# Who Dreams of Monsters (21,711 Words) *Violence, Sexual Content, Blood*



## Ephemeral_One (May 16, 2017)

This has been moved to the Beta Reading Forum here


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## Jay Greenstein (May 16, 2017)

First, the nice people on this site provide a large space where you may post a story excerpt, which is all you need post to get reaction and critique. Sending the reader scurrying to other websites simply to read the work accomplished nothing but adding an additional, and unnecessary step. Any structural problem will repeat over and over. A few hundred words is more than enough. In short, it ain't broke, so don't waste time trying to fix it.

That aside, I did look. Your first "chapter" is _21,000 words long._ You _have_ to be kidding. Chapter ends serve the same purpose as commercial breaks in TV. They act as a sort of meta-punctuation, to indicate a turning point.

As for the bulk of the prose, it bears no resemblance to what a reader expects to see. Primarily, an unseen and unheard narrator is talking _at_ the reader, as if they are a verbal storyteller on stage performing. But since the reader can hear no emotion in the voice, and has no image to see things like gesture, expression and body language, it's the script for a storyteller minus the stage directions.

Bottom line: Fiction for the printed word is a field that has been under development for centuries. As part of that, techniques and standards have been developed. Punctuation helps us know how the author wanted us to read the words. For that to work, both writer and reader must have the same knowledge.

Things like scene-goals, scene structure, and viewpoint are other methods of bringing the reader into the story. But you've used none of that, and literally, made up your own rules—rules you alone are privy to. And while you may have intent for what you do, when you release your words, you, your intent and expectations become irrelevant. It's the words and structure you provide and what they suggest to each individual user, based on _their_ background, expectations, preconceptions, and more. So in effect, as far as presentation is concerned, and from a reader's viewpoint you're writing in a foreign language.

And going back to my point about posting the excerpt here, all that was obvious within a few paragraphs. So linking to a massive posting, elsewhere, added nothing.

The solution is to add the tricks of the trade that a reader expects to see in play. They're imperfect, yes, but they have the advantage that reader and writer are working toward the same goal. So time spent acquiring a nuts and bolts level foundation to writing fiction would be a very wise investment of time, and pay dividends in terms of reader satisfaction.

Sorry my news isn't better. But nothing I said has to do with talent and potential, only the learned part of the profession. And that can be...well, learned.


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## Ptolemy (May 17, 2017)

I actually agree with Jay here. 

The passage is WAY to long to have any semblance of a serious critique. It takes me maybe 30-45 minutes to create a fully fleshed out critique for say a 3,000 word story. 

This is pretty much 7 times that. I can't realistically spend three and a half hours of my time doing a full critique on this piece. I have things to do. Hell it took almost 30 seconds to load on google docs for me. 

I suggest posting an 3k word excerpt or asking in the Beta Readers section so you can get some realistic feedback spread out over time.


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## JustRob (May 17, 2017)

I'm jumping in here as beta reading mentor.

It does look long to be posted here as the others have mentioned. It is probably long to be a single chapter as well. I regard chapters as short stories in themselves and sometimes I am criticised for the length of mine, but this surpasses any of them.

To contribute to your experiment, as I am keen to examine all the methods of passing large documents around, I tried downloading the document as an E-book (despite Google stating that it didn't support my ancient browser). This resulted in a book of over forty pages, which does seem lengthy for one chapter. Flipping through the pages I noticed mention of vampires. If you were to offer this to beta readers for consideration then it would help to give some idea of the content as each has their personal preference regarding subject matter. Some may well relish sex and violence so long as ordinary people are involved, but dislike any fantasy elements. Don't ask me why.

There has been a move towards posting requests for beta readers as an individual thread for each work in the beta reading forum. Perhaps the admins could relocate this thread there. I'll enquire. Either way please give us more of an idea of the type of content so that members can decide whether to read the whole thing.


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## JustRob (May 17, 2017)

Right, I'm double posting here to emphasise this update.

