Hey, SlyTF1, sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you. I've had to deal with a couple of publishing-related crises lately. Anyway, I've been slowly reading your story over--I'm about halfway through--and not bad so far. There are a few mistakes I'm noticing crop up a lot, though, that you should watch out for. You said I could post comments on here, so I'll do that:
1. You have a habit of combining dialog with sentences that aren't dialog tags. What I mean is this: a dialog tag is a "he said/she asked" sentence. But you'll combine dialog with a sentence that isn't its tag, like:
"Bathin, man. Nice to meet you," He reached out to shake Varris's hand.
Always pair up dialog with its tag. But don't pair it up with something that isn't.
2. Conversely, you have a habit of separating dialog from its tag:
"The altairian is clearly mad. Is there any question as to why he's done what he's done?," One other council member responded.
You'll notice you capitalize
one. It's a dialog tag. It's part of the same sentence.
3. You use double punctuation. Notice in the sentence above, you have a comma and a question mark. Use only one punctuation mark. One exclamation point, one period, one question mark. I know you see multiple punctuation for one sentence in comics, but comic punctuation is more relaxed. Moreover, if a character is speaking loudly, let the dialog or the mood do the work. Don't rely on !!!!!!! or ??!!!
4. I'd generally stick to
said and
asked for dialog tags about 99% of the time, not
interrupted or
exclaimed or any other fancy words. The reason is
said and
asked are the most invisible dialog tags, and the dialog itself needs to do the heavy lifting. Make the dialog tags unnoticeable so the dialog stands out. True, you'll need to resort to other words sometimes, but they should be the vast exception.
Another reason is those fancier words are usually redundant. I can tell when a character is exclaiming if you've worked the dialog right. I don't need to be told outright. Same thing with interrupting: you've used that word a few times when the dialog itself shows the interruption. You don't need to tell us. It's redundant.
5. And, not to belabor dialog tags, but you often have a character sighing words they can't sigh.
"I expect you to not go around insulting other prisoners behind their backs. I expect... you didn't... you didn't have to stick a fork in his eye," the Warden sighed .
The warden can't sigh all that, and some phonetic sounds like
p and
k are too sharp for sighing.
Same goes for hissing: there are some phonetic sounds you just can't hiss.
6. Watch your homonyms or closely related words:
affect vs.
effect,
appoint vs.
a point,
wander vs.
wonder,
literal vs. something that's not literal, etc. And, while we're on the subject, check out the difference between
lay vs.
lie,
which vs.
that (yes, there's a difference),
between (to compare two things) vs.
among (to compare more than two things), etc.
7. You should review your capitalization. Some species names should be capitalized, I would think. I know we don't really do that on Earth (dog, cat, snake, human, etc.) but in sci-fi, you often see species names capitalized: Vulcan, Wookiee, etc. You should do this especially if it's part of their nation name: we
do capitalize American, Canadian, Ukranian, Chinaman, etc. So if
bootean is the name of a nation or planet, I'd capitalize it.
But your species names don't get all the capitalizing fun. You capitalize a lot of common nouns: master key, for one. There were a few others, but none come to mind.
8. You relate a lot of things to Earth things. That's not a mistake per se since this place is in the Milky Way Galaxy and people might know about us, but if they do, your readers haven't been told. Moreover, even if they did, would they necessarily relate things to Earth things? They seem pretty removed from us. Stay in your characters' heads. Stay in the location. Don't relate to things outside their realm of experience. If they don't know what a TV remote is, don't mention it, even if you're trying to get something across to the reader, because you'll break your readers' relationship with the character's thoughts and personality.
9. You have a lot of words you can cut. A good idea is to cut as many words as you can from your work. Less is more. For instance,
"Screw this," Varris finally said, out loud.
The fantasies of mass destruction and mayhem he dreamed up and planned out in his head kept him sedated for as long as they could.
"I can," he reassured. He could tell it worked, seeing as though/since he was still alive.
A few long hours after the Warden's talk with Varris, before the station's artificial night system activated, the guards stationed every prisoner to their cells, ushering commands and making demands to get everyone into the place they'd remain for the duration of the night.
And there are more than a few instances of the word
that you could cut. Also, watch your qualifiers:
especially,
finally,
just etc. People like to use them for emphasis when, really, the emphasis doesn't need to be there. Think of the statement "whole entire world." "World" would do. We know the world is whole and entire. Sometimes you can cut these qualifiers entirely. (See what I did?
Entirely doesn't need to be there. The sentence can do without it just fine.) Then again, sometimes you
do want the emphasis. Decide for yourself.
10. Lastly, check out active sentences vs. passive sentences. Active sentences are more direct, when the subject of the sentence is the doer. Passive is more indirect. Check this difference:
Passive: Varris was surprised by Grough's competence.
Active: Grough's competence surprised Varris.
The active sentence is punchier and drives the point home more. Passive sentences muffle the point by padding it with more words. Now, there's a place for passive sentences, like if you want to emphasize something other than the doer (maybe you want Varris to be the focus of the sentence, not Grough's competence) or if the doer isn't stated ("Mistakes were made", "The butler was murdered"), but review your passive sentences and decide for yourself if active would get the point across more clearly.
Anyway, not bad. I still have some reading to do, but I figured I'd give you an update.
Readers don't have the patience to wade through pages of plot and character development, and as writers, we have to hook them (editors in particular) in the first sentence, and pray they'll read on.
Whoa. I'd totally forgotten about that thread!
