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Transcript

if that was written as a limited piece, which is how I would write it, You would be the boy, so you would feel the fear. You would feel the wave as it hit you. You wouldn't just be being told that this stuff was happening. And that's the problem with omniscient point of view.

We're just watching this boy go through this event. We're not connected to it. We don't care. We're not concerned. And today's modern audiences, that's what they want. They want that intimate connection with the character. They want to feel the fear of what it's like to be on that, that sure, as this monster is burst out of the myths and then realizes we're there and comes to eat us.

As it stands now, it's just this thing that's happening. We're just watching it happen to someone else. And so it's very telling and it's very disconnected and it's very much at arm's length.

Releasing your inner dragon.

Okay. So welcome back to another episode of Releasing your In a Dragon. Today we have another willing victim who has submitted their work to us for critique. As always, we do enjoy doing these sessions. We hope that you learn from them. And you know, if you are brave enough to send it along to ReleasingYourInnerDragon@gmail.com, we try to do one of these about once a month, once every three weeks or so, depending on how many we have in the queue.

Drake Would you like to add anything while I share my.

The only thing I'll say is the same thing we usually do. We also like to do every quarter or so an episode where we call it first page reads, where we go through and read first pages and decide where an agent or a publisher would stop reading. Again, it's not us. It's we're trying to adopt the role of them to kind of show you how the industry thinks.

So we are looking for submissions for that. Just make sure same address ReleasingYourInnerDragon@gmail.com However, make sure that you write on there. This is for first page reads because otherwise we'll think you're sending it to us for critiquing and you can send one to say use it for either use it for both, you know, and that's fine too.

And then we'll we will make decisions on where we want to slot it in. But we're always looking for people who want to send us. But just remember the first page reads must be the actual opening page of your novel, not the first page of a Chapter 15, which if you're editing, it can be anything. It can literally just be in the middle of a novel.

Just make sure you let us know where we're at, what genre it is, what we need to know prior to this moment that we're reading so that we can ground the audience into where we're at. Last night in the writers room. One of the people missed, and even though it was stated, one of the people missed that we were starting in the middle of a scene.

And so when we got to him for his critiques, he was like, Man, that first line, I don't think that works as an opening line. Anybody's like, This is the middle of a scene. And he was like, did we say that? I missed that? Okay, no. Now that is completely understandable that it's the middle of the scene like, man? It's just a line.

No.

All right. So let's jump right into it. Everyone knew falling in might end with being devoured. The wise kept the safe distance, spurning it dally with the unpredictable entities such as fate and luck around the law, The turbulent atmosphere split and sputtered as creative winds played with a primordial chemistry between air, water and life. Battered by bluster and gale, a boy clambered along the rocky shore while out over its surface.

Physical incantations conjured up a wheeling eddy. It swirled and boiled, mutating into an array of monstrous dark forms. Came to pause here briefly so we can just address these two paragraphs. So I like a lot of the imagery, but I feel like this is our protagonist.

What it looks like because I read Down Sea.

Yeah. And we we need we need to know a bit more about him.

Well, okay.

So we don't need to know, but we do like, okay so, so I actually don't think that you have to open with where the boy is immediately. I think the boy clambering here is fine, but I'd like to know his name.

Well, and that's what I was going to get into. Yep. So there's there's really two ways to write third person. I mean, there's multiple ways, but there's two big ways to write it. You can write it omniscient. Like Lord of the Rings or, you know, anything that was written before 1900. And that's what this style is. It's this very detached.

There's a third party. NARRATOR That's not a part of the story that's telling the story. We can talk about everyone knowing things and the whys, keeping, you know, distances. And when you talk about a boy, you know, that's just, you know, some random boy. And we can but and that's fine. You can do it. I'm not going to say don't do it, but I am going to say that's not what audiences want today.

That's not these are not the stories that are going to impact audiences. These are not what, you know, today's audiences are being driven to read. This is a dead writing style, in my opinion. It's just my opinion. I just the omniscient writing style is just never the engaging writing style. The other way to do it is the I am the boy and I am telling you the story.

So I would never call myself a boy because I know who I am. So it would be, you know, Drake Climber clambered along the rocky shore because I'm doing it and I know who I am. And I don't want you to be detached from me. I want you to be me. And so that's the difference between writing in a limited style.

Like first person. I clambered along the rocky shore while, you know, whatever or third person limited. Drake clambered along the rocky shore. When you start off with this really purple prose, you know, everyone knew falling and falling in might end with being devoured, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Sure pretty purply prose but it's that's the old in my opinion.

It's the old writing style that just is not going to capture readers these days.

