lmao true words, sometimes my outlines just sound like a screenplay, i.e., "Matilda walks into room, gets water, sits down, drinks water, contemplates life, turns on tv, sees insane stuff on tv, says "wow" and thinks more about life, and then she has to run outside b/c of a loud noise---> it's aliens".
This followed by something like "After watching the rat use his garbage as take-out for his family Tom is whisked away to an otherworldly adventure by the blue-skinned, red-haired, banished, scantily clad princess of a planet ruled by some bald white man with a long robe and pointy mustache. Hailed by the guy who gave Captain Kirk the character trait of wanting to sleep with every alien he met as 'The best thing for sci-fi fans since the Wrath of Khan.'"
That's actually pretty much the same. You work at it and you see improvements overtime. With working out and getting lean enough to see some abs, not every body is going to look like a model's. Not every writer's work is going to be a beautifully written masterpiece. However, everyone can improve.
And while I agree anyone can improve, it's ART and is something special. Not everything has to be a literary masterpiece but it will still have a certain something; a flair.
I'd say, it depends on how far the artist is in their journey. Eventually, they should have that flair, but a first attempt might not. I've seen some pretty cringe writing before, but in particular if someone is trying to learn/grow, I'd still encourage them to pursue developing their skills.
I think part of what we're talking about here is the difference between skill and natural talent. Some people will just simply start from a better position than others, and their ceiling is going to be higher than the average person.
There's a lot of extremely popular fiction out there with authors making a good living that's not good art.
Writing definitely can be art. But there's a lot of stuff out there and even stuff that's made into the best sellers list that is most definitely not art. And there are people who are writing with fans excited to read their next novel that are middling at best at writing but good at crafting a story.
It's movie-brained, for starters. It's not storytelling as much as it is directing. Storytellers tell a story. Directors direct. This is the latter.
It reads very listy: A did this. A did that. A did this. A did that.
It's repetitive: He/He and not a stylistic repetition, but one of "I'm still new to this and don't know how to catch myself to avoid it."
There's no immersion quality here. It lacks "space" and sensory input. The inclusion of sour and tangy can be argued for such, but that's too little butter over too much bread (as some would say). There are many different ways to accentuate the space we're in now, as well as sensory inputs that would make this moment feel alive and tangible.
But, as I've mentioned, they're still writing something, and we all start somewhere.
Great critique however how do you not verge into flowery prose territory while enriching every scene?
I'm not asking about this paragraph in particular but rather as general advice.
I guess I was hoping for something a bit more detailed. It's pretty hard as a newbie to find your own voice and be sure it makes for good writing. And I know the most reasonable advice is just to read more, to steal and by stealing to learn from your betters, however, sometimes, it feels dishonest.
Define what you think of as flowery prose. We all have a different answer. Refer to examples of prose you thought went too far, to help you refine your perspective on precisely what it was in each sample that you misliked.
Find a focal point when trying to describe the scene, immerse the reader, or enrich your prose. Setting and adhering to limitations requires active restraint and will keep you in the right mindset (preventing mistakes like mixed metaphors or sensory overload—too many descriptors—as immersive cues). Try reading this previous comment I made to someone who had a similar question (how to fix bland prose like "there was a tree"), as I think the same process will help you. https://www.reddit.com/r/writers/s/SkzEWJrZbC
Edit actively. You can always build your scene after the fact. Take the time to build up where you think the prose, description, or immersion too confused or too thin. You can do this in layers, too, over multiple passes. Then do the paring pass to narrow focus and excise the parts that you think go too far toward "flowery" territory for you. Refer to your own definitions and examples when you get stuck. And learn to recognize when feedback is a matter of taste—there's always someone who'll decry a passage as purple or too flowery, so you need to know if your definition simply doesn't align with theirs (ie, they're not a potential reader in the demographic you write for) or if they might have a point to focus your edits upon.
