#she was told 'write as many sentences as you can using This Grammatical Feature in french'

[stoportotouch]

in fairness to her. (and to myself because we are basically the same person.) my mother does find it quite funny when i say “to literally anybody else a child deciding to do that would suggest some kind of Brain Thing” because we both know that she will always reply “but i did exactly the same thing as a child”

[phati-sari]

Hey PS I was wondering if you could give some tips on editing? I know that everyone has a slightly different process that they go through and I was really interested in knowing yours since your stories always have little to no grammatical or spelling errors! Thanks!

Hello!

I’m flattered that you would ask me!! Thank you very much for the confidence boost :)

I began a series of posts on my writing process years ago, but it felt weird to continue it. You can read it here – Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3 

Editing tips were to be the next post so maybe this can be Part 4 :) Sorry about the long post -- I tried to put a cut here but it screwed up the entire post by somehow adding the read more link to the ask itself? (Tumblr is drunk?)

‘You might not write well every day, but you can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.’ – Jodi Picoult

1. Time

No one wants to hear it, but the editing process needs time. The best thing would be to leave the piece alone for so long that when you return to it, it reads like something new. It’s not always possible but it’s undoubtedly the best thing. The term “fresh eyes” applies here.

The next best thing is to take a break – a few hours or a few days – and come back to it.

2. Start big and work towards the small

Don’t focus on spelling and grammar first.

Most people find it easiest to write dialogue, so write that first.

Come back and work on plot and structure. Play around with what happens and in which order.

Then work on action and emotion (what is everyone doing or feeling while speaking?).

Once that’s done, focus on the words.

3. Be ruthless

Cut anything that’s not working. Sometimes, your first and second drafts are just warm-ups for the final thing. It sounds demoralising but I promise it helps.

4. Read the sucker out aloud

This is especially useful if you haven’t got the time to take a long break between writing and editing – you know what you meant to write and sometimes you just can’t see the errors. When we read, the brain naturally fills in gaps and auto-corrects words. It’s our pattern recognition skills coming to the forefront. Very helpful in an escape room, not so useful when editing. Reading aloud helps you hear the missing words, the repetitions, the things that just don’t sound or feel right. 

5. Check the tense and point of view

I spoke about tense changes in the second part of the series. Basically: pick a tense and POV and stick to them.

I always write in past tense, which means I have to be careful when I’m writing memories or flashbacks. I take extra care that these portions sound more ‘in the past’ than the action.

6. Less is more

Here are some things I look for while I’m editing:

Remove instances of “that” and “had”: Read a sentence, and then read it again without the “that” or “had”. If it still makes sense, get rid of the extra word. If in doubt, leave the word in.

For example:

Khushi said that she knew where Arnav’s laptop was.

Avoid sentence structures featuring “that that”.

For example:

She told him that that idea had come to her as she’d been watching a serial. She told him that she’d been watching a serial when the idea had come to her.

Remove unnecessary modifiers – find a better word: Look for words like “very”, “really”, “so”, and “quite” and replace them and the word they modify with a better word.

For example:

Arnav was so angry furious when he learned Khushi had washed his laptop with soap and water.

Look for redundant words and phrases : First (and second and third) drafts are often full of redundant words. Spotting them is a skill!

For example:

Tears fell from her eyes when Khushi realised she hadn’t helped by washing his laptop.

(Where else would tears fall from?)

I was only trying to help, Khushi thought to herself.

(You can’t think to others unless you’re telepathic.)

This is also where I’d look for someone putting down a book twice, entering or exiting a room twice, someone having three hands, that sort of thing. A common mistake I see is Khushi putting her hand on Arnav’s shoulders. She can’t put one hand on both shoulders, not unless she’s anatomically very different from what was shown in the serial.

Look for passive sentences and make them active: Passive sentences create a barrier between your reader and the actions or emotions of the characters. Sometimes this is exactly what you’re trying to do – keep them detached – but usually you want your readers right there with the characters.

For example:

The laptop was washed by Khushi. Khushi washed the laptop.

Sometimes, it’s a two step process:

The phone was picked up by Payal. Payal picked up the phone. Payal answered the phone.

That’s a personal preference – if I can say it with one word then I won’t use two:

She turned around spun to face him. He was sitting down on the bed.

This leads to an interesting problem. Just this week a reader told me that I use “such hard words to understand” and that they were “googling every minute to know the actual meaning of words”. The word in question, apparently, was “swivelled”, which I’d used instead of “turned”.

Take my advice with a huge grain of salt!!

You need cadence and rhythm: Short sentences have impact. Longer sentences help you build your world and characters. Join sentences together or break them up, see what works.

She spun to face him. He was sitting on the bed. She spun to find him sitting on the bed.

My writing style is economical. This is not always a good thing: I’m often told my updates are short :( But I’m not inclined to take 2500 words when 1800 will do.

6. Check for words/phrases you like using

I overuse “gaze” and “eyes”, I talk about the pulse too much, and I forget to talk about what people’s hands are doing. It’s a learning process.

7. Check for repeated words.

This one only stands out after multiple re-reads, but I try not to use words twice in one update. In this sentence, I used small twice and didn’t need “looking” to describe what he was doing:

Earlier, as he’d rummaged in the wardrobe looking for night clothes, a small yellow notebook had fallen between his feet with a small thud.

8. Check spelling and grammar

I’ve added “Arnav”, “Khushi”, “Jiji” and many other words to the dictionary of my computer. That way, the chance I’ll publish something with “Anrav” or “Kushi” is lowered.

Sometimes, the spelling and grammar check misses things – you’ve written then instead of the – this is where read out aloud comes in very handy. Other things, like the difference between principal and principle, are harder. Grammarly is free and works with Chrome. It picks up a lot of these things and I use it for all my stories.

9. Check your formatting

Are italics and bolding applied consistently? (I use italics for Hindi words but don’t use them for titles in Hindi)

Is everything aligned the same way?

Don’t use ellipses (…)  instead of full stops (.)

10. Change the font or the font-size

Sometimes, our eyes or brains become used to where words fall in a sentence or paragraph. If you change the font or the font-size suddenly things fall into different places and you can find the errors more easily.

I draft in Scrivener but I always paste everything into Wattpad and Tumblr as a way of checking. The difference in font-size and paragraph width (margins) of both platforms helps me pick up errors.

Thanks for asking :) I hope that helps!!

[chrisevansbabymama]

Daddy Hair Care - Chapter 6

A/N: At long last, Chapter 6! I’d like to give a major shout out and thank you to everyone that’s been checking in on this story. Writing this chapter hasn’t been the easiest as I had a major writer’s block, this is the 9th attempt!!! This wasn’t the original direction I was taking this chapter, but I think it works and fits with the rest and what’s to come. Thank you for the kind patience, I hope you enjoy. And yes, I’ve purposefully made Mya’s dialogue grammatically incorrect to signify her youth; I’ve taken a lot of inspo from the way my little niece is now starting to string sentences together. 

                                                      ______

Chapter 5

_

Chapter 6 - I was wondering maybe; Could I make you my baby:

“Theeeeeee end!” Chris concluded the bedtime story dramatically, closing the colourful hardcover book and placed it on the bedside table. “Did you like this one, baby?”

 Mya giggled at his sing-song voice and nodded, “Yeah, but I like Frozen one better,”

 Chris groaned in defeat and rolled his eyes with a playful dramatic huff, “Baby, we read that one aaaall the time. Y’know, there’s more to life than Anna and Elsa. I think this book was pretty cool; there was a funny rabbit, a greedy cow, and a singing horse…I think Dodger liked this one too,”

 Dodger perked his ear at the sound of his name, and then relaxed back at the foot of the small girl’s bed, looking on at the duo.

 “And the ‘silly sausage,’” she started laughing, remembering the favourite part in the book that had her laughing hysterically.

 “Still laughing at the ‘silly sausage’ huh,” he then laughed too.

 Mya smiled and tried to stifle a yawn, but it overpowered her. Her features darkened as she looked at her dad solemnly.

 “I want to come to work with you tomorrow,” 

 “I would love to have you with me, but you know children and Dodger are not allowed at daddy’s work,” he reminded her, although it wasn’t very accurate – the informality of his work allowed him to bring friends and family on set, but he vowed himself to never expose Mya to that.

