[Tristis]

Okay, It's really early in the morning/late late at night and I'm a little unsettled by a bizarre ratings spike in the segments I've been posting in the Stories section.

I've been posting episodic segments of what I've been writing all year. It is a book with the working title of "Betrayed By God" which is hovering at around 300 pages, 150 of which have been posted.

I've received very few ratings and no comments on any of the posts. Once, because I got several single-planet rating responses, I rewrote a scene, changing it completely and reposted it to the boom of no ratings at all. Most of my other scenes have no ratings and a few have one or two - not enough to worry or brag about.

Then I posted this last segment. It's titled "Lona 6 from Betrayed By God"

The information page tells me that I had 23 readers in the fifteen hours since it was put up and I got 23 ratings of "single planet." Okay, it smarts a bit, but I am also confused. How is that even possible (besides the obvious)?

I need to know if it sucks outright or if people are just offended by the religious references - or maybe the server's nuts. Can somebody please help me with a critique? Where did I go wrong? Did I go wrong? Do people just hate having to read prior posts to make sense of it?

That reminds me: these aren't short stories, they're book segments. To understand the what's happening with Lona 6, you will have to read at least the scenes that relate directly to it in the book.

Anna converts Emannuel:
http://sffworld.com/community/story/2956p0.html

Anna converts Emannuel 2:
http://sffworld.com/community/story/3037p0.html

Lona 6:
http://sffworld.com/community/story/3331p0.html

I don't think it's absolutely necessary, but if you want to better understand who everybody is and how they think, you need to read at least these, which you can find in the "More From The Same Author" column:
Carol, Carol 2, 3, & 4
Father Bedford, Father Bedford 2
Lona Confuses Helena
Lona, Lona 2, 3, 4, 5

If you want a better picture of the calamity the book traces, you can, of course, read all the other segments :o
Aside from the need to read the numbered segments in order, it doesn't matter so much which character you follow first. FYI: Carol is the book's starting point.

Thanks in advance to anyone who braves this little mess. I would truly appreciate knowing what is wrong as much as what is right. Please don't hesitate to express yourself.

[benh]

Hey buddy,

I'm going to be honest with you here. I didn't read all of your segments. I read most of the first one and then about half of Lona, and the other.

I don't know whats happening. In any of them. The scenes may be playing out well in your mind but you're not relaying them very well. There are no plain sentences. No "He stood in the street and watched as cars passed him by." We need scenes like that, descriptive, easy to read sentences. Without them we get left adrift. If you can't place us in a scene then we won't continue reading.

She told him she believes he has had a profound religious epiphany; that he has changed from a man who went along with her to church to be a decent man and a role model to their children to a man for whom the call of god is as solidly real as the peel of bells from the twin steeples that now tower above them.

Seriously read this sentence aloud. Does it make sense? Is it a jumble? Don't be afraid of keeping your sentences longer.

With a swift pivot, she was back to yelling up the stairs, her voice even louder.

When were they in a house? Or are the stairs outside?

I don't know what to tell you buddy.

The look on her face is scary indeed, and she glares at the strangers all around them until they nervously break off their own rude stares.

What strangers?


Fifteen minutes later, after an awkward groping about the little birdbath just inside the sanctuary and the choice not to kneel at the entrance to the pew no matter what these people think, the Nixons take a pew in the centre section, near the back of the sanctuary

What? What? I don't understand at all.

I think what it boils down to my friend, beside the way in which you use past and present tense as the same thing, beside the way your sentences are too long and jumbled, is that you are never CLEAR. What groping? Why? And the choice?

Sorry if this sounds harsh my friend, I'm really not meaning to be. You have good IDEAS, which is what is so frustrating in that I can barely follow them.

Try an exercise. Take a day, or a simple task, and describe it. Simply. Use short sentences and easy to understand words.

Good luck! Keep writing! You obviously have a passion in this area, and if you keep at it, you'll be amazing.

[SuperFede]

OK, i usually like religious controversy and such. I believe you have the ideas in your head but you struggle too much to put them down on paper.

I read only the first scene and by the other comment it all has the same problems.

let me mention some:

1.- Pay attention to tenses..... you seem to be wanting to write in present tense but there are lots of verbes in past tense.

2.- Your sentences are unnecesarily too long and confusing. They tend to stray from what you want to say. Keep it simple and get your ideas in order. I had to read most of the sentences two or three times to barely follow.

3.- Descriptions and actions. You need them both, but not necesarily together. They tend to mix things a lot. Set the scene, describe the place where it takes place and then set the action in there.

and last and most important, remember that the reader doesn't know what you know! You must tell the reader what you want him to know to follow the story.

allow me to give you a short example:

original first sentence:

Catholicism strikes Emmanuel Nixon out of the blue while driving his family home from their own Baptist church on Sunday afternoon. It starts when they have to stop at the lights just below the Church of our Lady Cathedral to wait for a parade of white people to cross the street.

some points here. how does "catholicism strikes Emmanuel"? you say "it starts", what starts?

now rewriten by me:

Emmanuel Nixon drove his family home from sunday mass at their Baptist Church. He was having a hard time in his life but going to church always gave him renew strenght and hope. A few blocks went by when he had to stop at a light. He waited patiently as a long line of people that came from the church of our lady Cathedral crossed the street.

see what i mean?

