Improvements With Practice

Over the years my writing has changed a great deal. I would like to toot my own horn and say it’s because I’ve practiced. But sometimes I wonder, has it really improved, or am I just too blind to see the mistakes.

When I look back at the first short story that I wrote and posted on the forums for the game I was playing, I realize that I rushed it. It gave a whole new meaning to sloppy copy.

Lyssa and Celorfin chatted idly while they walked to Neverwinter City. They were going to travel east to Azurin, a small kingdom that Lyssa had recently inherited. Once Lyssa and Celorfin finally arrived at the Northgate, they were were surprised to see Elentaur standing with the guards.

“You didn’t think I would let you go alone did you?” He asked her with a smile.

“Your Grace,” one of the knights said with a bow. “Captain

Several days hard riding and a few magical portals later, they found themselves on a forest path nearing Dehdluk. The woods were unnervingly calm, as if the animals knew something was happening. On edge Lyssa drew her bow and nocked an arrow, even the horses seemed to feel skittish.

The guards seeing Lyssa prepare her bow, draw their weapons…

‘m’lady is eve-‘

The guard’s voice cut short by an arrow through his throat. Lyssa, Celorfin and Elentaur all jump off their horses, and are surrounded by the other eight guards. twenty or so men saunter from the confines of the trees shadows.

‘well, well, well, lookie ‘ere boys, seems theres royality in our ‘umble presence.’

The men dressed in woodsmen clothes steps forward, surrounding them. Several more arrows come flying out of the woods, as Celorfin shifts to a manticore and Elentaur starts to cast spells, chaos reins a few moment, Lyssa launching arrows, the guards swinging the blades.

Then everything turns slow motion, more arrows come from the trees taking down another guard, Cel getting hit in his leg, Lyssa in her shoulder making her practically useless with a bow.

‘PROTECT THE PRINCESS AT ALL COST!’

Several of their men have fallen, with one arm usless she abandons her bow for her blade, with cat like moves, she dances around taking out several of the men. El electrocutes several more before an arrow breaks his concentration. Cel hurls spikes at one chest cause him to fall over dead.

A blade finds the weakness of another guards armor, the man falls with the blade still in him. Only six guards left….more men come from the forest, blades drawn, swinging to try and take them out.

One good arrow flies through the air and strikes lyssa in chest, forcing her to fall. El immediately goes to her side to heal the wound. Once she is stable, she stays down.

‘Go fight, I’ll be fine…’

Not listening he continues to heal her, one of the bandits comes up behind him.

‘EL WATCH OUT’

Throughout that entire excerpt of the three page story, you can see the grammar mistakes, the present and past tenses that are mixed, and the poor spelling. This is what happens when you rush. I wrote that in maybe an hour, but now I look back and while I am proud of my first attempt, I see what I can do to improve it. But why?

I don’t have the want or the need to improve it. I’d rather use it as an example of how far I have come. With asking for help from other people to read over my work and find my mistakes, correct my sentence structures and basically take a story that I have written in my head and turn it into something readable.

When I write, I write exactly how my brain thinks. I don’t worry about mistakes or grammar, that can all be fixed later on. Sure, I’m not perfect in punctuation, nor am I good with grammar. I write what sounds good and worry about it later.

After the girls parted ways, Marguerite headed for the locker room. The warm air blasted her in the face; it felt nice after being exposed to the cold for so long. As she wove her way to her locker, many of the other girls on the team eyed her darkly and muttered to whoever was nearby. For the most part, Marguerite knew that it was because she had received the highest score and the fastest time,setting a record for the school. Her track mates were envious and wanted to prevent her from doing such things again. She couldn’t blame them for wanting the limelight to themselves. Marguerite would happily give it to them, but then she would be holding herself back.

Who does she think she is?

Oh look, Miss Four-Hundred is here. . .

Marguerite judged by the eyes and thoughts of the girls that it was going to be a rough practice. Her coach had told her she would be running the four hundred-meters sprint, one lap around the track. Some of the girls were still doing sixty meters, some doing one hundred. Marguerite was the only one who was able to run the four hundred; this often made Marguerite the target of their vicious pranks. She often found her uniform stuffed into a toilet, completely soaked, or her sneakers thrown around a power line. It had gotten to the point where the coach realized, even without her speaking up, that Marguerite was being targeted. Since then, the girls had left her alone, but this didn’t stop them from trying anything on the track.

“All right, ladies,” Coach Winbourne shouted into the locker room. “We have international in just under three weeks. I want you all to do your best, and go for the gold. Let’s start out with stretches, and then fifteen laps around the track. I don’t want to see any slackers!”

“Helen!” a few of the girls jeered.

Marguerite pulled her track shorts up and her hooded sweatshirt over her head. She then made sure that her belongings were locked tightly away, always double and triple– checking her lock before she left. She then went outside and jogged over to the center of the track. Several other girls were already there, chatting away quietly. Every so often they would look over in Marguerite’s direction. She remained focused, doing her stretches and then a few other warm-ups to get the blood flowing through her veins faster. Finally, she took off for her laps; she was the only one on the track for the moment, nothing but the wind rushing in her ear and the sound of her feet touching down on the track.

A big difference that can be seen between the first excerpt, and this one above is the consistency of the third person point of view. The layout of the actual story is written in novel style. Indents, capitals, punctuation, and sentence structure has improved greatly.

This second piece was examined by a good friend of mine after I went through and fixed any of the obvious stuff I found wrong. He took my one chapter and filled it with so many little blue comment boxes I cringed at the edits, but I’m grateful because it will only help me improve even more. It was a chance for me to realize that it’s okay to be proud of your work, and not to get discouraged because there are so many mistakes. That’s the point of a first draft.

An example of how many comments are on each edited page.

I look forward to when there are very little blue comments boxes that help me correct everything. It will take time and patience, but it’s a goal I can’t wait to accomplish. And that my dear friends is why practice makes perfect.

Keep it real and rockin’

❤

Tim’s hijack

A lot of what Zodi says (okay, ALL of what she says) is good to keep in mind.  For me, I look back to my old radio days.  I remember talking to one on air announcer that worked at CKOM (back when it was a rock station) and listening to him say it’s good practice to keep your first ever air check tape.  To give an example of what an air check tape is, it’s a lot like a demo tape which records the breaks that an announcer speaks on air.  As the mic is turned on, the tape starts playing.  That changes considerably now, as a lot of times these can be prerecorded on computer.  For me, it was always the air check tape, those lovely Maxell and TDK cassette tapes complete with the hisses and pops from continuous rewinding and fast forwarding.

I kept (and still have) my first air check tape.  Every time I listen to it, I cringe.  It was horrible.  It had that Ronnie Radio effect that made me sound like a used car salesman.  As time went on, that voice went away.  Mind you, it always depended on the market I was in, the format of music and whether I was working as an on air announcer or in the news room.  I ended my radio career in news, and I still have that last air check tape from that time as well.

Doing the same thing with writing is also a good indicator as to how far you’ve come along.  Plus, it’ll give you a good indicator of what needs work.  I remember talking to Mercedes Lackey about her first book she wrote, and she told me that she went through multiple drafts before it went to print.  So, don’t think that one draft is good enough, always prepare for second and third draft edits of a story, whether it be a novel or a short story.

And if you’re anything like me, then even when the story is ready for print, you still won’t be satisfied.

Until next time…

…keep ’em flyin’!