Could someone take a look at my story and give feedbacks on it.
I posted the story both on here and on Lit, with tiny changes. On Lit after I had posted the story, I had also posted on a forum asking for feedbacks, and one of the feedbacks pointed out problems on the character perspective and foreign language use. If anyone can give me advice on how to fix it, it'll be great.
https://storiesonline.net/s/28361/awakening-by-saidias
pointed out problems on the character perspective and foreign language use. If anyone can give me advice on how to fix it, it'll be great.
If you can tell us what he said, we may be able to help without even reading the story. Like if it's a technical issue with using foreign language.
It sounds like an interesting story, but I don't read in-progress or incomplete stories.
I recommend sticking to one perspective and not changing it. I read a lot of science fiction/fantasy and the limited 3rd person is very popular and works, especially when you have people body swapping and talking with their minds. In the first page you switch between Nasirah's perspective and then, maybe, the uncle or was it, Elder Memmaram? I think we found 4 or more perspectives on top of telepathy so I was lost fairly early.
I do appreciate you explained some of the terms but I was under the impression your terms were for your fictional world, until I looked some of them up because I couldn't understand why it was necessary to call the uncle, "mama" until I realized it was simply another real-world language that I'm not familiar with and that's fine. We all have cultural differences and I use a lot of American slag or terms that may not make sense in other countries so I would be mindful when using unfamiliar terms that have a very different meaning in other languages. Hell, I need to take my own advice on this one too, I figure.
If you're going to use italics when telepathy is in use then make sure you're using it consistently and make sure you tell us when they are just thinking privately or saying the words to someone else. Maybe brackets would work here? I'm not sure. I was lost again in the teenager's room because they were talking out loud and then to the uncle, but the italics were only used part of time and then when the body swap happened, I saw the italics but it was used for a foreign language, but those terms were never defined, "Amma" and "Monu". I don't know what either means or why Umma was mother and then Amma as well. I'm sure I'm simply misunderstanding the language which is fine, but I would have stopped reading the story at that point due to the confusion and let it go as not being part of the target audience.
The time jumps were too much, again, despite the headings. I'm an avid reader and was completely lost. I stopped reading at the second reverse time jump.
I think simply telling the story from one perspective per chapter would work better and find a way to get passed the headings since they didn't serve the purpose of making the story easier to follow. The premise is fine. Body swapping in an incest story works but the flow was off here. I hope I was able to help some.
This was his feedback. I understood most of what he meant and I agree with them, but I'm not sure what he meant by
sticking to one perspective
or
the flow was off here
. I want to fix the story, so if someone could explain it or give their own feedback I'll fix the problem.
sticking to one perspective
He's saying you're head-hopping. My first novel was rejected by a traditional publisher for two reasons. One was "Don't head-hop" so I looked it up at the time and have studied it extensively.
This is the best article I've found on head-hopping: https://thewritepractice.com/head-hopping-and-hemingway/
Each scene is told from one character's perspective (point of veiw - POV). You can only get into that character's thoughts. When you jump back and forth between characters, you're head-hopping which is jarring to the reader.
1st-person — the only thoughts you can tell the reader are the 1st-person narrator's (unless he can read minds).
3rd-person limited (which is what the reader recommended) — each scene is from one character's POV. In that scene it's like 1st-person meaning you can only know his/her thoughts and no one else's.
Omniscient (normally 3rd-person but I've seen 1st-person omni too as in "The Book Thief" where Death is the 1st-person omni narrator) — the only POV is the omni narrator's, but that narrator is godlike and knows all. So that narrator can tell the reader what every character is thinking. That's what the article I linked to is explaining. But you can't get into any character's thoughts directly since the POV is the omni narrator.
Hope that helps.
But what about the foreign language
Foreign words are in italics.
As to how the reader knows what they mean if they don't speak the language, that's hard. I don't have advice on how to do that. When I use foreign language I try to let the reader know what it means by the other character's response in English. If the POV character doesn't understand the foreign language, then it's okay for the reader not too as well. After all, the reader is living the scene through that POV character. That confusion could be intentional.
As to a made-up language, I don't know. I don't read or write SciFi so it doesn't come up in my writing. Same with telepathy. But the reader's comments on telepathy are sound. You need to differentiate telepathy from direct thoughts and since direct thoughts are in italics, maybe brackets is a good idea for telepathy.
Each scene is told from one character's perspective (point of veiw - POV). You can only get into that character's thoughts. When you jump back and forth between characters, you're head-hopping which is jarring to the reader.
There are some authors that are great at doing that kind of thing. And two I can think of do it in some real epic type stories.
Both S.M. Stirling and Harry Turtledove do that a lot, which is commonly called a "POV Character". However, both tend to be rather careful in how they do it. Their stories can take place in 4 or more locations at a time, with multiple groups. But they almost never interact with each other. Person A narrates their part, Person B narrated a completely different group, that often times never interacts with Person or Group A.
And on the rare occasion two groups meet, say Person C will describe their interactions with Person D, but Person D does not narrate anything until afterwards when he is then passing along their thoughts on the meeting.
But I agree, jumping back and forth mid-scene is tacky and should be avoided. I admit, about 15 years ago I actually played with the concept. It was four or five narration characters, and I jumped between all of them constantly. It was also an experiment in "present tense" writing, as they were all narrating in real time as the events were happening.
But I realized it just was not working, and abandoned it. Not sure if it was the head hopping, or the present tense that was the problem, but I just was not satisfied and never finished it.
the flow was off here
I think he's talking about "the time jumps were too much."
When you jump time (or location for that matter), you can do it with either a transition (e.g., Three weeks later…) or start a new scene which is typically a new chapter.
In both cases, you need to orient the reader as soon as you can. Preferably, immediately. So if a new chapter jumps to three weeks later, start it with something that informs the reader that it's three weeks later. If it's in a different location, somehow let the reader know that.
And that's true for changing POV in 3rd-person limited. If the new scene/chapter switches to a different character's POV, the reader needs to know that. And I don't mean labeling the chapter with "Joe's POV." I mean something like "Joe walked into the dark house. Where the hell was everyone?" Since you're in Joe's thoughts (where the hell was everyone?), the reader knows the scene is from Joe's POV.
By the way, those were not direct thoughts which would be in italics and in present tense. In 3rd-person limited, most of the time the POV character's thoughts are actually part of the narrative and in the same tense as the narrative.
In a couple of serials in progress, the authors generally tell the story from the protagonist's perspective, but occasionally slips into third person.
AJ
the authors generally tell the story from the protagonist's perspective, but occasionally slip into third person.
I remember reading a thriller told in 1st-person, but the beginning of every chapter was in 3rd-person to give the reader more information than the 1st-person narrator had. It worked fine.
There are times authors bend the rule because it's needed. He can slip in something the POV character doesn't know because it's right for the story. 99.9% of the readers wouldn't even notice it.
I remember reading a thriller told in 1st-person, but the beginning of every chapter was in 3rd-person to give the reader more information than the 1st-person narrator had.
I'm pretty sure that's not the case in those two serials. I've seen nothing in the third person bits that couldn't have been written by swapping 'he' to 'I' and fixing the rest appropriately.
Both authors seem to be relative beginners.
AJ
that could have been written by swapping 'he' to 'I' and fixing the rest appropriately.
Oh, you're talking about an error. I was talking about a famous traditionally published author who did it on purpose. My point was that if you break the "rule" and it works, fine.
In a couple of serials in progress, the authors generally tell the story from the protagonist's perspective, but occasionally slip into third person.
In 'AWLL 3' the story is told from the perspectives of both the MC and all his kids, with text breaks and identifiers showing who is narrating.