 “But I miss you dada,”

 “I know it’s not fun when I’m working, if I could take you and Dodger with me, I would. That’s why daddy brought you both here with me to New York, so you could be even closer to me,”

 “Dada but you always go work,”

 Chris frowned but quickly replaced it with a warm expression to encourage her to continue expressing herself.

 “I know honey-” he said calmly.

 “And we have to stay in this room all the time,” she continued to complain. “I want to play outside,”

 Chris couldn’t help but laugh, “Yeah, I gotta agree with you on that one kid. This hotel life wasn’t daddy’s best decision. Daddy’s gotta fix that, even Dodger would love to play outside,”

 She nodded solemnly.

 “After this week, I’ll only be working in the evening, so we’ll get to spend all the mornings and afternoons together, we can go wherever you want,” he offered, knowing he’d regret that just as he had this weekend when he told her they could go wherever she wanted and she suggested Disneyworld.

 He then had to explain to her that it wasn’t possible to just up and go to Disneyworld, and then had to do damage control, when she’d spent almost twenty minutes refusing to talk to him. That was until she realised she needed him to help move her play kitchen area to another side of their suite, so she came back to him with a white flag. Chris took the opportunity then to encourage to scale down her weekend plans to something local.

 “Then we go home?”

 “Not next week, but soon,” he explained. “Is that what would make you happy?”

 Mya nodded, “Yeah, so I can play with my dollies in the garden,”

 Chris rested his head on his palm, trying to make sense of what she was expressing. He’d felt the same strain she did regarding staying in the hotel and they were clearly both homesick, but that suite – large as it was, was becoming claustrophobic. He also wondered where he was going wrong: that even though they were in the same suite – (not miles away as previously before) she still missed him. Then the guilt of spending Friday night with Kayla consumed him; feeling like he had abandoned his daughter to pursue his own selfish interests. But he quickly shook the thought away, refusing to go down that spiral.

 If anything, he was grateful and surprised Mya had lasted this long without complaining, but even then this wasn’t a topic he had wanted to confront. There were too many layers involved; it wasn’t as simple as packing up his and her bags, and flying back to LA. He had to stay in New York and work, then had a few weeks of freedom before filming again in a few months; that posed a question of whether it was the best decision for her to come along to Atlanta as he finished his final Marvel instalment. And if not, he knew there was going to be the issue of delivering the news and actually parting ways for those few months after bonding so well together in New York.

 Again, he shook that thought away, compartmentalising it in the ‘deal with it when it comes’ box.

 “We can’t go home just yet,” he said, feeling like he just kept presenting her with a disappointing answer after another. He shuffled close and scooped her up so she rested on his chest. “How about we go to Boston for a few days this week? You get to play with your cousins and in the garden,”

 Her eyes widened with excitement as she gazed at her dad, now a beacon of hope, “Yay! Can Daja come too?”

 “Of course Dodger is coming too,” Chris chuckled.

 “What about my other grammy, the blue grammy,” she asked, referring to her grandma on her mother’s side; who lived in a big blue house.

 Chris pursed his lips, lying through his teeth and going against his principal of always telling the truth, “She’s on holiday, remember? That’s why you get to be here with daddy in New York,”

 “She’s taking for ages to come back from holiday!” she groaned, now lacing her fingers with her dad’s.

 “Won’t be any longer now, baby,” he changed the subject quickly. “I think it’s time to close those little eyes. Tiff is picking you up tomorrow and daddy will also be leaving early for his interviews. But I finish early, we can call grandma and tell her we’re coming, and then go to see a movie and dinner?”

 Her face lit up again, but then it fell sadly, “But Daja can’t come to the movies with us,”

 Chris cast a glance at him, dozing off at the foot of the bed, “He won’t mind, shhhh…it’s a secret,”

 “Dada, you have a girlfriend?” she asked suddenly and he couldn’t decipher whether she was really asking him or she was seeking confirmation on a truth she already knew, which was strange and uncomfortable to him because that also another topic he wasn’t ready to confront with her.

 He didn’t even know she knew what a ‘girlfriend’ was.

 “Uhm, no,” Chris shifted uncomfortably. An embarrassed smile brightened up his features and he wanted to laugh at being interrogated by a child about his non-existent love life. “Why?”

 She shrugged, “Is it a secret?”

 “Mya,”

 She gave him a coy smile.

 “How do you know what a girlfriend is?” Chris eyed her suspiciously, deciding on a new angle.

 “I dunno,”

 “Princess, c’mon, we tell each other everything. Right? Remember, we said we always have to tell the truth?”

 “Uncle Seb has a girlfriend, he said it’s a secret,” Mya shared.

 “He told you he has a girlfriend?”

 She nodded again, covering her face.

 “How do you know he has a girlfriend?” Chris pressed on, trying a different angle. She shrugged again.

 “Aunty Lauren. I saw her on the phone with him,”

 “I’m not following baby,”

 “Like,” she began to explain, as best as she could with her limited vocabulary. “She’s with him on his phone picture, they were kissing. It’s yucky. I saw it when I was playing games,”

 “Oh,” Chris finally said, understanding that she meant his phone’s display picture. Chris muttered under his breath, “Interesting. Your Uncle Seb’s so much trouble.”

 After a short pause, he proposed the question that had been occupying his thoughts for a long while, and then of course the need to ask was exacerbated on Friday when he’d spent the evening with Kayla. He didn’t think he would be confronting this topic this soon, but he couldn’t miss the opportunity to ask Mya now and plant the seed, seeing as she’d brought it up herself.

 “What if daddy had a girlfriend, how would that make you feel?”

 “I don’t know, daddy. Maybe no kissing each other, it’s yucky,” she shrugged again earnestly, making Chris realise she understood the term ‘girlfriend’ in a very naïve way; as something to snicker about. “Are you going to get a girlfriend?”

 “Oh man, not you too asking me to get a girlfriend,” he rolled his eyes and made a face to make her giggle. “Daddy is – he will – y’know what, this is weird, go to bed baby,”

 “Okay. Kiss-kiss,” she pouted.

 “Okay. I love you,” he smothered her face with kisses, causing her to laugh hysterically and seek refuge under her blanket, waking up Dodger as she accidentally kicked him. “So tomorrow, you and daddy have to talk about something important okay?”

 “Okay, after the movie?”

 Chris smiled, ruffling her hair “Yes sweetie. Goodnight,” he turned to Dodger. “C’mon buddy, let’s leave miss ‘silly sausage’ to sleep,”

 And there was that cackle again, “I love you dada. Love you Daja,”

 Chris poured himself a glass of red wine as he unwound on his couch, putting the TV on with Dodger at his side as Rick & Morty came on. He took a deep breath, feeling this was the most relaxed he had been all weekend. His two kids had occupied so much of his thoughts, energy and time this weekend, so whenever he could steal a moment of tranquillity he made the best of it. As he watched Rick & Morty in a daze, his mind wandering about the last topic of conversation he’d just had with Mya. It felt weird, talking about his love life with his baby girl. It’s not something he ever imagined having to do, back when he used to imagine life with a child. He wondered if that was her cry for help for some womanly company in the Evans household, or was it a plea to maintain the status quo, so she could have him all to herself? Especially since she had communicated it very clearly that she missed him when he was away at work, let alone someone else coming into his life demanding attention.

 He sighed, pouring another glass growing very aware of how quickly he had downed the first. He thought about Kayla; if he was going to pursue her – what would the dynamics be like? Did she even like kids? Did she like dogs? Could she handle his complicated parenting situation?

 Again, for the umpteenth time that evening, he shook that thought away. He was realising more and more, like everyone told him, his worst fears were things he was cooking up in his imagination. He always got ahead of himself in thought and imagined the worst possible scenarios. Scott always told him “no wonder why you have anxiety, you’re forcing your brain to live through things that are not even real.” So now he was trying to be better; trying to reign in on his thoughts and control them in a positive direction, even if it meant being too optimistic in thinking there was even a slight chance Kayla reciprocated his feelings.

 So he went back to thinking about her, it felt nice. It was his place of peace. It was addictive to remember her smile, her voice, the way she teased him with no care and a total disregarded of his actor title. It felt nice, to be seen by her as a person and not an object or an ideal. He couldn’t wait to see her again tomorrow; he imagined her plump lips and then remembered the several lost opportunities that he had to kiss on her Friday. Her soft touch; the way she’d gently tap him on the shoulder when she’s laughing, she wasn’t as tactile as he was, but he remembered every single touch. He remembered the way her fingers felt in his fair. He remembered her scent emanating from different points on her body: her neck when she hugged him, her wrist when she applied products to his face, and her hair when she walked passed him.