So there are some books that are written in an omniscient style that you know are not that old but do work for them. Like Good Omens, for example, you can write in the omniscient style. It's not my favorite, but I will say that as an omniscient style, this is not badly.

It gets pushed back a little bit on Good Omens. It's been so long since I've read it, so I can't. But I feel like the narrator was either the devil or the the the angel or the demons. No, no. It's been too long to not write it. It might be. It might be no promises. I've I've seen the TV series since I read the book and that.

And when I do that, it always muddies the water. And my brain doesn't differentiate between the two. They start becoming one. So I can't remember what was in the what was only in the TV series but wasn't in the books. They become one story to me and so it's harder for me to.

So so what I will say about Omniscient because I'm not quite as much of a like you can't write omniscient. I do. You know, I No, no, no, I know. But I mean, I do see some omniscient book still. And I like I have made it through Lord of the Rings. No problem. Right? I've even made it through The Silmarillion.

So. So I'm a little more chill about it, but the thing with Omniscient is the same rules apply as with Third person Ltd you still have to attach me to the character.

Yes, 100%.

And the problem is that here a boy clambered along the rocky shore while okay, so that's fine. But instead of a boy use the character's name. There is a power in naming people. Yeah. Something that is. And that's why you shouldn't name every NPC in your book. You shouldn't give somebody a name unless they're actually going to be important because to the reader, a name is an important symbol.

It's a thing they need to store away, and if you overwhelm them with names, they will eventually just lose track of your story and become disconnected. So don't name everything. But by naming the boy here, you create an instantaneous connection. I now know your name as a character. That is the first step to me beginning to care about you and whether you're omniscient or whether you're in limited.

You do not need to wait for somebody to say the boy's name or anything like that. Okay, This is not a movie script that in a movie script you can just put a name of. Somebody said, you've got to be introduced as a like a character, right? In a book, you can just use the name, use the medium we write and use the prose to give that reader the information.

The symbol of the boy's name becomes a focal point for the reader.

Yep.

So put the boy's name there.

The other problem that I have is the opening paragraph, while critically written, isn't attached to anything everyone knew falling in might end with being devoured, falling into what? The ocean, the lake lost. But that's too late. That's all the way down there. You're losing me up here. So if we're going to if if in literally this the third sentence, we're going to name what falling, what it is to fall into, then there's no reason to bury that.

You know, everyone knew falling in the lock might end with being devoured Like it starts off in such a vague way. And again, if this was an esoteric thing that we're going to hide what we're falling into for a while, then okay, maybe. But if the third sentence tells me what I shouldn't fall into, then it should be in the first sentence.

Yeah. One of the peanut gallery, as we were reading it, said that she thought it was a volcano that you shouldn't fall into until she got to the third sentence. So, yeah, it's.

It could definitely do with clarity up there.

Yeah. Vagueness is not always your friend. Yeah, it can be. But a lot of times, especially in the beginning, vagueness is your enemy, not your friend.

I do like the imagery of, like, physical incantations. Like, all of that is really nice imagery being painted here.

Yeah.

So all of that is good. Just do that effort of the name. Good. Then wide eyed, the lad cowered behind an ancient pines, giant limb, his gaze fixed on the spectacle, mist and cloud pulse that congealed birthing a shrieking creature with a horse's head and neck, a mane of flowing serpents and a sealed muscular body and limbs tails.

He'd heard told of this beast their kind patrolled unfathomable waters where they're hunted for the careless, unwary and unlucky. Okay, so I have a problem with the first sentence here on line 12 and this sentence is what I call a overstuffed sentence or a sentence with too many descriptions in it. Yeah. So I like to say that in a sentence you can only give the reader around five pieces of information.

If you go over five, it starts becoming difficult for the reader to absorb the sentence. Now, the information that you're giving is not just like what's going on, it's also all the descriptors. So it's wide eyed. The lad cowered behind an ancient pines, giant limb, his gaze fixed on the spectacle that is ten pieces of information. And that one thing.

So I you need to you need to like, spread that so that the plot.

Also I see a pattern emerging in this writer's storytelling where I'm going to give you something vague first, and then I'm going to give you the specifics of the vagueness that I gave you, because so we still have that in this sentence, you know, his gaze fixed on a spectacle, a thing that I'm going to give you a word that you're not going to be able to imagine in your head.

It's just a random thing. And then I'm going to describe what that thing is. So even if it was something like, you know, his gaze fixed on the monster emerging, if it was a word that gives me a little bit more definition than just a spectacle, because the specter could be he's looking at, you know, a football team practicing or a band marching by or jets overhead or, you know, whatever.

There's there's so many different things that a spectacle could be.

We can give a stronger word there.

I will also say that I don't think you need that.

