Story-writing stuff

[Dallas Alvis II]

Still some story stuff I have been writing to pass the time, and it's been kind of fun now that I'm getting attached to some of these characters. I'm still trying to get the grip of dialogues/conversations in story-writing. Let me know what you think. I'm sure I'll get a "You suck" but HEY!...you know what will really surprise me? An educated critique on things I need to work on so that I will actually get better.

Heh, in all seriousness, I've picked at this and revised it twice which is the least I revise anything I write. I'm the worst critic of my own writing and no matter what, I always think something about it sucks and end up changing it. But anyways...here goes it. Wrote this a lil while ago:

THE GOOD DOCTOR TALKS
----

His eyes were burning from the mist pall, watching on as the vapor swirling up from the chasm drifted to a unhurried south-eastern wind. It wasn’t an ideal location for him to meet the good doctor, but Alex needed to have a chat with him and Draygan still had to be careful with his reputation. Over the past hour, Alex passed the time in a squat, staring at the cracked earth below him in contemplation. Thoughts being mulled on his time left to live, he wondered what his connection to the Azure Child might be and more importantly, who that individual may be. Hopefully, “Doc” as he called him, would have some answers.

Finally, a distinct cadence in footsteps signified the hesitant Doctor Draygan approaching from the south. The old injury to his right knee still kept the man in need of a walking stick and iron bracing. Alex didn’t bother to turn around, he could hear the jingles of keys ringing together from the doctor’s key-ring clipped to a belt loop at his left side. It was a soft pattern of sounds in the man’s steps, even if it was a bit muffled underneath the torn lab-coat. Dr. Kenneth Draygan‘s discomfort was obvious knowing that a former Sentinel, especially Alex North, would be the last who would want to speak to him. “I guess I should not be surprised. You didn’t keep me waiting, friend” the doctor muttered cynically.

“Can’t say the same for you, 'buddy',” replied Alex abruptly, flicking a beetle from his leather shoulder guard, “The bugs were sweet enough to keep me company.”

The man frowned at the hero’s “perky” attitude, forcing himself to speak “I came here for you, this time around.”

“Good for you,” Alex spat with a tinge of spite.

Doctor Draygan limped cautiously to the wily meta-human’s side, though uneager to join him on the ground. He knew that Alex had feelings of ill-will toward him for events past but he still was responsive to the young warrior’s condition. “You said you needed to speak with me, and I assume you had questions for me.”

Good then. Let‘s cut to the chase. “You know this whole meta-freak thing better than anyone,” he replied. “So, just what the hell is happening to me, Doc?”

“I studied your blood sample in the lab, much to our security’s dismay,” Draygan confessed.

“And?” Alex did not hide his bitterness. He didn’t like the idea of sharing oxygen with people like him, much less speaking with them in person. The sooner this was over, the better he’d feel. Or at least, close to better.

“I found something that I have not seen before but I have always had theories of its existance,” he explained, whacking an insect crawling about his cane hand.

Alex was concentrating on the Doctor’s discovery while peering towards the geyser. “Go on, and try to not go all… scientific on me and everything.” With that response, Draygan's face seemed to form a scowl at the rebel's attitude, which seemed insufferable to the man.

“Basically, your body harbors two essence energies and just that alone is dangerous,” Draygan explained, “But they are at variance, as if they were total opposites.”

“Positive and negative energies…” Alex muttered, “Wait a minute, are you’re saying I absorbed 'Tin Man’s' powers? I thought you can‘t draw null/void energy.”

“Yes, so did I at first! But I was able to chance upon an exception to that belief,” the Doctor continued on, “According to my sources, Empaths are singular and can draw all kinds of energy, but there is a particular danger involved.”

Pausing, he looked down to Alex, uncertain of how to proceed. Finally, he heaved a bit eyeing the flowing steam growing more intense. Pointing at the chasm, he explained “Exceeding power, or over divergence could cause a discharge of essence energy. I don‘t know much beyond that, I’m afraid.”

“It means that the combined energies could eventually kill me,” came a cold answer from the rebel gazing into the mist.

“You… already knew all of this?” Draygan promptly inquired.

Alex sneered at the question, giving a subtle tilt of his head to clarify his remark. “Not exactly, but if we lose too much essence; we die. It doesn't matter if our hearts are still beating at the time or if our heads are still on our shoulders. We still die and everything else shuts down.”

