.

- One of your characters is involved in a competition.

Just a few things to note:

1) If you want to post your response here, great. If you don't want to post your response here, also great. You do you.

2) While this is the PPC I'm never going to make a prompt be specifically about the PPC. If you want to use your PPC Agents, go for it. If you want to do other OCs or whatever, I'm not going to stop you (not that I really can to be honest). This includes the type of response you want to do. Short story? Great. Haiku? Cool. Twelve page long poem? I might not read all of it, but go for it!

3) These are my own prompts (unless noted), I'd rather they weren't shared about the internet but once again, I can't exactly stop you on that count either.

4) I'm going to be posting (roughly) monthly, but don't be afraid to post your response to a December prompt in January or whenever (if you want to post your responses). There isn't going to be a strict timetable besides "at the start of the month. Hopefully."

Nova.

P.S. I'm going to start out doing 3 prompts, if you want more or less or you want prompts in a different format to how I'm doing them let me know and I will try to adjust it to fit what people want.

Link! by Linstar on 2022-12-27 18:27:35 UTC Reply

Here. I went for all three prompts at once.

—Ls, linking to both relevant threads
For the third prompt: by Kі nо Shirayuki on 2022-12-08 23:46:12 UTC Reply

Competitive sports might qualify as a competition, and this is a New Year snippet set in January 2023 rather than in December, but I present to you Urato and Kaguya playing a game of fan-throwing – posted on my blog as I intend for it to be a fully canonical interlude.
Here's a story I wrote for the first prompt by Discofurby on 2022-12-08 20:01:29 UTC Edited Reply

It's using the agents that I made up.

A chilling breeze swept through the air, the sky was completely covered by clouds, and the Courtyard outside the PPC Headquarters was blanketed in snow.

A brother and a sister, both in their early adulthood, were running around in the snow gleefully like a pair of puppies.

“So, Alexa,” said the brother, who stood at about one head taller than the sister and was clad in a black snowsuit and purple winter hat, “Even though you’ve gotten this weird new job, are you still coming to the party on Christmas?”

“Definitely!”, said the sister, who was wrapped up in a pink snowsuit and a blue, star-patterned hat, underneath which her red ponytail hung.

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she added, her mismatched eyes twinkling, “Christmas dinner in the Perkins family is always fun! I remember when you put salt in your hot cocoa thinking it was sugar, Clayton, and spat it all over the tablecloth!”

“I was two years old,” said Clayton, blushing, “Anyway, you want to have a snowball fight?”

“Do I ever!”, said Alexa, and the two siblings began hurling snowballs at each other like they’d been doing since Clayton could walk.

After a while, Clayton stood in front of Alexa, a few paces away, and said in a playfully mocking, singsong voice, “You can’t get me!”

“Oh, yes I can!”, said Alexa, and flung a snowball… only, it didn’t hit Clayton. It instead flew past him to where her Vulcan partner T’Lai was walking by with a burnt-out CAD – intent on taking it to Makes-Things’ lab once her walk in the Courtyard was done – and knocked the CAD clean out of her hands!

Alexa stepped back.

“Oh!”, she said in embarrassment, “S-so sorry, T’Lai! I didn’t mean–”

“It’s fine, Alexa,” said T’Lai in her stoic Vulcan inflection, “It was broken anyway.”

Alexa was still pretty embarrassed, but she saw the funny side of it, and began laughing, and Clayton laughed too.

This is cute! by Neshomeh on 2022-12-10 17:49:15 UTC Reply
Good job deciding to participate in this. It's a great way to show your stuff and get some valuable feedback.

... Which I shall now provide!

You've got one PPC continuity error up front: the Courtyard isn't actually outside Headquarters, per se. It's not a place you can just walk into from World One without going through the rest of HQ first. It's been kept deliberately vague whether it's even really open to a sky somewhere or if the sky is a magical or technological simulation.

You've also got a few bugs in your writing. Not to worry, plenty of beginning writers make these kinds of mistakes, and for the most part they're easily fixed.

Simplest first: you don't need to double-punctuate your dialogue, like you've done with the following lines:
- “Definitely!”, said the sister
- “Do I ever!”, said Alexa
- “Oh!”, she said in embarrassment
In each case, the comma following the exclamation mark is unnecessary. Same goes if any of her lines had ended in a question mark, too. Take the commas out, and the lines would be correct.

Another dialogue punctuation issue appears in this examples:
- “I was two years old,” said Clayton, blushing, “Anyway, you want to have a snowball fight?”
Clayton has two separate speeches here, so there should be two sentences in this line. The first sentence ends after "blushing," so there should be a period instead of a comma at that location.

Also, a human logic note: I'm pretty sure two years old is too young to be seasoning your own cocoa. I reckon most kids that young would get more sugar (or salt) on the floor than in a cup without close adult supervision.

The opposite error appears here:
- “So, Alexa,” said the brother, who ... hat, “Even though you’ve gotten this weird new job, are you still coming to the party on Christmas?”
Clayton has one continuous speech here, so the comma after "hat" is correct, but second part beginning with "even" should not be capitalized.

And, ack, I've run out of time—but Google "as you know, Bob," regarding characters telling each other things they would already know.

I repeat, though, that overall this was cute, and I enjoyed the concept. Keep doing stuff like this!

~Neshomeh is going caroling!