Right.

Right. Because you can have him wide eyed. The lad cowered behind an ancient pons, giant limb period.

Period.

It makes the sentence easier to read. It doesn't crowded with as much information. And you don't need to say that he is watching the spectacle you're about to describe.

But yeah.

Right. And I know a little bit I mean, yes, this is omniscient and sometimes omniscient needs filtering, but he is literally the only character there. Like, it can't be anybody else seeing it because he's the only one in the scene. I do like the description of the monster. Yeah, I'm assuming it's a it's a book of some kind of something.

One of the one of the faerie monsters. I also like this line here. He shouldn't be there that, you know, I think that this this is the style of like the the I think this is kind of free and indirect. It's a kind of Jane Austen ish style where you in between the omniscient and the and the third person limited because this is a very this is a very strong internal thought.

You know, you shouldn't be there.

Yeah. No, that's a great line.

Yeah. The hybrid monster swam like using powerful undulations then.

All right.

Rising, rising head high. It began exploring. Okay, I'm going to stop there because I have You've just triggered to of my pet peeves author to at once so you never need then no one needs then I will die on the field.

And see and it's so funny because where we really differ we don't differ on much. But what we really differ is things that I'm like, never. You're like, No, I mean, mostly never. And like the things that you're like. Or I'm like, well, I mean, mostly never. Like, that's our big disagreement is because I'm like, Yeah, no, now then is bad.

It's most of the time you're never going to need it. But you know, there's and you're like, Here, you.

Know, so, so the thing the problem was then and began is both of them are just filler words. They're just that they're not doing anything for your story here. They're not making your story stronger. They're not showing time periods when it is obvious that the one thing follows the other due to the way that English is structured. You know, like English works in sentences.

Yeah. So, yeah, no need there. And, you know, when you have the those wishy washy words began started, you know, those things, they're just it's almost always and again, not always, but almost always it's stronger when you don't do it. It depends on what I'm trying to paint. So if I want to paint the fact that the thing is, is literally in the start of something, then I might write began exploring the other time I'll use it is if it gets interrupted you know, Drake started to turn, but Marie grabbed his arm.

So hundred percent. But I will I will devoutly stick to this point that you could say Drake turned, quote away. Drake turned his foot. Drake lifted his foot to turn Marie 40. So you do not need the began show the motion started to show the interruption.

As Drake turned, Marie grabbed his arm. I mean, there is ways to do it. I'm just saying those are the ways that that aren't egregious to me for using it. You know, the Drake started to turn, but Marie grabbed his arm. Ah, but stopped when Marie get glared at him or whatever. I'm not I'm not I'm not opposed to that stuff.

But if you if your action is interrupted, I will give you half a pass. Although I will.

Say.

I will still probably mention that you can avoid this. Right. But if your action is interrupted, I will give you half.

And then I said, Everyone smile. It just feels right. It feels right to begin exploring. I don't think this one does. I'm just saying every once more there is those moments where I'm I'm doing it and I'm like, actually kind of like the fact that he started something because I actually want you to see the start of it.

I want you to feel it's sort of like the difference between, you know, everybody talks about everybody. She starts learning this stuff and it's in every writer's group and it bugs the crap out of me. But you always have somebody that starts learning, you should never use ing words. You always use ed. And I'm like, Except for not like it's dumb because if I wrote, you know, Drake,

Drake ran into the kitchen

and screamed versus Drake ran into the kitchen screaming, Yes, they paint very different pictures. One of them paints Drake going fully into the kitchen and then screaming and the other paints that as Drake is running into the kitchen, he is screaming and I.

Angie, word is golden. If you wanted to pick continuous action. Yeah, yeah. Like, absolutely use it like, do not, you know, do not be shocked.

Right And so but yeah but the then is what I call stage direction then Mr. Reader, I know you're going to read this, this sentence next, but I want you to make sure that you understand that the sentence you're reading next happened after the sentence that you just read, just in case you get confused. Yeah, maybe you read them out of order for some reason.

And so I wanted to let you know that this happened after that happened, even though literally it's in order on the page. And so stage directions like that make no sense to me because as you said, they're filler words. They don't do anything. Yeah, I never I got a lot more problems with this sentence than just then and began.

Okay.

Rising head high.

Yeah. There's definitely a chromatic problem here.

Yeah. Are raising not rising raising head high. It began exploring, right? Raising its head high.

It's it said high.

I think even head raising hi would be better than raising head high. Yeah but it would probably be something like head raised high.

Yeah. Yeah. I think head raised high would probably be the best sentence right.

Right.

Because it would let us avoid the IT pronoun.

Yep.

And and a pronoun avoided is a pronoun that you don't have to echo.