 His eyes flickered to his phone on the table, opening Safari on private browsing; his fingers hovered over the keypad on Google search. It was something he had to come to terms with sooner or later, and if Friday with Kayla and tonight’s conversation with Mya were anything to go by, it was going to be sooner. So he did, he typed the words in before quickly pressing the backspace, feeling ridiculous, so instead he called the person he knew would give him the peace he was after.

 After several missed calls, she answered on the third attempt.

 “Hi, sorry I’d left my phone in the dining room,”

 “Hi,” He sighed contentedly into the phone, finding solace in her voice and rushed to get his thoughts together because he could feel that familiar wash of anxiety clouding him and choking him.

 “I need your help with something,” he said, feeling his face warm up as though she could see him. It was a combination of the wine and the words he was going to speak that made him feel like he was going to throw up.

 “Is everything okay?” she enquired with concern. “Chris?”

 “Yeah, I’m just sitting here and was about to ask Google for advice on something that I’m sure it’d have answers for, but, I think you’re the best person to help me out here,”

 “Okay,” she said tentatively. “What were you searching for?”

 After a few seconds of silence and another sip of wine, Chris finally answered, knowing that as he was speaking out these words into the universe, there was no turning back, he would be confirming that he wanted to be with Kayla. All those negative thoughts and scenarios that could be – he also put them in the same ‘deal with it when and if they come’ box.

 “Chris, you’re making me nervous,”

 “I uhm…I wasn’t sure that Google will have an answer specifically tailored for a single dad who’s also an actor, for this particular question,” he sighed with a nervous laugh. “How do I go back out there and start dating again?”

 She let out a soft gasp.

 “What?” he was on edge.

 “Do you know how long I’ve been waiting for you to ask me that question?”

 “I know. But I met this woman and she’s amazing, she’s really incredible and I’m losing my mind every day that I don’t talk to her or see her,” he chuckled, feeling ridiculous. “I know this feeling, so I’m ready to go for it,”

 “I’m so happy you called,” she stalled and emitted a muffled sound.

 “Ma…Are you crying? Seriously…?”

 __________

Disclaimer: Gif not my own

Tags: @thegirlwithpaperheart  @disaster-rose @youlifetime @mississippifangirl @thinemineours @tessathedragon @thottio @caninoona @eratotalles @allonszassbutt@thinemineours@dreamingwithmendes @void-imaginations @daybreak96 @l-auteuse @cliffordasparagus @bumber-car-s@lvlyab@melaninmarvel @milkymil-k@dyckvandyke @prettymuchboodup  @i-fear-neither-death-nor-pain@the-doctors-fallen-angel @tfandtws @mariswritingforfun @renesmeeharelds @turn-thy-paige @disaster-rose

[fairyfolkreviews]

“The Mermaid Bride and Other Orkney Folktales” Review

Disclaimer: In accordance with FTC Guidelines for blogging and endorsements: The book reviewed has been purchased by me and the opinions I have expressed are my own. All quotes from “The Mermaid Bride” are the property of © Tom Muir, and illustrations are all by artist  © Bryce Wilson. Images used with permission of © Tom Muir from Orkneyology.

“The Mermaid Bride” is a varied collection of folk tales retold by the author and is as entertaining as it is informative. It’s a hidden gem among the many Scottish folklore books that line the mythology and local interest section of bookstore shelves. I highly recommend it to anyone who wishes to learn more about Orkney's traditional tales and customs. It is also a great choice for children who love fairy tales. The pages are filled with fantastic creatures, lesser known creatures of folklore: selkies, giants, ghosts, fin folk, mermaids, and trows, to name a few. If you are familiar with Norse mythology, you will notice its influence on some of the legends. Vikings had invaded the Orkney Isles and lived there for a time among the natives long ago. Bryce Wilson’s illustrations adorn the book and add even more charm to the stories. They are incredibly detailed and are done in black ink with a stippling effect, creating texture as well as a three-dimensional impression to his pictures.

The book begins with the “Acknowledgements” page, followed by an introduction by the author, Tom Muir. He explains that his purpose for writing this book was to preserve Orkney's heritage and compile as many folk stories as he could find into one place for fear that all the ancient tales would be lost in time. I believe that he has achieved this goal. He may have even composed a classic that will lay on the bedside tables of many Orkney children for their mothers to read to them for years to come. Following the introduction is “The Creatures of Orkney Folklore” section which provides short descriptions of the mythical characters featured in the tales. I recommend you read this section if you are not familiar with Orkney folklore. Otherwise, it will be difficult to understand who or what the supernatural characters are in the tales. After the collection of folk tales, there is a small segment titled “Short Stories from Old Lore Miscellaneous.” and one labelled “Ernest Marwick Papers, Orkney Archives of the Orkney Library, D31.” Ernest Marwick was a folklorist who wrote one of the first books of folklore of the Orkney and Shetland Isles. The last two sections are “BBC Radio Orkney Archives” and the bibliography, which is designated “Notes and Sources.”

The language of the tales is simple to adhere to traditional story-telling. This combined with the author’s unique voice which captures the essence of the settings in which the stories take place and the dialogues between the characters. They preserve the authenticity to these tales as faithful as the ambiance of  the originals. They invoke emotions of love, loss, wonder, caution and even some  humor. Some tales are short, less than a page long, while others exceed three pages. I found that the narration is similar to that of many fairy tales. Most folk tales  have an underlying purpose, theme, or lesson.. My favorite sayings from the book are: "A close tongue keeps a safe head" and "She shaped her own cloth, now let her wear her ill-fitting dress!" The stories are more plot-driven and the protagonists generally do not play a large part and are not particularly well-rounded. Therefore, the choices these characters make and external supernatural forces/entities are what move the narrative forward. Supporting characters are not mentioned much and rarely influence the events which occur. If you keep in mind that you are reading a book of folktales, not a collection of short fiction, you will enjoy the book regardless.There is plenty of adventure to be found: discoveries of hidden islands and an underwater kingdom, the exploration of the wild, rich and untamed Orkney landscape, which is depicted in Mr. Muir's brilliantly.

As much as I adored the book, I’m giving it ★ ★ ★ ★ instead of five because of some minor vexing details:

Toward the end of the book, there is an increase in common grammatical errors (misuse of punctuation, not capitalizing the first words of sentences, etc.). Also, the language in the tales do not seem to flow as smoothly as they did earlier in the book. Everything feels somewhat rushed. Furthermore, some factors in the tales are difficult to comprehend. I understand and appreciate that these folk tales were told this way years ago, but one wonders if the original storytellers at the time had not been improvising or adding elements spontaniously. A good example to support my opinion is the story "Good Neighbours of Greenie Hill," when a stampede of pigs suddenly appears out of nowhere in the house and starts squealing next to a character’s feet, then one of them carries him or her off to see fairies.

Overall, I enjoyed every moment I spent reading this book. I learned a lot about the folklore of Orkney and a little about the customs of the people who lived there in the past. I loved the stories toward the beginning of the book most of all, which are creation myths that portray how Orkney came to be, as well as stories of Mermaids, Selkies, and Fin Folk. But my absolute favorite tale was by far "Lady Odivre;" it was one of the most epic folk tales I had ever read: an oath made by Odin, a heartbroken lady, a brave knight in a faraway land, a Selkie King, and even a scandal!

I recommend this book to anyone interested in folklore, particularly Scottish folklore. I also recommend it to anyone who loved mermaids, selkies, and stories of the sea. The tales of the Orkney Isles are not as well-known as those from the rest of the UK, but they should be. If not for the sake of scholarly research, then for the pure joy that they will no doubt bring you.  If you are interested in this book, you can  find used copies online, but most are overpriced overpriced. Luckily, you can still purchase a new copy directly  from the bookshop linked to the publisher, Orcadian Limited (Kirkwall Press), here.