Alex decided to go in for the big money and change the subject, “Ken, what do you know about the Azure Child?”

“The Azure Child?” at first, Draygan let out a strong sigh, pausing with his response to briefly devise for some simple explanation for the meta-human, “The Azure Child is well, supposedly, the most powerful meta-human alive.”

“What do you mean supposedly?” The ex-Sentinel’s eyebrow rose curiously at the doctor’s unsound answer.


“Well, that’s just it. The Azure Child was prophesized way before our time” continued Draygan, “She was prophesized by Anelida, the first meta-human who had ever lived.”

“So, then what?” pried Alex, pulling a cigarette from his smoke pouch, lighting, then inhaling.


“Well, Anelida predicted her own death, saying that after she would die her powers would pass on to a ‘successor’,” the geneticist went on, “And that successor would be the Azure Child.”


Alex cocked his head with a slight bend to the right followed with a few rotations, listening to the cracking noises in his neck to feel an ease on the pressure in his spine.

“So who is this Azure Child? What’s so special about just one freak of nature versus the rest of them?”

“She is supposed to be successor to the First Born,” The doctor affirmed giving another icy glare at the sour vigilante. “So, that would lead me to believe that The Azure Child is to have some immense power and I‘d hate to say it but--”

“--But what?” Alex asked, cutting in.

“It is believed that The Azure Child would be a woman, and the only woman with anything close to ‘immense power’ that I know of is R--”

“--Roshelle.” came another interruption from the rebel.

“Right. No one else fits the..well, the 'profile', exactly, all except for--.” Draygan then stopped, thinking that Alex may slice him in two for bringing up Hollie Garland.

Alex didn’t like the doctor’s near-reference to Hollie, knowing where he was going with that sentence. The very reason for the meta-human heroine’s death had come from the geneticist’s negligence in the past. Not to mention, the fact that he could feel her essence fading away from his body each day. But this wasn’t the time to scold him for all of that now. Tapping the ash off the lit cigarette, Alex planted the cancer stick in between his lips and casually rose to his feet. “Well then, it’s time for me time to go, Doc.”

As the hero took a step to stride on north, the doctor stopped him. “Hey, wait a damn minute! Where are you going?”

Smiling at Draygan’s question, Alex parted his lips, barely to reply with the cigarette still pressed in between. “I’ve got a bone to pick with a kid who thinks she’s chaos incarnate.”

“But you don’t know where to find her, North; she’s the damn wind!” Draygan snapped back.

Taking the cig, Alex let it fall to the earth just but a foot or two from the fizzure.

“Maybe, but she can find me more than likely and besides, I have a few places I can snoop around.”

Without another word, the rebel took his steps northbound, leaving Kenneth Draygan behind him for a second time.

****

[Big Rick Cook]

Re: Story-writing stuff

THE GOOD DOCTOR TALKS
----

His eyes were burning from the mist pall, watching on as the vapor swirling up from the chasm drifted to a unhurried south-eastern wind.

Needs to be an, simple mistake.

Thoughts being mulled on his time left to live, he wondered what his connection to the Azure Child might be and more importantly, who that individual may be.

This is a pretty sloppy sentence with a fair amount of unnecessary wordiness. "Alex sat mulling over well-worn thoughts, alternately his time left and who the Azure Child might be - and Alex's connection with him." This feels a lot cleaner to me without force-feeding the information down your throat.

Hopefully, “Doc” as he called him, would have some answers.

Really no reason to toss Doc in quotes here. This is gonna be a common complaint for me throughout. You seem to use random methods of emphasis and far too much of it. Less is better, it almost always is.

Alex didn’t bother to turn around, he could hear the jingles of keys ringing together from the doctor’s key-ring clipped to a belt loop at his left side. It was a soft pattern of sounds in the man’s steps, even if it was a bit muffled underneath the torn lab-coat.

These two sentences bother me, because the first one's parts don't seem to have anything to do with each other, and the punctuation should be a semicolon at the very least as a separator of thoughts. But the thoughts seem disconnected altogether, so tying them into the same sentence wouldn't work for me at all anyways. Perhaps suggest why he doesn't bother turning around, or separate that thought from the jingle of keys.

