Forum: Author Hangout

If looking for cliches to reconsider, you might try using both autocrit and prowritingaid, because their cliche lists are VERY different. No reason to even consider paying for prowritingaid for that, as their 3,000 word limit for free analysis is nowhere near as tedious to cope with as the 400 for autocrit.

I've yet to find any cliche I'd suggest an author changes. With dialogue CW and SB are correct, it's the characters using cliches, not the writer.

Yeah, I've basically done the same, essentially completely ignoring the highlighted reports as worthless, but after a while, you start to say "What am I missing here?" But you're right. Autocrit and the other 'editing software' is more designed for editing business and technical reports than it is fiction. It's virtually a mortal sin in these programs to use any past tense terms or verb forms, which is often hard in a variety of fictional.

But as long as I'm not missing anything obvious, I'll return to ignoring those reports.

In my stories, I normally have my central character as the narrator. As I develop the character, I use clichés in the narrative, if they are appropriate to the personality of the central character.

Although that's technically narrative, it's really dialogue. It's the first-person narrator talking (dialogue) to the reader. Look at Huck Finn.

Perhaps monologue, but not dialogue -- unless the reader answers.

It's still treated as dialogue, since it's considered someone speaking in colloquial terms rather than impartial and more formal language.

@REP

I go to a medical building that is built on a hillside. On one side the Lobby level is at ground level. Go up one floor to the 1st floor and exit the building on the far side, and you are exiting the building at ground level. Which floor is the ground floor? :)

That's why America went with "First floor", for the very first floor (Floor 0 would technically be a basement, typically numbered in letters in an elevator). That avoids the obvious dilemma when the "ground floor" isn't necessary at ground level.

Although that's technically narrative, it's really dialogue.

Sounds good to me, and I agree. My only problem with that is if I have the character, as the narrator, explaining things to the reader, should I as the writer differentiate between this type of dialog and other forms of narrative? Personally, I just treat the narrator's 'dialog' as narrative.

Sounds good to me, and I agree. My only problem with that is if I have the character, as the narrator, explaining things to the reader, should I as the writer differentiate between this type of dialog and other forms of narrative? Personally, I just treat the narrator's 'dialog' as narrative.

Again, you should treat the narration in those cases more like regular dialogue, regardless of the single speaker. You want it to sound like a specific person: less formal, more unique, more eccentric and casual, so the readers get a feel for who it is, as well as being forewarned he's more likely to have a limited perspective on events.

You can have fun with those narrators, but they generally take more time as you have to consider what to reveal when.

you have to consider what to reveal when.

True. I can also have the character talking to himself about different options or scenarios to build readers' suspense, especially if the action to be taken will not happen in that chapter.

if I have the character, as the narrator, explaining things to the reader, should I as the writer differentiate between this type of dialog and other forms of narrative?

There wouldn't be any other forms of narrative. We're talking about a 1st-person POV where the POV character is telling a story. His telling the story is the narrative. Now how close it is to the actual dialogue from that person is something to consider.

How about a 1st-person past tense story told by an adult about her experience as a 5-yo (To Kill a Mockingbird is like that). The narrative would still be like her telling the story (more like dialogue than formal narrative), but when she tells what she said when she was 5 it would sound different.

My current novel is 1st-person, but the dialogue for that character is less formal than the narrative (which is him telling the story). I use "gonna" in his dialogue but not his narrative. I simply didn't want it told that informally, like Huck Finn is.

There wouldn't be any other forms of narrative. We're talking about a 1st-person POV where the POV character is telling a story. His telling the story is the narrative. Now how close it is to the actual dialogue from that person is something to consider.

You need to define exactly who the narrator is as they're relating the story, the 5-year-old, or the older woman remembering her experiences as a naive young child, and pull what you need of that character out in their voice. If the readers don't know their age, or even who they are, you've got to be more circumspect in what you reveal--which is why you'd want to relate the information over time, so readers can slowly figure out exactly who it might be. (Not your specific problem, though.) Thus the narrator character is often a mix between the two.

You need to define exactly who the narrator is as they're relating the story, the 5-year-old, or the older woman remembering her experiences as a naive young child

I believe it's just natural. Let's look at the beginning of "To Kill a Mockingbird." You know right away the narrator is older than the characters in the story. How old? It doesn't matter. Only that she's remembering her childhood.

When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. When it healed, and Jem's fears of never being able to play football were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury. His left arm was somewhat shorter than his right; when he stood or walked, the back of his hand was at right angles to his body, his thumb parallel to his thigh. He couldn't have cared less, so long as he could pass and punt.

