VTC's Blog

A bit of background, my lead has escaped his room on the day of a fictitious (I Think) festival (In March - if anyone knows the real name of a festival sometime in march that has something to do with the god Mars I would be very grateful.)

 

Feriae Marti -- "Festival of Mars"

 

"Vibius yer turned up, I thought yer weren't goin' to come? 'Ave a free drink lad." Said the friendly tavern keeper handing Vibius a drink with a gnarled hand.

 

I think your friendly tavern keeper sounds like a pirate. Arrrr.

 

-- Nephele

A bit of background, my lead has escaped his room on the day of a fictitious (I Think) festival (In March - if anyone knows the real name of a festival sometime in march that has something to do with the god Mars I would be very grateful.)

 

Feriae Marti -- "Festival of Mars"

 

"Vibius yer turned up, I thought yer weren't goin' to come? 'Ave a free drink lad." Said the friendly tavern keeper handing Vibius a drink with a gnarled hand.

 

I think your friendly tavern keeper sounds like a pirate. Arrrr.

 

-- Nephele

 

He does have a bit of pirate in him i suppose, thanks for the link and reading my extract

 

vtc

Hi, Vibs - from a fellow sufferer.

 

OK - let's get this show on the road. We'll do it bit by bit:

 

"Shrines and temples were filled with boisterous men cheering and jeering as animals were sacrificed. Vibius glimpsed the tavern, it was alive with energy. The noise drew Vibius in with a smile igniting his face."

 

Ambiguity here. It sounds like the noise is smiling! A bit clunky. The sentence structure is also passive, which is an immediate no-no to agents/publishers. 'Men filled the shrines and temples' rather than them being filled etc. You don't need the 'boisterous' qualifier. If men are cheering and jeering, the reader will know they are boisterous. Try to knock out the weak 'was' and 'were' and use stronger verbs.

 

"The tavern was bursting with life. Men from all backgrounds were merrily chanting or drinking. A Roman soldier and a peasant sat side by side gulping from two large urns, both were sloshing the red liquid about them. Tables and chairs spilt out onto the road - all full with men."

 

Ambiguity again - is the road filled with men, or the tables and chairs?

 

"A thick tree bough was standing in an iron bracket above the doorway. Crowned with flames, it illuminated most of the outside along with the table candles. It wept shards of flame into the air as it flickered orange light onto the cheerful faces below. Vibius walked inside, out of the chilling night air and into the warmth."

 

'It wept shards of flame' is really good here. However, just a wee nit-pick - the Romans did not use the term 'orange', as the fruit was unknown to them. Change your light to yellow or red. 'Out of the night air and into the warmth' is redundant here. The reader has got the picture, so Vibiius just needs to walk inside.

 

"An armoured soldier walked by with a grey faced man muttering to himself incoherently. The soldier placed him by the door and he fell asleep instantly, still muttering with a toothless smile on his lips. The soldier let out a deep laugh and turned back inside. A seat was free at the counter and Vibius sat himself down admiring the armour. It was well made and looked good but he doubted it would hold up to a really powerful lunge. Vibius looked away as he thought of what his father would say about the armour and even worse, what he was doing."

 

I'm with Stephen King - 'The Adverb is NOT your friend'. You don't need 'incoherently' after the muttering. If a man mutters, we know his words are incoherent. 'Instantly' follows in the very next sentence.

 

"Vibius yer turned up, I thought yer weren't goin' to come? 'Ave a free drink lad." Said the friendly tavern keeper handing Vibius a drink with a gnarled hand."

 

Again, ambiguity. Did the drink have a gnarled hand, or the tavern keeper? I would also agree with Neph, that the dialogue of the tavern keeper leaps out at us as anachronistic. Using dialectical speech in dialogue is very dicey. Instead, try to show that the tavern keeper is a rough sort by the words he uses, or his strange twists of grammar, while still trying to keep it authentic to the period.

 

An example: "Evening, Vibius. Bit late for you, isn't it? This one's free - enjoy it, lad!"

 

But there's certainly the basis of something here, Vibs - keep at it; give it a spit and a polish, and see what comes up. Let's see some more! Hehe - there's also a couple of commas that should be semi-colons, but I'm not going to be that pedantic.

 

I'll post a bit of mine for you to see and we can have a mutual exchange. Good luck with your project.

Hey Augusta

 

Ambiguity and its forms are my worst and most frequent error. I add clauses that I later feel are completely useless. However rephrasing took so long while I was editing I drove myself away from my novel and started to 'hate' it.

Could you post on the comma to semi-colon comment. This is no excuse but i'm only 17 with my mind overflowing with exams this and uni-scholarship essay that and I don't have the experience of knowing where they exactly go.

Thanks for reading, I have attempted to fix the mistakes you pointed out.

As for more sections, i'm not sure, maybe I'll blog the section before or after this bit? I'd love to read some of your work, please post.

The accent stays - I like it btw.

 

vtc

Semi-colon versus comma usage is something that is gained more by experience than anything else, Vibs - so I wouldn't worry too much about it. In fact, the usage has changed over the years. In the past, where grammar books would insist on a strict semi-colon, a comma is now all that is required. If you put your grammar checker on Word, it will probably pick up the semi-colon/comma usage for you. But as a general rule, if a sentence contains two main clauses side by side, that could feasibly stand alone, a semi-colon is used rather than a comma. Semi-colons are also used for 'listing' things. In your extract above:

 

"Shrines and temples were filled with boisterous men cheering and jeering as animals were sacrificed. Vibius glimpsed the tavern, it was alive with energy. "

 

I would use a semi-colon here, but I think you could probably get away with a comma. In fact, one could also use a full colon! (Just to confuse you further- lol)

 

 

"The tavern was bursting with life. Men from all backgrounds were merrily chanting or drinking. A Roman soldier and a peasant sat side by side gulping from two large urns, both were sloshing the red liquid about them."

 

Again, I would use a semi-colon, but as I said in my previous post, this is quite pedantic of me.

 

Seriously, Vibs - don't worry about it. I doubt your teacher in school would mark you down on such a thing as this.

Again, one way to check the usage is to see it used by your favourite authors. You'll soon pick up the knack, and it will become natural.

Vibs, have you visited the Absolute Write forum? I spent a bit of time lurking and was so impressed that I've registered. I'm only a newbie there at the mo, with about twenty-odd posts in a couple of days, but I can highly recommend it. (My user name there is Clio). I can't post the link, as mine is short-cutted on a log-in for a member, so just Google 'Absolute Write' and you'll find what you need.

 

But you could also give http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/ a try; it should bring up a box for registration.

 

If you are serious about your writing, I would suggest you join a forum such as this. There are some very knowledgeable people there - and not a few published authors. For our purposes, Scott Oden is a regular member. You don't have to be savaged (a lot of these places can be bitchy, I know). If you want to put your work up for crit, you can ask for 'kind' comments only and the like. The members range in age and there are plenty who are young, just starting out, so give it a go.

 

It is a massive forum (probably larger than UNRV) and you should find lots of help when reading through some of the old threads there. There is a full section for historical fiction.