Resources for research and further reading:

1. Orkneyjar:  http://www.orkneyjar.com/

2. Orkneyology: https://www.orkneyology.com/

3. Orkney Library: http://www.orkneylibrary.org.uk/

4. Marwick, Ernest W. The Folklore of Orkney and Shetland. B.T. Batsford, 1986.

5. Muir, Tom, and Sheila Faichney. Orkney Folk Tales. The History Press, 2014

6. Black, George F. County Folklore. Facsimile ed., III, Folklore Society, 1994.

7. Dennison, Walter Traill, and Tom Muir. Orkney Folklore & Sea Legends. Orkney Press, 1995.

[fourmodules]

Complete Guide To IELTS Academic Writing Task 2

Lastly, although scoring in any module or exam can be difficult, but not impossible. Every aim or goal can be accomplished if one puts all his or her efforts and hard work in it. By obeying some of these useful techniques, an applicant can enhance the writing skills flawlessly. Moreover, this will further assist a child to raise his or her IELTS scores by standing out in every section. IELTS (International English Language Testing System) is a very prevalent and most high-stakes English proficiency test, among all the non-speakers of English that owns it as a second language. All these students and workers need proof of their proficiency and this test accurately verifies it. After an expert evaluation, many skilled checkers provide you a band for each section and their average becomes your overall score or band. This test is aimed at supporting the aspirants who wish to pursue their higher education by participating in an English language University-level program or want to migrate to any other country on work or job basis, the IELTS test can help you approach your education, career or life goals. Briefly, it is a task-based test that covers four main skills of a language: Reading, Listening, Writing, and Speaking. The LRW test is held on the same day at a particular test center. The atmosphere of the test center is quite similar to an examination hall and is very strict. Under such conditions, many students feel very struggling to write an essay, where they have to think a lot to offer a great essay. However, this complete guide will discuss each and every aspect of the IELTS Academic Writing task 2 to ensure your good results in this question.

Firstly, we must highlight some basic information about the writing task 2. In this task, a candidate is made to compose an essay or article of 4-5 paragraphs, depending on the topic. Specifically, if we talk about the time allotment, each candidate gets a complete, 1-hour for the writing module. It depends on the fact that how you divide your time accordingly. It is considered that one should not spend more than 20 minutes on task 1 because task 2 is lengthier and quite hard. Consequently, you must save at least 40 minutes for this test. Moreover, if we look in-depth for the time-division, one of the best distributions is to spend 2-5 minutes on planning and brainstorming for the essay. Following it, on writing and presenting it, one must allocate a good half-an-hour and the left out 10 minutes should be devoted to editing and revising the passage. In this way, one should give his or her quality time to each and every part involved in writing to avoid any blunders & mistakes. Furthermore, the examiners evaluate your ability to express your opinions to an abstract question, reacting to social or environmental problems, analyzing the benefits or harms of a particular point, providing solutions to any problems, giving opinions & suggestions. Thus, one must take help from various Blogs and articles written by experts to widen the storehouse of your ideas.

The next important step is organizing & arranging the essay, which plays a vital role as one has to present his or her efficiently to score high. As we discussed the planning feature previously, it is very crucial to note that this complete test is an Academic and formal test. It allows and at the same time forces an aspirant to avoid any kind of informality and slang in his or her write-up. Apart from that, a thoughtful and neutral tone is highly appreciated by the examiners while evaluating the essays. Weighing to a particular side (either positive or negative), unless and until told so can adversely affect your scores. Another essential feature to organize the thesis well is putting all the similar ideas in a single paragraph to avoid confusion. This separation makes it easy for the evaluator to check your essays effortlessly that also leads to upliftment of your bands. Several experts are sitting on the online platform to serve you for the same purpose also. One can register yourself and with the help of an Improvement planner, anyone can enhance his or her performance by learning various tips and techniques.

Subsequently, to comprehend the scoring pattern of a particular task also proves very beneficial. Initially, a candidate has to answer an open and abstract question, thus the judgment is done on your content and thoughts as there is no clear or "correct" answer for it. The examiners basically check your point of perception, your portrayal of the text, and various skills that act as the base of your scores. These are:

Task Achievement ( 25% ): How well you accomplished the given question.

Coherence & Cohesion ( 25% ): How well you stick to the topic and the examiner concedes your message.

Lexical Resource ( 25% ): Ability to use an extensive series of vocabulary precisely.

Grammatical Range & Accuracy ( 25% ): Ability to implement the grammar rules & tenses in your speech accurately.

It is very important to give the examiner what he or she wants in order to score high. Moreover, this task particularly contributes two-thirds of its portion to your overall scores, which means complete 67% of the writing band comes from task 2.

Along with all the basic and formal necessities, there are certain additional tips that should be followed appropriately to stand out. It covers some understandable vocabulary words, relatable examples to reflect your practical side, linkers & connectors which act as a bridge between two lines, and a combination of various simple, complex, and compound sentences. These insertions will uplift your essay to an upper level and would draw the attention of the examiner toward your piece of work. Along with that, there are numerous habits that a student mistakenly incorporates while writing.

Some of them are bullet points or numbered list that makes your representation informal. Also, paraphrasing is very imperative for an essay because sometimes many students imitate the question sentences in their write-up in the same form as they are. On the contrary, taking and including large chunks directly from the topic will lower down the score. One must polish the vocabulary skills first and try to use synonyms & varied sentence structures to avoid duplication. Notably, this technique does not only help to avoid the question imitation, but it has also made its place in preventing redundancy in an essay. A broad and extensive vocabulary and using a cluster of simple, complex, and complicated sentences support one to add variation into his or her text.

Furthermore, when starting the preparation, it is also very valuable to solve the IELTS Practice Test first to know the current band where you stand. After interpreting this, one can easily plan the whole preparation path accordingly. These help an aspirant to understand the format of the test and the types of questions asked. Later with the feature of Instant Score Feedback, which you may find on fourmodules.com, you will be able to get your responses to evaluate efficiently by the experts. With the help of this verification, a candidate will comprehend where he or she stands. Moreover, this will help him or her to work upon the weaknesses to omit out all the flaws from their writings. 

[xmanicpanicx]

What it’s REALLY like to major (and master) in Creative Writing

First of all, let me say that this was my own personal experience with a four-year-long B.A. in Creative Writing and subsequent two-year-long M.A. in Creative Writing. This is post is not reflective of everyone else’s experience in the same program or similar programs. Warning: This may sound like a ranty revenge article, but I’m not writing this because I’m bitter. I’m not all that bitter. Just a little bitter, like a splash of vinegar in salad dressing or something. Really, I’m writing this so that anyone who is considering a Creative Writing major can make an even more informed decision, and hopefully this will help them figure out if that path is the right one for them.

I started off with a Bachelor of Arts in English Language, Literature and Creative Writing, and after a semester, I decided to make it a double major with Communication, Media, and Film. I wanted to go into publishing. I held onto that aspiration for a very long time. It had been budding in me since high school.

But as far back as I can remember, I’ve made up stories and wanted to be a writer. Eventually, I got it into my head that if I always spent time working on other people’s writing, I would neglect my own, and I started to feel iffy about going into publishing.

There’s a lot of “advice” from my Creative Writing professors that I am going to challenge in this article, but I think one of the most practical suggestions they’ve ever given me and my peers was to get a job that doesn’t involve a lot of writing.

Not because you won’t be able to find a job doing so. Contrary to popular belief, English majors actually can find jobs after college. Some become technical writers, some go into marketing, some become freelance or ghost writers and editors. The problem is that if you spend your 9-5 being forced to write or edit for someone else, you lose momentum and motivation when you get home. Even if you’re one of those people who think they couldn’t possibly get tired of writing, the fact is that your eyes will be strained from staring at a screen for most of your life and your wrists will develop carpal tunnel syndrome as a result of your incessant typing.

It’s not that you’ll never make any money from the writing you love to do, but you will need a day job, at least for a while. And it is okay to pick something that has nothing to do with writing, something that will make you crave a return to your writing routine at the end of the day or the end of the week.

I understand, though, if you’re really dedicated to your craft and you think that the best way to hone it is to major, and quite possibly get a master’s degree, in Creative Writing. But if you truly are dedicated to your writing, you don’t necessarily have to major in Creative Writing in order to improve it. In my program, people from outside of the department could take the Creative Writing classes if their writing was deemed strong enough. Also, there are plenty of great online resources out there and books about writing that can help you strengthen yours. It can be intimidating to wade through them all, but make no mistake: a Creative Writing major and even a Creative Writing master’s degree won’t cover all your bases.

In my particular undergraduate program, Creative Writing courses started during the second year. We needed to apply with a portfolio showcasing what we believed was our strongest work. Around sixty people would apply, but only twenty would get accepted. Then in the third year, everyone had to apply again, and more people would be eliminated, so we would end up with about sixteen people in class. And then for the fourth year, everyone had to apply yet again, even more were eliminated, and we’d end up with twelve people in the class. By the time I got accepted into the master’s program, there were only six of us. It was kind of like an academic, artsy-fartsy version of “Survivor.”