When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back on them, we sometimes discussed the events leading to his accident. I maintain that the Ewells started it all, but Jem, who was four years my senior, said it started long before that. He said it began the summer Dill came to us, when Dill first gave us the idea of making Boo Radley come out.

We're talking about a 1st-person POV where the POV character is telling a story.

To digress slightly, if a 1st-person POV character is telling the story then they are looking back and narrating what happened up to the end of the story.

I just finished a story in which the POV character dies at the end of the story. The character's final moments and actions are described even though there is no one around to document what happened. How is it possible in a 1st-person POV story to get the characters last thoughts and actions in the story??

@REP

How is it possible in a 1st-person POV story to get the characters last thoughts and actions in the story??

@DS

The main POV character is telling the story on his death bed. Switch to 3rd omnipotent for the final death scene.

Personally, I'd recount the entire story in 1-st person POV, then switch to a 3rd omnipotent epilogue for the final conclusion. It makes for an easier break, and I prefer epilogues.

Switch to 3rd omnipotent for the final death scene.

True. No offense intended to the writer, but in this case, and others, the writers remain in the 1st-person POV. Although in this particular case, the writer did switch to 3rd omnipotent for the final scene.

Why do you see that as problematic?

He wasn't saying it was problematic, he was clarifying my suggestion that the author should switch to 3rd person POV when the narrator of the story dies.

Why do you see that as problematic?

Switching was not problematic. The timing was the problem. The writer should have switched the POV earlier. Just prior to the characters death, he is all alone. What he sees and experiences, makes it into the story using 1-st person, and then he dies. A day later the POV changes with people finding the remains.

if a 1st-person POV character is telling the story then they are looking back and narrating what happened up to the end of the story.

You can write a 1st-person story in present tense. But then, if the character is 5 years old, it better be written like a 5-yo would talk.

You can write a 1st-person story in present tense

Examples of this on SoL are many:

Shiloh
https://storiesonline.net/s/46696/shiloh

Finding Home
https://storiesonline.net/s/66183/finding-home

Chaos Calls -
https://storiesonline.net/s/66230/chaos-calls-01-the-learning-visit

all of which I'm in the process of revising

You can write a 1st-person story in present tense

I agree. I've read many stories presented in the present tense and that is what I normally do in my stories.

I just finished a story in which the POV character dies at the end of the story.

"Lovely Bones" is written in 1st-person by a narrator that is dead. It starts off by telling the reader her name and the day she was murdered.

"Lovely Bones"

Sounds like an interesting read, but it isn't on this website.

Sounds like an interesting read, but it isn't on this website.

Classic dead tree literature, from about a dozen years or so back. Lousy movie, so don't look there. A phenomenal success at the time, largely for the unexpected POV.

@REP

What do you think? Is this (switching from 1st POV to 3rd on the death of the narrator) a mistake on the part of the writer, or just something we should overlook as an expedient means of finalizing the story with a dramatic ending.

As always, it depends on the story/author. In "Lovely Bones", it works because it was the entire premise of the book, the dead character making comments on the progress of the investigation as it unfolds, and then eventually coming to live, briefly, via another character towards the end of the story. But she invested the time to make that perspective work, whereas many author simply won't do that, and then find themselves unable to switch perspectives at the last minute.

In my case, I prefer switching to 3rd person in an epilogue, as I consider it an addendum, post script to the story told by someone else, after they've died. A sort of news story, "by the way, this is how this story from years ago played out since we reported it". In that way, the final chapter not only has a different perspective, but it's got a distinct not of finality to it. A 'he's never coming back in a sequel' moment (though in my current book, I'm still getting readers asking when the dead character will reappear in a new story, though that's largely because I left an opening when I described what others were planning to do after he passed away).

How is it possible in a 1st-person POV story to get the characters last thoughts and actions in the story??

Poor phrasing on my part. The point I was trying to make is that the writer reaches a point in their story were they must change the POV to get in the final scenes for the character will not be around to tell their experiences. However, many writers remain in the 1'st person POV as if the character survives their death and continues to tell the story.

What do you think? Is this a mistake on the part of the writer, or just something we should overlook as an expedient means of finalizing the story with a dramatic ending.

I just wish more authors knew the difference between floor & ground. :P

In which context.