Jingles of keys is wrong, or it looks like it should be wrong, but your sentence is really awkward here. Cut it down to "he could hear the jingle of keys from the doctor's key-ring clipped to a belt loop." Unless the key ring on his left side is some important nuance to the story, it really doesn't matter to describe that deeply.

“I guess I should not be surprised. You didn’t keep me waiting, friend” the doctor muttered cynically.

This is gonna be a common complaint for me, as well. Sometimes you put punctuation before the end of your dialogue and sometimes not. Either always do it or never do it. It's technically correct to have the punctuation, but there's plenty of people who get published without doing it; just do or don't consistently.

“Can’t say the same for you, 'buddy',” replied Alex abruptly, flicking a beetle from his leather shoulder guard, “The bugs were sweet enough to keep me company.”

This feels like a run-on sentence, and 'buddy', is an example of a couple different things. I probably wouldn't even emphasize buddy here, because the subtext you've built up between Draygan and Alex already suggests they are not friends or buddies, but if you feel you must emphasize it visually, it needs to be done correctly. Italics should win out in the emphasis war, not italics and single quotes (whatever they're called). If you are going to use the quotes, commas and periods generally go inside the quote mark, like 'buddy,' instead of 'buddy', . If you intend to use them, do it consistently. Other punctuation marks (colons, semicolons, question marks, exclamation points) go inside the quotations only when they exist as part of the thing you're "quoting"; otherwise they go out.

The part that feels like a run-on sentence is because you have him start new dialogue with a capital but let it sit as part of the previous thought. An easy, less messy version of this sentence would be something like:

"Can't say the same for you, buddy." Alex lazily flicked a beetle from his leather shoulderguard and continued, "The bugs were sweet enough to keep me company."

The man frowned at the hero’s “perky” attitude, forcing himself to speak “I came here for you, this time around.”

Again, the quotation as emphasis. You need to pick one form of emphasis and stick with it, because I've seen quotes, italics, and bold throughout this thing for the same concept of emphasis. It just leads to annoyance when reading.

And you need some form of punctuation between speak and "I.... A comma would work fine there, but it's your gig.

Doctor Draygan limped cautiously to the wily meta-human’s side, though uneager to join him on the ground. He knew that Alex had feelings of ill-will toward him for events past but he still was responsive to the young warrior’s condition. “You said you needed to speak with me, and I assume you had questions for me.”

Are you telling the story from a third person omniscient perspective? At first you were telling it from Alex's perspective, but here you shift to the doctor's perspective. This is really only acceptable to head-hop on perspective when you're doing a third person omniscient, in which you as the narrator can describe anything and everything that may or may not be transpiring in a scene, or any scenes, anywhere in the world, at any time. This includes character's thoughts and feelings. So far as I'm concerned, there's nothing wrong with head-hopping so long as you, broken record here, do it consistently throughout the story.

And another example of seemingly random emphasis. I'm not gonna keep quoting and holding your hand on those, I expect you'll be able to find and fix them yourself.

“I found something that I have not seen before but I have always had theories of its existance,” he explained, whacking an insect crawling about his cane hand.

Spelled wrong. Spell check should have caught this, as even the Firefox spell check flagged it.

“Go on, and try to not go all… scientific on me and everything.”

This is exceedingly awkward to read because it doesn't sound like the natural flow of dialogue at all. "try not to" would make this flow much more like a person would actually speak. I'm not saying anything about split infinitives here because that's a myth and you need to decide for yourself what sounds better, but "to not go" in this particular configuration of consonants just took me all the way out of the sentence.

“Positive and negative energies…” Alex muttered, “Wait a minute, are you’re saying I absorbed 'Tin Man’s' powers? I thought you can‘t draw null/void energy.”

Again, you've got a bit of a run-on sentence here because you have him starting a whole new train of thought with a capital letter and everything, but it's coming off a point of dialogue that's already been started. Split the sentence or lowercase "wait" and everything looks better.

“Yes, so did I at first! But I was able to chance upon an exception to that belief,” the Doctor continued on, “According to my sources, Empaths are singular and can draw all kinds of energy, but there is a particular danger involved.”

Blah blah read above.

... he explained “Exceeding power, or over divergence could cause a discharge of essence energy. I don‘t know much beyond that, I’m afraid.”