Everyone was judged anonymously by the committee of Creative Writing profs, based solely on the strength of their portfolios. This sounds ideal, but it’s actually where things got problematic — because “strength,” unfortunately, was a subjective term in this department. We were encouraged to have diverse portfolios, meaning we should try to write in more than one genre. Profs wanted to see both fiction and poetry from everyone, even if some people didn’t want to be poets. Even if some didn’t want to be fiction writers. Creative non-fiction was okay, as well. What wasn’t okay? Genre fiction.

That probably sounds confusing because I just said that we were encouraged to write in a wide range of genres. But not genres within fiction. Literary fiction is what the profs wanted to see. Even after all this time, I’m still not sure I understand what literary fiction is. But I can tell you what it is not. It is not fantasy. It is not sci-fi. It is not romance, chick lit, horror, mystery, or most historical fiction. In other words, aside from the few literary fiction novels and short story collections that win the Pulitzer Prize, it is not popular fiction.

I’ve heard the profs refer to genre or popular fiction in many ways: trash, crap, the kind of thing that you can read while watching TV. One of my profs even said that Nora Roberts wasn’t a real writer. She’s written hundreds of books and has very high ratings from her readers, so what makes her less of a writer than, say, that particular prof I was speaking with?

But this was all stuff that I heard — and silently chafed against — after I had gotten into the very first creative writing class. Because I myself prefer to write popular fiction. I love fantasy. I love contemporary. And I would’ve submitted that stuff in my portfolio if my college boyfriend, who was a year ahead of me in the program, hadn’t warned me that I had to play to the tastes of the professors. What they didn’t like to see: genre fiction, poetry in the same style as Shakespeare’s or Wordsworth’s, and poetry that was left-aligned on the page and had a capital letter at the beginning of each line. What they did like to see: experimental poetry (think e.e. cummings) — HEAVY emphasis on that — short literary fiction, and fragments of literary novels that were strong enough to stand on their own.

Since the professors ran the program, they could ask for whatever they wanted, I guess. But here’s my problem with their preferential methods: as professors of Creative Writing, a term that encompasses almost every genre, their job should be to help students develop whatever kind of writing they’re into. No genre is better or lesser than the others. There are some marvelously-written romance novels out there, while there are some so-called literary novels that are complete disasters. The focus of Creative Writing classes should be to improve writers’ sentence structures, plot holes, character development and dialogue issues, grammatical errors, telling rather than showing, and so on. The focus of Creative Writing classes should not be to create clones of the professors.

And the thing is, I wasn’t alone in wanting to write genre fiction. About half of the people in each class I went through were right there with me. The others, though — the ones who willingly wrote the types of pieces the professors liked — were quite obviously favored. But I guess that was to be expected. What I did not expect was the way the profs, and even fellow students, would sometimes embarrass the people who wrote genre fiction. On top of that, much of their feedback wasn’t helpful.

There was one person in one of my creative writing classes who wanted to write a paranormal romance featuring a broody, mysterious guy. Sure, it’s been done before, but it was what she wanted to write. Instead of helping her improve the story for what it was, the class on the whole tried to make her steer it in a completely different direction. They latched onto a quirk that her protagonist had, something that may have hinted at OCD (I speak as someone with a partial medical diagnosis of OCD). It was just a random detail that she had included, but the rest of the class seemed to think that was the most interesting detail of her story and encouraged her to expand on it. In the subsequent chapter she gave us, the quirks were definitely more flushed out, but it got so far away from the actual point of the story that, to me, the whole thing just seemed like even more of a mess. The class told her what they liked, and she gave it to them, even though it ultimately did nothing to help her. They had their own reading preferences in mind rather than her best interests.

So, knowing that I probably wouldn’t get the type of feedback I needed for the writing I was truly passionate about, I spent years churning out pages that I didn’t care about all that much. I was a faker just to please other people, avoid embarrassment, and get good grades. Normally when you hear of someone “selling out,” it means that they’ve abandoned their style in for the sake of producing something with more mass market appeal. What I truly want to write already does have mass market appeal, but I abandoned that style, and I felt like I had sold out. I shamefully wrote in my preferred genres on the side, in secret. What a waste of time for me and everyone else in my boat, right?

It wasn’t until my M.A. when I took a course on writing children’s literature that I dared to submit a couple things I wanted to or might have wanted to expand into novels someday. My long-time Creative Writing prof gave them the thumbs-up. And one day, she gave me one of the most encouraging compliments I’ve ever received: “I think you’ve got a lot of books in you. Maybe you won’t write a hundred, but I can definitely see you writing thirty or forty.” She did not give compliments out easily, so I knew she meant it. And it was realistic. She didn’t tell me “Yes! Aim for a hundred! You can do it!” Most writers won’t even complete thirty books in their lifetime, so that alone was huge for me to hear.

But I couldn’t help wondering if she would’ve said that to me if, throughout my years in those previous creative writing courses, I had written the stuff I truly wanted to write. Was she encouraging me based on my contributions to the the children’s lit classes, which were closer to my heart? Or was she judging the entire body of my work that she knew of and therefore missing a large part of the picture? I’m afraid to know what she would’ve said about the things I wrote on the side. I have a feeling it would’ve been mean in the most unhelpful of ways.

Yet when these Creative Writing professors (and many students) are asked why they hate genre fiction, they say, “We don’t. It’s fine. It’s just that you don’t need Creative Writing classes to write that kind of thing.” It seemed like a polite way to say that writing for genre fiction doesn’t need to be good; you don’t need to learn anything; those publishers don’t care about quality writing. I thoroughly disagree. I think that the quality of the writing matters across genres. I think characters and plots need to be developed whether you’re writing a mystery novel or a literary novel. People who read genre fiction aren’t stupid. They can recognize poor writing, and to many of them, it matters a lot.

Not every creative writing program out there will have this snobbery, but I have a bad feeling that most of them do.

So here is my advice for anyone looking into a creative writing program for university:

Always do your research thoroughly. Look into the profs’ interests, dare to reach out to the department secretary so they can put you in touch with current students who would be willing to answer your questions, check out the graduates of the program and see if there is anyone you know of whose style you admire. If the professors (or at least some of them) are open to working with your preferred genre and the students don’t feel constrained by arbitrary rules, chances are it’s a decent program. Bonus points if the program has alumni you’re a fan of.

There are specific Creative Writing programs out there in universities for people who want to write genre fiction, if that is your main interest. Look into those.

If you’re considering post-grad education, an M.A. (Master of Arts) is not necessarily the way to go. An M.F.A. (Master of Fine Arts) might be a better option for you. Professors will warn against this one because getting an M.F.A. means you can’t go on to pursue a Ph.D., but if you don’t plan to get a Ph.D., that’s not a problem. M.F.A. programs are usually shorter (a year as opposed to two) and have a more intense focus on the craft than on essays.

Consider pursuing your Creative Writing education independently. There is absolutely no shame in being self-taught. You can also find critique partners and writing groups of people who have the same writing interests as you and who will be able to give you solid feedback on your work because they’ll have a stronger knowledge of the genre than a literary Creative Writing professor will. You have to do the same for them, though.

That’s my spiel. Long-winded, but it needed to be said. If you truly care about your writing, remember to put it first. Don’t invest in a program that won’t invest in you. Happy searching! And while you’re here, tell me, what’s the worst writing advice you’ve ever heard?

[engazed]

Hi engazed :-) Do you have any tips to pace a novel? I love the way you have developed your stories so I would like to learn from you.

Oh dear. Here I go. Get ready for a TL:DR.

Pacing is largely intuitive. There’s no clear definition, and no formula to follow to ensure ‘good’ pacing. In that way, it’s very much akin to ‘flow’. I once had a professor who complimented my easy style and the rhythm of my sentences and asked how I had learnt to put a sentence together (not in the grammatical sense, but in the aesthetic sense). At a loss for a more sophisticated explanation, I simply replied, ‘It sounds right.’ But when I say intuitive, I don’t mean instinctual, necessarily. I believe that with enough practise, we fine-tune our intuitions until it becomes more and more natural and just ‘sounds right.’

