Forum: Author Hangout

How do you avoid headhopping?

tendertouch 🚫

I'm going back through and editing Protective Coloration, only to find I did a lot of changing viewpoints within a scene. Ouch! That means I'm going back and doing some rewriting as well, which is a PITA.

So, for the authors out there who used third person, limited POV, how do you avoid it? Even when I'm concentrating on fixing it, it's so easy make that sort of subtle shift.

It's a little odd for me, in that I don't seem to have the same issue with first person. I rarely find myself in the head of a character who is not the current POV character, and it's usually easy to spot when I do it. But Charley and Claire showed me that I don't want to do first person with more than two characters in a story, and I'd rather stick with just one.

Replies: Switch Blayde Switch Blayde Quasirandom samuelmichaels Freyrs_stories Paladin_HGWT Freyrs_stories irvmull

Switch Blayde 🚫

@tendertouch

I don't seem to have the same issue with first person. I rarely find myself in the head of a character who is not the current POV character

That's your answer. In 3rd-limited, you should be writing from the perspective of the POV character for that scene, just like you do in 1st. But my guess is that when you're writing in 3rd-limited, you're thinking omniscient. Don't think omniscient. Think 1st-person.

Btw, for me, POV is the hardest part of writing fiction.

Replies: tendertouch

tendertouch 🚫
Updated:

@Switch Blayde

Think 1st-person.

So simple, but I've been giving it a try and it's doing great things. I'm finding myself adding more of the POV character's inner thoughts and experiences (as Quasirandom pointed out), just like I should have been doing all along.

It's a little tiring mentally to think 1st person, but write 3rd, but it feels like it will come more naturally with practice.

Thanks for the tip!

Switch Blayde 🚫

@tendertouch

One other thing. It's only head-hopping if it's jarring to the reader. Like bouncing back and forth.

Sometimes you have to purposefully tell the reader something the POV character doesn't know. It's common in suspense. Let's say someone is hiding in the shadows watching the POV character. The POV character doesn't know it, but the reader needs to.

Or sometimes you can change POV within a scene if you do it seamlessly. It's the jumping back and forth that's the real problem.

Quasirandom 🚫
Updated:

@tendertouch

My personal trick is to constantly remind myself who the camera is, or possibly better to say, who the camera is with. One way to do that is to make sure I'm frequently including sensory details and emotional reactions of my POV.

The result is a very tight 3rd person POV, rather than a more cinematic one.

Conversely, my 3rd person omniscient is more cinematic, with fewer in-the-head details. Finding a balance between the two modes is something I've been working on since I started writing professionally. My provisional conclusion is that it's just not a natural mode for me — and that's okay. You don't need to have all the tools in your chest, as long as you have enough to get the job done. It may be that limited 3rd, staying strictly in on head, is not one of your natural modes.

samuelmichaels 🚫

@tendertouch

So, for the authors out there who used third person, limited POV, how do you avoid it? Even when I'm concentrating on fixing it, it's so easy make that sort of subtle shift.

I find POV shifts very annoying. I prefer a tight focus (first person, or tight third person). If that's your intent, and you absolutely want to convey information not readily apparent from your POV, you have a few options:
1) Have the POV character overhear something; or possibly infer from facial expressions/tone of voice.
2) Have the POV character reminisce ("as I later found out, Jane was actually ...") -- this can be disruptive as well, but at least you don't head-hop.

Freyrs_stories 🚫

@tendertouch

I am finding a somewhat similar 'problem'. I'm told readers better identify with a story if it's in 1st person, but for many of my scenes there are more than two characters who's viewpoint and subsequent blind spots are very important.

while I find it relatively easy to read 1st person. writing it is exhaustive and confusing. my current 'solution' is to draft in 3rd and then once all the ideas are 'out' think about how to place the point of view for better clarity. that said I have not written enough of the story to call this working version of the draft 'finished'.

