Let's try and get 1,000,000 replies to this post

The Flash said:
I'm known to be a good writer but since I write in Turkish I wasn't sure about how would it turn out when I try to write in English. Cheers.

And Perun, this really is my style, I have so many horrific, absurd stories. :D The best thing about those is they're mainly based on me, but of course, incredibly exaggerated.
Click to expand...

Don't worry, I wrote stories of that type too at the time. It's just that it's not the type of thing I'd recommend to write for class.
But basically, Ariana is right, that's nowhere near believable for a story written for an English class at intermediate level. The second one is way better in that aspect. Another idea, if you want to do things like that in the future, is to write a story in Turkish first, then try do a poor translation.
 
Yes, but I was looking at the tactics of writing a story trying to make it look like somebody else did it. Perhaps I'm too rational. ;)
 
If you mean that after being translated, the story would sound crap in English, then yes, you may be right. :p

Edit: This is what happens when one reads too quickly. You wrote poor translation, I read proper translation. :blink: Sorry.
 
Stop reading so fast! :)

Tonight is the stockholder meeting at our company. Free drinks and food afterwards!!!
 
Dr. Eddies Wingman said:
You mean, on that thin line?
Click to expand...

I don't know. It's the last line of Bill Crystal's book 'Throw Mama from the Train'
Danny De Vito found it to be cryptic, Bill Crystal called him a buoy with hair and somewhere there (in Hawaii) the film ended.

The Flash said:
The guy won't pass the course if he doesn't deliver one story
Click to expand...

Live and let die, Flash :devil2:

By the way, I liked your story except when you mention society, these things. I used to do the same thing when teenager, writing general things like society won't let me do this, that. Bullshits. You don't have real picture what society is, as most of us didn't have then. I still don't for that matters. It's just a word, very poor used most of the times. And, Society doesn't stop you to do whatever you like, it's you that don't let yourself go due to the invisible wall of your mind. But this wall isn't the Society, is simply a projection.

Avoid to use these general expressions & meanings, use clear pictures that you fully understand. Draw the meanings instead of mentioning them.
 
You got that part wrong. The reason why he commits the crime is because he misunderstands the idea of blaming society and fully grasps the idea of getting revenge from it. He shouldn't have blamed society. That's the point I'm talking about, I like to write the opposite of what I truly believe in, gives deepness to the story, you know.

So I agree with you.
 
The first was very poorly written, with too many long sentences that say essentially nothing. Forget "intermediate" -- no adult should ever write that way. The second story was much better written, as it was clearer and relied on shorter, simpler sentences. Ariana correctly points out some instances when you could further shorten and tighten (e.g., eliminate adverbs).

Also: get help.
 
If you want basic writings from me, sorry you won't get it. I like to make the reader think, not just totally grasp the idea at the first sight. Long sentences that say nothing ? It isn't that they say nothing, it's that you fail to understand the meanings behind them or don't try to understand them. Second story is more like a report than an expression of feel while first one certainly is. Second one has no deepness, no message, nothing. It's "Alexander the Great" of a story. First one is an expression, a criticism, also is much more powerful in the artistic sense. It paints the view, takes the reader to a side then comes back with a twist at the end.

Honestly, Cornfed, don't take this is an insult or anything but I don't care for your advises about me anymore. You may not believe it, but I did care for them before. It has been getting on my nerves and it really isn't because they tell the truth (like you'd defend) but because they don't make sense. Why would I get help for ? Crushing my imagination ? Killing my individuality ?

I dislike how you interpret everything I say here to my "love story", too. Like that's all I care for. Guess what, it's not.
 
Ariana said:
The teacher would care. Any teacher knows in advance what each story would be like, because they not only know their students' interests but also their style and vocabulary.
Click to expand...
I don't think that's always the case.
On secondary school I wrote a story (for Dutch class) and my teacher gave me a 6 (out of 10) because she did not believe I wrote it myself. She thought it was good but also told me that I must have copied it from some other author (she didn't even know). I was very offended. And surely I thought she did not know me at all. I think she could not believe I had such imagination (it was a fantasy story).
 
Flash, what Cornfed gave you was valid, constructive literary criticism - something every author should hope to get. I get what you say about expression, individuality and imagination, but what you wrote feels more like showing off your English vocabulary. It's a question of style, not expression. There are better ways to express what you are thinking or want the reader to think, than endless use of adverbs.
 
