[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 23 KB, 468x349, ferret.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3213170 No.3213170 [Reply] [Original]

If you opened to the first page of this in a bookstore would you continue reading beyond this:

One thing most people don’t know about video game journalists is that, as a rule, we double as competent sharpshooters. With real firearms, I mean—not that the reason for this is altogether separated from gaming: publisher junkets in the industry are often themed around the content of the game being promoted, so an event for a fight night title might be held at a gym where journalists can spend a few rounds in the ring being battered by D-list professional boxers; a week ago I previewed need for speed: retribution from the backseat of a nitrous-equipped 240sx. Given the market’s still-fiery love affair with military action shooters, over half the pressers your average journo attends in the year 20XX take place on firing ranges in the middle of the Mojave Desert. I’ve personally clocked over 19 hours behind the M4 alone, to say nothing of my multiple encounters with M249s, AK-74s, turret-mounted .50 cals—all military-grade weapons, for those unversed in gun-slash-gaming parlance. And so my aim is true . . . smoke rises in a wisp off the barrel, through which I can see the word applebee’s—LED letters still dull and unlit at this sad hour between afternoon and evening—at the far end of the strip mall, outside the blood-splattered classroom windows that fenestrate Mr. Sanderson’s CW 404 here at Everest Colege, where I am a student. Or was. Todd crumples to the floor but to be safe I put a few more in that soft, round body of his, enjoying it even; then I train my pistol on John, finally, the only other person in this room whose breathing doesn’t yet rattle with impending death.

>> No.3213171

and if you care to read beyond that, would you care to read beyond this?

http://pastebin.com/m9V2eGJ5

>> No.3213181

>>3213170
That second sentence is a mile long.

>> No.3213186

Nah. My knee-jerk reaction is that it's attempting to cash in on some sort of shock reaction that really only winds up boring me.

Don't get discouraged, and keep writing. Even if you might not be feeling too hot about it just yet, I'm sure you might find a way to make it work for you, and I think that if you consider yourself your primary audience, at the very least, you can be happy with your own work.

>> No.3213190

>The profiles of fast-moving faces stream past the door in a continual panicked blur that’s sliced into small diamonds by the crisscross pattern of the window’s wire-glass pane.

I like this one. Some are so sprawling, though, that I lose interest by the end of them. Pretty well written though. Strong voice. I'm enjoying it.

>> No.3213203

>>3213186

One reason I'm hesitant to start with this scene...on the one hand I'd like to begin with a 'hook', but on the other the scene actually is structurally important and not violence for violence's sake. Not that you asked for me to defend myself or anything.

>>3213190
>>3213181

re: sprawling sentences -

Noted, thanks.

anyway, everyone feel free to post first sentences, pages, chapters, or whatevers of your WIPs, I'm interested in reading them.

>> No.3213217

>>3213170
You had me until the killing.
Also "fenestrate"
I studied German for 4 years and spent another six building homes and installing windows. It's a familiar root to me and yet, I still want you to die in a fire for using it.

>> No.3213222

>>3213203
You know, I'm beginning to think that things like hooks, in medias res, et cetera, et cetera, are more used to sell paperbacks than they are to actually improve the quality of the work.

If starting with that scene makes you comfortable and happy, do it, and if it doesn't, don't. Don't feel the need to cater to anyone's tastes but your own. Your readers don't need you to chew up your work and vomit it into their gullets.

>> No.3213224

>>3213217
Probably because you're saying "the windows that window." I don't think it works that way. A wall could be fenestrated but I think the credit for fenestration should be limited to architects, glazers and installers.

[spooiler]windows gonna window?[/spoiler]

>> No.3213228

>One thing most people don’t know
Hmm, knowledge, this could be interesting
>about video game journalists
you're losing me, this better be funny
>we
ugh, the protagonist is a video game journalist, it's not going to be funny in the way I expected
>double as competent sharpshooters
I better put this down now because if I throw up, I have to buy it

>> No.3213234

>>3213224

spooilers gonna spooil

>> No.3213236

>>3213170
>video game journalists

I stopped reading there. This is a tell-tale sign of absurdity. It is a mark of a mind so deep into it's own consuming behavior it can't help but live in an illusion.

>> No.3213242

>>3213228

lol. The book mostly shits on the idea of video game journalism, if that's any consolation.

re: the fenestrate thing -

Oh gee I feel dumb. I've seen it used in similar ways before and thought I was fine, guess not. Thanks for the heads up.

>> No.3213246

>>3213236

Agreed!

>> No.3213276

>>3213170
Sounds like you are doing Cory Doctorow rule-of-cool nerd-core wish-fulfillment author-avatar auto-fan-fiction.

>> No.3213278

>>3213276
When I wrote that, I hadn't actually suffered through your 'parlance' up until it gets edgy.

>> No.3213297

>>3213236
Just a quick thing:
It's is always the abbreviation of "it is" as in "It's (= it is) a nice day, isn't it?" Its is the possessive of "it" as in, "That is Morton's puppy but I don't know its name." In the second sentence, its means "belonging to it".

Just keeping /lit/ /lit/.

>> No.3213599
File: 44 KB, 729x267, xkcd-cautionary-ghost-literally.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
3213599

>>3213297

'__'

Really?

>> No.3213603

>>3213236
I also stopped. Then I kept reading and became intrigued. I really don't know why it's important that I know this character is a video-game journalist right off the bat. I'm assuming the book focuses on that aspect?

>> No.3213683

>>3213599
Parodying a point to make it sound dumb is a logical fallacy you know. We're not telling you about your mistakes because we think it would cause some world disaster, it's just for the pure sake of writing things correctly. You're on a board that revolves around writing, try keeping your spelling consistent and don't get arrogant because of that. That's all.

>> No.3213832

>>3213683
>it's just for the pure sake of writing things correctly.

See that's the problem. It's not really a 'pure sake', it's a vested interest to subjugate others with the flaunt of prescriptive grammar over minuscule mistakes.

This is a touch-go image-board site, tiny mistakes like the incorrect possessive form of the word 'it,' are bound to happen. We all know what was meant. Yet, here we have some self imposed Grammar Nazi who couldn't let it slide, such a vile flub. You had to go out of your way to 'protect' us from some 'horrible language disaster.'

Really?

Doing things like what you're doing, and then announcing it like you're saving the language, or /lit/ for that matter, comes out of an ego-trip. There is nothing 'pure' about it. It's just another reason for you to retard the English language to a prescriptive position. And you do it so you can either call down on others, or peacock an air of superiority over others. It's snobbery, it's hidden-subjugation, it's just another game of power to play on others.

And learn to know when to sage.

>> No.3216044

I'd start right into the story without all the preamble. If there's something most people don't know about video game journalists, it's probably because most people don't CARE about video game journalists.

>> No.3216052

>>3213170
Games journalism is a fucking joke

no i would not read that

>> No.3216330

>>3213170
Would definitely stop before the third sentence.