In many old style packed earth huts the floor is the ground. However, in different English speaking countries there is a difference in how the words a re used, because the building level on ground level is called the ground floor in some place and the first floor or first floor in others. In some countries the floor for the ground level is always called ground, even when it's made out of cement or wood. Idiomatic usage can be an issue as bad as going to a MickyDs or a dance at the IHOP.

a dance at the IHOP

Who the hell dances at the International House of Pancakes (except the many drunks who congregate there to sober up after all the bars close)?

Who the hell dances at the International House of Pancakes (except the many drunks who congregate there to sober up after all the bars close)?

When I first saw it in a story my first thought was it was the name of a dance club using electronic stored music only getting on the back or Apple 'i' name, because that's what it looks like - until someone tells you the full name. Sadly, few US writers bother with the full details, just the short forms they use as their slang.

In many old style packed earth huts the floor is the ground.

But it's called a floor, as in, dirt floor. And the ocean floor is also dirt.

And the ocean floor is also dirt.

More often it's either sand or rock. Dirt often comes from the decay of organic matter, which behaves slightly differently in sea water (i.e. it floats away and gets filtered through a variety of sources), whereas on the surface dust accumulates over the millennia producing miles of nothing but raw 'dirt', which is how ancient cities get buried.

The same happens in the ocean, but it's a slightly different process, with the accumulation of dead cells, scales, crush coral or calcium (i.e. "sand").

More often it's either sand or rock.

I meant it's a floor rather than ground even though it's not tile or carpet or wood, etc.

because the building level on ground level is called the ground floor in some place and the first floor or first floor in others.

I go to a medical building that is built on a hillside. On one side the Lobby level is at ground level. Go up one floor to the 1st floor and exit the building on the far side, and you are exiting the building at ground level. Which floor is the ground floor? :)

I go to a medical building that is built on a hillside. On one side the Lobby level is at ground level. Go up one floor to the 1st floor and exit the building on the far side, and you are exiting the building at ground level. Which floor is the ground floor? :)

I've been in many buildings built on slopes like this. They either name one Lower Ground with the other as Ground, or they name them Ground and Upper Ground, and I've seen one labelled Upper Ground and Lower Ground. In the few residential buildings I've seen like this the one on the street address side is labelled Front Door and the other, be it upper or lower is called the Back door.

For some reason, I've never seen the reverse used where the floor of a building or house is described as ground - ground floor notwithstanding.

What is they ground the tile floors in an industrial shredder? Would that count as "ground dirt floors"?

I've never seen the reverse used where the floor of a building or house is described as ground

Here, in Australia, buildings have their entry on the Ground Floor, because it's at Ground Level, you walk in, go up the stairs and arrive at the First Floor, because it's the first floor above ground level, or you can go down the stairs to the basement. Unless, that is, the building is on the side of a slope and has another external exit at ground level which is then known as the Lower Ground Floor or Lower Ground Level. In conversation you tend to drop the word level or floor, thus the entry is on Ground with fashions on First, etc.

French the ground floor is called street level

In Australia that term is often where a building (often a business building) opens up directly onto the sidewalk, i.e. the street. If the building is set well back from the street, then it's simply the ground floor.

I've seen street level used in Chicago.

Except in Chicago, "street level" used to be the 2nd floor, and the basement used to be the first floor in many cases (after the city raised the street level to build the underground roads running through the loop (downtown).

@Wheezer

When the hell is an outdoor patch of grass in a yard ever described as a floor? Another example I read had a person falling off a bike on a paved road and hitting the floor. Similar example on a sidewalk described as a floor. If you are one of those writers who cannot tell the ground from the floor or the floor from the street, I'm sorry.

I agree. That's just lazy writing, not bothering to look up a thesaurus when you can't remember what the "ground" is called! However, I can see them referring to the "floor of the tent" when it's nothing more than a thin layer of material. It's not a clear cut as we're arguing, but that doesn't excuse using the improper words.

What do you mean by sometimes. :)

Sometimes they're on spaceships, in which case they're called ... sorry, I can't print it because my computer doesn't have the appropriate font. :(

We drive on parkways and park on driveways. We send cargo by ship and ship packages by car.

Some of those oddities are due to marketing, but most are due to the way people change the usage over time.

Driveways, originally they were the way you drove a cart (later a car) from the property line at the street to the place to drop people or or to park you cart / wagon / car. As life changed and the properties got smaller, lazy people started parking their cars in their driveway instead of in the garage.

parkways started out as that, special highways and roadways combined with large areas of cared for green parkland instead of just a normal road with buildings beside it.

Originally cargo went by wagon and horse, then later by ship and car.

