The boy who lives under his bed. (http://sheffieldwriters.ath.cx/SFStoryArchive/1157134168.doc)

Here is my submission for September '06 :)

Very Good - is there another part to come?

Hi Mikomi,
That was an easy read and kept you interested wanting to know more about what was under the bed. I pictured Rodger stomping up the stairs counting them with a little grimace on his face.

:cool:

Very Good - is there another part to come?

Yes ,if i get the time i will carry it on .

Yes ,if i get the time i will carry it on .

Great, I look forward to reading it

Very interesting. I liked the ideas behind it, Rodger is quite a curious character and hopefully we'll hear more from him. Main criticism is some of the punctuation needs working on. It can be off-putting sometimes.

Very interesting. I liked the ideas behind it, Rodger is quite a curious character and hopefully we'll hear more from him. Main criticism is some of the punctuation needs working on. It can be off-putting sometimes.

Yes i know my grammar is really crap

Very interesting. I liked the ideas behind it, Rodger is quite a curious character and hopefully we'll hear more from him. Main criticism is some of the punctuation needs working on. It can be off-putting sometimes.

We look for ideas, structure and imagination on this Group, Gypsy Hack. The punctuation is not a strong issue at these stages, important as they ultimately may be to the reader.

For many would-be authors they are issues which probably come later in the potential publishing process. :)

Yes i know my grammar is really crap

I wouldn't go that far. It's just something that can be worked on, that's all. Everyone has different tools which could do with sharpening. The most important thing at this stage, like shoeshine said, is you have a good imagination and the beginnings of a really good story.

Proofreaders can help iron out all that stuff anyway. :)

I loked the story, it had a nice rhythm to it and the characters were well established within the piece.

It reminds me of the 'goosebumps' series of childrens horror books I used to read in primary school!

Another eerie concept from you mikomi.......and ripe for commercial development.

Why is it you always leave us wanting more? :hihi:

We look for ideas, structure and imagination on this Group, Gypsy Hack. The punctuation is not a strong issue at these stages, important as they ultimately may be to the reader.

For many would-be authors they are issues which probably come later in the potential publishing process. :)
I slightly disagree here Shoeshine,its not criticism, but comment. I think that is what this writers Group is all about.Im sure the story writer doesnt mind in the least.I would welcome any grammar mistakes I make commented on,so I can correct them. :thumbsup:

I slightly disagree here Shoeshine,its not criticism, but comment. I think that is what this writers Group is all about.Im sure the story writer doesnt mind in the least.I would welcome any grammar mistakes I make commented on,so I can correct them. :thumbsup:

I have no doubt there will be some who would agree with you pattricia.

Nevertheless, this brand new Group has a wide range of "Writing" Members within it, some of whom will be adept at spelling, punctuation and paragraphing their written work. Others may not be so proficient in achieving those heights.

This Group has been set up to provide an opportunity for all who would like to contribute their own written work within their capabilities, and hopefully they will wish to continue doing so. Gypsy Hack and I have exchanged several PM's today in respect to my remarks given earlier on this thread, and I have clarified the situation with him/her to his/her satisfaction.

There has been much criticism of pedantic remarks in other parts of the Forum. I have been guilty of making unnecessary pedantic remarks myself on a couple of occasions and have immediately regretted doing so.

I hope many more members of SF will have the confidence to join this Group as "Writing" Members, secure in the knowledge that it's the ideas, imagination and structure of the story which remains paramount.

Obviously the use of "text-speak" language will be frowned upon within the Writing Group remit, in the same way it is discouraged elsewhere on Sheffield Forum.

Im still waiting for my password so ill have to reserve comments for now.

Yeah i liked that one, thats got a lot of promise to it.

Shouldn’t that be “proof readers” :hihi: sorry!, sorry folks! I don’t know what came over me.

I agree with Shoeshine, up to a point, that the stories concept, structure and imagination are the main elements we should be concentrating on, however I also agree with Pattricia that the tools we use, namely the words, grammar and punctuation, should be suitable to deliver a polished finished product.

Personally I have no gripe with the odd spelling mishtake, indeed it might be challenging to have “Write a story using only text-speak” as the genre of the month but I can’t envisage any ‘gr8' stories emerging.

Oh and I thought Mickomi’s story was OK, but it could have been more concise, the story had too much padding and loose ends, for example

“Rodger climbed three flights of stair and counted thirty six steps before he got to his new bedroom .” doesn’t really move the story along as the number of steps isn’t really relevant to the story (If he was afraid of heights, it would be)

“If you had been there you would have sworn it was Rodger who had made Norman pee his pants in some kind of way.” is an unresolved fragment, the implication that he has acquired some special powers by sleeping under the bed is nebulous and is never really followed up.

I disagree with Caz_ol that the story has a nice rhythm to it, the two line sentences, interrupted by an occasional chunky six liner breaks the story up into too many parts when it would have been better to one large paragraph explaining one discreet event.

For example the entire first page could have been condensed into a paragraph outlining Rodgers distress at leaving his old home, the second paragraph could have covered his reaction to his new home, the third his reaction to his bedroom etc.

BTW, I’m not an English teacher :D please feel free, EVERYONE, to have a critical look at my insubstantial offerings and rip ‘em to pieces if you think you can improve them, we’re all here to learn.

THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD.

The reason i put in the number of steps was because i had said Rodgers
bedroom was at the top of the house ,by putting in a number of steps he had to climb to get there .I had hoped this would give the reader a sense of how tall the house was ,i thought it was relevant .But what do i know .

I happen to agree with mikomi on that one, not just for the reason mikomi gave. Specific information such as that works well in the context of a young kid just moving into a new house, because it suggests he is taking careful inventory, feeling his way around, a little nervously. That's why mikomi was better off saying 'Rodger counted 36 steps', as opposed to 'Rodger climbed 36steps'.

edit: mantaspook, unless the many proofreading courses out there have a very subtle sense of irony, it is one word. Or two. Google it.

Sorry Gypsy Hack, I was exercising my own subtle sense of irony at Shoeshine’s comment that there has been much criticism of pedantic remarks in other parts of the Forum.

You didn't have to pick proofreaders though. You made me google it, just to check, then I found a proofreading quiz on the BBC and did all their questions and before I knew it I'd wasted an hour...

Warn me next time you want to exercise your own subtle sense of irony. I'll write a special post filled with typos for you too play with. :D

LOL, you told ME to google it, then I went a different route and wasted an hour learning that bacteria can proof read (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proofreading), I mean proofread / proof-read (whichever version it is!)

This set off a surreal train of thought, a single cell organism with a career? Surely it’d take one of them ages to read a book, ergo, there must be lots of them and sure enough, pick up any book and check the end of every sentence, there is a small dot, we call them full stops but if you look at them under a microscope it’s a proofreader.

I think the comma must be a trainee, the semi colon must be a supervisor and I’ve really got to stop sniffing sherbet dips. :)

Am I to take it that an elipsis (...) is a bacterial proofreader's house party?

(…) Nah, it’s an open prison. :D

If there's any lesson to be taken from this conversation, it's stay away from anyone who knows morse code.

If there's any lesson to be taken from this conversation, it's stay away from anyone who knows morse code.


- --- --- - .-. ..- .
(too true)


:)