I know this likely means writing the story 'twice' and this is not a short story by any means. I've written (this draft at least) maybe 2/3 of the words for the first year of four and covered at most 1/3 of that 1st year's timeline. still at this point the word count is very close to 100K and this draft ignores most of the required dialogue.

for about half, word count wise, depending how you look at it, there are only two people present in a scene, some may move in and out. for the other 'half' there can be a significant number, lets say 20. there is also a lot of information 'hidden' from the other people. not everyone takes direct part in each scene, they're there for context and counterpoint.

my question(s) is/are. how to manage transitions, how to 'show' known vs unknown and internal/vocal voice, is it worth chopping and changing the 'camera' when there is so much going on throughout the scene, not to mention chapter. right now chapters are from 5-8K words in 3rd person. a 'year' should be 20-25 chapters but this is not set in stone. right now I'm closing in on 50 'named' characters(a job in its own right). while the first year has had a lot of setup and back story handed out like bread crumbs leading 'home'. I only have they other years roughed out, mostly in dot point. and I don't know their structure yet.

this really only describes the first year out of the four with the cast growing. there is also a lot of 'time' where an extra or many extra characters are talked about but not in either internal or vocal voice.

the 'story' is primarily about two characters, their closely knit lives and interactions, fears, hopes, dreams etc. while everyone else is not quite secondary, they are 'support' not much more, at least in this first year. this has to change in the subsequent years as the scope as much as anything is greatly expanded. those support characters become more essential and integral to each year's plot.

each year has a central theme that binds most if not all of the central characters and their interactions. year 1 builds the world for 2 which builds for 3 then there is the conclusion. of all the years, the fourth is likely to be the shortest though also most complex. there is really only one theme here but keeping all the 'parts' moving will be a significant challenge.

so after all that description and little detail. how or perhaps should I convert from 3rd to 1st and if so, how and when?

a few extra things I should point out. this was originally only going to be a short story over one year. 20-40K, 50K at most. it's now shooting so far over that budget treasurers are finding it hard to believe and even harder to track.

I have actually written, well mostly worked through a first draft that is 1st person. but it stays with that single character for its current 50K words. I have no plans for head hopping etc. the point is the point of view. it's 'told' by the central character as the narrator. there are a few asides here and there about unknown information but the story is all past tense so it's easier to have hindsight. I don't think this style would work, definitely with the story I'm primarily referring too or any others I've put parts of down outside that particular series to be.

I had an absolutely terrible time in English at school, all of it. to begin with I was learning the language pretty much ESL but a few tongues down the line. then I dealt with a series of upheavals and finally mental illness that was primarily un/miss diagnosed. basically school was hell and English its 7th layer onward. there are many basic skills/tools I lack. either from poor teachers/situations or abject misery and by then disinterest.

I love to read, I read the hobbit then lord of the rings in the 4th grade. I try and find a new series at least every 4 or 5 years to work through. I don't think it worth reading (most of the time) unless there's a million plus words in it. but that's talking about 'serious' reading. here I've greatly enjoyed stories as short as a few thousand. I'm sort of all over the place.

but, hopefully back on point. is there somewhere a good, read easy to understand and comprehensive in scope a guide to writing, especially 1st person or mixed POV? and perhaps a good way to translate between them?

the first thing I tend to worry about with a story are the ideas. nearly everything I've ever written has been completely sans plan,'pantsing' to borrow a phrase. this story now needs a plan and a good one. those 100K words I wrote are mostly train of thought with a little stop here and there to, 'think' isn't the 'right' word. eventually I realised this story can't and won't fit in my head. not even close. at one stage I was going to post 'on the fly'. but things along with pant size change as time passes. I now have 'help' and more than a stiff wind and star to sail by. buy still I am lost on the 1st Vs 3rd question.

I had hoped to put forward some sort of inspiration but all I have are more questions and no true answers. best of luck everyone, may the words flow freely and keys press themselves. till next time, F.

Replies: Switch Blayde

Switch Blayde 🚫

@Freyrs_stories

the 'story' is primarily about two characters

That is the case with romance novels — the hero and the heroine. That's why they are typically written in 3rd-person limited, switching POV between them.

If you have to provide a lot of characters' thoughts to the reader, I guess that's when omniscient is used. But in omniscient, you never have any character thinking their thoughts. You have the narrator telling what the character is thinking or feeling.

