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Wasteland 2014-05-28 23:21:32


This is a sample of my submission to WNG's very first anthology! Man I can not wait for this thing to come out. I've gotten the opportunity to read some of it already and was pretty impressed. We're all still testing the waters with each others' styles and abilities, but I think things are looking good. If you haven't already, come and join us, we're always looking for fresh perspectives and fresh ideas, and I would personally love to have new authors to collaborate with on new projects.

ANYWAY! WNG plug is out of the way, on with the story. Taking place in rural Illinois, Wasteland is a piece of contemporary fiction about good people with bad habits, and about what it takes for someone to take the kind of hard look at their decisions that is required as catalyst to any substantial life change. I hope you'll enjoy my submission to WNG's FIRST EVER ANTHOLOGY....Wasteland.

FOR ALL THE WRITING NERDS (like me):
I wrote this story in a third person limited perspective...I found myself positively assaulted with a barrage of pronouns. I didn't think it would be as much of a struggle as it was, but I fought through it. The submissions for this anthology, if you decided to write a story, had a 2'000 word cap...a cap I initially exceeded by 240 words. I was intimidated by the idea of cutting out 240 words from what felt like such a short story...where would I find the words to cut?

I was surprised to find how easy it was. Working with this cap was a blessing in disguise for me. On the one hand, I was discouraged because it felt constraining, and once I blasted through the word cap, I was temporarily lost. On the other hand, forcing myself to trim it down to that 2000 resulted in what I think is a leaner, tougher, more concise story. In other words, the freedom with which I wrote the original work actually ended up dampening my results. After I did some serious editing, I found not only was I able to get it into the right word count (although at the VERY maximum), I was more satisfied with the end product.

So, moral of the story, taking a critical look at your work is essential. Most aspiring writers don't have a team of editors to back up their vision. All we have is our own drive, and our peers. WNG ALL THE WAY (sue me!)

Looking forward to reading the rest of the anthology...June 20...Can't wait!!

So now that I'm done with this...that means I am ready for more side projects! Woot! If anyone has ANY project that they would like to collaborate on, I am available, and I am ready to get working immediately. Want to work on a story together? Sounds great. Want to spearhead a Story Relay project like this one I started last week? You know I'm down. Want me to write a poem about your cat? Hell yes, I WANT to write a poem about your cat. PM me.

Krash, WNG


Krash17's mental health secrets:

Drink more water, sleep well, and if you want friends, be a friend.

Response to Wasteland 2014-05-29 08:25:31


So I'm new with these download things, and I wonder; how could I download an rtf file?


BBS Signature

Response to Wasteland 2014-05-29 10:17:43


At 5/29/14 08:25 AM, TomJason wrote: So I'm new with these download things, and I wonder; how could I download an rtf file?

Rtf is just"rich text format". Rtf files can be opened with Microsoft Word or WordPad. Thanks for your interest!


Krash17's mental health secrets:

Drink more water, sleep well, and if you want friends, be a friend.

Response to Wasteland 2014-05-29 17:26:19


WIth that wall of text, I'm a little intimidated in checking it out, but I'll try to get around to it

so much enthusiasm

Response to Wasteland 2014-05-29 17:38:12


At 5/29/14 05:26 PM, protoAuthor wrote: WIth that wall of text, I'm a little intimidated in checking it out, but I'll try to get around to it

so much enthusiasm

Haha...thanks for your interest. Yeah I pretty much love writing, I get a little...enthused.


Krash17's mental health secrets:

Drink more water, sleep well, and if you want friends, be a friend.

Response to Wasteland 2014-05-29 22:18:31


At 5/29/14 10:17 AM, Krash17 wrote:
At 5/29/14 08:25 AM, TomJason wrote: So I'm new with these download things, and I wonder; how could I download an rtf file?
Rtf is just"rich text format". Rtf files can be opened with Microsoft Word or WordPad. Thanks for your interest!

No, not like get the rtf itself, but to download the rtf into the server.


BBS Signature

Response to Wasteland 2014-05-29 22:39:24


No, not like get the rtf itself, but to download the rtf into the server.

I don't think I understand the question lol are you asking how I posted it on the site?


Krash17's mental health secrets:

Drink more water, sleep well, and if you want friends, be a friend.

Response to Wasteland 2014-05-30 02:47:44


It has been a while since I was last active on here, providing feedback/criticism on some people's submissions. Given that what you've written is pretty short, and does look like it has already had some editing, I figured I would get back on the critiquing bandwagon. I'll just quote parts of the story and respond to them below.

Though, first off, I'll give my impression of the story:

I'm aware that this is only a "preview", but what is currently written didn't pull me in or intrigue me. I don't have any reason to care about the characters, not even the protagonist. From the descriptions they appear to be teenagers, given that the protagonist drives his mother's car, and the group has aspirations of careers in selling bongs and growing weed, which isn't necessarily bad, albeit it makes it more difficult for me as an adult to relate, but they come off as one-dimensional. And since I have no vested interest in the characters I don't care if the protagonist is arrested by the police officer near the end. In fact, given that he his driving while high I would like to see him caught and have his licence revoked since that is stupid and dangerous. That could work if the story is about his growth as he gets older and matures, but it didn't read like that was going to be the case.

