Katawa Shoujo Forums

Apparently the story is dry and boring. I'll save everyone the pain of reading it.

Good start. I tend to like these two, so a story like this is definitely something I can get behind. That said, the third-person perspective took some getting used to. Maybe partially because most fics on this site are first-person, but I just tend to prefer first-person perspectives in general. Just a matter of personal taste, its not going to be a problem.

Also,

danbutter wrote:recruiting him the way Shizuen and Misha did.

Shizune is misspelled.

I don't write first-person. It's bad form (though understandable considering the source material).

Will fix the typo.

Added another scene.

Thanks!

danbuter wrote:I don't write first-person. It's bad form (though understandable considering the source material).

Why do you think it's bad form?

Because I've had English writing classes. Pretty much every teacher I've ever had said don't use First Person, unless you're writing a play.

Made a few minor revisions, as for some reason, I was thinking the festival was on Saturday instead of Sunday. Now that's fixed.

danbuter wrote:Because I've had English writing classes. Pretty much every teacher I've ever had said don't use First Person, unless you're writing a play.

So... why do -you- think it's bad form?

I prefer to use proper English, which says to use third person perspective in creative writing. In any case, this has nothing to do with the story.

danbuter wrote:I prefer to use proper English, which says to use third person perspective in creative writing. In any case, this has nothing to do with the story.

It does, in a way. You've got a story that flows back and forth in somewhat staccato turns — i.e., a he-said-she-said pattern. This gives the sensation that one's watching a tennis match with very long rallies, and that one is merely an observer. There is a lack of engagement even at moments that ought to feel personal, like Hisao thinking about his life expectancy. One way to overcome this is to use the first person, which is a perfectly legitimate voice. After all, Herman Melville used it in 'Moby Dick', and there's a perfectly good tradition dating back to the ancients in this respect. So that 'I prefer to use proper English' thing may just be inhibiting this present story of yours, because somehow it doesn't seem to work for this particular narrative.

At least, that's my viewpoint, and I'm perfectly willing to discuss it as long as we don't get sidetracked into false issues of 'proper English'.

brythain wrote:

danbuter wrote:I prefer to use proper English, which says to use third person perspective in creative writing. In any case, this has nothing to do with the story.

It does, in a way. You've got a story that flows back and forth in somewhat staccato turns — i.e., a he-said-she-said pattern. This gives the sensation that one's watching a tennis match with very long rallies, and that one is merely an observer.

I have to agree. While I was intrigued by the subject matter of this story, I found it extraordinarily dry. I'm not sure from whom you learned that creative writing should only be done in third person, but that person or persons has done you a grave disservice.

brythain wrote:

danbuter wrote:I prefer to use proper English, which says to use third person perspective in creative writing. In any case, this has nothing to do with the story.

It does, in a way. You've got a story that flows back and forth in somewhat staccato turns — i.e., a he-said-she-said pattern. This gives the sensation that one's watching a tennis match with very long rallies, and that one is merely an observer. There is a lack of engagement even at moments that ought to feel personal, like Hisao thinking about his life expectancy. One way to overcome this is to use the first person, which is a perfectly legitimate voice. After all, Herman Melville used it in 'Moby Dick', and there's a perfectly good tradition dating back to the ancients in this respect. So that 'I prefer to use proper English' thing may just be inhibiting this present story of yours, because somehow it doesn't seem to work for this particular narrative.

At least, that's my viewpoint, and I'm perfectly willing to discuss it as long as we don't get sidetracked into false issues of 'proper English'.

I was thinking the same thing. I kinda felt more like an observer than actually involved in the story. Third person can work, it just feels off here.

danbuter wrote:Apparently the story is dry and boring. I'll save everyone the pain of reading it.

I didn’t get the chance to see for myself whether or not this was dry, but I’ll note that nobody said this was boring.

griffon8 wrote:

danbuter wrote:Apparently the story is dry and boring. I'll save everyone the pain of reading it.

I didn’t get the chance to see for myself whether or not this was dry, but I’ll note that nobody said this was boring.

See, now it's fixed, because first-person narrative packs more punch. I can't wait for the next line...
On a more serious note, I thought the material in the original story was perfectly good.

danbuter wrote:Apparently the story is dry and boring. I'll save everyone the pain of reading it.

Oh, c'mon now, no need to be a martyr.
So you wrote a story and it didn't go down as well as you'd hoped.

So?

You've got to be able to take criticism, mate. Practice alone isn't going to help you improve as much as taking on what others say will.
Take a plunge out of your comfort zone and give a 1st person approach a try. Hell, you may even grow to prefer it. You can add a lot more to a story written in their perspective, with narration from them, their personal thoughts and what they think is going on rather than what actually is going on.

Give it a shot and post it here, see how you feel about it. At the end of the day, lad, it's your story. You can write it how you want to. Just don't delete it and feel sorry for yourself, that does nothing but knock your own confidence.

Trust me, my first attempt at literary writing is on these forums somewhere. I didn't like how it came out, so I just left it to fall into obscurity and moved on

Well, I can't comment on your execution of writing a story in third person narrative - since you deleted it before I had the chance to read it - but the decision of what voice to use is ultimately up to the author and what they are most comfortable with.
That said there are some kinds of stories that lend themselves more to one narrative style than to another. For example 1st person pov is generally used when the reader is not supposed to have much knowledge about the story - e.g. in a detective story. So let me add Sir Arthur Conan Doyle to brythain's Herman Melville.
Also William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Isaac Asimov and Mark Twain - all of which can hardly be accused of not knowing how to write properly in English.
1st person narrative is quite common among KS-fanfiction writers, since the source material is also 1st person pov, but I've seen perfectly fine stories using other modes on the forums as well, and I always appreciate variation.

Personally I tend to find 1st person narrative more appropriate to stories told in present tense and would rather use 3rd person narrative for stories told in past tense, but that is no more than my preference.

Basically the only thing you shouldn't do is mix different narrative modes in one story - at least not without knowing exactly what you are doing and why you are doing it. It would make for a highly experimental story...

Finally I don't think the feedback you received for your story was particularly negative, so I'm not quite sure what made you remove it.