Admin says to post the link again in the beta reading fiction workshop, which is for members only, but alternatively you can post it in the publicly visible Beta Readers Open Discussions. Either way give some clues about its content and the sort of feedback that you want about it.

I will be interested to know whether anyone has any technical problems accessing it.


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## Ephemeral_One (May 17, 2017)

First of all, I want to apologize for not making my intentions clear. More than an in depth critique, I was more so just sharing to get general impressions and ideas. I had posted this while rather sleepy and I forgot to put that into the description. So, I do apologize for that.

Jay: I'm a bit confused at what you seem to have complaints about. I felt that this would have been nothing but a brick wall for others to read on this site because, as you noted, it is a long chapter. However, there are many divisions within the chapter that can make for excellent stopping points, which could be easily marked or found and while you may view 'Chapters as commercial breaks', this is not always the case.

And you are right I threw out many of the rules of conventional narrative. That is why I linked to it in its entirety rather than just posting a snippet for the sake of trying, as I mentioned in my original post, to make things simpler to understand in context. If the experiment failed, that's fine but one has to try.

Ptolemy: I apologize for not making what I wanted clear. I wasn't looking for in depth, detailed critique so much as initial impressions and general feelings for one's first impressions.

Justrob: I understand and will move it over there. Apologies for the issues.


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## Ptolemy (May 17, 2017)

Ephemeral_One said:


> Ptolemy: I apologize for not making what I wanted clear. I wasn't looking for in depth, detailed critique so much as initial impressions and general feelings for one's first impressions.



Yes, this is a Beta Readers thing then


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## existoid (May 17, 2017)

Ephemeral_One said:


> This has been moved to the Beta Reading Forum here



Hi, I'm very new to writingforums.com. When I click on the link, it doesn't give me permission to read it. How do I?


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## Deleted member 56686 (May 17, 2017)

You need to have ten valid posts anywhere except for the word games and procrastination central in order to have regular member permissions. That means right now you're unable to access certain boards. After the ten posts you should be able to access the beta readers forum as well as the workshops. Good luck


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## Jay Greenstein (May 17, 2017)

> Jay: I'm a bit confused at what you seem to have complaints about.


I'm not complaining, I'm pointing out the problems an acquiring editor would have, and why. 





> I felt that this would have been nothing but a brick wall for others to  read on this site because, as you noted, it is a long chapter.


You miss the point: No one is going to read 22,000 words unless you hook them and make them _want_ to read the rest.  As Sol Stein put it: “A novel is like a car—it won’t go anywhere until you turn on the engine. The “engine” of both fiction and nonfiction is the point at which the reader makes the decision not to put the book down. The engine should start in the first three pages, the closer to the top of page one the better.”





> And you are right I threw out many of the rules of conventional narrative.


They are not rules, they're custom. And a custom is a social mechanism that works. Were that not true they wouldn't become a custom. By ignoring convention and inventing your own approach you force the reader to adopt to you, for no reason other than that you want them to. Given a choice between having to figure out what you're up to, and work within it, or use the skills they've honed over decades with a story written as they expect to see it presented, you will always lose.

But, and there is no way to say this nicely: you didn't learn the techniques of writing fiction and then, finding them inadequate, improve on them. You bypassed learning them and used the fact-based report-writing skills we're all given in our school days.

Fiction, since the first storyteller stood at the campfire, has had a basic structure that resonates with the human experience. Our hero is given a problem that must be solved, while at the same time cannot be solved, forcing the protagonist to change and grow. And it's the struggle, the anguish and striving that make up the story, not a list of what happened and what was said. Stories are emotion-centric, not fact-centric. History is fact-based. it has intrigue, deception, romance, and everything that makes reading fun. But it's fact-based and immutable, so there is no uncertainty as we read. History informs, it doesn't entertain.