Well, we'd end up having to. It's in that one sentence.

Exactly. Head raised high. It nosed.

The weeds.

Exploring some very weak would.

Yeah but that also that hurts my logistic engine because we have his head high but weeds are low and so that hurts my it hurts my brain the most.

The side.

Yeah.

You do I'd like you can write it explored and it will work so raise head raised head raised high it explored.

I would give it I think it needs more. I think it needs an object with that. So Lord the shoreline near the boy or, you know, race or whatever.

But yeah that's, that's the problem. Like what, What did it explore. Like just its surroundings. It's, you know, what is it exploring and why. So I think you need a little bit more there.

Yeah. And yours by going with like knows the minister or you know, split the mist or whatever that gives it something. But I think it's missing an object.

Yeah. I am not fond of the next sentence either. for one thing, it's a hell of a run on, but for another, with trepidation, the boy should have backed away and concealed himself. Yeah. You also. She held him captive.

You can't. Could have done something with trepidation.

Yeah.

Like with trepidation. He backs away. Like his trepidation needs to be attached to an action, not a thought of an action in the future.

Yeah.

That's the. The sentence is he shouldn't just back away. He should back away with trepidation if he's going to back away. So make sure you have the trepidation as you're back and way as a conscious decision. I guess just a weird way to say that.

So I also think that you should split this. I think it should be with trepidation. The boy took a backward step and then no.

No, because the logic of the sentence is he doesn't move. So the with trepidation doesn't do anything. So if you just cut with trepidation, you just go. The boy should have backed away and concealed himself, but on curiosity held him captive. That's fine. Yeah. It's the with trepidation. It's just like. But he's not doing anything with trepidation. Why are you mentioning the word trepidation when he's not he's not moving and with trepidation he's not acting like there's it's not doing anything.

Then I feel that there should be a paragraph break here just simply because the this paragraph is hella long and breaking it there. We have the monster. We have the boy frozen. Now we've got the creature circling like it feels like a good place to put a paragraph break and move on to like the new idea and let the reader consume that whole paragraph.

Yeah. Remember, paragraph breaks like sentences. You don't want to jam too much into a paragraph. These long paragraphs are exhausting for the reader to read that the creature circled, searching, hunting and the boy's luck slowly slipped away, faked, turned in his direction. It smelled the wind fixated and swam a direct course. It eyes glowing, a flaming amber mist from its nostrils and white water rolled ahead of its chest as it gathered speed.

Let's stop there for a second. Yeah. So the creature that we just described, circle searching, hunting. And the boy stock is slowly slipping away. Okay, then fate turned in the boy's direction. Safe, smelled the wind fixated, and fate swam a direct course. Faith's eyes glowed a faint amber, a faint flaming amber. Not a faint, but a flaming amber and mist puff from fate's nostrils and white water roiled above face chest as fate gathered speed Because literally everything now points back to fate.

I cannot tell you how often I see pronoun mistakes. Yeah, in writing that I critique, you have to be especially in scenes where you have multiple like multiple male characters or multiple female characters. You have to be so aware of where your pronouns or pointing.

And somebody might go, I mean, come on, you're being ridiculous. Drake Fate is not a, you know, tangible noun. This is fantasy. They could literally be standing there. For all I know.

In Terry Pratchett's Discworld, death is a character that's been.

in harn world with death is a character.

So, you know, fate could be a character.

So and also the way it's written, fate is doing a physical action. So it's not hard for me to then go, fate is physical. Yeah, because fate is actually doing something. And that's the other problem that I have with the fake turned in his direction sentence. We actually are describing a monster moving.

Yeah.

I'm not going to throw in that. Fate is also doing a physical action. It's not it's confusing it's it throws off the pacing the sentence. It makes me start looking at this thing called fate.

if it said something like

fate,

you know, turned against him even or something like that. I mean, I don't like it at all, but

but if you have it not be a physical actual I mean, because you you're describing a monster moving.

So you use a physical movement for an intangible object. Literally, you're now and then, you know, then you compound that by doing the pronoun mistake where is going to point back to fate?

Maybe something like that.

Now, that's still a physical action. That's the physical action of attention. And the monster is trying to find the boy. So the monster's attention is searching for the boy. And I still think that is, you know.

Yeah, yeah, you'd have to do that. But yeah.

Unfortunately fate was it was against him or unfortunately, fate was not with him or and again, I don't like it. I think it breaks up the sentence you're moving. If I was going to do that, I would put up for that.

The thing is, you've already got it. Yeah. The boy's luck slipped away. You do not need it twice now. Actually, I think you should just cut it.

Or cut the the the one above it. And if you're going to do that, then move the fate. So.