Replies: Freyrs_stories Quasirandom

Freyrs_stories 🚫

@Switch Blayde

it could be loosely considered a romance. at least in core theme but there are numerous 'pairs' in close orbit of those prime characters. they 'exist' in the first 100K but their stories really only develop as the first year ends.

I'm going to assume that swapping between 1st and 3rd is likely worse than the whiplash of excessive head hopping.

now it's not game of thrones thankfully, though I've neither watched nor read any of it. but it may have a scaled back mirror effect of parallel story lines if on a smaller scale geographically. the accuracy of this paragraph hinges on 2nd hand knowledge of GoT.

I guess my other 'choice' now is limited/omniscient. this is not something I feel I understand so will have look into their features, strengths and weaknesses.

Replies: LupusDei

LupusDei 🚫

@Freyrs_stories

In my limited understanding -- and this may demolish the concepts just because I love to talk in unwarranted simplifications of exaggerated extremes -- perfect "close" 3rd limited and 1st person could be, in theory, very nearly morphed between by just use of a clever enough regex serarch/replace. The ground principles and information accessibility are the same.

However, 3rd limited make pov switching and narrative commentary supposedly slightly less jarring. Things strictly prohibited in perfect 1st person would be only awkward in 3rd limited. In practice it likely means that close 3rd limited and 3rd omniscient exist on opposite ends of a continuum of indirect viewpoints, where the parameter factor is subjectivity/reliability. Perfectly omniscient narrator is not allowed to lie to the reader any other way than by omission.

Perfect 3rd omni is a police report. Pure telling. Investment of narrator isn't required and only speculation about anyone's motivation or emotional state are allowed, even if presented as immutable facts.

Beyond that, a risk of omniscient 1st person lurks. In my opinion, any conclusions a 1st person narrator make about anyone's mind should be by definition be seen as speculative, derived from clues not normally consciously inventoried by the protagonist... but that is "too much telling" somehow?

The dictionary word meanings make what percentage of information transfer in live interpersonal communication? I think the assessment was about 5%, while 95% are non-verbal, such as tone of voice, expression, assumptions about emotions, body language, clothing, and other sensory and context clues only very few well adjusted sociopaths are consciously aware about (out of nothing but necessity, without access to intuitive emotion chippers they have to compensate doing it the hard way).

Further, aleast in my environment it is rather common to speak words in deliberate contrast to the actual message, or with situational meanings assigned on the fly, and it's not limited to obvious jokes told in deadpan. I was and still am made fun at for difficulties with this, despite six years of drama club training and such.

In first person, especially pseudo autobiographical, I would seek to capture that. But delving into the nonverbal language is a futile excercise in verbosity as it will necessarily run into cultural peculiarities that then would need further explanation along with thousand years of history and whole alternative spirituality.

So... a hyper aware 1st person is omniscient of the limited word model they inhabit in their own flawed mind and I'm rather in mood to defend that against any standards. But it may not be what's considered good writing.

I'm going to assume that swapping between 1st and 3rd is likely worse than the whiplash of excessive head hopping.

Quirky pov hooliganism I sometimes cath in stories I tell to myself is that the main story is told in 3rd limited, but then, out of the nowhere a scene, usually observing the protagonist without their knowledge, is told in fist person by someone who may or not been mentioned or return afterwards as a background character. Going to be flagged as AI generated these days, lol.

I doubt I have written any of these down, but there is one start where I would seek to retain that no matter what. It make obvious the background character as the true narrator, and then the details he tells about the protagonist (a much younger girl gradually exploring nudism in assumed secrecy and privacy) become creepy in their own right, and that's kinda, welcomed. Well, if anyone makes it trough that kind of mental gymnastics. But at very least it heighten my own enjoyment.

I don't know how other people would react to such a narrator's cameo. And, yes, it seemingly wouldn't be too hard to translate such scene to another 3rd limited view in the final version. But even then, in current concept it would remain sole isolated incident of leaving the protagonist's point of view, so why not make it jarring in purpose if it would be so anyhow.

Replies: Switch Blayde tendertouch

Switch Blayde 🚫

@LupusDei

Beyond that, a risk of omniscient 1st person lurks. In my opinion, any conclusions a 1st person narrator make about anyone's mind should be by definition be seen as speculative, derived from clues not normally consciously inventoried by the protagonist... but that is "too much telling" somehow?