[Tristis]

Hi benh

Thanks for the feedback (and the swiftness!). I guess I really do need to rethink some things. And you're right, I had no idea it was so confusing.


Hey buddy,

I'm going to be honest with you here. I didn't read all of your segments. I read most of the first one and then about half of Lona, and the other.

I don't know whats happening. In any of them. The scenes may be playing out well in your mind but you're not relaying them very well. There are no plain sentences. No "He stood in the street and watched as cars passed him by." We need scenes like that, descriptive, easy to read sentences. Without them we get left adrift. If you can't place us in a scene then we won't continue reading.

I will give it another go and try to simplify. I'm not sure why it sounds so easy to me when its not. I can say that I'm not intending to be confusing - especially in the first two scenes.


She told him she believes he has had a profound religious epiphany; that he has changed from a man who went along with her to church to be a decent man and a role model to their children to a man for whom the call of god is as solidly real as the peel of bells from the twin steeples that now tower above them.

Seriously read this sentence aloud. Does it make sense? Is it a jumble? Don't be afraid of keeping your sentences longer.

I don't mean to be argumentative, but it does (although punctuation is a huge problem for me, and I'm often wrong about whether to use a semi-colon). Maybe I've heard it too many times. I'm not sure where it becomes a jumble.


With a swift pivot, she was back to yelling up the stairs, her voice even louder.

When were they in a house? Or are the stairs outside?

Their stairs inside their home. That was the end of their morning preparations for church. He was remembering it.



I don't know what to tell you buddy.

The look on her face is scary indeed, and she glares at the strangers all around them until they nervously break off their own rude stares.

What strangers?

The strangers at this new church.

OOHHH. Stairs going up to the church and stairs in their house confuses people. Didn't see that. Darn. Well, I guess I have a lot to fix in the rewrite so the transition from his memory of the morning to their entry into the church is more clear.




Fifteen minutes later, after an awkward groping about the little birdbath just inside the sanctuary and the choice not to kneel at the entrance to the pew no matter what these people think, the Nixons take a pew in the centre section, near the back of the sanctuary

What? What? I don't understand at all.

I think what it boils down to my friend, beside the way in which you use past and present tense as the same thing, beside the way your sentences are too long and jumbled, is that you are never CLEAR. What groping? Why? And the choice?

It just describes their awkwardness inside a church that practices different ritual than they are used to. The basin containing holy water looks like a birdbath to these Baptists and the idea of kneeling before entering the pew is also strange.



Sorry if this sounds harsh my friend, I'm really not meaning to be. You have good IDEAS, which is what is so frustrating in that I can barely follow them.

Try an exercise. Take a day, or a simple task, and describe it. Simply. Use short sentences and easy to understand words.

Good luck! Keep writing! You obviously have a passion in this area, and if you keep at it, you'll be amazing.

Please don't worry about harsh. I'm really grateful. I need to know this stuff and my friends are wayyy too nice. I'm going to go back over those scenes and see what I can do to fix them. It's obvious to me that the idea of writing in the present tense and then having so many sequences of memory (in the past tense) is too confusing.

Thanks so much for taking the time to post your feedback.

[Tristis]

Thanks SuperFede

A lot of what you say makes sense. I know that changing tenses is a problem for readers, but it always seems so important to do when I'm writing.

Believe it or not, all those tense changes are on purpose. Sad, but true. I triple check them. I thought it was okay to have characters in a present tense scene slip into memories that are written in past tense. Maybe it's because the narration is so tight to their perspective that the transition is too muddled. It's probably time to review my entire approach to how I'm writing this thing.




1.- Pay attention to tenses..... you seem to be wanting to write in present tense but there are lots of verbes in past tense.

2.- Your sentences are unnecesarily too long and confusing. They tend to stray from what you want to say. Keep it simple and get your ideas in order. I had to read most of the sentences two or three times to barely follow.

3.- Descriptions and actions. You need them both, but not necesarily together. They tend to mix things a lot. Set the scene, describe the place where it takes place and then set the action in there.

and last and most important, remember that the reader doesn't know what you know! You must tell the reader what you want him to know to follow the story.

Excellent advice. I think I have lots to work on.


original first sentence:

Catholicism strikes Emmanuel Nixon out of the blue while driving his family home from their own Baptist church on Sunday afternoon. It starts when they have to stop at the lights just below the Church of our Lady Cathedral to wait for a parade of white people to cross the street.

some points here. how does "catholicism strikes Emmanuel"? you say "it starts", what starts?

now rewriten by me:

Emmanuel Nixon drove his family home from sunday mass at their Baptist Church. He was having a hard time in his life but going to church always gave him renew strenght and hope. A few blocks went by when he had to stop at a light. He waited patiently as a long line of people that came from the church of our lady Cathedral crossed the street.

see what i mean?