But I like the boy's luck. Slipped away like of the two. I like the boy's luck slipped away more than I like fate turned in his direction.

I agree. The problem that I have with that sentence is the and I think it should be in as I think and as the wrong article here. Yeah. Because as is going to connect it as a as two events happening simultaneously where it's turning into a compound sentence it's this and that as opposed to them happening simultaneously. The creatures circling, searching, hunting.

And as it does that, the boy's luck is slipping slowly away. I mean, I don't like soul either, you know, you cut it because I think.

I cut slowly. You don't need the al y adverb. There that now slipped this fall.

Yeah, exactly.

So if you want to make slips stronger, you can replace it with drained.

Right? Or melted or.

Melted.

Yeah. Yeah. There's a whole bunch of other verbs that would be a stronger choice for that.

The monster smelt, the wind fixated and swam a direct course, eyes glowed, a flaming amber mist puffed from its nostrils. The white water rolled ahead of its chest.

And I read that there was still.

I don't think you need this right.

I agree. But also and I know you just changed it to the monster, which is great, but that sentence is now or. Well, it was in the beginning even with it. But it's a filter. It smelled the monster smelled, you know, the boy's scent carried by the wind drew the monster's attention or something like, we don't need the filter there.

We don't need the monster smell. We could rewrite that in a way that's much more active.

Especially since you are in omniscient, right? The the boy's sent lingered on the wind.

Excited the monster.

Swam a direct course because I do like that. A direct walks.

Yeah although you need an object with that sense fixated. The monster swam a direct course toward his hiding place or.

Through the shore.

Yeah, whatever.

I think you need a paragraph break.

Yes, 100%. no, no, not there. I think it needs to be at the lad. because we're still in the monster.

US? Yeah. You know, I guess I'll allow it.

Thank you.

And the reason why I killed the as it gathered speed is because that is abundantly clear. You do not need it right? You've got white water rolling ahead of its chest like it is. It is patently obvious that it is gathering speed, and it's actually really well shown that it's gathering speed. You don't I do not understand the sentence.

The lad remained motionless, only his allegro heart and surging blood fluid. What I don't like allegro is a it's a music term unless I am very much mistaken.

It is. And I was just making sure because I haven't seen that we're in a long time. But yeah, it's a it's a brisk tempo. So I will allow it because of what you know, it is the right word. But this is this is a great example of why use a small word when a minuscule word would suffice.

Allegro is something I thought that's what it was to us. I think that and but I still had to look it up. I am a firm believer and again, this is my opinion, but this is in that old omniscient style anyway, that that is not going to suck me in. And that style. Back in the day, authors really wanted to show you how smart they were linguistically, and so they love to use words that you would have to look up.

And some people there are still a few people out there. They're like, I like it when I read words that I've never read before and I have to put the book down to go grab a dictionary and look it up. Yeah, my nightmares for you to put my book down. I don't want you to go look up something because I used a word that you haven't heard in 15 years and you're not 100% sure what it means.

Because to me, that destroys the story, as in the same manner as a typo or a poorly written sentence or something like that. So Allegro is such an archaic word that it is not well, it's not really that archaic, but it's such a niche word.

It's a niche word. Yeah.

That I just that's not a word that I would use there because all you're doing is talking about his fast beating heart. And I'm not saying you have to use something as simple as fast beating heart, but you know, only his racing heart and surging blood fled.

But whatever it is, whatever I have the big problem.

It is weird because you're saying that, Wait.

His heart and blood flowed without him.

Yeah, like it's a weird imagery.

Yeah. Like, as an image. This doesn't quite work for me. I think what the author's trying to say is that the it's is blood is surging in his veins and giving like it's pumping his heart. But. But it is a weird image.

Yeah. Instead of fled maybe you know, moved or whatever.

Yeah. A move might be something like something a little because fluid. I swear I had the mental image of, like, his blood and heart jumping out of his body all by and.

Fleetingly taking off.

And taking off and leaving the body. Okay.

I mean, I say all the time. Creative is the first word of creative writing. So I wouldn't if if this is a critique group and I'm reading this, I would go, okay, that's a weird imagery. Use it. Just understand it's a weird imagery and no one's going to no one's going to see it the way you think they're going to see it.

But it's not anything that anybody I mean.

You absolutely can use it that way. Like and I think most readers would would read it and move on. It's right to me, it created a very weird image. Yeah.

And I think it's going to do it to most people. But also it's not a weirdness that would be like, but this book down forever.

Yeah. A high pitched screech fractured the air, sound wave pressure struck just this. that is a very clumsy whatsoever. Sound wave pressure struck just as the predator turned and thrust its body sideways, propelling a growing swell toward the bank. The okay, so.