So it is with pacing. As a writer, it is sometimes difficult to be sensitive to the actual pacing of the novel. A scene that takes you two weeks to write--and therefore feels like it may be long and involved--may take a reader mere minutes to blow through and barely be impacted by. This is why it is critical to read one’s own work, top to bottom, beginning to end, while adopting the perspective of a fresh reader who has never encountered the work before. This is hard to do, but one gets better with time.

I have three ‘rules of thumb’ when I’m writing that, I believe, help me with pacing. The first can be stated succinctly:

1. If I’m bored, my reader is bored.

This applies at virtually every stage of drafting and revising, but I think it is most critical when revising. Before you call something ‘finished’, read it again, like you’re a new reader. If there are paragraphs, scenes, or even whole chapters of your own work that you tend to slog through, skim, or skip altogether, just to get to the good stuff, don’t expect that your reader will feel like it’s fresh and interesting. Moments like that slow things down. So if you’re bored, use that as a rule of thumb that something isn’t working with respect to pacing.

But when it’s working, you feel the energy of the scene as you read it. Even the less critical moments should be significant in some way to justify its existence, by providing new information pertinent to the plot or texture that fleshes out a character. If you can honestly say that it does neither of these things, have the guts to delete it. If it’s doing something important, but not doing it well, rewrite. Keep yourself interested. Delight yourself first, and the right readers will find you.

So how do you make something not boring?

2. Balance texture with dialogue.

What I mean by texture is the internal and external features of a scene. Sometimes less experienced writers prove their inexperience by ignoring the internal thoughts of a character, or forget to paint the scene, or leave us with nothing but talking heads. What I mean by ‘talking heads’ is all dialogue and no action.

Don’t get me wrong; dialogue can be a lot of fun to write. It’s actually one of my favourite things to write, because it comes most easily to me. But if you have straight dialogue and little else, you run the risk of committing another pacing error. Instead of slowing things down with unnecessary stuff, you speed it along too quickly for the reader to really take in. You start writing as if for a screenplay, not a novel (two very different mediums when it comes to the craft of writing).

If I may shamelessly pull an example of this from my own work, Blackbird, Fly, chapter 1, I can illustrate what I mean. Here’s the scene: Mary has arrived at St E’s for a ‘consultation’ with John Watson, intending to seek his assistance as a private detective. Without texture, here is how the scene reads:

‘Good morning, Ms Morstan,’ he said. ‘How are we today? You told the nurse you were experiencing some discomfort—?’

‘Chest pains,’ she blurted out. ‘Trouble breathing.’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘‘Let’s have a listen, then, shall we?’

This is literally the conversation, the words passed back and forth between Mary and John. But we’re missing three crucial things that will help the pacing of this scene work: Mary’s internal self and thoughts, brief exposition, and the actions of the two characters.

With those things in place, here’s the actual scene. [I will use italics to indicate Mary’s thoughts, underlining for exposition and description/details, and bolding for actions.]

‘Good morning, Ms Morstan,’ he said, drawing up a swivel chair. ‘How are we today?’

His voice was warm, his smile soft, and when he lifted his dark blue eyes from the clipboard to meet hers, there flickered a moment in which she saw him mirroring her expression, and he knew her, too. But no—she had imagined it, because he recovered himself quickly, cleared his throat, and returned his attention to the clipboard. But a slight flush remained behind to colour his cheeks.

Consulting her chart, he began with a practised air of professionalism, ‘You told the nurse you were experiencing some discomfort—?’

‘Chest pains,’ she blurted out. Yes. That wasn’t a lie. She was definitely feeling some sort of ache in her chest now, a little to the left. ‘Trouble breathing.’

‘Oh.’ He flipped a page, eyes narrowing, and she realised her mistake. Dr Watson was a general surgeon, for whom the abdominal pains she had invented over the phone got her an appointment. In his line of work, he would have little to do with chest pains.

Before she could flounder and fluster in correcting herself, Dr Watson rose from the stool and took out a stethoscope, settling the tips in his ears. He wasn’t questioning her. He wasn’t calling her out on her obvious deceit. Instead, he just smiled, a close-lipped and kind smile, and said, ‘Let’s have a listen, then, shall we?’

Mary wondered if she was being indulged in the lies of a hypochondriac.

Clearly, many of these moves can happen simultaneously, and they should feel seamless upon reading/re-reading. But they add richness to the scene and set an appropriate pace. Different scenes will call for different kinds of pacing. Short paragraphs are great for action sequences, rapid lines of dialogue are great for arguments, etc. But getting a feel for what’s ‘right’ or what ‘works’ takes practice while you’re fine-tuning your intuitions.

3. Rule of 3

Finally, I want to talk about my own inclinations to plot things in three stages. As any of my readers know by now, I am writing a trilogy, but each book in that trilogy is divided into three parts, and each part has a three-point arc, and each chapter in that arc also follows a three-part model. This isn’t painstaking plotting on my part; it sort of naturally evolved because that’s how I ‘feel’ a story is told. Remember what I said about making sure your reader doesn’t get bored? And how you shouldn’t allow yourself to get bored? Well, one of the ways I make sure that I don’t get bored is by working toward mini climaxes, as it were, well before we reach the big one at the end.

Let me use Ten Days as an example. This book has three parts. The first one ends at the end of chapter 9, the second at the end of chapter 22, and end of chapter 30. Each of those parts had an arc including an ‘inciting incident,’ ‘complications,’ and ‘turning point.’ Let me use Part 1 of Ten Days to explain.

Stories begin with a moment of crisis. It’s exactly why there’s any story at all to tell. If your first chapter doesn’t contain it, you haven’t started the story yet. You’re lips are just flapping in the wind. For Ten Days (and, incidentally, for the whole of The Fallen), the moment of crisis is when John Watson is abducted off the streets of London after buying a wedding ring. If that doesn’t happen, there is no story. That’s why it’s the inciting incident, and the reason a reader will keep on going. A crisis has been introduced, and it is in want of a resolution. In this case, the resolution we are seeking is rescuing John.

Complications keep the plot moving forward. They come in the form of obstacles that keep characters from reaching the sought-after resolution. Complications are introduced in Part 1 in the following manner: Lestrade isn’t allowed to work on John’s case and must do so secretly; John’s abductors turn out to be torturers, and his life is now at risk; Sherlock returns but continues to play a dead man; Anderson and Donovan suspect something is afoot; Sherlock deduces a mole in the Yard; Mary is abducted.

Complications are where the plot actually happens. It’s not merely this event occurred, then this one, then this one. It’s more purposeful, and it’s what distinguishes stories from others of like ilk. There are a lot of stories where John is kidnapped out there. What makes them different? The complications that follow after the moment of abduction, the events that seek resolution but are thwarted. And thus, story is born.

We finish Part 1 with one of the major turning points in the novel: the death of Mary Morstan. This is a mini climax itself, a point of great tension, and thereafter things are not, and cannot, be the same. These are game changing moments that precede the final resolution. Before this point in the novel, John was tortured and afraid, but he was still fighting and hopeful of rescue. After Mary dies, he stops talking and longs for death; the abuse hadn’t broken him, but losing her does, and now we, the reader, are left to wonder how a resolution is even possible. The stakes become clear, but the solution does not, and this kind of tension can motivate a reader to keep going.

Part 2 ends with John’s rescue, but through the series of complications and character developments, we have come to realise that saving ‘John Watson’, the resolution we’ve been seeking, isn’t quite so simple. It’s not just saving him from Moran. It’s saving him from himself, and that’s why Part 3 is needed. You can take the man out of the torture chamber, but you can’t take the torture chamber out of the man, as it were. Hell, that’s why Books 2 and 3 are needed. We’re still on a mission to resolve the kidnapping in chapter 1. We still need to save John Watson. 

(As a side note, ‘saving John Watson’ is exactly the point the whole of the BBC Sherlock as well, start to finish. I have many thoughts on that subject as well.) 

What does this have to do with pacing? Everything. These three-point arcs can happen on a macro and micro level, but they must happen, because it’s the roller-coaster that keeps your reader interested. If gives the writer a series of destinations to reach, not just one. If you’re thinking large-scale, that is, if you are hoping to write a novel-length work, pacing becomes a critical factor, and thinking in terms of three (three acts, three-point arcs, etc.) can help facilitate an easier, more natural story-telling rhythm.

