posted
I just got a couple of books signed by Mr. Card, and we chatted for a few minutes. He asked me to send him an email, but I didn't get his email address. Does anyone here have it? [Card got your address and deleted it from this spot so you don't get spammed.]
posted
A warning, though. If you are trying to publish that story, don't make it accessible on the web. Including that link counts. The problem is that publishers consider Internet posting/linking to be publication, and won't buy a story that has been freely available already.
Posts: 180 | Registered: Jun 2005
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posted
*blush* shucks... glad you liked it, BannaOj.
Naw, I don't publish anything. I still have 9950 pages of sheer rubbish to write, before anything worthy emerges. May as well post the rubbish online for people to mock.
(Yesterday, OSC told me something to the effect of, "you have to write ten thousand pages of garbage before anything good comes out".)
I'd like to write a novel someday. After a couple of false starts, it turns out to be a lot of hard work. Just keeping track of characters, what they look like, what they do, their history is, who has interacted with whom... egads. I set up a spreadsheet to help.
I suppose it's best to start with an overall plot outline, and then fill in the gaps.
Currently I'm working on a story about a young mexican boy with a mysterious past, and a mysterious gift. It turns out that... erm. Maybe I shouldn't spoil it. If I ever write more on it, it could be really cool.
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To be totally rude and stick my nose in where it isn't wanted- You should really cut down on the comma use because it was very distracting while I was reading. I'll take my nose back now, sorry.
Posts: 870 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
I didn't notice the commas. Still don't see them. Maybe they were edited out?
I tried to write a novel once. I know you are suppose to start with short stories, but I have a story I want to tell and a short story isn't long enough to tell it.
I wasn't trying to make it good or inspiring. I was just trying to make the writing experience fun. And it was fun. I went back thinking I could turn it into something decent and most of it was rubish. Still would like to finish it someday...
Posts: 1209 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
The commas are there-everywhere! You have to see it..they drove me nuts. Maybe because I am guilty of it myself. Other than that it was pretty good.
Posts: 870 | Registered: Mar 2005
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On the comma note, there are quite a few of them. On estimate more than 50% of the sentences are made up of two or more fragments. While great in moderation, too many commas cause the reader to "jitter" through the story. A comma is traditionally where a reader pauses. If there are many commas, they lead a reader to start-stop frequently. Thus, "jittering".
It's like with this exaggerated example: "Because he was tired[,] my dog went to sleep. When he slept[,] as I watched him[,] his legs moved. Eventually[,] I figured[,] he was dreaming[,] probably of squirrels. As his legs moved[,] he growled[,] softly.
That may just be your style, wad, but I would still advise you to work on your sentence fluency. Perhaps alter the lengths of your sentences. It'll probably make your work easier to read. I enjoyed your story greatly, enough so that I wasn't put off by my own prejudices against commas. Keep writing! Posts: 973 | Registered: Apr 2005
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posted
So do authors actually avoid using commas? If I can make a long sentence into 2 or more seperate sentences, I'll do that for sure (I read that Style book a long time ago and I think it says to do that). But, um, I'm just not sure, you know, about the other commas. (Ok, that was an obvious bad example. You know what I mean. In fact, I normally write that last sentence as 1 sentence seperated by a comma. Was it easier to read with a period?)
Posts: 1209 | Registered: Dec 2003
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posted
I wouldn't say authors avoid using them -- they just endeavor to use them correctly. Card certainly isn't innocent of overuse of commas, but I believe it was extremely intentional. Don't know if you remember the following from Ender's Shadow:
quote:"Well that's the funny thing. Perhaps that fight in the line woke up these children to the horror of the life they were living, for that very day one of the big boys--but the weakest of them, with a bad leg, they call him Achilles--well, I suppose I gave him that name years ago, because Achilles had a weak heel, you know--Achilles, anyway--he showed up in the line with a group of little children. He as much as asked me for protection, warning me that what happened to that poor boy with the broken ribs--he was the one I call Ulysses, because he wanders from kitchen to kitchen--he's still in the hospital, his ribs were completely smashed in, can you believe the brutality?--Achilles, anyway, he warned me that the same thing might happen to his little ones, so I made the special effort, I came early to watch over the line, and badgered the police to finally give me a man, off-duty volunteers at first, on part pay, but now regulars--you'd think I would have been watching over the line all along, but don't you see? It didn't make any difference because they didn't do their intimidation in the line, they did it where I couldn't see, so no matter how I watched over them, it was only the bigger, meaner boys who ended up in the line, and yes, I know they're God's children too and I fed them and tried to preach the gospel to them as they ate, but I was losing heart, they were so heartless themselves, so devoid of compassion, but Achilles, anyway, he had taken on a whole group of them, including the littlest child I ever saw on the streets, it just broke my heart, they call him Bean, so small, he looked to be two years old, though I've learned since that he thinks he's four, and he talks like he's ten at least, very precocious, I suppose that's why he lived long enough to get under Achilles' protection, but he was skin and bone, people say that when somebody's skinny, but in the case of this little Bean, it was true, I didn't know how he had muscles enough to walk, to stand, his arms and legs were as thin as an ant--oh, isn't that awful? To compare him to the Buggers? Or I should say, the Formics, since they're saying now that Buggers is a bad word in English, even though I.F. Common is not English, even though it began that way, don't you think?"
As you can see, there are ridiculously many commas -- but it's completely intentional, designed to express how excited (and excitable) the speaker is. Using that many during normal exposition doesn't have such a purpose, at least in prose, so wouldn't be appropriate. IMHYESCO.
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Woah, so glad you guys liked my little story. Maybe I should write some more, ey?
And I'll try to cut back on the commas, too.
There's another one in the works, it's about, well, the discovery of a second time dimension (in addition to the current 3 space dimensions and 1 time dimension). It takes a lot of brain power to visualize a universe with two or more time dimensions. The story's point is to explain how it that second time axis would work.
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If I ever write more on it, it could be really cool.![[Smile]](smile.gif)
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