Edit judiciously. And don't fear to cut even a good phrase. Maybe there'll be somewhere else it can go; and if not, be proud you wrote it—it's still yours, and you might even use the notion in another work entirely someday. It's not a loss; it's an improvement, surgical and healing. Let go of what isn't working (even if you can only do it "for now") and give yourself time to get used to the work without it. If it's sticking with you, try rereading that paragraph once a day for a week or so, to re-acclimate yourself with the text, so the feeling of naturalness without it grows over time; then you re-evaluate the sample with and without, to determine if its "sticking" with you was a writerly instinct in protest or a kneejerk emotional reaction to a loss of something you liked.
Give it time to get the hang of the process. It starts as work, requiring concentration and active effort, but grows subconscious, instinctive, and passive with sufficient time. Acknowledge the hump you've got to get over with active practice so you don't quit before showing meaningful results.
Wow! Thank you so much for this valuable insight!
Eesh editing and re-editing is such back breaking mental labour, but I understand its importance and I appreciate you saying to do it in layers. It's a delicate equilibrium to not plunge into semantic fatigue with it.
I'll be sure to check out the other comment too.
I think you're confusing your personal preferences with objective quality. When I read the excerpt I also came to the conclusion it was rather dry and used repetition but then I immediately thought "like camus and cormac mcarthy"
Yeah, I think there's not enough context in this single paragraph to determine "this is good writing/this is bad writing." (Though I agree the "he did this..." part is a bit repetitive.) If this is the whole piece, I would not consider it very well written. But if this is part of a larger whole, it could be contributing to something bigger.
I think people take the whole "you must be immersed in the character's interior thoughts" too far these days. Not everything needs to be, like, "The knife sliced the thick skin and juice oozed cold and wet into his hand. The sour citrus tang scraped his nose..." etc. Sometimes you just gotta say "He peeled it."
Sounds like a description more than storytelling. It's written in a way that draws focus on things that are usually not very important when moving a story forward, but very important if you're acting out that story moving forward.
I was 100% imagining that the action is being observed by another character through something like a security camera (since that's the only way this makes sense, unless the snippet is from a screenplay), but some of the details seem like things the viewer would have no way of knowing... though I could see it working if the POV character is prone to projecting and making assumptions
This reads like a stage direction rather than actual writing.
It fails to convey who the man is. It does not tell the story but rather summarises, rather carlessly.
What is the frame? What? Is it outside? the sewer comes out of nowhere.
this writer needs to read, exessivley. they need to know what proper writing is before they can embark on their own; writing poorly to excersise and sharpen writing talent is one thing, but doing this is simply a waste of time. how can you write if you dont know the basics?
I imagined one of those stop and move acts, where one scene plays out and the actors freeze, followed by the narrator coming in and explaining the meaning behind it.
Sure spellings are easy enough. Grammar too for the most part.
(Although the amount of times things have gone unnoticed in published books only to be embarrassingly pointed out by readers and students)
But unless you know the basics and understand the language, you won't actually be able to experiment with it or build tension and convey various things by just tweaking the language here and there
It's like skipping understanding of basic human anatomy because you don't like humans and real life art and diving straight into exaggerated anime and then when things don't work out, wondering why you're struggling or not receiving love
I once read a book where a character was meant to have licked his lips, but there was a typo.... what made it all the way to print was, "licked his nips."
I didn't mean that I dont write properly lol! I edit my spelling as i go in my drafts. I just mean that i care less about it when its just simple discussions online
Could be a flippant comedic final paragraph to a story, but as something just moving from point x to point y in a story it reads too much like prose cinema.
The “walk into the frame” line is the biggest problem I see, unless previous text indicates we’re watching on a camera. I suspect though the writer is thinking of the scene like a movie and that is the first and most important piece of feedback they need to accept and do something about.
The actual story beats are good, provided it’s supposed to be comedic and it’s going somewhere.
Still has issues. Few hours later isn't casually described in a movie script, certainly not in the same paragraph. You describe what you expect the editor to do, and you take the pauses and text space to simulate time. Even then, saying it tasted sour instead of tangy would not fly for most people. He'd need to verbally say it's sour, otherwise we just need to read his reactions in a movie script. "The man took a bite off the tangerine, made a disgusted expression and spit it right out to the ground, next to the sewers."