[malwurt]

An Editor’s Review: The Iron Wyrm Affair

Title: The Iron Wyrm Affair

Author: Lilith Saintcrow

Edition:

The Collected Adventures of Bannon & Clare

Orbit

Omnibus edition 2018

Chapter(s): Prelude

The Collected Adventures of Bannon & Clare

“Emma Bannon, forensic sorceress in the service of the Empire, has a mission: to protect Archibald Clare, a failed, unregistered mentath. His skills of deduction are legendary, and her own sorcery is not inconsiderable. But a deadly conspiracy against mentaths and sorcerers alike could either seduce them both into betraying their Queen—or get them both killed.”

An Editor’s Review is a series reviewing books in the realm between casual reader and professional editor, trying to call attention to what I, as an editor, would notice in a manuscript. As these are all published books, the criticism will be less extensive than if it was dealing with a newly submitted manuscript; the review will focus less on grammatical details and more on the common pitfalls of even established authors. Because this is a review and not a response to a received manuscript, the tone will also read more personal than professional.

Prelude

Archibald Clare is visited by Emma Bannon and her Shield, Mikal.

 Character

First of all, Archibald Clare is a blatant rip-off of at least one iteration of Sherlock Holmes:

. He’s introduced as a genius-level ‘mentath’, which is the author’s own term for someone of brilliant criminal deductive reasoning. His mentath-status is an employment, if not also a social status of some sort.

. He plays the viola.

. Stacks of research line the living room to the extent that there is nowhere to sit.

. Mrs Ginn, his landlady, holds herself responsible for the cleanliness of the apartment.

. Clare smokes a pipe.

. The only named adversary, described as ‘wonderful’, is a professor, much like Moriarty.

 These are the most defining characteristics of Clare, which is a huge red flag. To not only take inspiration from another character but lean so heavily on the specific characteristics is risky. In certain genres, it works well: Disney is famous for its reiterations of classical tales, and satire uses this as a defining feature. In fantasy, though, it’ll almost always fall short and be considered unoriginal, and in a genre that gives authors so much potential for originality, it’s something that immediately turns me away from one of the two main characters.

 Secondly, the narrator’s voice is very clearly a mouthpiece for Clare, but it falls short of showing what the audience has been told about him: that he’s a deductive genius.

 As for Emma Bannon, though characterised through Clare’s observations, she isn’t much better off for an introduction. Many of the observations Clare makes about her are superficial, adding only to her looks and nothing to her character. When describing a character in the beginning, this might make sense, but during the chapter, the descriptions continue as if they’re supposed to say something, such as here:

 “Her curls, if they were not natural, were very close. There was a slight bit of untidiness to them – some recent exertion perhaps?”

 Much of what we know of Bannon after this introduction is that she dresses in fashionable Victorian clothes and some of the more general things about her station, but nothing to flesh her out.

 Narrator’s Voice

The narrator’s voice is reflective of Archibald Clare’s voice, although not exclusively, making it an omniscient narrator, but so far without interference of an author’s voice. This means it’s the job of the narrator, as a mouthpiece for Clare, to reflect what the audience is being told by other characters or on the cover/jacket of the book about him. However, the prelude falls short of this. Here are some examples:

 “When the young dark-haired woman stepped into his parlour, Archibald Clare was only mildly intrigued. Her companion was of more immediate interest […]”

 Clare then proceeds to spend six (6) lines describing her companion, the Shield, Mikal, before spending twelve (12) lines describing her. This is a small detail, but if someone notices, it immediately discredits the narrator as unreliable. It’s understandable, from the author’s point of view, to want to spend more time describing Bannon, as she is the second main character of the story, but if the narrator states that Clare is more interested in Mikal, this isn’t the time.

 One of the main staples of Clare’s character is that he is a genius. However, the many deductions he makes throughout the prelude are completely without any real intelligence behind them. A fictional writer’s job will always be to create illusions: everything they write is a figment of their imagination. But if an illusionist doesn’t do their job properly, the immersion is dispersed. The same way with writers. Examples of Saintcrow falling short of her task are:

 “As the suspected, she spoke.”

 Mikal has been described as a rather physically intimidating figure. It is not a big surprise that he’s there as a guardian of Bannon.

 “Her toilette favoured musk, of course, for a brunette.”

 This sentence reads awfully, and in the end, it comes off more as a terrible inside joke that the reader isn’t privy to than anything of substance. Why would brunettes prefer or not prefer musk in their perfume? What does her hair colour have to do with how she smells? We learn later that people connected to the court in some way have traces of musk in their scent, but this isn’t explained or elaborated upon. Apparently, the Queen herself mixes it with violet-water, but instead of describing this to the reader, to let them catch a glimpse of Clare’s insight and knowledge and feel included, Clare simply intersperses all his thoughts with ‘of course’ and ‘evidently’, making him sound pretentious and shallow.

 “He had been researching, of course. The intersections between musical scale and the behaviour of certain tiny animals. It was the intervals, perhaps. Each note held its own space. He was seeing to determine which set of spaces would make the insects (and later, other things) possibly—”

 A great example of the fade-to-black of background knowledge. When an author tries to establish a deep understanding and curiosity in their character with an example but don’t have any knowledge to back it up with themselves, so they introduce an interesting theory and cut it off before anything can be said about it because they didn’t bother to fully form it. This breaks belief in the character.

 Superfluous Expressions

Because the narrator is a mouthpiece for at least one of the characters present, superfluidity can be excused as part of what makes the character. Whether or not these persist if/when the narrator jumps character can determine whether this is a great example of characterisation or laziness. However, if they’re not used for characterisation, these expressions are a great example of what you should cut out:

 “His faculties were, evidently, not porridge yet.”

 “For the moment, he decided, the man’s drawer would remain metal.”

 The second one is insidious in another way: by way of using the narrator as a mouthpiece, we already know that Clare decides this, just by way of it being written out. The sentence could essentially do without those two words completely and still mean the same, as such: “For the moment, the man’s drawer would remain metal.”

 Nonsense

Some ways of turning a phrase might be superfluous, which is bad enough, but others, in their effort to bring life into the writing, make no sense at all.

 Like: “She cast one eloquent glance over the room.”

 Language can be eloquent. It is the act of giving a verbal (or written) account well. A glance is taking something in visually. Both the sense and the difference between giving and taking is notable. A glance cannot be ‘eloquent’.

 Or: “If she knew some of the circumstances behind his recent ill luck, she would guess he was closer to imploding and fusing his faculties into unworkable porridge than was advisable, comfortable… or even sane.”

 First of all, it is impossible to implode or fuse your own faculties by will. Unless Clare had described either a kind of technology or magic that he’d do it with, this simply reads like juvenile dramatics. Second of all. ‘closer than was advisable, comfortable, or sane’ is a turn of phrase you would use about something that could be more or less advisable, comfortable, and sane. As it is, Clare is being ridiculous. Perhaps it is a deliberate character choice, but given the rest of the chapter, it reads more like the author’s attempt at wit, which falls short here.

 Dialogue

There isn’t much dialogue in this introductory chapter, but there is especially one interesting exchange:

 Clare: “Sorceress. And a Shield. I would invite you to sit, but I hardly think you will.”

Bannon: “Since there is no seat available, sir, I am to take that as one of your deductions?”

 The reason why this exchange is worth calling attention to is because it calls attention to itself. Instead of reading smoothly, it instead reads like something the author thought would be a short battle of wits: showing that Clare is worthy of his mentath-status, then turning that exhibition on its head and reflecting well on Bannon by letting her parry his apparent deduction.

 However, the exchange falls short because the subject of discussion is so poor. If Clare had predicted something interesting and Bannon had called him out on it, the interaction would have been interesting too. If either of their reactions had been surprising, so would the conversation. There isn’t just one way of elevating the scene, but none of them have been used on this scene.

[kmoor]

Dream #1: 12/26/17, 3:15 p.m.

“A Game Called Cyrical”

Disclaimer: I always have weird dreams, but I can only remember so many of them. I thought it would be a good Idea to start documenting them on here.

Part 1:

I meet a guy in an unfamiliar place. I’ve never seen this individual in real life, but I can use significant features to describe him. He’s was a tall black man with a low-cut. If I remeber, he wore a jean jacket with ripped jeans? He had a large smile. He asked if he could pick me up from the same spot we were standing on later that day. I thought about it, almost said no, pondered, and eventually said yes. A name was not given, so we’ll call him Mystery Man.

Interruption:

This is where the situation gets weird: I’m not sure if this was before, or after meeting this man, but I had the job of cleaning up after people who slept in one big room. I eventually leave because there are a few people who left in the middle of the night leaving their trash everywhere on the floor (bare with me, I know things don’t make since, but that’s how dreams are).