In conclusion it was certainly not poorly written from a technical stand-point; the grammar and sentence structure is for the most part fine. It's just a story about a kid smoking weed with his friends and then driving home. There's just nothing there for me, and, to be blunt, it's boring.

Just to be clear: I have no qualms with smoking weed; I smoke it myself, as do many of my friends. It's just a mundane activity that doesn't make for a compelling plot point.

He looked around at the scene. Andrew sprawled out on the couch, long limbs stretched out, head lolling back and forth. Angie was picking his head up, letting it drop.

You should be starting out with "Andrew looked around", and then use the pronoun to start the second sentence. If he's a named character it makes more sense to use his name first. Also, what scene is Andrew looking at? It is never made clear.

His head lolling "back and forth" doesn't make sense. It could be be lolling back, but if it's being moved, as is apparent by the sentence that follows, it isn't lolling. You also don't need to say that Andrew's limbs were stretched out since you already described him as sprawled; that's what sprawled means.

Andrew and Angie were rolling, hugging on each other and gasping between gales of laughter, but all Tyler could do was chuckle.

You first described Andrew has sprawled on the couch, and Angie playing with his head, which makes me picture him lying with his head in her lap, but now they're rolling around. I also can't picture people rolling around on a couch without them falling off of it.

Also, the new character, Tyler, should be introduced in a new sentence. It reads awkwardly to have two characters performing actions and in the same sentence have a brand new character also performing an action.

Tyler packed his pipe one last time, a dirty piece of carved jade with a cherry wood stem his granddad used to smoke out of; first tobacco, back in whatever war it was the oldtimers talked about, and then weed once the cancer set in.

This is a rather clumsy sentence. It reads like Tyler is packing both tobacco and weed into the pipe. The use of the word "weed" is also very informal, which doesn't fit well in narration; "cannabis" would sound more natural.

And who has cancer? Tyler or his grandfather? The subject of the sentence is Tyler, so it reads like it's him who does, but he seems to young to have developed it, so it seems like you intended for it to be his grandfather. That would read better if it were split up into two or more sentences.

He focused on what he knew: the sharp smell, the stickiness as he picked out the seeds and stems, the soft crunch of the buds as he packed them down, the greens and browns intermingling: all of these things together gave it a natural beauty not easily matched.

In the RTF document the word "crunch" here is emphasised, which makes it seem like it wasn't soft at all.

It also seems that it is to Tyler that the aroma is creating the supposed beauty, but not I, nor any of my friends, would describe the smell of weed as "beautiful". It's certainly not a bad smell, but it's far from beautiful; the inside of the Louvre is beautiful; the view from the top of mountains in the Scottish Highlands is beautiful; weed is just weed. For him to find that as nigh unmatched beauty gives me the impression that he's a boring stoner whom I cannot relate to. Unless that was your intention, in which case it is working well.

Damn it, the coughing. It was worth it, though. It was always worth it.

This reads like first-person narration.

He even thought Ron was going to join them for a second, but he went to the bathroom and came back to his corner.

That should say that he went back to his corner.

They asked Ronnie what he thought, but he was still slouched in the corner fast asleep.

There should be a comma before "fast asleep". As it's currently written it reads like he was always sleep, which was never previously established.

Ron could usually come up with a good topic, but he was baked out of his mind and had been drinking besides.

When did Ron smoke? He was previously described as being drunk and excluding himself from the group.

Also, besides what?

Time to go.

Why is this in italics? This also reads like first-person narration.

The guy with the supply always keeps the high.

Same two problems here. If these are supposed to by Tyler's thoughts then should just be written as "The guy with the supply always keeps the high, Tyler thought."

He was off, out of the barn, across the driveway, into mom’s Geo, and down the road.

What barn? The descriptions of their environment sounded like a house. Barns generally don't have furniture and bathrooms in them.

I can also only assume you meant "into his mom's Geo" there, but it reads like he's still walking at the "down the road" part since it's part of the same sentence.

He was five miles out of town, but the road was straight and the ground was flat, so he could still make out the stoplight changing in the distance. Green, yellow, red. Green, yellow, red.

Why is the list of colours in italics?

Every time he touched it, the light changed color.

That comma isn't necessary.

Green, yellow, red. Green, yellow, red. Red, Blue, Red, Blue, Red, Blue. Fuck. It’s coming towards me oh fuck he knows I’m high he knows oh shit are my eyes red can he smell it I’ll bet he can smell it all the way down the road oh shit he knows I’m high oh God.