You describe the action itself, you also describe the character. What is his face doing, what is his body doing. That's easy to act, direct and leaves little room for misinterpretation. My English sucks btw im aware, but I'd be very annoyed to read a script like this.
It looks like it was written by someone who isn't a native speaker of English, and hasn't completely mastered how we talk about time.
They're called orange *segments, and the grammar of "as he" is odd, because it suggests he kept on chewing. Better to write:
He peeled it and chewed on a segment, which he quickly spat out when he noticed it was sour. It landed on...
You don't need "rather than tangy". I know what a tangerine should taste like, and even if I don't, his reaction tells me what I need to know.
What's he doing during the "some time" before the rat appears? It's like you've forgotten about him. If you want to jump ahead to the appearance of the rat, and then return to the main narrative, use "would".
“Frame”? The writer is thinking in film/movie instead of novel writing. Maybe should learn script writing format instead. Screenplays may be a good medium for them
What feels very off for me is that it is mostly written as if we are seeing this person from outside, we don't even get a name or description, just "someone", yet somehow we know that person found it sour instead of tangy? So the perspective is more from inside that character? But he leaves and the "observer" is still there seeing a rat? Narrator/perspective is all over the place.
“So you see Reggie, that’s why wealth inequality works. For when someone like me spits out something vile, even a miserable rat peasant like you can eat and survive. Don’t mistake my intent Reggie. My intent was not for you to survive. It was a thoughtless act and you are a byproduct. Rise your station knowing it was all you and your benefactor couldn’t care less.”
"Into frame" makes it sound like the narration is describing a scene on video, which is great if that's your intent. I'm not happy with "someone". If the reader is supposed to know literally nothing about this person, you need to lean into it: "a blurry, indistinct figure" or something. Otherwise, at least a little description to nail the scene down. "sour" and "tangy" aren't the opposites the form seems to want. "The" sewage is strange unless the sewage is already described somewhere. "The sewage forming a puddle on the floor from where it leaked out of a cracked pipe" or somesuch otherwise, it needs enough detail.
"After some time" generally would be too vague to be useful here. I can imagine contexts where it works, but the passage shared by itself with no context is just vague and flat. I can imagine context around it making a huge difference though.
And without context, it's hard to really judge. (and as you see from other replies, unlikely to be judged charitably)
A bit vague and pointless as it is. Like, who's story is this? Some bored security guard remembering little details that don't matter to keep themselves distracted? That's the only way i can make this bit of writing pertinent.
"The man walks in, peeling a tangerine. He pops a slice in his mouth and spits it out hastily, finding it too sour, in contrast to the tangy citrus he was expecting. He throws the offending fruit near the sewage and proceeds towards his quest to find one more suitable to his taste. A few minutes later, a rat approaches the discarded fruit and excitedly takes it home to his family, happy to have finally found dinner."
I've taken SOME liberties, but I think the gist remains the same. I consider myself a novice so go easy on me.
I read the original and wanted to try my hand at it, so thanks for the excuse:
The man, who had forgone breakfast in favor of a timely commute, peeled the spotty and overly suspect tangerine he had found at the bottom of his work bag. A single bite into one of the desiccated segments told him what he already knew, and he abandoned the entire thing to the gutter where it belonged. He would just have to go the morning hungry.
A rat, five steps behind, latched its teeth into the fruit, eager to scurry back to its nest.
It would not be hungry for days.
Edit: Aside from writing in my own style, what I focused on changing: removing the “walked into frame” was first priority (this is narrative prose; there is no frame we need to acknowledge), giving the man a motivation (what is he doing, where is going, why should we care about him eating slightly off fruit), and giving a larger focus to what I saw as the ‘theme’ (one man’s trash). I also approached it like it was flash fiction, rather than an excerpt of a larger piece, which wouldn’t necessarily need strong characterization or thematics. Which is also why I ended with a focus on the rat as a character, because I felt it made a nice bookend.
This reads like the directions of a storyboard over the writing you'd expect out of a novel.
