Suggestions to writers... from readers.

BarbarianKing

BarbarianKing

Knight of Narnia
Staff member
Knight of the Noble Order
I want to create this thread to make CONSTRUCTIVE suggestions to writers who want to post their stories in this section. Please no negative stuff and no discussions. Just things that will make it easier and more enjoyable to read all the stories.

I have the first two. Please add more things you think writers should do that will make you want to read their stories.

Do not post an extremely long chapter in one post. I don't like being timed-out by the server when I read it.

Do try to separate your paragraphs by an extra space. It's very intimidating to see a huge amount of words with no end in sight. Besides, it's so much easier on the eyes. Your story has to be extremely good for me to ignore such inconvenience.

Anyone else?

(Mods, I don't mean to presume but if enough good suggestions are given, may this warrant a sticky?)
 
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Awesome idea for a thread! :eek: As a writer.. trying to write a -novel-.... your suggestions pang me a bit.. but it's still an awesome idea for a thread :D Someone should have thought of this earlier
 
I like this idea too. It can be so furstrating when you love a story, but don't want to read it because of how much effort it takes.

My suggestion: Whenever someone speaks, put it on a new, separate line just like a new paragraph. If there's a lot of dialogue and you don't put line breaks, it's easy to get confused about who's saying what. With the line breaks, there's no confusion.
 
Rache_san said:
Someone should have thought of this earlier
Click to expand...


What is proposed here comes within the purposes for which "Marketplace of Technique" was created years ago; but I'll go along with my good buddy B-King.

Something which I have noticed painfully in text-based roleplaying is also applicable to fiction writing. Don't use a wealth of pronouns without keeping their antecedents clear. For instance, the sentence "She told her that she was using her towel" could have several meanings--especially since the last "her" could even be referring to a woman _besides_ the one speaking and the one spoken to.
 
Thanks CF. However, I wasn't thinking about grammar, syntax, and all those other goodies that anyone can find in the "Marketplace." I was looking more for general ideas on how to make their stories readable in the format of this thread. Some good techniques can go here too, but for detailed writing rules, the best place is said "Marketplace" above.

The suggestion about not using too many pronouns is a good general suggestion that goes a long way to make stories more understandable.
 
Then here's another tip suited to story technique:

MAKE NOTES FOR YOURSELF, TO AVOID CONTRADICTING YOURSELF!!

When I wrote my on-forum novel "Flying Girl and Iron Merchant," I described my heroine in an early chapter as leaving someone a _written_ message. But later, having forgotten my own early scene, I said that she _didn't_ know how to read and write! Not one of my readers caught that mistake of mine; I only recently noticed it myself when reviewing the story.
 
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