Here you just lack the proper punctuational indicator. The capital of Exceeding is fine here because there is not a separate dialogue that happens before it. And "over divergence" would best be served as a compound word, over-divergence.

“It means that the combined energies could eventually kill me,” came a cold answer from the rebel gazing into the mist.

I don't know. "came a cold answer from the rebel gazing into the mist." just reads awkwardly for me. Maybe switch back to Alex's perspective at this point? Up to you, really, I can't put my finger on why this sounds so odd and bad to me.

“Not exactly, but if we lose too much essence; we die.

essence, we - The structure of your statement here doesn't require you to split "we die" off in its own thought. Semicolons are to be used sparingly if at all to relate two complete thoughts in one long sentence. Here, you have two very short thoughts or sentences, the first of which is incomplete. "Not exactly, but if we lose too much essence" has to be able to stand on its own, which it doesn't. Just toss in a comma instead of a semicolon here and all is well.

“Well, that’s just it. The Azure Child was prophesized way before our time” continued Draygan, “She was prophesized by Anelida, the first meta-human who had ever lived.”

prophesied - Again, an example of a misspelling that your spell check should have caught, as Firefox's also caught it. If you don't have a spell check in your word processor, or for some reason don't have a word processor, get Open Office.

“So, that would lead me to believe that The Azure Child is to have some immense power and I‘d hate to say it but--”

You've only so far made Azure Child a proper noun, but suddenly begin here to make "The" part of the proper noun status. Pick one and stick to it.

Taking the cig, Alex let it fall to the earth just but a foot or two from the fizzure.

Read that sentence carefully and figure out where you forgot to remove a word from one version of the sentence to the next. Also fizzure is spelled wrong. Fissure.

_____

There you go. Everything you need to write properly based on the things you did wrong by way of grammar, spelling, and syntax. Once you can write and edit a piece of fiction or non-fiction without all these egregious errors, you will be ready to begin honing your skill into creative and inventive writing that doesn't necessarily hold the reader's hand through every nuance of every character's motivation and subtext.

[Dallas Alvis II]

Re: Story-writing stuff

Thanks. Some of this stuff I had a feeling that they didn't sound right when trying to read them. Well detailed too as far as your advice goes. Quite honestly, I didn't expect anyone to actually do that, but it was a big help to be honest. I'm using Works and the Spell Check seems to be lacking. Perhaps a switch back to Word could help with a good chunk of this. Again, thanks a bunch. And yeah, I am going for third person that does that. And consistency seems to be my biggest flaw in story-telling, particularly in sentence structure. And conversation isn't easy for me to write, I'm not exactly sure why. Practice makes perfect, though.

[Big Rick Cook]

Re: Story-writing stuff

You're quite welcome. =)

I used to think I had a really terrible time with dialogue, and I still struggle with it a lot, but it comes down to knowing how people talk, and translating that into something fresh and interesting to read. Not exacty "easy" to do unless you just have the ear for dialogue. I wish I did. So just keep working at it and remember that less is more in writing. Mora used to pound that into my head and I'll never forget it now.

[Dallas Alvis II]

Re: Story-writing stuff

You'd think it would be easy to do, but it's not easy for me. I can picture it but I really have to think hard to try to get that same visual to the reader. It can be exhausting. I'll try to keep all of this in mind.

[Loki]

Re: Story-writing stuff

Okay... This is pretty bad. I don't think there's a well written sentence in the whole thing. But that's okay. The most important thing about writing is to do a lot of it. The more you do the better you'll get. Keep writing and revising and you'll soon have something decent.

Rick touched on a lot of the grammar stuff so I'll try not to restate anything said.

His eyes were burning from the mist pall,

Right off the bat I'm confused. Just what is "mist pall?" A pall is a enveloping air of gloom or horror. I've heard of a "pall of mist," which is a poetic way of saying "fog," but never "mist pall." I can sorta picture what you were going for here but then you also say his eyes were burning. Is this mist toxic? Is he holding his eyes open for too long without blinking? Too many questions are raised all at the service of flowery words. This is bad enough as it is but sentence isn't even half over yet.

His eyes were burning from the mist pall, watching on as the vapor swirling up from the chasm drifted to a unhurried south-eastern wind.