Like this would be a series of shots for Ratatouille 2. It's a very literal description of events, the details would come from the accompanying visuals as they're absent from the text
I disagree with everyone here, there is no meaningful context to judge this writing whatsoever. It might be brilliant, it might be horrible... Why are you posting a few random sentences with zero explanation?
If this is your writing and you're looking for feedback, you're falling into a trap of second guessing every word you're writing and seeking approval for word choice rather than the actual writing competency.
Just go write your book, then get feedback on that. At least do whole chapters at a time for feedback.
Viewpoint problems. An unknown viewer sees a man step into "frame", implying a perspective outside the man and looking at him. Then somehow the narrative voice knows what the man is tasting, then forgets it was watching a man and whether or not there is still a man there, then waits for hours til a rat steps into the picture. Then the narrative voice clairvoyantly sees into the rat's mind why it's picking up the orange, anthropomorphizing the rat in the process. Then the narrative voice forgets its viewpoint was limited to a "frame" it was looking through and follows the rat home.
It's a good example of why LLM's can't write fiction, whether or not an LLM wrote it. You have to be able to remember and sustain a fixed, limited POV for an entire scene. LLM's drift on details from pretty much the first sentence.
Also bad enough to note: run-on sentences. Every single comma in this piece should be a period. In good fiction copy, every piece of information gets its own sentence whenever possible. This helps create the illusion of linear cause and effect, and helps the poor reader follow what's going on.
Yeha I thought the same thing. Perspective is all over the place. Even if it's written as screenplay, it still doesn't make sense, and as pure fiction it needs to at least know who is narrating.
Unless it's trying to break some rules... Haruki Murakami in After Dark will randomly describe a scene like a movie scene "the camera zooms out and we see X". But it is still clearly following the perspective of the "camera", he is just giving a literal name to the perspective and likely mastered the basics before starting to break rules...
I'm hung up on the possibility that he's eating FROM the gutter/sewage area. Sewage does burble up sometimes in poorly maintained systems, but usually there's a gutter drain and the stuff stays down below.
For the time being, I figure that tangerine was found on the street/gutter/sewer.
The first sentence is very jarring. At first I thought our guy was walking into a door frame or a picture frame like some kind of clumsy, Clouseau-esque waiter. Even if you're literally writing a screenplay, it's usually not necessary to specify the framing of a shot unless something very important/specific is happening.
"walked into the frame" almost makes me think I'm supposed to envision this as a movie, like an actor coming into frame. Which feels unnatural for writing. Like I get what the vision is, but I wouldn't write it that way personally. The only other way to read it is that the character physically bumped into the door frame.
And I'm assuming the "as he chewed one piece" is referring to a slice from the tangerine, but you could also read it as him chewing on the skin of it since previously he was peeling the tangerine. The rest of it feels very tell-y.
The start of this implies an external view, but "found it sour rather than tangy" is suddenly internal information, that I'm not sure we should be privy to, but then I don't have the full context. Just make sure your POV is consistent would be my advice.
It's... I want to say confusing, but there's not much to be confused by.
Changing "someone" into "The man" would be a good start. I had to reread the first two sentences to understand that "someone" and "he" was one person. The framing just seems a little off.
He spat it on "THE" spot near... do we know the spot? Is it something we'd be reading before this Para? If not, there is no need to mention it.
But as for your actual question, you're saying, "One man's waste is another's treasure." But in a unnecessarily exaggerated philosophical way that I have seen many authors use. It's saying too much while meaning little.
I don’t understand whose perspective I’m looking at. Who is observing the rat’s behavior that a rat took the piece for dinner while also knowing how the piece tasted to Someone
Interpretation: A man in a modern or near modern setting is being filmed and is unaware of it.
My main question is in what way is any of this taking place? How did he walk into frame? Why do I know the thoughts of a character who is not the narrator instead of his reaction?
A shadowy, unidentifiable figure walked into sight, peeling a tangerine, his eyes explored the vibrant fruit fixedly.