That fireside storyteller, because they stood alone, _performed_ the story. They used tricks of voice, like changes in intensity, cadence, tone, and more, to provide the emotional component of the story, while the words they spoke provided the facts. Added to that, the tale-spinner used gesture, body-language, and facial expression to enhance the story and up the emotional content. Today, we call that the performance art of the verbal storyteller. And one of the hallmarks of verbal storytelling is that a great deal of the story is told in overview. Obviously, the storyteller can't play the shooter, the one about to be shot, and the others in the scene at the same time. So they provide a synopsis of events.

Why do I mention that? Because it cannot work on the page, where we hear and see nothing, and you're trying to use it. But without the ability to hear your omnipresent narrator, as you do when you read, the reader gets facts, but no emotional content. You explain the story to a reader who isn't seeking facts, they want to be entertained by being made to have an emotional experience—to live it in parallel with the protagonist. As presented, because you're not aware of the tricks of how to place the reader into the story as a participant, you're explaining it.

So though you have the sincerity, the dedication, and the story, without the unique skill-set our medium mandates, you're giving the reader a learning, not an entertaining experience. They learn what happens, but they know the characters only from the outside in, when they wanted to be made to _be_ the protagonist and live the story in real-time.

Hope this clarifies.


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## Ephemeral_One (May 18, 2017)

Jay Greenstein said:


> I'm not complaining, I'm pointing out the problems an acquiring editor would have, and why. You miss the point: No one is going to read 22,000 words unless you hook them and make them _want_ to read the rest.



Ah, and here's the rub. I've given up on giving a damn whether my story ever gets published. In fact, I thoroughly expect to never make a cent off my writing. I dedicate myself to telling the story for the sake of doing so itself. And if the story doesn't resonate with you, that's fine. There's plenty out there. This is just my story. 

As for the rest of your rant. No, I'm not bypassing the regular rules of fiction. I'm not someone who blindly believes himself a revolutionary who'll turn the writing world on its head. I just find them stifling and don't apply for the story I want to tell. Like you said, common writing techniques are useful for the human experience. Well, there's nothing human about my main characters.


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## Jay Greenstein (May 18, 2017)

> Ah, and here's the rub. I've given up on giving a damn whether my story  ever gets published. In fact, I thoroughly expect to never make a cent  off my writing. I dedicate myself to telling the story for the sake of  doing so itself.


Problem is, your reader looks at it in the same way they look at professionally written work. And that's their measuring stick.

Publishing isn't a clique, where they make up rules for the fun of it—making it a lottery as to new people getting published. A publisher, because they will invest significant money into bringing a work to market, must know what readers react to, and reject. They literally spend every working day learning that and using it in preparing the work.

Yet because you don't plan to be published bypass the step of learning how to write, and assume that you can create your own method—based on nothing but the nonfiction writing skills we learn in our school days—and please a reader.

You obviously want people to like your work. You wouldn't have posted the link to it, were that not true. But you're demanding that the reader adapt to your made up writing techniques without taking their needs and perceptions into account. Unfortunately, there is an implied contract between writer and reader. They give of their time, and we provide something that's worth the time, _as they see it._ 

Obviously, you can write any way you care to, and post anything you care to. But it seems to me, that to write and edit 21,000 words takes significant time, thought, and effort. And, I assume you enjoy writing enough that you'll do it again, and yet again. Given all those nights at the keyboard, and the commitment required, spending some time reading a few books on the tricks of the trade would seem to be a wise investment of your time.


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## Ephemeral_One (May 19, 2017)

Jay Greenstein said:


> Problem is, your reader looks at it in the same way they look at professionally written work. And that's their measuring stick.



Yes, and as I've said, I'm not looking to publish this work beyond putting it up as something for others to read and writing for my own sanity. Other people's interest is nice and appreciated but is not the goal. 

Honestly, you've by and large spent a lot of words telling me to either 'conform to the norm' or insinuating I'm incapable or lack the understanding of writing to write for a broader audience. Yet, you understand that I've spent more than just those 21,000 words, Jay. I've spent over a decade literally trying to find the right tone for this story. If you check the backlog of my posts, you'll find variations on this story that I've run into walls time and time again. So, let me say this one more time:

*I know what the normal conventions are and they don't work for the story I'm telling.*


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