The whole thing is really awkward. It's vague if it's him or if it's the mist pall that's watching on. There should be a comma after on to separate the action of the watching from the swirling up of the vapor. Then, the vapor drifts towards a unhurried south-eastern wind. Wind can be a lot of things but it's not often "unhurried." And why is the vapor drifting towards it. Usually, it's the wind that moves vapor. And is it important that we know the wind is blowing to the south-east?

This is what's known as purple prose. The writing is too ornate for its purpose. Clear and simple is always better than flowery and convoluted. If I have to figure out what you're trying to say the less invested I'm going to be in your story.

The sentence could be better written as: "He watched as the vapor rose from the chasm and drifted to the south-east."

It wasn’t an ideal location for him to meet the good doctor, but Alex needed to have a chat with him and Draygan still had to be careful with his reputation.

Another confusing sentence. The way this is worded it suggests that there are three characters: Alex, Draygan, and the good doctor. It takes a bit of mental work to figure out that Draygan is the doctor and not someone who's waiting with Alex. Again, if I have to think about what you're saying the less I care about Alex and why he chose a bad location.

It might help to break this into two sentences: "It wasn't an ideal location for him to meet the good doctor, but Alex needed to have a chat with him. The doctor still had to be careful with his reputation and couldn't afford to meet where they might be seen." Or something along those lines.

Over the past hour, Alex passed the time in a squat, staring at the cracked earth below him in contemplation.

Some bad word choice here. "Squat" and "crack" makes me think of pooping. Why is he squatting? Wouldn't it be more natural just to be standing there? This is made especially ridiculous by the fact that Alex never stands up when the doctor arrives and carries out the whole conversation on his haunches.

Thoughts being mulled on his time left to live, he wondered what his connection to the Azure Child might be and more importantly, who that individual may be.

This sentence is no good. Let's take it a piece at a time.

"Thoughts being mulled on his time left to live..." Aside from the confusing "on his time left to live," this part is written in the passive voice rather than the active. This means that the subject is acted on by the verb, rather than the subject acting the verb. Passive writing is weak and uninteresting. Nothing does. Everything is done to. Rewrite so that the subject does the mulling. "He mulled over his thoughts, his time left to live, and what his connection to the Azure Child might be."

"...and more importantly, who that individual may be." This feels redundant and it's an awkward way to end the sentence. I'd cut it.

Hopefully, “Doc” as he called him, would have some answers.

Fair enough. Like Rick said, kill the quotation marks and this is an okay sentence. It's always better to show than tell. Why not leave out "doc as he called him" and just have him call Draygan "doc" in conversation?

Okay, that's the first paragraph. I'm not going to go through every sentence but each one has these same problems of passive voice, purple prose, and convoluted structure. A good way to catch this stuff is to read what you've written out loud. If it sounds awkward then rewrite it until it doesn't.

Finally, a distinct cadence in footsteps signified the hesitant Doctor Draygan approaching from the south. The old injury to his right knee still kept the man in need of a walking stick and iron bracing.

Awkward. "Finally, Alex heard the distinct cadence of Doctor Draygan's footsteps to the south. The doctor had injured his right knee a long time ago and had to use a brace and cane to walk. This produced a unique "clink, thump, clink" that distinguished the doctor's step.

Alex didn’t bother to turn around, he could hear the jingles of keys ringing together from the doctor’s key-ring clipped to a belt loop at his left side. It was a soft pattern of sounds in the man’s steps, even if it was a bit muffled underneath the torn lab-coat.

What's with the keys? I already know that Alex knows it's the doctor thanks to his distinct cadence. Does he really need to hear the keys too. And if he does, is it important that they're clipped to his left belt loop and muffled by his lab-coat? This is excess description.

Dr. Kenneth Draygan‘s discomfort was obvious knowing that a former Sentinel, especially Alex North, would be the last who would want to speak to him. “I guess I should not be surprised. You didn’t keep me waiting, friend” the doctor muttered cynically.

Nine times out of ten it's better to just write "the character said" rather than any number of "muttered"s, "spat"s, or "confessed"s. It might feel unnatural when you're writing it but it will read better in the end. Did he really mutter here? That implies a nervousness that's not present in his dialogue.