The run on.

This is it's it's a run on this is an action scene. Run ons don't belong in action scenes 99% of the time a run on has no place in the actions. Secondly, sound wave pressure is a it is a clumsy way to say what you want it to say.

Yup.

Because it's basically like a scientific tell.

Like.

You know, you could do something like the.

You can flip it. The pressure of the sound wave struck.

Yeah. Or you know, like what? What so so we've got the high pitched fractured the the you know have the predator turn and thrust its body sideways. The sound struck the water like a gong you know, or like whatever. And the wave, a wave lifted as the sound struck the water, something like that, because that's what you're trying to describe.

Right? The creature shrieked. And then it caused the wave.

Short sentences in action scenes?

Yep.

Short sentences are your friend.

All right. The rolling the rolling wave approached and grew three men tall before the boy realized the full implications As it swept the shore, he ducked behind the pines, massive trunk, but the turbulent surge smoothly wrapped around and found him. It surrounded him, picked him up, shoved him inland where it crashed against a rocky outcrop.

Okay, so I have a problem with the order and I can see down below we're getting more description here. Like, I have a problem with the way this is arranged.

Firstly, this. You don't need this. You really don't. Ducked the rolling wave, approached and grew through your men tall. as it swept. Swept the saw. The boy ducked behind the pines. Massive trunk but the turbulent surge it sculpted turbulent and smooth. The turbulent surge wrapped around him and found him. Now this section is a basically a one sentence summary of what's going on here.

And also the repetitive of what just happened to its surrounding them. Yeah, you just literally said it wrapped him. That's the same thing as saying as if around him.

Just cup cup. You don't need that because this is much stronger. Anyway, he tumbled in every direction, arms and legs flung as a child dragged doll and shoulder thigh and head slammed into rock. Now it's good, except for the fact that you don't need that. And because you're turning it into too long a sentence. So just do this.

Now and again. It's just the imagery of it. But he tumbled in every direction. No, he tumbled in one direction unless his body came apart and went and all four directions.

So every because that so so I don't love the every because I understand what the what the writer means.

I do understand it creates a weird imagery. That's why I'm saying you can't use it if you want to, but you're only tumbling in one direction.

Well, for me it's like the the image it creates is like he tumbles in this direction, then in that direction, then in this direction. Like I get that. It's kind of like a summary of the tumbling going on.

But that's not how waves work. When you're picked up by a wave, you're not going to be sloshing back and forth in the wave. You're going with the wave. The wave is pushing you one direction. So you built this wave for me.

I scuba dive and we did a shore entry once because we were crazy. Like out of our heads, crazy off the coast of South Africa, which is not. You should not do shore entries off the coast of South Africa. You are crazy. You will die. And then because the surge is very big, people surf there. It's it's not it's not good for it.

Right.

But we would swum out to the break, so we made it out. We were at the breaker line when a wave landed on top of us in our scuba gear. And it really does feel like you're tumbling in every direction because you're getting you're going down and you're being pushed sideways and you being pushed this way and then this way as it kind of like surges around you.

But you're dealing with current and you're dealing with all sorts of stuff. You're not dealing with a swell that's coming in to shore. Yeah, I'm just saying it's a weird again, I'm not saying don't do it. I'm saying it was a weird imagery for me. Use it. Don't use it. Just understand that some people are going to be like, No, he got hit by a wave.

He's standing on shore and he got hit by a wave. He's going to go in one direction. Yeah, and that's the direction of the wave. So again, it's just a weird imagery to make a fool me out of the story.

Yeah. So for me, it's also the up and down. But yeah, regardless.

Right?

It can be like.

Well, and that's why a lot of this stuff is subjective.

Yeah.

And so yeah, you have to make decision on how you want to do it.

Strange, the expected pain never ensued as if panic and fear. Spit it out. Okay, so there's a couple of things wrong with this. No, like then like began. You need strange once in a blue moon. And even then I'd reconsider it.

Yeah.

It is a weak word. And the reason why it's weak, which. So let me just explain. Because some people said it was wrong. Strange. Okay, so the problem is strange. A strange is a comparative word. Yeah. I might not find it strange.

To.

Sauna naked with other people. Not because I'm. I live in Finland. But you as an American, you would find it very strange.

So it is very it is a.

Very comparative word that can only be strange if you understand what it's being compared.

Also to me, you're telling them that it's strange and then you're showing them that it's strange by just stating the expected pain never ensued.

Yeah, the expected pain never ensued. Does a great job of showing you that. It's strange. Yeah. Because, I mean, I would find it strange if I didn't get by after being slammed into a rock right? I do like as if panic and fear, but it's as if panic and fear spat it out.

