Dear people who like to write stories,
For the love of God, when the speakers change, start a new paragraph.
Here, I'll show you and example:
BAD
"Hey, Annie! Can I borrow a pencil?" Bobby put on his best smile and looked at the girl next to him. "Not in a million trillion years, boogerhands," Annie said with a sniff. Bobby's face crumpled. Ever since that day Buster and his knobhead jock friends had caught him digging for gold at the bus stop, that nickname haunted him--Boogerhands Bobby. "I had a cold that day, alright?"
GOOD
"Hey, Annie! Can I borrow a pencil?" Bobby put on his best smile and looked at the girl next to him.
"Not in a million years, boogerhands," Annie said with a sniff.
Bobby's face crumpled. Ever since that day Buster and his knobhead jock friends had caught him digging for gold at the bus stop, that nickname had haunted him--Boogerhands Bobby. "I had a cold that day, alright?"
______________
See? Understand?
Posted by Zoso at July 21, 2007 06:12 PM
Go Zoso! I'll admit that my grammar and spelling leave a lot to be desired. Heck, I should probably sit down and read both a dictionary and a thesaurus. I am not a very good writer either, but come on, some mistakes that people make have me questioning the quality of our schools. I've even seen a story with no punctuation once so ever... How the heck can you forget that? Now, if English isn't your first language, kudos to you for even trying, but if it is and your still spelling "garage" like "graudge," you need some help. Some stories I can't even decipher because the spelling and grammar are so bad. If you are a writer looking for positive feedback and constructive criticism to improve your story, you need to make an effort in the first place. Now, if you suck at spelling and grammar *raises hand* get a beta. People will have more useful things to tell you about your story if they don't have to stop all the time and try to figure out what this word means or what that sentence was trying to say. Now I'm not trying to discourage writers, because bookworms like me appreciate the effort, I just wish to read a story without mentally correcting millions of mistakes.
Posted by: Mia at July 22, 2007 05:40 AMI actually overlook a lot of mistakes when reading online stuff, but stuff like this just ruin things for me. >:( It makes it worse when it is actually a really well written piece, except for this mistake.
I politely leave the author a message most of the time. It depends. The ones that are horribly written, with grammar mistakes like confetti, I don't even bother and just move along. FF.net is such a bad place for ego stroking. I've read complete garbage over there and people continue to write stuff like, "OMG! Dis is 2 cul!" when all someone did was write like six lines of sentence fragments. * rolls eyes *
Posted by: Zoso at July 22, 2007 08:36 AMFF.net is a bad place to go to post a good story. A good chunk of the stories are... hmmm... how to phrase this nicely... well, they are complete crap. Maybe 1 out of 15 stories is read-able with a decent plot line. I've seen 20,000 word paragraphs written in caps that just leave me shaking my head and hitting the back button.
Posted by: Mia at July 22, 2007 11:03 AMSo, where does one go to find the good stuff? LOL I've been out of the loop awhile.
Posted by: Zoso at July 22, 2007 04:01 PMlol. I was hoping that you would know a good site or two. I don't really know any good sites for fiction stories, although I wish that I did.
Posted by: Mia at July 23, 2007 03:49 AM