Your saying "omniscient 1st person" confuses me, because the rest of the paragraph is talking about a 1st-person narrator, not a 1st-person omniscient narrator.

A 1st-person narrator can be very unreliable, like in "Catcher in the Rye." But a 1st-person omniscient narrator cannot be, like in "The Book Thief."

And, yes, omniscient is much more telling. The omni narrator is telling the story. 3rd-limited can be much more showing because the reader isn't being told the story but is experiencing it through the POV character. 1st-person is somewhere between the two.

tendertouch 🚫

@LupusDei

In my limited understanding -- and this may demolish the concepts just because I love to talk in unwarranted simplifications of exaggerated extremes -- perfect "close" 3rd limited and 1st person could be, in theory, very nearly morphed between by just use of a clever enough regex serarch/replace. The ground principles and information accessibility are the same.

That would be a heck of regex since it would need to know/track the gender of the POV character. Otherwise, this is how I'm reworking/checking my story — thinking about it (and rereading it) using 1st person, but writing in 3rd (so far I've only caught myself writing in 1st a couple of times.)

It's doing wonders for my story, though it's meant I needed to either abandon some scenes or completely rewrite them. The price you pay for constraining yourself.

Quasirandom 🚫

@Switch Blayde

But in omniscient, you never have any character thinking their thoughts. You have the narrator telling what the character is thinking or feeling.

That's … a bit reductive. There are many ways of writing omniscient, ranging from the narrator is a constant presence telling the story (almost another character) to concealing themself most of the time, in a way hard to distinguish from 3rd person limited except when describing events without any characters. It's a continuum.

I've yet to see good terminology for talking about this. Examples of a "present" narrator include several Victorian novelists such as Anthony Trollope, and of a "veiled" narrator the Inda quartet by Sherwood Smith.

Replies: Switch Blayde

Switch Blayde 🚫

@Quasirandom

There are many ways of writing omniscient, ranging from the narrator is a constant presence telling the story (almost another character) to concealing themself most of the time, in a way hard to distinguish from 3rd person limited

That's not my understanding. We're talking about POV.

In 1st-person, the POV is the 1st-person narrator. In that case, you can write, "Where is he?, I thought," hearing the POV character's thoughts directly.

In 3rd-limited, the POV is a character for a scene. The story can have only one POV character throughout the story or change the POV character at a scene change. In that case, you can write, "Where is he? John thought" (or he thought), hearing the POV character's thoughts directly (John's thoughts).

In omniscient, the POV character is the omniscient narrator. That narrator can tell the reader what each character is thinking, but you can't get into that character's head directly. So you can't have the, "I/he thought." Instead, the omni narrator would tell the reader, "John wondered where he was."

Replies: Quasirandom

Quasirandom 🚫

@Switch Blayde

Nope — again, that's a reductive/limited understanding of omniscient. The difference between 3rd limited and 3rd omniscient is entirely one thing: at any point, does the story tell the reader something a POV character (or more precisely, the current POV character) does not or cannot know. That's it.

3rd omniscient can have a clear and present narrator. It can instead have a veiled narrator who doesn't speak directly. It can vary between the two. It's a continuum of narrative voices.

(When I write omniscient, I have to, early on, who is telling this story and how — just like I have to for 1st person, who's telling this story and when.)

Replies: Switch Blayde mrherewriting

Switch Blayde 🚫

@Quasirandom

The difference between 3rd limited and 3rd omniscient is entirely one thing: at any point, does the story tell the reader something a POV character (or more precisely, the current POV character) does not or cannot know. That's it.

We are going to have to disagree on this. It's all about POV.

You can only tell what the POV character knows. That's easy in 1st-person. In 3rd-limited, it's the POV character for that scene with the same restrictions as 1st-person. In omniscient, the POV is the omni narrator who is all-knowing and can tell the reader anything and everything.

Replies: Dominions Son

Dominions Son 🚫

@Switch Blayde

@Quasirandom

The difference between 3rd limited and 3rd omniscient is entirely one thing: at any point, does the story tell the reader something a POV character (or more precisely, the current POV character) does not or cannot know. That's it.

