Hello all... I've been reading the slush pile (and a pile of other stories) and I'm coming up against some common mistakes so I thought'd I'd take a few minutes' break and talk about them.
The theme of this note: sentences matter. Your stories are made up of sentences, people. They make paragraphs, paragraphs make scenes, and scenes make stories. Trying to build a story out of shoddy sentences is like trying to build a house out of rotten wood. When you're proofreading and revising, pay attention to your sentences!
There are writers who live and die by their other people editing their writing, and writers who sweat bullets over every word. I don't particularly care which kind you are (I know several of both) but one thing you should never forget is to proofread your work before you send it for publication.
Let me say that again. Proofread your work.
PROOFREAD!
Now, a couple little things:
1. Every BattleTech story should have an epigraph. That's four lines: A location (city, zone, ship, etc.), a planet, a province and/or realm, and a date. At the start of every story (REQUIRED!) and usually at the start of any scene that doesn't happen at the same time as the previous.
2. Never, ever, italicize the possessive or plural "s" at the end of BattleMech or fighter names. It's Wraith's, not Wraith's
3. Light, medium, heavy, and assault are never capitalized in conjunction with 'Mech. You don't go out and drive a Compact car, or a Luxury sedan. So it's assault 'Mech, not Assault 'Mech.
4. Vehicle names are not italicized. It's Demolisher Heavy Tank, not Demolisher Heavy Tank.
The last thing I want to mention today is what's called active voice. It is normally compared to passive voice, like so:
Active voice: He heard the bullets strike the tank's armor.
Passive voice: He could hear the bullets strike the tank's armor.
Never use two words when one will do. Look at the difference in the sentence. In the active voice, he did something. He heard the bullets... In the passive, he was able to do something. He could hear the bullets... well of course he could hear them. Syntactically it doesn't even mean that he did hear them, just that he had ears and it was physically possible he could have heard them. Whenever you catch yourself saying your characters were able to do something, see if it's not just better that they actually DO something.
So...
"She could see the birds..." should be "She saw the birds..." or "He could feel the heat radiating..." could be "He felt the heat radiating..."
Now... read the first part of this post again. Note the important sentence (I'll put it in boldface this time, just to make sure): When you're proofreading and revising, pay attention to your sentences!
Do not get bogged down, when you're writing, making sure all your verbs line up. I utterly despise proofreading. I hate it. But I make myself do it, because I make mistakes when I write. I write stories fast. In bursts. If I proofread everything while I wrote I'd never--EVER--finish a story. Get used to the idea of going back over your work.
It will pay off in the end.
З.Ы. Мож кто асилит на ридну мову? У мну времени почти нет сейчас.
, вы определитесь с написанием или нет, пишу книгу, и читаю ваши обсуждения уже сам не знаю, что исправлять, а что нет