Maybe this isn't true for all teachers, I admit. But a good teacher should always look at a student's performance not as an absolute value but within the context of the student. If I know that student A is usually sloppy and lazy but he produces a flawless piece of writing, I'd be suspicious. People rarely raise their own standard of performance just like that. ;) I'm not saying this was the case with you. It may have just been a case of a poor teacher.​
 
Forostar said:
On secondary school I wrote a story (for Dutch class) and my teacher gave me a 6 (out of 10) because she did not believe I wrote it myself. She thought it was good but also thought I copied it from some other author (she didn't even know). I was very offended. And surely I thought she did not know me at all.
Click to expand...
Similar thing happened to me in high school. It was the final essay that we were supposed to write during the last (4th) year of high school. We would choose a subject (I chose geography) and then some topic related to it (I chose Finland), by January, and give it to the teacher in May, but we also had to gradually write it in that period, and show it to her every once in a while. I thought it was silly doing it like that, so I wrote the whole thing in 2 nights 2 days before the deadline. It was about 30 pages long. So after I gave it to her, the next day she told my friends how she doesn't believe I did it by myself, and later said it to me too, like "You can present it anyway, but I don't believe you did it". Ofc I was furious and soon she had a meeting with my mom, school principal etc. Later I did pass with an A, cause the essay was flawless :)

Funniest thing about all this is that a friend of mine also wrote a geography essay, it was also about some country, BUT - his essay was literally completely copied from Wikipedia, from first to last word. So she clearly had something against me.
 
Well, on that school there were many classes and she must have had more than a hundred (or > 150) kids from different grades per year. Every year I had a different teacher Dutch. I don't think this woman knew us at all. She just had to judge our skills and this was the first time we had to write a story for her.

I thought Cornfed was hard in his criticism. Especially "poorly written" and "get help" doesn't sound that constructive to me.
 
Perun said:
Flash, what Cornfed gave you was valid, constructive literary criticism - something every author should hope to get. I get what you say about expression, individuality and imagination, but what you wrote feels more like showing off your English vocabulary. It's a question of style, not expression. There are better ways to express what you are thinking or want the reader to think, than endless use of adverbs.
Click to expand...

I have no problem with people criticising my use of adverbs. I know I used them a lot (I don't use them nearly as often when I'm writing in Turkish, though), but I used them to give a more powerful and straight edge to the words. But saying that my long sentences had no meaning behind them, it was poorly written are just too harsh. Cornfed may like basic and straight-to-the-point writing more, same thing applies to every field of art. But I don't think it was constructive at all.
 
Get help probably wasn't about the style of the story, I think it was about the fact that I based the story on myself by greatly exaggerating feelings and actions, that's why I complained about Cornfed's approach to my posts here anyway.

I may have misunderstood him, though.
 
Night Prowler said:
Similar thing happened to me in high school. It was the final essay that we were supposed to write during the last (4th) year of high school. We would choose a subject (I chose geography) and then some topic related to it (I chose Finland), by January, and give it to the teacher in May, but we also had to gradually write it in that period, and show it to her every once in a while. I thought it was silly doing it like that, so I wrote the whole thing in 2 nights 2 days before the deadline. It was about 30 pages long. So after I gave it to her, the next day she told my friends how she doesn't believe I did it by myself, and later said it to me too, like "You can present it anyway, but I don't believe you did it". Ofc I was furious and soon she had a meeting with my mom, school principal etc. Later I did pass with an A, cause the essay was flawless :)

Funniest thing about all this is that a friend of mine also wrote a geography essay, it was also about some country, BUT - his essay was literally completely copied from Wikipedia, from first to last word. So she clearly had something against me.
Click to expand...
I also had the idea she didn't like me for some reason. I had a better bond with other teachers. Some of them indeed gave a feeling that they knew me better, showing more interest. So Ariana is right when speaking about good teachers, but unfortunately there are good and bad ones, just as the students.
 
Flash: The "get help" was a joke. Basically the same sentiment expressed by Perun.

As for my advice about good English writing, ignore that at your peril. I didn't express a view about the quality of either story, by the way, just the quality of the writing. You're obviously capable of better writing, because you did it in the second story. The best writers can communicate complex ideas and emotions in simple language, without excess verbiage. So, try to do that.

Don't take my word for it, educate yourself. Read The Elements of Style by Strunk & White and "Politics and the English Language" by George Orwell. Also read the great English-language authors of the last century: Orwell, Nabokov, O'Connor, Roth, McCarthy, Updike, Faulkner, Hemingway, Morrison. They wrote stories of extraordinary complexity and depth, but you'll find they typically wrote sentences that far more closely resembled those in Flash's second story than his first. For example, Faulkner wrote part of The Sound and the Fury in stream-of-consciousness from the perspective of a mentally retarded person. Consequently the ideas were opaque at times -- that was the point -- but the words used to express those ideas were not.
 
The Flash said:
Get help probably wasn't about the style of the story, I think it was about the fact that I based the story on myself by greatly exaggerating feelings and actions, that's why I complained about Cornfed's approach to my posts here anyway.

I may have misunderstood him, though.
Click to expand...

I don't know about that. Possibly. I read it as a tongue-in-cheek remark about the nature of the story, particularly the ending :D
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top