We are going to have to disagree on this. It's all about POV.

You can only tell what the POV character knows. That's easy in 1st-person. In 3rd-limited, it's the POV character for that scene with the same restrictions as 1st-person. In omniscient, the POV is the omni narrator who is all-knowing and can tell the reader anything and everything.

It seems to me that you are both saying the same thing only wording it differently.

mrherewriting 🚫

@Quasirandom

3rd omniscient can have a clear and present narrator. It can instead have a veiled narrator who doesn't speak directly. It can vary between the two. It's a continuum of narrative voices.

What does that even mean?

Paladin_HGWT 🚫

@tendertouch

I avoid "Head Hopping" by keeping to the perspective of a single character for the duration of a scene.

I use:

New scene
1543 Hours, December 1st
Told from the perspective of Lieutenant Able.

Different scene
4:01 PM, December 1st
From the perspective of Mister Baker.

During a series of scenes when an aircraft was in crisis, I described events from multiple perspectives. With a new header for each character change. In earlier scenes I had already established who was in what location, doing what particular mundane activities.

The event starts from the point of view of the pilot, as the aircraft is turning to a new heading. She hears disturbing noises from the back of the aircraft, then various alarms sound, and she focuses on flying the aircraft.

I go on to describe events from the perspective of two persons in the fuselage of the aircraft, who have very different experiences, as well as from an air traffic controller who only sees events on a radar screen, and hears radio transmissions. Mission Control further away has even greater data lag.

I believe readers get a much better sense of events, eventually, than most of the characters ever get; due to each character having to focus on their duties in the moment. Also, some information is only revealed after the aircraft lands, and the damage can be examined.

If I did not split the scenes up, it could be easy to "head hop" it resulted in a lot of near simultaneous scenes. However, I think greater tension is built, because the reader gets each perspective, several of whom reasonably believe the aircraft is crashing.

The aircraft "disappears" off of the radar, and the pilot does not respond to radio calls. Until after several more perspective changes, and once they have stabilized the aircraft, and no longer need to focus on communication with the crew; they can radio ATC with an update.

I often have combat scenes that I depict in a similar manner.

One of the features of the story is that events are often monitored by RPA (Remotely Piloted Aircraft) aka "drones" as well as people on the ground, in battle.

Part of the reason I am telling the story is to inform people of what combat is like in the 21st century, in places such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and now Ukraine, and Armenia. I have been in combat there, as well as used RPA and other technology. So, I was always conscious of "head hopping" it is precisely the amount of information an individual can have, yet difficulties communicating it in a timely and useful manner to a person in close combat!

Freyrs_stories 🚫

@tendertouch

Okay I have come back to and re-read this post a couple of times and whilst I can say I recognise pretty much all the words individually I feel that I am at best confused trying to put together all the contexts etc. For this I am not going to blame the posters but my own general general lack of education / poor understanding / memory of terminology.

I'm pretty sure I could come back a hundred times and still end up scratching my head with a best, shaky recollections / inconsistent application of terminology.

I'm sure I'm not seeing the forest for the trees in this thread and perhaps I need to go back and sit through some kind of creative writing course. the picture in my mind is at best 'ethereal' one of my favourite English words by the way. I'm sure there is some unseen / forgotten lesson from my past that prevents a truly solid understanding here. Like I said I am well familiar with all the words individually and can even put most of the context together, but. there is a very serious disconnect between longer terms and the internal understanding of their meanings relative to my own patchwork of definitions.

I know instinctively 'how' to write but applying even basic subtleties of the terms used here to my 'self' and a very fractured technical appreciation of the art of English academically, I would say my 'writing' has not matured past perhaps the 8th or 9th grade. partly if not significantly hampered by an incongruous match between my ability to combine reading with writing. my spelling is at best appalling and without the help of a spell checker I'm sure most of you would have next to no clue what I am trying to actually say.