How do I fix all these errors? by Discofurby on 2022-12-10 19:36:38 UTC Edited Reply

I want to fix all these errors, but I don't know how. I mean, I know how to correct the grammar, but how do I fix those two plotholes you mentioned? And the thing is, I wasn't trying to do the "as you know" thing; that was meant to be Alexa being nostalgic/sentimental.

A general answer and a specific answer. by Neshomeh on 2022-12-11 19:16:38 UTC Reply
The path to becoming a better writer is:
1. Listen more.
2. Read more.
3. Write more.
4. Repeat steps 1-3.
We learn how to write convincing human beings by paying attention to how the real people around us behave and how other writers portray them, then applying your observations to your own writing. All this stuff is a little bit subjective, because no one's life experience is exactly the same, but the more you listen and read, the broader your experience becomes, so the better you can make informed decisions when you write.

To be clear (which I didn't have time to do earlier; sorry), there's not a ton of as-you-know-Bobbing here, but there's a little bit in the first dialogue exchange:
- “So, Alexa,” said the brother
I've never heard anyone address a person they know by name like this in casual conversation. There are only two reasons I'd ever use my brother's name like this: 1) if we were in a group of people and I needed to make it clear I was talking to him specifically, or 2) if I were using a teasing or ironic tone, to tip him off that I was about to say something non-serious.

Same goes for other family members, friends, spouses, etc. And just in general, people in American, English-speaking culture don't tend to casually call each other by name a whole lot.

The way to fix that is just... don't make characters refer to each other by name in casual conversation unless there's a reason for it.

So that's one thing you'd also want to apply to the next bit:
- “I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” she added, her mismatched eyes twinkling, “Christmas dinner in the Perkins family is always fun! I remember when you put salt in your hot cocoa thinking it was sugar, Clayton, and spat it all over the tablecloth!”
Alexa doesn't need to use Clayton's name here. They both know "you" refers to Clayton in this speech, so it's weird for her to make a point of it.

In addition, referring to your own family Christmas dinner as "Christmas dinner in the [Surname] family" doesn't sound quite natural. It sounds like someone from outside the family commenting on it as an observer, not someone who's part of the family talking about her own experience. The AYKB here is that Alexa and Clayton both know they're part of the Perkins family, so there's no need for Alexa to specify that's who she's talking about.

I'm assuming that's in there because you, the author, wanted us, the audience, to know that the siblings' surname is Perkins. I'd argue that the important thing here is the siblings' feelings about their family, not the name of it, so the best way to fix the problem in this case is just to leave that information out. Alexa could instead say "Our Christmas dinners are always fun," for example. The rest of her dialogue could fill us in that she's talking about "our" whole family, not just the siblings: "I remember the time you put salt in your cocoa instead of sugar and spat it all over Grandma's dress!" ("I was six years old.")

However, in general, exposition is the way to introduce background information the audience needs to know, but that it wouldn't make sense for the characters to discuss with each other. How to do graceful exposition is another topic, though, and this is all I have time for right now.

I hope this helps!

~Neshomeh

Snowball science by Tomash on 2022-12-07 03:49:17 UTC Reply

Agent Peregrin was, once again, trying to experiment with an Escher Room. A reasonable person would have taken covering a room - and several agents - in paint while getting nothing remotely resembling data would be a good reason not to try similar experiments, but Peregrin was not a reasonable man. He was a mathematician. Who dabbled in physics. And had had an Idea (tm).

The winter weather that some parts of HQ were experiencing was great for the idea Peregrin had ~~had just a moment ago when he stepped into the Courtyard~~ planned out extensively in his notebook. He opened the door to the Escher Room he'd come out of and brought in a pile of snow over several trips.

Now, he was forming snowballs out of the loose pile and hurling them around the room. His absolutely terrible aim (despite several years as an agent) didn't help his attempts at working out what was going on with the gravity, as it wasn't always clear whether the ball went wildly off course because of the room or because he'd wildly missed his target. Still, Peregrin dutifully added to the notes he'd taken on his way through the room to get here, recording how the snowballs flew with quite careful drawings (despite his handwriting).

After he'd gotten most of the way through the snow, Peregrin looked down at his notes and smiled. "There is definitely a pattern here," he commented. He then scribbled down a diagram of where he thought the nearby gravity wells, dimensional discontinuities, and other things that aren't supposed to happen were.

Then, he scooped up a pile of snow, formed it into a ball, and threw it, watching to see if it would behave as expected.

The snow curved in a low arc. Peregrin nodded - he hadn't missed.

Then the snowball suddenly began to fall upwards. That too was expected.

Then it started to what was, from Peregrin's perspective, the right wall. Still good.

It hurtled towards the wall, gaining speed. But then, instead of plopping towards the ground near the exit like Peregrin knew it should, the snowball kept going. It bounced off the wall, and then quickly bounced again off of the wall above the exit. As Peregrin twisted his head around to see what was going on, the snowball had one last surprise for him.

It hit him right in the face.

"That ... should not have been possible," Peregrin said before wiping the snow off his face and his robe. He wrote down the results and sighed.

Headquarters is strange, he thought, annoyed, as he walked out of the Escher Room. But I do have to admit, it is never boring.

(( This has been done in approximately one take so that I'll've written something today - Tomash ))

Interesting! by Damian Brighte on 2022-12-08 16:04:15 UTC Edited Reply

Seeing someone take a mathematical-scientific approach to HQ and get smacked in the face for it is always fun. The other shoe dropping maybe could've been a little more dramatic, but I can see the more simple premise working well.

It's using the agents that I made up.