“Can’t say the same for you, 'buddy',” replied Alex abruptly, flicking a beetle from his leather shoulder guard, “The bugs were sweet enough to keep me company.”

Rick said it already but it bears repeating, don't use italics or bolds for emphasis. They're so over the top that it's hilarious. They will kill any dramatic tension you've built.

The man frowned at the hero’s “perky” attitude, forcing himself to speak “I came here for you, this time around.”

The sarcasm here doesn't work. I read it as genuine the first time through and thought it was a contradiction. Also, terms like "the man" and "the hero" are generic and vague. Call the characters by their names.

“Good for you,” Alex spat with a tinge of spite.

Doctor Draygan limped cautiously to the wily meta-human’s side, though uneager to join him on the ground. He knew that Alex had feelings of ill-will toward him for events past but he still was responsive to the young warrior’s condition. “You said you needed to speak with me, and I assume you had questions for me.”

Kill "wily." Alex hasn't done anything to be wily. He's just been a jerk. Again, show, don't tell. You can't just say a character is wily, or clever, or brave, or timid, or any other thing. They have to act in these ways for it to be believable.

Good then. Let‘s cut to the chase.

Don't do this. The italics don't intrinsically mean that this is interior dialogue. This reads as if you, the narrator, are telling me that we're going to cut to the chase in the story. "Let's cut to the chase, Alex thought."

“You know this whole meta-freak thing better than anyone,” he replied. “So, just what the hell is happening to me, Doc?”

“I studied your blood sample in the lab, much to our security’s dismay,” Draygan confessed.

What? This is really confusing. Why would security care what he studied? "I studied your blood sample in the lab, despite the danger" or "I studied your blood sample in the lab, much to our safety officer's dismay" is what I think you meant to say. Unless you did mean that the people who's job it is to keep people who don't work in the lab out really were worried about Alex's blood. In that case, why?

"And?” Alex did not hide his bitterness. He didn’t like the idea of sharing oxygen with people like him, much less speaking with them in person. The sooner this was over, the better he’d feel. Or at least, close to better.

Ahahaha. "Sharing oxygen?" That comes off as silly. Who thinks like this? "He didn't like the idea of breathing the same air with people like him" is better but still way over the top.

“I found something that I have not seen before but I have always had theories of its existance,” he explained, whacking an insect crawling about his cane hand.

"Cane hand" is weird and unimportant. "...he explained, whacking an insect crawling about on his hand." Another thing that's been bothering me the whole time is that you use a lot of excess words. The more words you can cut from a sentence the stronger it will be. Such as "about" here. "Crawling on his hand" and "Crawling about on his hand" mean the same thing. The "about is superfluous.

Alex was concentrating on the Doctor’s discovery while peering towards the geyser. “Go on, and try to not go all… scientific on me and everything.” With that response, Draygan's face seemed to form a scowl at the rebel's attitude, which seemed insufferable to the man.

I think it needs to be "or anything" here instead of "and everything." The second half of this is so strange. "With that response" is clunky and unnecessary. "Seemed to form" even more so. Just say "Draygan scowled." And then we don't need to be told that Alex's attitude seemed insufferable, we know that it is.

“Basically, your body harbors two essence energies and just that alone is dangerous,” Draygan explained, “But they are at variance, as if they were total opposites.”

Variance is a bad word choice. It feels like you ran to the thesaurus and grabbed the most impressive word you could find. Can I suggest "incompatible" instead? It still sounds science-y but is much more clear.

“Positive and negative energies…” Alex muttered, “Wait a minute, are you’re saying I absorbed 'Tin Man’s' powers? I thought you can‘t draw null/void energy.”

Muttered makes more sense here but all these descriptors of talking have lost their power because you've used them too much.

“Yes, so did I at first! But I was able to chance upon an exception to that belief,” the Doctor continued on, “According to my sources, Empaths are singular and can draw all kinds of energy, but there is a particular danger involved.”

Pausing, he looked down to Alex, uncertain of how to proceed. Finally, he heaved a bit eyeing the flowing steam growing more intense. Pointing at the chasm, he explained “Exceeding power, or over divergence could cause a discharge of essence energy. I don‘t know much beyond that, I’m afraid."

“It means that the combined energies could eventually kill me,” came a cold answer from the rebel gazing into the mist.

