I’d like to help 🙂

@evelyn Thank you so much for the advice and the resources! They should be very helpful.

@evelyn I’ve never done debate, but I’ve wanted to ever since I took a formal logic class with other people in high school who did practice public speaking and debate, and I learned quickly not to have opinions around them =P Actually, though, I have a terrible time laying out my thoughts in speech, and I do enough public speaking that it’s a huge…[Read more]

@daeus-lamb Nice b8 Daeus =P In all seriousness a caste system like that could be cool to represent the sin state if someone felt the need to write a Christianity allegory that used a different setting than “Pilgrim’s Progress 2000.”

@daeus-lamb I hate the second one, sorry =P I feel like all the genericness you previously addressed was put back in.

I like the first one quite a lot, though. I’m not sure what “it’s part of their brokenness” means, and ‘The song sages call the Songkiller’s symphony” reads a little confusing as it sounds to me on first go like you begin t…[Read more]

@sarah-inkdragon I don’t think you’ll find many social theorists who agree that social class can be described as a difference in belief systems. If someone talks about class, you can assume they are talking about vertical stratification in social standing, not about what elements separate my moral and political views from yours.

I think you hit…[Read more]

I’ve only read the first two chapters, but I love it so far! Reminds me of the kinds of webcomics I loved in high school and that I always wanted to make.

Definitely want to warn any passers-by there’s definitely R-rated language and comment. I’m personally happy to see it in a Christian work, but most people on here probably will want to stay away =P

@padawanpadme I feel like if you include an overt caste or class system and you aren’t also doing comprehensive worldbuilding on a Stormlight level, you’re telling your reader “here’s a point I’m making about class in the real world,” because you’re drawing attention to something that’s a hot-button issue in the real world.

Which isn’t an…[Read more]

@silverclaw-bonnetfolly The Space Trilogy is really weird and even if you decide you don’t like OotSP, I strongly recommend you read the rest of it. Each of the three books is extremely different to the others and a crazy ride in general. That Hideous Strength in particular is one of the most influential books to my own writing life, even though…[Read more]

@silverclaw-bonnetfolly I adore the Screwtape Letters! I’m glad you got a chance to read them :-} Have you read much non-Narnia C.S. Lewis?

I agree with Noah, and I think you’d be well-served by specificity. Here’s another rewrite that cuts out what I feel are the more extraneous bits:

For a thousand years, the Songkiller bided his time. Now, he’s about to escape…

On the night of (some event), a call for heroes reaches Exton’s front door. His father, a former spy, demands Exton…[Read more]

“When heroes fail, the Songkiller rises.”

I like this one a million times more than the others. The very first one felt generic. “Not all heroes…” has been done to death (pardon another cliche >.> ) and “are who they try to be” doesn’t seem like it has any substance.

But that “heroes fail” one is inspired.

@wordsmith No worries regarding the ellipses =P It kind of plays into the topic. It’s something that works for you, and maybe works for your general audience, but is different enough to orthodox punctuation that someone like me has trouble interpreting it.

“we still need to talk about why the language makes voice itself.”

Well, yeah, but that’s…[Read more]

@wordsmith Thanks for deepening your previous discussion! I’m afraid I’m having a hard time following you. That might be from your heavy elliptical style, but it’s probably just me.

So I think that everyone so far, you and myself included, agree that voice is “Those aspects of writing which, intentionally or not, differ you from other…[Read more]

@wordsmith I feel like you’re getting off topic a bit. That sort of conversation is really interesting (and I think it’d be great to have it in a different thread) but I think Edmund’s original question precludes yours.

We talk a lot as writers about things like authorial voice but don’t tend to share definitions beforehand. We can’t really have…[Read more]

This isn’t a concrete definition, but if we had one I think we wouldn’t be discussing it =P

I believe a narrative voice (which belongs more specifically to an individual text rather than to the writer himself) comprises the body of stylistic choices the writer makes over the course of that text’s creation.

This can include less orthodoxically…[Read more]