Back to floors, I was once in a large house built on the side of hill, and it had four levels with exits out onto the grounds around it, on one each side. The main entrance was on the front street and was the public entertainment area, the bottom level had a yard that backed onto a smaller street lower down with a vehicular entrance and was the garage and workshop level. The other two levels opened onto landscaped yards on each side of the house, one off the kitchen and family room, and one off the level with the bedrooms. Each entrance was labelled by the general direction it faced, north, south, east, west, but the levels were named for their main use - Entrance, Kitchen, Living, and Garage. No one in the large family there seemed to have any issues knowing where the what was going on.

lazy people started parking their cars in their driveway instead of in the garage.

If they were like me, there was no room in their garage for a car. :)

and you have to pay to drive on a freeway

actually, we call them tollways. Freeways were originally, and mostly still are, free of traffic controls to stop the flow of traffic - thus they compacted the term free flowing through way to freeway. Ain't it grand how da English changes over da years, yah.

free of traffic controls to stop the flow of traffic

I was under the impression that freeways got the name because there was no toll. In the past, people using the well maintained roads were charged a toll for their use of the road. In some areas, we still have toll roads in the US and there are tolls for using some bridges, such as the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges in San Francisco.

I was under the impression that freeways got the name because there was no toll.

My understanding, from the historical research I've done on the USA, the toll roads in the US were, until mid 20th century, privately made, maintained, and owned roads.

Anyway, on parkways and freeways

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkway

A parkway is a broad, landscaped highway thoroughfare. The term is particularly used for a roadway in a park or connecting to a park from which trucks and other heavy vehicles are excluded. Many parkways originally intended for scenic, recreational driving have evolved into major urban and commuter routes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled-access_highway

A controlled-access highway is a type of highway which has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow and ingress/egress regulated. Common English terms are freeway (in Australia & parts of the US), motorway (in the UK and Ireland) and expressway (in Canada, parts of the US, and many Asian countries).

A controlled-access highway provides an unhindered flow of traffic, with no traffic signals, intersections or property access. They are free of any at-grade crossings with other roads, railways, or pedestrian paths, which are instead carried by overpasses and underpasses across the highway. Entrances and exits to the highway are provided at interchanges by slip roads (ramps), which allow for speed changes between the highway and arterial roads and collector roads. On the controlled-access highway, opposing directions of travel are generally separated by a median strip or central reservation containing a traffic barrier or grass. Elimination of the sources of potential conflicts with other directions of travelers dramatically improves safety,[1] and capacity.

In the United States, a freeway is defined by the federal government's Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices as a divided highway with full control of access.[61] This means two things. First, adjoining property owners do not have a legal right of access,[62] meaning that they cannot connect their lands to the highway by constructing driveways, although frontage roads provide access to properties adjacent to a freeway in many places. When an existing road is converted into a freeway, all existing driveways must be removed and access to adjacent private lands must be blocked with fences or walls.

Second, traffic on a freeway is "free-flowing". All cross-traffic (and left-turning traffic) is relegated to overpasses or underpasses, so that there are no traffic conflicts on the main line of the highway which must be regulated by traffic lights, stop signs, or other traffic control devices. Achieving such free flow requires the construction of many overpasses, underpasses, and ramp systems. The advantage of grade-separated interchanges is that freeway drivers can almost always maintain their speed at junctions since they do not need to yield to vehicles crossing perpendicular to mainline traffic.

edit to add:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toll_road

A toll road, also known as a turnpike or tollway, is a public or private roadway for which a fee (or toll) is assessed for passage. It is a form of road pricing typically implemented to help recoup the cost of road construction and maintenance, which (on public roads) amounts to a form of taxation.

In the United States, a freeway is defined by the federal government's Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices as a divided highway with full control of access.[

All of that is undoubtedly true. However, we also have Toll highways that are identical to freeways, except you have to pay a toll to use the highway.

tollways are a sub-type of freeway

I'm not sure what you mean by a sub-type of freeway. About 30 years ago, I was on the East Coast for business trips. The tollways I drove on in Pennsylvania, or perhaps it was New Jersey, looked the same to me as the freeways I drove on here in California. Granted every fifteen miles or so you had to toss some money in a basket.

I'm not sure what you mean by a sub-type of freeway.

That's easy. I was living in Chicago when the elevated expressway (freeway?) collapsed, dumping moving vehicles into the active roadway, moving in the other direction) under them.

when the elevated expressway (freeway?) collapsed

Sounds as if you mean substandard rather than sub-type.

