Graeme

Thanks, Drake and welcome! I don't think I have ever read Frankenstein, so it's off to the local bookshop.... Graeme

Honestly, I'm leaning more toward novelty. Don't get me wrong, I like it, and were you to write another story using it, I'd read (and most likely enjoy) that one, too. For the most part, I'd say it would depend on the overall tone of the story. In a really dark story, I could see it becoming kind of a mood-breaker, or even a hindrance to the plot. As cool as knowing what every character is thinking can be, not knowing what they're thinking can be more powerful in that it lets you build suspense. Making your readers question the characters' motives along with the main character tends to keep things interesting, you know? I liked chapter three, by the way. Good stuff. And on a side note, this format works perfectly with FireFox's tabbed browsing. Thanks for the feedback! I totally agree that the idea is not suited to all stories, but you can say that about most things. I had one person describe this as a "Mills & Boone" type story (romantic fiction, if you didn't catch the reference). In this type of story, you KNOW the way it's going to end (at least to a large degree, or unless the author is a bastard), and it's just how and when you get there that is unknown. It would be totally unsuited for my other main story, New Brother because the focus on that story is the reactions and development of the narrator -- bringing other characters POV's into it would just be a distraction. Similarly with most mystery stories, and I'm sure there are a lot of other examples that people put up. Where it IS suited is as an alternative to third-person omniscient. Instead of being able to view objectively what the various characters are thinking/perceiving, you can do this from the subjection pov of first person. This can introduce some subtle changes in the way the story is told. I'm slightly leaning towards novelty, as you are, but I wouldn't mind seeing it move into "niche" category. Graeme

Who are you trying to fool? Graeme

Welcome, Thirdeye! All the authors appreciate any feedback they can get, so feel free to post whatever comments you like. Enjoy! Graeme

Now that three chapters have been published, I'd like some opinions on whether the use of the links is just an interesting novelty, or something that could be used again in other stories. I don't have any plans for another story like this at the moment, but if the technique is deemed successful, I wouldn't mind trying it again. Graeme

Don't hold your breath, blue. I'm concentrating on Falls Creek Lessons which is growing at a furious rate. I'm just doing planning for New Brother as I want to get back to it in the New Year. I keep coming up with scenes I want in the story, so I just make mental notes as I think of them (and transfer them to paper when I get a chance). How I link all the scenes together is still on the drawing board.... Graeme

My family was involved in an exchange student program at one point, so I learnt a few of the words that have different meanings in the two countries. The one that has always stuck in my mind was the story of the Australian exchange student in the USA who turned to the girl behind him in the schoolroom and asked for a rubber. He was extremely embarrassed once he found that the word "rubber" is NOT a synonym of "eraser" in the USA, and so naturally the girl assumed that he was asking for a condom.... Oh, and no, she didn't give him one. The other main one, which I have been caught on a couple of times when I've been in the USA, is "Lemonade". In Australia, this is the generic name for the flavour of soft-drink such as "Sprite" or "7-up". Graeme

Okay, I don't think I was clear enough on what I had intended to do. What I was planning (and I may change my mind if it gets too hard) is to have character A tell the narrator what had been happening, including dialog that A had had with characters B, C, etc. Trying to write that was looking very messy and confusing, which is why I thought about trying a "temporary" switch of POV. AJ, your comment on feedback from the narrator during the discussion is well taken, though. I think I'll need to experiment a bit before I come up with a series of dialog that will work the way I want it to. Graeme

Hi, My initial question for this thread is for a particular situation that I want to write about. The story is a first person POV, and the narrator is talking to another character. The other character is telling the narrator about events that have recently happened to them. Now, I could do it aa purely dialog, but I thought that would be too cumbersome. I also thought about doing it as purely description, with the narrator describing what they have been told, but I thought that wouldn't have a strong enough impact for what I wanted. What I was wondering was how best to go about telling the story of those events from the other characters POV, but in such a way that it is clear that this is the story as told to the narrator, and not a true POV shift. Any suggestion? If it helps, this is for a scene that will be in the next section of New Brother, where one character is telling the narrator about their day. Graeme

What are the recommended guidelines on colloquialisms? For example, because I'm Australian, I tend to use Australian spellings (though Word likes to push me to American spellings too often) and Australian phrases. I noticed in Grasshopper's Please Say Something that he used a lot of phrases that seem to be unique teenagers and young adults. I read once that an author should try to use enough to give a flavour of where the story is set, but not so much that the reader is lost as to what is going on. Again, using Grasshopper's story as an example, there were several terms that I had never seen before, but I could guess at their meaning from the context. One of my concerns is using Australian colloquialisms without realising. For example, Blue picked up on the term "barracks" as an synonym for "supports", but when I wrote that, I didn't realise that it wasn't a term that would be recognised in the USA. I understand that this is partially the role of the editor (thanks Blue!) but I was wondering how far I should adjust to the predominantly USA reader population base. Another example is in the original draft of New Brother, I used the metric system for all measurements. It was recommended that I change to Imperial measurements, as more readers would understand this. Any comments? Graeme

I just wanted to apologise for the delay in getting chapter 3 out. Unfortunately outside influences have interfered with the schedule. I'm hoping it won't be too far away. On the plus side, chapter 4 is well underway so hopefully you won't have to wait too long for that one. Graeme

Can I add to the question by also asking about semi-colon ';' vs paranthesis '()' vs dashes '--'. What are the guidelines on when to use each of these?