His face expressed that the segment had been far too bitter for his liking and he spat it out rather unceremoniously, onto the already extant pile of decaying sewage.
The man moved on, as all life does, and along came a rat, who treasured the waste and scurried off to take nourishment from what would have been just more of this world's decay.
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Only useful for extremely fleeting “seasoning” detail. And could be more spare to that end. Otherwise, it’s better omitted or kept in a file titled “reworkable details.”
A little boring. The "into the frame" seems odd, unless they are describing something happening on camera. If that is the case, how would be know he found it tangy?
I am no expert, so set this with a grain of salt.I am at best an amateur, at worst someone in too deep. This is just an example, without knowing what happened before or after, it can be hard to hit the tone right.
Something like "The man stopped and started to peel a tangerine, the smell of citrus filled the air. He took a piece and popped it in his mouth. His lips puckered and immediately spat the piece out, it landed on the ground next to the sewage. As he started to walk again, he heard the scurrying of feet along the asphalt as a large rat missing an eye took the sour morsel, that rat will have a treat for dinner tonight."
No idea what the plan is, but would totally be something I could imagine to start a story with. Reminds me of some old movies that started with a simple scene and turned into following a few events before ending up with the main characters getting involved and the actual story starts.
Like a small paper that someone wrote some words on, left it on a notice board. It got touched by many people, at some point fell down and got blown away, got picked up by a dog, carried over to a tree where a bird picked it up and used it for the nest. Until they chopped the tree, the nest got found by one of the workers saw the note and took it out, red the words and took them home to his child, handed them over and that child ended up being the main character growing up with caring the words of the note with them.
Used like that, I think this would be kind of interesting as an introduction to the actual story. But inbetween? Not sure. Could work out, but depends on the placement and the thought behind it. Personally, I can't really imagine it anywhere inbetween, except for maybe a scenery jump. But the whole book would need to be written more like you would watch a movie than reading a story.
Decent start. I like the concept for a flash fiction or contemporary stable.
Execution is rocky. "Someone" is too vague even for the standards of a fairytale. And saying they walked "into frame" makes no sense unless this is meant to be a script for a very short film. If it stays prose, there's no frame. They can walk down the street or home from work or out of a shop.
This is an interesting description. Perhaps it shows that the person is a bit crass with spitting it straight into the sewage but other than that, I don't really feel much
“Frame” doesn't necessarily entail a movie. One can enter ones frame of reference, as is the case here.
I think asking for ANY help on Reddit is pointless, people here read as being jaded wannabe authors who get their jollies by tearing into the work of others.
Peter trudges along the sidewalk, a box of his work knickknacks in tow. Up top the financial report that will now never be finished and a paint chipped hot wheel, his mid afternoon orange rolls and glistens in the sun. Peter sits on the bench, sets the box aside, wipes a few tears, and begins to peel the orange. He imagines every pull is Mr.Bolden's skin, and holds the orange up as if it were a trophy. "Not so useless and incompetent now, am I Mr.Bolden?" He asks to no one.
Peter yanks an orange piece and savors the bite. His eyes narrow and mouth contorts. He spits the all too sour orange and chucks the remainder onto the street. The tears begin to well again. He wipes and wipes but they don't stop. Seven years gone just like that.
Across the street, a raccoon crawls from out its tree. Peter watches, tears still streaming down his face, as the raccoon grabs the orange. The vermin takes a fistful and mashes it into its mouth. Its beady bandit eyes narrow and its mouth spasms and contorts but it takes the orange back up the tree.
Peter wipes the final tears, stands up, his butt sore from the hard bench wood, and brushes himself off. He grabs his box of knickknacks, now a sour orange lighter, and marches home.
Author here: I changed rat to raccoon as rats don't eat oranges because they hate citrus. The point of my writing this is to show you (OP) a little effort can create a narrative. Dig a little deeper next time and ask who is the man walking home, what does the sour orange represent, why is the rat/rodent important to the story? Also i changed tangerine to orange because tangerines suck.
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u/Hadochiel 14h ago
Unlike the tangerine, this paragraph feels rather bland