To me, a subtype would be a group of freeways that share a characteristic that is not common to all freeways. I can't think of any such category.

Highway 1 (freeway?) from Florida through Key Largo to Key West is one elevated highway. There are also other elevated stretches of road, typically a much shorter segment, that are built to avoid terrain or other obstacles. However, I never considered them to be a sub-type.

Tollways.

I agree. At the time I posted, I was thinking of the roadways physical characteristics, such as: width, separation of traffic going in opposing directions, elevated verses ground level versus long tunnels through mountains or under the ocean, type of material used to create the surface, etc.

However, I never considered them to be a sub-type.

If they're build over physical obstructions, wouldn't they be super, or superior, types?

In my example (of the roadway in downtown Chicago collapsing, the subtype of highway would be "those build over sinkholes!" 'D

Would you include the Golden Gate Bridge and the Royal Gorge Bridge in the same sub-type as the bridge in your example? They are/were built for high speed traffic over a feature that will not support a surface level roadway.

Would you include the Golden Gate Bridge and the Royal Gorge Bridge in the same sub-type as the bridge in your example?

It was a pun for wordsmiths, delving into the roots of the words. I figured I had the right audience for that type of joke.

You have the right audience. When I get into a discussion on differing views, I tend to take things seriously. It is easy for me to miss the shift to a humorous remark.

Interesting. I had noted CW placing 'D at the end of a few posts. I thought it was a couple of stray characters he hadn't deleted. I was not aware of the wide variety of emoticons used to convey different meanings. Now that I know, I can interpret it accordingly.

Interesting. I had noted CW placing 'D at the end of a few posts. I thought it was a couple of stray characters he hadn't deleted. I was not aware of the wide variety of emoticons used to convey different meanings. Now that I know, I can interpret it accordingly

I use my own emoticon (minus the nose) because every time I use a standard one, my iPad substitutes an iOS emoticon, which not everyone can see. My bad, I'd assumed people could figure out what it represented (I suspect I've got to send a bunch of apologies to my editors for confusing them all).

When you said you were being funny, it dawned on me that your stray characters might be a symbol meaning you weren't being serious.

But primarily they're "freeways" because they allow for the "free flow" of traffic to the degree that you should be able to move from point A to point B along the system with needing to ever stop your vehicle.

Here in southern California traffic on the highways is at a dead stop or slow creep during commute hours. By your description, we should call them parkways or creepways. :)

No, no that would make them driveways.

I thought it made them parking lots!

I thought it made them parking lots!

It is sometimes hard to tell the difference.

As already alluded to, those are glorified parking lots. Otherwise, there is a bit of difference between theory and reality.

I suggest we replace the phrase "highway" (short for "highway robbery) with "texting lanes". 'D I've been on many commutes where I could finish the entire NY York Times while waiting for traffic to move!

the biggest carpark

You have obviously not tried to drive through downtown LA during peak commute traffic. More than 1 mile per hour will get you a speeding ticket. :)

The last time I went over the Severn Bridge, you had to pay to enter Wales but it was free to leave.

AJ

The last time I went over the Severn Bridge, you had to pay to enter Wales but it was free to leave.

NYC bridges and tunnels are like that. You pay one way (which is the cost of both ways). It speeds things up.

Surely people would be willing to pay more to get out of Wales.

The tourists drive in and leave by ferry or plane, so they charge on the direction with the highest traffic flow.

Shipping is standard terminology used by UPS and FedEx even for packages sent by ground transport.

Heck, many companies use them term, even when they're walking them down the street.

Heck, many companies use them term, even when they're walking them down the street.

Hell, we all "ship" our kids to school, whether it's down the street or across the country.

we all "ship" our kids to school

I used to walk mine, so speak for yourself. Also, wasn't it expensive having to wrap them up and put the postage on each day.

Of course, that can lead to things like patio/porch/deck and what their respective differences are.

Of course, it gets even more complicated when you consider one national (U.S.) TV commercial which features a group living on a whale. Is that considered "ground", "floor", "blubber" or "flesh"?

I went to a programming school in the Empire State Building which was several levels below ground. For the life of me I don't remember if they were negative numbers in the elevator.

One common practice here in the US is to label the lower levels(LL)as LL1, LL2,LL3, etc.

In Venice, is "street level" "water level"?

which century?

There are houses in venice that have a number of levels now underwater that used to above water, but the buildings have sunk of the years, so they just build another level on top of the current one, and move the entrance up a level.