"Came a cold answer from the rebel..." Oh so purple. Alex can still gaze into the mist but at least give him the dignity to be involved in the conversation rather than having him toss his answers out into the world hoping that they'll come to the intended recipient.

“

You… already knew all of this?” Draygan promptly inquired.

Alex sneered at the question, giving a subtle tilt of his head to clarify his remark. “Not exactly, but if we lose too much essence; we die. It doesn't matter if our hearts are still beating at the time or if our heads are still on our shoulders. We still die and everything else shuts down.”

It's really not subtle if you explain just what it means. "Alex sneered at the question, tilting his head." Or better: "Alex sneered at the question." Also, it's hard to sneer at a question and then answer it.

Alex decided to go in for the big money and change the subject, “Ken, what do you know about the Azure Child?”

"Change the subject" is redundant. "Alex decided to go for the big money. 'Ken, what do you know about the Azure Child?'"

“The Azure Child?” at first, Draygan let out a strong sigh, pausing with his response to briefly devise for some simple explanation for the meta-human, “The Azure Child is well, supposedly, the most powerful meta-human alive.”

"Pausing with his response to briefly devise (take out 'for') some simple explanation for the meta-human..." is unnecessary. All this is implied in the sigh.

“What do you mean supposedly?” The ex-Sentinel’s eyebrow rose curiously at the doctor’s unsound answer.

Can an eyebrow raise curiously? I guess it can, but that implies that something about the way the eyebrow rose was weird. "Alex's eyebrow rose at the doctor's unsound answer" is all that's needed.

“Well, that’s just it. The Azure Child was prophesized way before our time” continued Draygan, “She was prophesized by Anelida, the first meta-human who had ever lived.”

“So, then what?” pried Alex, pulling a cigarette from his smoke pouch, lighting, then inhaling.

Hahaha! What's a "smoke pouch?" If it's your own invention there's got to be better name for it. If you're just trying to be clever call it his pocket or fanny-pack or whatever you were envisioning.

“Well, Anelida predicted her own death, saying that after she would die her powers would pass on to a ‘successor’,” the geneticist went on, “And that successor would be the Azure Child.”

Alex cocked his head with a slight bend to the right followed with a few rotations, listening to the cracking noises in his neck to feel an ease on the pressure in his spine.

What is this? This is so weird! I think you're trying to make Alex look like a bad-ass but it's so over descriptive and over the top that it's just ridiculous. Especially considering he's still squatting over a crack.

“So who is this Azure Child? What’s so special about just one freak of nature versus the rest of them?”

Didn't the doctor just answer this?

“She is supposed to be successor to the First Born,” The doctor affirmed giving another icy glare at the sour vigilante. “So, that would lead me to believe that The Azure Child is to have some immense power and I‘d hate to say it but--”

Ha! "Sour vigilante." This would be great in a comedy.

“--But what?” Alex asked, cutting in.

The double dash is weird. If you're going to use a dash it should always be just one. And in this instance an ellipses, not a dash, would be the correct punctuation.

“It is believed that The Azure Child would be a woman, and the only woman with anything close to ‘immense power’ that I know of is R--”

“--Roshelle.” came another interruption from the rebel.

You don't need to say that he's interrupting. It's clear from how the dialogue is written.

“Right. No one else fits the..well, the 'profile', exactly, all except for--.” Draygan then stopped, thinking that Alex may slice him in two for bringing up Hollie Garland.

"May" is the wrong word. "Might" is what you were looking for.

A

lex didn’t like the doctor’s near-reference to Hollie, knowing where he was going with that sentence. The very reason for the meta-human heroine’s death had come from the geneticist’s negligence in the past. Not to mention, the fact that he could feel her essence fading away from his body each day. But this wasn’t the time to scold him for all of that now. Tapping the ash off the lit cigarette, Alex planted the cancer stick in between his lips and casually rose to his feet. “Well then, it’s time for me time to go, Doc.”

"Cancer stick!" AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! Freaking hilarious. To avoid narm just call it a cigarette.

As the hero took a step to stride on north, the doctor stopped him. “Hey, wait a damn minute! Where are you going?”

What's with the emphasis with directions throughout this piece? They're unnecessary and distracting.