I speak English very fluently and I'd posit that my understood vocabulary would be perhaps double that of the average native speaker. but and it's a very big but. I have lost / never had many of the core skills / knowledge of that same native speaker, skills that would have been learnt in school had I not been so frantically trying to understand the words of this god damned infernal language whilst everyone else was absorbing the lessons.

now it has been a bloody long time since I stepped a foot in a classical school (K-12) based English class and so much water has passed under that particular bridge that I'm sure the water turned into kool-aide without me noticing. technical knowledge and understanding I have up the the Khyber.

but to this day I'd be totally lost if asked to 'diagram a sentence' or spell more than a third of the words I know how to use and in what context, verbally. I get unceasingly confused by all the *nyms and half the time I forget which one is which. that said I can read and pull apart just about any text you choose to put in front of me unless you ask me to use the 'correct' terminology to describe what is written, not as content, but as style and tool. my comprehension lacks that internal map between what I know and understand is being done and how to tell someone that in the right words which are expected of a high school and tertiary graduate.

I know that was probably long and wondering but it is the creation of a chaotic, disjointed mind that seems to have lost a piece or three along the way. I'm not stupid. I just lack the precision of certain tools of a native speaker or at least one who is not medicated to the eyeballs just to pretend to function.

I guess I'm fundamentally broken in some way and I use writing, or my attempts at it as a way to process the flotsam and jetsam that constantly burst into existence in my mind at the most inopportune of times refusing to go 'away' until I do 'something' with them.

rant now over. if someone has something constructive to show that will help me out of this 'hole' I'd be forever in your debt.

till next time, F.

Replies: tendertouch Quasirandom

tendertouch 🚫

@Freyrs_stories

I'm not sure if I have anything constructive, but I'll clear up what I was asking about. In 3rd person, limited point of view, a scene is viewed from a single characters POV (just like it was first person, but with different pronouns.) The problem I've been working on is that I tend to include internal observations from multiple characters in a scene, rather than limiting it to my POV character.

I hate to say it but I never took any creative writing classes — the closest I came was English 101 in college, but that seemed more focused on a formal sort of composition.

I will say that Switch Blayde's comment helped me a lot (I try to go back over a scene treating it as first person to see if I screwed up) and Quasirandom's comment reminded me to actually describe the character's emotions and sensations helped to strengthen the story. Just waiting for some readers to finish looking at it before posting the updated version.

Replies: Freyrs_stories

Freyrs_stories 🚫

@tendertouch

that actually helped a *little* and I don't feel so self-conscious the last time I did any creative writing formally was the early to mid 90's in the last two years of high school.

I do have a significant word count on personal projects over the last 20+ years of sporadic typing. I have 'lost' significant portions over that time and don't have access to a single word other than their memory out of high school. where because of my 'challenges' was told I was a talentless moronic hack not capable of attempting anything but the lowest level course work.

I've since come to a 'better' conclusion. my teachers couldn't teach water to wet a paper bag and didn't want to have to spend an iota of their time helping me.

I know I can write, sometimes well. I've had examples read by people with a BA in Literature and been told it shows talent and foresight. a few others have given feedback on work to one day be posted here and they too were very encouraging though honest with my 'mistakes'.

In the end I write for two reasons; process shit I don't have another way of dealing with (primarily as free verse) and to put down those ideas that wake me at 3 in the morning and hang around long enough for me to get at a computer. primarily things that once finished and polished a little will end up here with a little luck and perseverance.

I read here for enjoyment and to learn how to and hopefully how not to write for SOL. my writing folder for SOL is around 20 MB of .ODT files of early drafts. there is a bit more elsewhere but they are not even on the back burner. they're one day projects to be picked up again when I feel like it / have time.

using the language here I'm drafting in 3rd omni. mainly because it is quick and dirty. I don't have worry about scope and visibility. I can just put the words down as quickly as possible, hopefully before the idea runs away to find someone else who may write it.

on a side note I remember in about 90/91 writing a proposal including all the maths that was a scary match for Musk's 'Hyperloop'. not saying no one else did this just that something I did in year 8 or 9 matched a current day super-project 30 years ahead of time. I didn't think it was anything special then, nor do I now.

Quasirandom 🚫

@Freyrs_stories

BTW, for the record, being able to diagram a sentence doesn't help anyone tell a story. Having the skills of a storyteller helps one tell a story.