Again, this reads like it's supposed to be Tyler's thoughts, but the story is told in the third-person, so this doesn't really make sense, and it's very jarring.

The lights grew closer but there was no option.

Generally speaking if a police officer flips their lights on at you then you have no options other than to pull over, so that doesn't need to be stated. It would also create greater tension with just "The lights grew closer."

If you want to make it clear that Tyler couldn't flee even if he wanted to then let the description of the scenery convey that to the reader.

He could hear the sirens now, wailing in his ears, screaming that they knew, they just knew that he was high as a fucking kite.

"High as a kite" is a very cliche expression, and they, in most cases, shouldn't be used in narration.

Response to Wasteland 2014-05-30 15:19:58


At 5/30/14 02:47 AM, Diki wrote: It has been a while since I was last active on here, providing feedback/criticism on some people's submissions. Given that what you've written is pretty short, and does look like it has already had some editing, I figured I would get back on the critiquing bandwagon. I'll just quote parts of the story and respond to them below.

Diki. Thanks a lot for your feedback, and taking the time to review. That was pretty humbling lol but I appreciate you being blunt with me, and giving me some tips in the process.

The main thing that got me was the preview...I've never previewed anything before, so it was difficult to decide where to cut it off. I think where I cut it was kind of arbitrary, and after reading it again I can see that it definitely makes it seem like the focus of my story is about a guy driving home high and being paranoid about it. That is an issue, and something I'll certainly take into consideration in the future.

The other main issue that I can't believe I overlooked is that in using this perspective, I failed to identify whose perspective it actually was. It was supposed to be Tyler's, but you identified it incorrectly as Andrew in your review, and that is entirely my fault. Tyler is the main character, and develops more as the story goes on, but the whole thing is sort of a slow build with a late climax, also stunted by the way I chopped up the preview. The other characters...Ronnie, Angie, Andrew: they are intended to be 1 dimensional, to be more like furniture in Tyler's life than any kind of meaningful relationship. Tyler, however, is intended that way at the start, but changes as the story progresses.

The list goes on and on, as I can see from your diligent stretching of the NG character limit in your review. But really...I can't tell you how much I appreciate the time it took you to dissect this for me. I'm going to take a lot of the things you said for action and make some corrections before the final release.

Thanks Diki! I'll hope you'll lend your skills to some of the other previews coming around in the forums!


Krash17's mental health secrets:

Drink more water, sleep well, and if you want friends, be a friend.

Response to Wasteland 2014-05-30 21:20:46


At 5/30/14 03:19 PM, Krash17 wrote: The main thing that got me was the preview...I've never previewed anything before, so it was difficult to decide where to cut it off. I think where I cut it was kind of arbitrary, and after reading it again I can see that it definitely makes it seem like the focus of my story is about a guy driving home high and being paranoid about it. That is an issue, and something I'll certainly take into consideration in the future.

Two-thousand words is certainly a significant constraint, but it's plenty sufficient to tell a complete story. I've never written a preview for a story before so I can't really offer any advice on how to effectively do that, but you could consider changing things around to make it all fit within that word limit. You can also go through the story and remove any words and/or sentences that aren't absolutely necessary, which could end up giving you an extra fifty to one-hundred words. A rule of thumb that I use when editing my writing is to look at the words and sentences I've written: if they can be removed and nothing in the story would be affected, I take them out.

Another handy technique is to put what you've written away for a while (like two to four weeks) and never read or think about it, just work on other stuff, and then come back to it. You'll be able to look at it from a fresh perspective, and you might find problems or things you don't like that you missed before.

At 5/30/14 03:19 PM, Krash17 wrote: The other main issue that I can't believe I overlooked is that in using this perspective, I failed to identify whose perspective it actually was. It was supposed to be Tyler's, but you identified it incorrectly as Andrew in your review, and that is entirely my fault.

I knew that Tyler was the protagonist; any time I just referred to "the protagonist" I was referring to him. Might not have made that clear in my review.

At 5/30/14 03:19 PM, Krash17 wrote: The other characters...Ronnie, Angie, Andrew: they are intended to be 1 dimensional, to be more like furniture in Tyler's life than any kind of meaningful relationship.

That could work. Just know that if the supporting characters are deliberately flat that will require Tyler to be even more engaging and interesting to the reader since he'll be the only character that they can relate to.

At 5/30/14 03:19 PM, Krash17 wrote: The list goes on and on, as I can see from your diligent stretching of the NG character limit in your review. But really...I can't tell you how much I appreciate the time it took you to dissect this for me. I'm going to take a lot of the things you said for action and make some corrections before the final release.

Thanks Diki! I'll hope you'll lend your skills to some of the other previews coming around in the forums!

No problem. Giving feedback like that is an effective learning tool so I'm happy to do it. And I certainly will be giving feedback to other people's writing, so long as it's something they've put effort and thought into (because, let's be honest: some people do post writing here that's nothing more than a first draft that they banged out in one sitting).