I end up in another building (or dream scene) and see myself asking a lady where a particular library is. She gets upset at me as if I’m supposed to know already, and signd me up for a tour for people who don’t know where the library is. An older lady had the same issue, and I told her to follow me on the tour. I thought the tour was a bunch of bull. l left after seeing the old lady leave once she saw that the library was right in front of us the whole time.

Back to Part 1:

After meeting this Mystery Man, he takes me to his place I guess, and I meet a few of his friends. A girl and a guy I think. Fast forward, I think we developed a relationship, but things start to turn south. We were in what look liked my moms bed and were just talking. All of a sudden, we here voices in the ceiling. I remember them saying,”Yeah, they’re right here”. Two black men with red motorcycle jackets burst out of the ceiling, and start yelling at us (I’m just as confused as you are on this one). I think the two men are asking questions, but I cant make out what they were saying.

Part 2:

After that, my dream switches scenes, and I’m in a room with Mystery Man and his friends. They’re arguing and I’m arguing with them about broken friendship or trust (I don’t know). His friend, the girl, is speaking to me and tells me how the Mystery Man has a 21-year-old girlfriend back home. I’m like “Oh really?” and I start packing my bags. He didn’t try to stop me so I guess he didn’t care.

Before the girl told me this, I remembered she kept saying something like,” I wont apologize until we play this game together”. I thought she was crazy, and I started leaving, but I was actually interested in this game. She called it Cyrical. I don’t know what the hell it is, but I end up playing it anyway.

Cyrical is a game of challenges played on a game system. The Mystery Man, his friends, and I play a challenge called, The Big Dazzle Dance (This is honestly the best part of my dream). In this challenge, we are introduced to a series of dances we have to stay in sync with throughout the game. A variety of people are shown demonstrating the dances. Each has their own name, one being called The Diddy (huh?), and all of the contestants have to change their moves once the dance changes on the big screen. There is one song being played throughout the challenge. Each contestant has to find a partner before the game begins.

Somehow, we end up being in the game (literally), and I’m lost trying to find a partner. The girl offers me to dance with her, despite our argument, and the game begins. As I’m looking around, we’re all dressed in gold, and everyone is gold. The game is harder as the dances change quickly. In the end, everyone forms into a large dance circle, and a white lady (She looked like Rachel Ray) dressed in all-white begins recording us from the middle. I join the circle a little too late, but still manage to join in on the last couple seconds of the song. The End.

Now, I have at least two or three different dreams in one carcadium cycle. I have this thing I call dream scenes where my dreams will skip or switch scenes in one dream. It’s confusing, but if you dream as much as I do, I feel like you’ll understand. At least a little. It also has to do with not remembering things in a dream once you wake up.

Like I said before, I hope to document more in the future. I apologize for any grammatical errors or my sentence structuring. I’m writing what comes from the top of my head.

[chrisww23d-blog]

Saynotomonkeytreehongkong-VOA Special English

Saynotomonkeytreehongkong, VOA Special English program in VOA (Voice of America) broadcast nearly 50 years, is a long time not to the excellent program. The original loyal audience, young listeners, and now have their own daughter, son, granddaughter, grandchildren to listen to this program together. Why this program will be so popular, many of us are told to hear more special English will you learn our English very helpful? VOA Special English program content is broad, if you can adhere to long-term study, you can not only expand the knowledge, increase vocabulary, improve reading ability, but also improve the level of writing in the subtle. So how did you use VOA Special English to learn to improve your English? ------------------------------- Best Practice 1: Listen with VOA Special EnglishThe VOA Special English program is available on MP3, and the sound file is recorded by a senior professional announcer in the United States. If you want to improve your English listening comprehensively, the VOA Special English program will be a very good listening material. And the fastest and most effective way to improve the English listening is to dictation, how to listen to it? Here are several levels to introduce the dictation method.(A) the level of primary English students (equivalent to high school students and freshmen English level) to do dictation method1, from the http://www.qiewo.com/ website to download a 5 minute report to the computer (including download the report of MP3 recording and text), ready for an English dictionary or electronic dictionary.2, carefully read the report text one or two times, do not understand the words immediately check the dictionary.3, the text aside, began to listen to the report of the MP3 recording, and will hear the write down, is to do dictation exercises. Has been circulating, as much as possible to listen to their own, all written out.4, their own dictation and manuscripts to find out, do not dictate the words, and marked with the mark, these did not hear the words may be very simple, but the fact that you did not dictate, these are your blind spots, So pay special attention.5, and then repeatedly listen to the report of the MP3 recording, this time without pen and paper dictation, but in the head to do dictation, that is when you hear a sentence, the head of this sentence to spell out, to ensure that every one And listen to the pronunciation of words that you did not write when you dictation.6, the next day to listen to the above report of the MP3 recording, and use the above 5 points used to listen to the law. The fourth day to listen to the above report of the MP3 recording, wait until the seventh day to listen to a few, still use the above 5 points used to listen to the law. Why should you listen? Because we do not understand, because listening to too little. The purpose of repeated listening is to strengthen, so that you form a kind of hearing reflex, that is, let you have heard a certain word can immediately reflexively read in your head to write the words you hear.Practice listening a bit like practicing computer typing in the blind fight, spend time doing exercises will naturally blindly hit, if just thinking about how to learn to blind and not to practice, then you will never learn to blindly play.(2) Intermediate English level students (equivalent to low grade English majors, non-English majors, masters level) Dictation methodThe basic method and the level of primary English students use similar methods, choose to listen to the material when the first listen again, if you have really can fully understand, that this is too easy for you, please change the difficulties, Methods 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 of the order to do dictation exercises.Best Practice 2: Use VOA Special English to train pure English pronunciation and expressionWhen you are listening to Chinese to learn foreigners who speak Chinese well, they often feel awkward to listen, because his pronunciation and sentence makes us feel very uncomfortable. Similarly, a good English proficiency in the Chinese people in English, there are Chinese and English pronunciation and sentence of the problem.If you also have English pronunciation is not allowed, the style of partial culture will make English mother tongue country people difficult to understand what you said, leading to language communication difficulties. So, how can we reasonably use VOA Special English learning materials to help us train pure English pronunciation and expression? The following is a practical feedback through the practice of the best training methods.1, from www.qiewo.com download a VOA Special English program mp3 recording and matching text to the computer or MP3 player;2, do not play mp3 recording, but their own when a broadcast host, facing the program text, read aloud loudly, and recorded to the computer or other equipment can record the sound;3, the cycle of their own recording, and control the program's official mp3 recording, and seriously find out their own in the word pronunciation and sentence movements, the severity of the pronunciation of the problem;4, carefully read the program text, learning to express things, emotions and other types of sentence used. For the commonly used sentence, they can also imitate to create a few sentences, to deepen understanding.All short report (5 minutes) and feature report (15 minutes) in the VOA Special English program are generally available as training materials, especially Words and Their Stories and American Stories, for Words and Their Stories and American Stories is the nature of the story, the host in reading these two topics when more affectionate.Best Practice 3: Practice pure English writing with VOA Special EnglishMost of us learn English are more like to listen, saying that few people often take the initiative to write training. The biggest obstacle for our Chinese to learn English is that there is no or difficulty in forming an English mode of mind. And often the English writing can really help us to enhance English thinking ability, so as to comprehensively enhance the comprehensive level of English.Often someone will have this question: Is the grammar of my writing something correct? Does the sentence express Yes ah, we are writing, a lot of sentence structure is their own made out of the accident, accidentally spelling mistakes, grammatical mistakes, Chinglish. How should it be avoided? How should you train a pure English writing ability?The answer is here, the text of the VOA Special English program is written by the US local program editor, so the text of the VOA Special English program is the best reference for our study and writing. The following is a specific operational recommendations.1, first read your favorite VOA Special English special program text. VOA Special English program under 14 topics, you should be able to find their favorite topic. Intensive reading, is to read the fine, earnestly learn new vocabulary, learn one of the sentence and expression, learning the paragraph structure of the article.2, to this article as a reference, write a similar topic of the article. For example, one day the PEOPLE IN AMERICA program tells the story of an American writer, then we can imitate the writing of a Chinese writer such as Guo Moruo, Zhu Ziqing, Lao She and other writers. Writing to imitate the paragraph structure, imitate the narrative techniques, and finally complete the writing.