(As far as I can tell, unless some is a grammarian—i.e. a linguist who specializes in grammar—there's only one use-case for diagramming: if a sentence feels like it's not quite right, diagramming can help one figure out where it went wrong. It's not the only tool for this, and probably not the easiest, but it's a valid use case. IOW, the next time you, or anyone else on this forum, uses not being able to diagram, Imma march right down there and slap some sense into you with a cold salmon.)

Replies: Freyrs_stories

Freyrs_stories 🚫

@Quasirandom

perhaps I should be more detailed. I don't even know what diagramming is, past some sort of mental picture that I'm pretty sure came out of the Weird Al parody of blurred lines, word crimes.

I am mostly familiar with terms like; noun, verb, adjective, simile and metaphor etc. Those last two constantly brought me unstuck before high school.

however infinitives that shouldn't be split, somehow. participles, prepositions and probably at least a dozen other terms escape me.

I probably know what these are and how not/to use them innately just by the text not looking/sounding 'right', I just don't have a linkage of the practical use/definitions of them.

now, I'm far from stupid. it's just that I'm the Greeks with their 4 elements Vs Mendeleeve with his 'perfect' table, even if it only held half the entries it does now. Just because I seem to be able to do something doesn't mean I know the how and why of doing it. How many people 'know' 'how' to drive a car past it's most basic of skills. and don't even let me start on about the 'lost' art of driving manual/stick. those pedals, levers and round thing in front of you are just 'tools' to let you make very simple motions in order to get the desired motion out of a ton and a half of possibly the most ridiculous pile of raw ingredients ever conceived.

a muse and craft, even if they are mostly of a placebo nature will greatly help someone. even of half acceptable talent write something good enough to be enjoyed and understood by a significant portion of the masses.

I can see myself getting most of the way there, via that mechanic. but I need someone, maybe a few of them to 'help' to turn my bauxite in to a shiny can of soda.

I'm familiar with the term idiot savant and can, at least obliquely identify that way. I had a combination of classical and comprehensive educations. unfortunately I came out with none of the benefits and all the worst parts remaining.

BTW, we say 'wet trout' not salmon ;)

Replies: Quasirandom

Quasirandom 🚫

@Freyrs_stories

In the Fidonet BBSs I was trained on when I was a wee netizen, lo these 40 years ago, we always used the Salmon of Correction.

Trust your language instincts. If you can write a simple declarative sentence, that's all the technical grammar you need for this gig. (Exception: time travel stories may require advanced verbing.) Tell the reader the story. That's all you need to do. Tell the fucking story.

Replies: Freyrs_stories awnlee jawking

Freyrs_stories 🚫

@Quasirandom

ell the reader the story. That's all you need to do. Tell the fucking story.

thanks for that, though you did it with significantly less swearing than I may have used.

I formally came into the connected computer world, locally at least just before the mainstream release of consumer internet. so, I have these vague memories of what I would later come to identify as 'the internet' in the mid-80's. though I didn't know what it was then.

fast forward ~8 years and I dipped my toe into the BBS world and then 3 years after that was sitting on a University fibre backbone that was faster than the LAN I was on. that may seem arse about backwards but the 'early' exposure was at what have looked like E3 but back in the day but on a smaller and more localised scale.

I didn't actually have my own modem until another 3 years from that University connection, an outstanding downgrade. I'd missed the days of acoustic couplers, pine and Archie due to extremely limited local infrastructure, no money of my own and no 'resources' such as stores, magazines or interested parents.

I'm going to guess you're about 10 years older than me and maybe Canadian rather than American, those are just guesses reading 'between the lines'. thank you for tolerating my whinge and I'll try and remember my 'betters'

IGBTYS, F.

awnlee jawking 🚫

@Quasirandom

Tell the fucking story.

Sex isn't mandatory in SOL stories :-)

AJ

irvmull 🚫

@tendertouch

I started reading a story recently (from the random stories list).

Removing the extraneous details, it went something like this:

"Joe sat all alone in his room, reading a book. I finished the chapter. She closed the book..."

So, who is "I" and when did Joe get a sex change?

That was just on the first page.
Needless to say, I did not bother to read any further.

Forum: Author Hangout

How do you avoid headhopping?

WARNING! ADULT CONTENT...