Smiling at Draygan’s question, Alex parted his lips, barely to reply with the cigarette still pressed in between. “I’ve got a bone to pick with a kid who thinks she’s chaos incarnate.”

Oh god the narm.

“But you don’t know where to find her, North; she’s the damn wind!” Draygan snapped back.

Taking the cig, Alex let it fall to the earth just but a foot or two from the fizzure.

“Maybe, but she can find me more than likely and besides, I have a few places I can snoop around.”

Without another word, the rebel took his steps northbound, leaving Kenneth Draygan behind him for a second time.

But he never left him behind the first time. Even if it was in the past you still have to allude to it first before you can use "second."

Well, I hope that helps. If it comes across as mean, I apologize. I'm just trying to me honest. I'd like to see you rework this and read what you come up with.

[Dallas Alvis II]

Re: Story-writing stuff

Heh, no need to apologize. You didn't discourage me a bit. Like my other review, I need to know what to work on. Some of this lacks a bit of contingency with other portions I've written already (this got my attention when Rick took a look at it). Thanks.

I'm also trying to avoid the "Alex said, He said, then he said, said Joe Blow, Amy said, said, said, said..." thing. I'd like to go somewhere in the conversation like I've seen authors do this (I'll change my segment around for an example):

"

“So who is this Azure Child? What’s so special about just one freak of nature versus the rest of them?”

“She is supposed to be successor to the First Born,”

“So, that would lead me to believe that The Azure Child is to have some immense power and I‘d hate to say it but--”

“--But what?” Alex asked, cutting in.

“It is believed that The Azure Child would be a woman, and the only woman with anything close to ‘immense power’ that I know of is R--”

“--Roshelle.”.

[dialog without indications as to who is talking, but it can be assumed that they are taking turns in the conversation, then...]

“Right. No one else fits the..well, the 'profile', exactly, all except for--.” Draygan then stopped, thinking that Alex may slice him in two for bringing up Hollie Garland.

"


But it's that "auto-pilot" thing that can get confusing for me (as a reader) unless the two characters have a way of speaking that I can already identify halfway into the story. I know this can only be used in proper situations, but I don't feel comfortable using that in general but people tell me it's not such a bad thing to use every now and then.

And yeah, several of those areas you mentioned are associated with other segments I've already written, so that's where you are getting confused at some parts (Alex leaving him a second time, his blood and security, etc.) I know it seems like a bad idea not to put the beginning of the story here in this case, but initially the purpose of this was I felt like I needed someone to look over the writing and where my pitfalls were, not really on the story itself so much. I could have explained that when I put it up here before. Though what you had to say was just as helpful to me. Again, thank you for having a look.

[Big Rick Cook]

Re: Story-writing stuff

I meant to leave out a lot of the more critical stuff that Loki touched upon because it's really hard to concentrate on solid wording and what sounds right when you still have a lot of work to do just to get to the point where "what sounds right/good" is even important over "what is right."

While I don't suggest ignoring Loki's advice - it's all very solid and well-formed information - perhaps put most of that on the back burner until you can write effective rough drafts without the grammatical type errors.

[Dallas Alvis II]

Re: Story-writing stuff

Yeah, that's how I figured I should handle that. I'm really wanting to focus more on "finding my voice" in creative writing (I don't know if that makes any sense) but I still need to sharpen up my basics a bit first I think.

[Stormy]

Re: Story-writing stuff

You can eliminate some confusion when in "autopilot" by not separating two lines of dialogue that are spoken by the same person.

i.e. “She is supposed to be successor to the First Born,”

“So, that would lead me to believe that The Azure Child is to have some immense power and I‘d hate to say it but--”

Those should be in the same set of quotes, I thought Alex was speaking the second line, not the doctor. When the next line was: “--But what?” Alex asked, cutting in. I was confused, and had to go back.

The comma is insufficient to inform us that the next line is by the same person. In fact, the comma shouldn't be there unless you are going to end the sentence after the quotation (by adding he/she said to the end).

And, like Loki mentioned, the dashes at the end of the sentence are the convention for interrupted speech, so telling us that is unnecessary. I don't think you are going for an interruption here though, I think you want to convey that the doctor trails off, so you should use an ellipse.

[Dallas Alvis II]

Re: Story-writing stuff

Ah, okay.