Elecivil -- I know exactly what you mean. I love to read, but I'm now hesitant to start reading new stories because I know I probably won't stop until I'm finished, and while I'm reading, I'm not writing.... :roll: Passive -- There is definitely more to come. I don't know what Dewey's schedule will be for posting, as he's also working on the lastest section of his Brian and Pete saga, but just be patient. Graeme

I think I have confused this thread by using the term formatting in my original post, and then style in a later reply. As has been pointed out, these are two different things. My original question was purely on formatting, simply because I had seen variations. Having said that, the comments above on style have also been quite informative. Thank you to everyone who has commented so far! Graeme

There is a website for the book, which includes an excerpt that you can read to see if you think this book is for you: http://eatsshootsandleaves.com/ When it first came out, there were a series of articles in the weekend papers about it here in Australia. Basically, there is a number of people who disagree with the extent to which Lynne Truss takes her zeal on this subject. Some areas of punctuation (such as Two Weeks Notice) where common usage means that the apostrophe can be left off, though Lynne Truss insists that it should be put back in. I'm not qualified to say who is correct. I'll leave the fine details to my editors who seem to know what they are talking about ;) Graeme

Thanks for the compliment, but I have to politely disagree. I read the introduction section on the web site and quickly decided that the book was a bit too pedantic for me. I might obtain a copy as a reference for particular issues, but I doubt I'll be able to absorb all the punctuation rules. My original questions were raised because I've seen differences in styles and, as a new author, I wanted to find out if there were rules or just general guidelines. Thanks for the helpful information, though. The issue of the quotes had been bothering me and you have settled the question. Many of the books I own are published in the UK, which is why I keep seeing single quotes being used. Graeme

That's a nice idea! Up until now, I've mainly written in first person. Working out how to distinguish between thoughts and spoken comments was one the things that made me hesitant in writing in third person.

Since I've started writing, I've noticed things in the material I read that I hadn't before. One of those is variations in formatting. As I have no real education in writing (and my school days are more than half my life away), I thought I'd poll for opinions. Paragraphs Many authors on the internet seem to use a simple format where each paragraph is separated by a blank line. Some, however, use indentation on the first line, sometimes without the blank line between the paragraphs. Any comments on the various options? Quotation marks Most authors seem to use double quotes for dialog, but reviewing some of my paperbacks, most of these seem to use single quotes. Are there rules on when to use double vs single quotes? Section breaks When there is a scene or significant change, many authors use some sort of section break, ranging from a simple line of asterisks to more complex lines. What do people recommend as the most effective scene break? Does it really matter? That's it for the moment! Graeme

Two of my favourites from movies are: "Kindly do not confuse the issue with facts" -- George Banks in Mary Poppins "The first rule of leadership -- It's always your fault" -- Hopper in A Bug's Life Graeme

DAMN! While I was on holiday, I came up with a story idea that required a gay character as a central part of the plot, but the story didn't revolve around this -- it was just the trigger for the rest of the story. Unfortunately, it also required that it be in the fantasy genre. Oh, well, back to plan B. I've had another story idea for a few months now, but it's currently not coming together into a strong plot. It's on the back-burner at the moment because of work on Falls Creek Lessons and planning for the next stage of New Brother but I'll keep working on the plot. Graeme

Oh, and for the record, yes it was inspired by New Brother. In that story, the father made a joke about missing the parenting class on what do when a son brings home a boyfriend. When I originally wrote that, it was just an off-the-cuff observation. After a few weeks, though, I realised that there was something more to write about in that observation. Graeme

Thank you, Jamie. What you have said strikes a very strong chord with me. Fiction has many genres and the characteristics of the characters within the stories are there to support and enrich the tale, but are seldom strong enough to support a story in their own right. At the moment, I have only been writing for a few months and I still often struggle for inspiration. I would like to write a story that does not centre on the topic of "gay", as you challenged, but so far I haven't had an idea strong enough to proceed along those lines. Equally, I don't like writing stories that I feel have been written about before. That is why New Brother, Dear God and What do I say? are all written from a non-standard point of view (for what would be normally considered to be "gay" fiction). Falls Creek Lessons is a more typical story, but I'm using that one as an experiment in presentation. So, as I improve as a writer, I will keep you advice and challenge in mind. I don't know if this is unusual or not, but most of the fiction I read is completely different to the fiction I find myself writing. I mainly read SF and Fantasy, with a smattering of contemporary fiction (Tom Clancy) and mystery. The Brother Cadfael series was so enthralling that when I was in the UK I made a point of visiting the Shrewsbury and the sites of many of the stories. As an author, however, I haven't been able to come up with an idea in any of these genres that I'm satisfied with. I'll keep trying, but I'm still waiting to come up with an idea that will "fly". Cheers, Graeme

Thanks, everyone, for the advice. In particular, jamieoficaria, thank you for the issues for me to consider. EleCivil -- your concerns are some of the major objections that I have come up with for the idea. If I can't make the thoughts of the new characters POV sufficiently different in nature, it's just going to cause confusion in the mind of the reader (and probably me). I have a couple of months to think things over, before I continue the story. However, your comments have all helped solidify what I need to consider before I make my decision. Cheers, Graeme

Now that chapter 10 has been posted, I'd like to ask for some advice. I'm intending to continue the story, but probably not until early next year. What I'm not sure about is whether I should continue to tell the story from David's point of view, or should I switch to another character's. Randy's is the first one that springs to mind. This is probably more a technical issue from a writing point of view, rather than a story one. Is it reasonable to switch the POV for the next part of the story? There are obviously a lot of loose ends still to be sorted out in the story and I want to make an effort to bring most of these to a close (though I subscribe to the view that life doesn't have neat and tidy endings, so don't expect absolutely everything to be resolved). Graeme