Catholicism strikes Emmannuel like a hammer made of golden light in an echo of what supposedly happened to Paul on the road to Damascus in the New Testament (I always thought that was a strange little tale).

What I'm trying to say is that this humdrum religious man had been attending church to be a good husband and father. He was a protestant. Then suddenly - and for no logical reason - he "finds god" by looking up at a Catholic church while stopped in front of it waiting for its own attendees to cross the street.

Later, this conversion is going to be revealed as a manipulation that has nothing to do with Catholicism, but for this part of the story, it seems like it does.

I see what you're saying about simplifying the sentence. If readers do not understand that something weird just smacked the guy, then I failed at the task. That sentence is the opening of a new chapter.

As for "it starts," I guess that should be "it happens" I will change it pronto.

[SuperFede]

Thanks SuperFede

A lot of what you say makes sense. I know that changing tenses is a problem for readers, but it always seems so important to do when I'm writing.

Believe it or not, all those tense changes are on purpose. Sad, but true. I triple check them. I thought it was okay to have characters in a present tense scene slip into memories that are written in past tense. Maybe it's because the narration is so tight to their perspective that the transition is too muddled. It's probably time to review my entire approach to how I'm writing this thing.


If this is your answer you may have a problem i had not seen. If the tenses are on purpose your idea of flashback does not get through. I never thought any of it as a flashback. You may want to recheck how you make the reader understand what is in the present and what is in the past in a flashback.





Catholicism strikes Emmannuel like a hammer made of golden light in an echo of what supposedly happened to Paul on the road to Damascus in the New Testament (I always thought that was a strange little tale).

If this is the case SAY SO! Like i have already said, this tale may be fresh in your mind but i had no clue that it even existed, so if you want to make a reference, do it and take the reader there, otherwise it will be just another frase taken out of context.


What I'm trying to say is that this humdrum religious man had been attending church to be a good husband and father. He was a protestant. Then suddenly - and for no logical reason - he "finds god" by looking up at a Catholic church while stopped in front of it waiting for its own attendees to cross the street.

see, you can explain it clearly, this paragraph is exactly the way you should describe it in your book. Don't be criptic in your book. Don't write riddles unless you say it is a riddle and it has a purpose for existing.


As for "it starts," I guess that should be "it happens" I will change it pronto.
Still it is unclear, where you say "it starts" or "it happens", unless you explain what "it" is, there is no point mentioning here. at least hint at what "it" means for the man. Otherwise the reader, me in this case, can think any strange and crazy ideas that cross my mind at this time. example: "it happens in front of the church" with this sentence i may thing the "it" means he farted. think of it, why not? heavy breakfast, not gone to the bathroom yet, so he farted! you always have to guide the reader the way you want him to go.

Think of this a a magigians work, you have to stage the trick, atract the audience with a nice fable, perhaps even a joke, and then make a big arm movement to atrackt all the atention and build suspense and then show the trick. Believe me that even the most simple and stupid of tricks, if done this way, will look stunning!

I hope this helps.

SF!

[Tristis]

Thanks Superfede. It helps a lot. I got me some rewriting to do.

[Scorpion]

Tristis... I think concerning the rating and the views of your stories, something fishy is going on.
For a month my only story Deliverance built up to 100 views with 2 6 star ratings.
Now, I check again and I have 127 views and 29 ratings. That's 27 views with 27 ratings. And of course the rating of my story went doooooown.
Ok, not that I care about it ... but obviously some loser out there has nothing better to do than to somehow vote several times and worsen the ratings of stories. Sad!

By the way, if you go to story section and click on last 100 stories, the same thing seems to have happened to others.
Some have over 100 ratings and are, of course, at 1 star. lol...

[Tristis]

I'm glad you said that, Learco.

I didn't want to, because it would sound like I was pouting, but I noticed the same weirdness regarding the ratings, including in the other posted stories. It looks damned fishy.

But I don't know how somebody can do that. If you give a rating, the page kicks you out of the story (at least with my browser). You should have to go back in to vote. (A) How does this person achieve this? and (B) What the heck kind of joy can this bring?

Maybe it's a bug in the site. I also think that I jumped from 10 views with no ratings to 23 views with 23 single planet ratings. Did buddy know how many singles to give me? Did he/she hit the ratings button over and over and it maxed at the pageviews, or is this something else?

Regardless of how few ratings I get compared to views, I rely on them to tell me if I'm off base. I wonder how this can be fixed.




(BTW: evil ratings child aside, I will be rewriting my piece.)

[Scorpion]

Umm... how did he do it?
Curious, I voted for my own story. Then, I left the next site that came up and went to the story again and was able to vote once more... Guess it's pretty easy...

I think I could open like 30 tabs in Firefox with a story and then go through them, casting a vote each time. Maybe this a new bug that happened due to the server shift?

And yes, don't stop at your writing because of the evil kiddie :D