Yes, but because we're in past tense.

This is not a sentence I know is for thoughts. Frozen disbelief. Yeah. Is a sentence just a very short sentence.

It's a disconnected sentence.

Whos thoughts. weird.

Yeah. No object.

Yeah.

Though I would probably personalize that with his thoughts, but that's just my, that's just a, that's just my opinion on that. You got hissed. Oops.

His thoughts froze in disbelief.

Since you're going to do that, you can't do another his.

Yeah, but I would also do a.

Comma mind scrambling. Yep. Explanation period.

Yep.

And then just instinct pushing him to escape. But the water rained or you could leave it as pushed. You do either one?

Yeah. Instinct pushed him to escape, but the water rained. Then I would put a paragraph break there because you've dealt with a hole, you've got the whole water thing now and now you've got the churning torrent retreating

to the churning torrent. Precise, caught in the toe, the cheering torrent retreated and drove him deeper, deeper down, presumably while escorting him back to the seething lot.

Impatient, the creature tossed its head with annoyance. The boy gasped, searching for any spice containing air, but his thumping heart stuck in his throat, not knowing up from down or any cardinal direction. He tried to cool out, but the liquid force compressed his chest and gut while the remaining air in his lungs bubbled out. He needed a breath.

All right. So a couple of things. First of all, you don't need impatient because we're showing the impatience. The creature tosses head. I don't like with annoyance, both in patience and annoyance here are kind of slight POV shifts because he doesn't actually the boy doesn't actually know that we are an omniscient, so we wouldn't know that or whatever.

But there's a better way to show it. The the creature tossed it said, gnashing its teeth, you know, whatever. And then 51 he needed to breathe. Thank you, Captain Obvious. Yeah.

So I think you've just you've just done a pretty good show of showing us. He needs to breathe.

Yeah. Yeah. And we're at time.

I would like to take a moment.

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So yeah, I mean as a piece, that piece was it had some good strong imagery elements to it. Just be aware that sometimes you're painting a weird image and I do think that you need to connect with the with the boy more strongly. We need to know his name.

Well, and actually we could even go deeper on that

if that was written as a limited piece, which is how I would write it, You would be the boy, so you would feel the fear. You would feel the wave as it hit you. You wouldn't just be being told that this stuff was happening. And that's the problem with omniscient point of view.

We're just watching this boy go through this event. We're not connected to it. We don't care. We're not concerned. And today's modern audiences, that's what they want. They want that intimate connection with the character. They want to feel the fear of what it's like to be on that, that sure, as this monster is burst out of the myths and then realizes we're there and comes to eat us.

As it stands now, it's just this thing that's happening. We're just watching it happen to someone else. And so it's very telling and it's very disconnected and it's very much at arm's length.

I just scanned down and realized something terrible. At line 87, Johnny startles awake, and the whole sequence was a dream. Okay, do not, do not stop it in a dream sequence unless you absolutely 100% know what you're doing with that dream sequence. Because a dream sequence. Firstly, it is overdone. Yeah. Dreams so overdone. They have their sub tropes, have trope pages on tv tropes dot com dreams are complete neatly covered.

You've got to be really careful using them as a general rule, definitely not as your opening chapter. Secondly, when you start in a dream sequence as the first chapter of your book, as the first thing the reader reads, you set a false expectation with the reader. Then you break it and you say to the reader, Haha, see, none of that was real.

What is the expectation you've now set with the reader? You've set the expectation with the reader that you, the author, enjoy lying to them. You enjoy setting up their expectations and then breaking them by saying, no, none of that mattered. none of that was actually real. Everything that you just went through there, wasn't there? Yeah, that is not what you want your readers to enter your book with.

You want them to enter your book with suspense and of disbelief wide open.

Yep.

And you've literally just shown them that they suspended their disbelief. They bought into the world of the dream. I like. I bought into this monster. And now the monster isn't real.

Yeah.

And offered to reset all of my expectations in the first page of the book.

Yep. And that's the one tag on to that, because I don't think people really put enough emphasis on this. So I lie to my readers constantly. Literally, that is, I love it. I love everything about it. They love it. But here's the difference. When you do a dream sequence and then break that, you're looking at the reader and going, I lied to you, I tricked you, the reader.

When I connect the character, the reader to the character, and then the character finds out they've been lied to, the reader feels like the story has lied to the character that they are, that it wasn't the writer picking on the reader directly. It was a it was this moment in the story and my goodness, how could I have missed that?

You know, because I'm living this life and it is it this personal attack on them. And there is a difference. There is a difference in how the reader subconsciously is going to be affected by that.

And it is, but it is especially even more so when it's the start of your book. Because I'm reading it. I'm like, okay, so this is the world building. We exist in this world with with dark monsters coming off the lost spirit monsters, you know, kind of book us maybe a Loch Ness kind of set up, you know, that's the world we're in, and then we don't get well.

And there's another problem with that now, because in my opinion, this this writer might have fallen into the trap that that literally we've discussed a ton of times on different things. And it happened to me while I was out at a convention talking about it. It's a no, no, no, no. You have to start your story in an action scene.

You have to know you don't. You have to make the reader care about the character. That's what you have to do. And so by creating this fake action scene, that's actually a lie and actually didn't actually happen. And actually there was nothing. Yes. To the letter of the law. You started in an action scene which the industry says you have to do, but it weakens the story, it weakens the connection to the reader.

It makes them not, you know, maybe even put the book down at that point because they roll their eyes and they're going, my God, I've read so many books that start in a dream sequence and most of them are bad, so I'm just not going to read this. Yeah. So, you know, do not.

Do not start your book in a dream sequence unless you are 170,000% certain that it actually contributes to the story and even then reconsider.

So, Well, as an example, my award winning children's scripts snurse the Magical Magical fairy tale starts in a dream sequence. But you are snurse. you are going after you know, you learn what his fatal flaw is. You learn what his desire is. You learn what he wants to accomplish. You actually do a mini version of the entire movie.

You actually kind of see a version of what the villain is going to be. You like literally in the first 3 minutes of the film, you do the entire film, but it's a very esoteric version of it. But you do have a start, a middle and an end. I think that's one of the reasons why it works so well, is because you you literally overcome like literally the entire story is played out in that dream.

And so and when you wake up in the head of the character and and you're like, man, I really wish it was like that. You know, I really wish my life was like that. That's what I really do want. You just get this you get this real affirmation that, you know, in the dream he's like, I really want to be a wizard.

And then he becomes a wizard. Then wakes up and he's like, I really do want to be a wizard. Like, how cool would that be? And so it just continues. It isn't a lie. There's nothing that you're like, no, no, that was real. First of all, you know, it's a dream. I don't hide that fact at all.

We know that we're absolutely dreaming through this. And secondly, we get everything we need to know about this character. You know, because again, we talked about that in the last episode. We were talking about the Save the Cat, that you don't have a lot of time in film. And so by doing everything upfront like that, you set all your expectations, you connect them to the character.

And then when he wakes up and he's not a wizard, you are like, Yeah, but it would be cool because you did some really cool things in the dream. You actually overcame the bad guy in the dream. And so, yeah, I can see why you want to be a wizard and, and I could see because, you know, he wakes up and he's like, sucks that I can never be a wizard like other people are wizards, but I can like, you know, and then you have this affinity with him just instantly right out of the gate so it can work.

You just really need to understand why dreams work and why they don't.

Yeah.

And I do believe that snurse, a magical magical fairy tale available on Amazon though, is a good.

Reference. I haven't read nurse this didn't work for me, even though it's like a dream as we emerge from an actual swim like. And then it's like his father snoring again. And so. So there's a whole bit here about what the dream means to him.

Okay.

So maybe. But it is how you just get there. Yeah, I.

And plus, you don't know. It's a dream.

You don't know it's.

A dream, though. It's still a lie.

That's.

Still going to have that.

If you like. And now I like looking at this now, because this was this is now written in limited. Okay. So the dream is written in omniscient. Show me first the character, then have the dream so that I realize it's a dream, you know, or show me in the dream that it is the omniscient voice of the character that's seeing this from a third person perspective.

Like, like make sure that I understand it's a dream. And this could work. Maybe because it's clearly like when I got you and I'm like, okay, he's for the story again. That is actually that is actually a good line because that tells me that the dude's flashing back to his father's story. Or is something about is that like there's something interesting there?

Cool.

Right.

But I need to know it's a dream up front.

Yeah. Or you can have it open with the father telling him that story.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's the thing that connects it. And then we can be unlimited at that moment. Yeah. It good to know that the not the whole thing is not written in omniscient. And from a technical standpoint, I can definitely see a reason for making a decision of, well, I'm going to write this is as a dream, so let me separate it by doing it as an omniscient.

So I think I can go for that. Yeah, I can go for that. It's like I have I have scenes in my book that are written in present tense because of the nature of the scene where I do the shift into present. It's and I can go for this omniscient being the dream. I can get behind that. Absolutely.

But make sure I know that don't start it that way and then expect me to catch up.

Yeah. Yeah. That. Yeah. Now that works really well. That.

All right. So I think that is an interesting plot twist to end this episode and we will see you soon for another one. Bye.

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