Why do I think this book i'm writing is turning out bad?

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

Is English your second language? I've spotted many errors, both punctual and grammatical.

That aside, your main problem is that the story plays out like a b- videogame storyline, there's no freshness to the story; nothing interesting. It feels like you are rewriting the movie "pearl harbor" in a different setting and with different characters. you have some kind of post apocalyptic future setting but you don't expand on it any further than "world war 3" and "oh, and nazi's too" which, while I am perfectly open to the idea that anything is possible in the world of pen and paper, America -one of 2 final military superpowers on earth(debatebly)- being taken over by a regime that ended in the late 1940's ("the nazi's are dead, and europe is RED!"
-pigwiththefaceofaboy) seems not only unrealistic but borderline absurd. What you have to do, and this will hurt a bit; is rewrite the universe where this story is set, swap out anything that seems remotely videogame-ey (that is, anything to do with an elite unit, advanced weapons, etc...) with things that either fortify/mirror/conflict with the personality or projections of the major characters. Your goal here is to cause depth; to evoke emotion in the reader by using scenes, actions and dialog in a specific way.

For instance; take your main character, John Verkia. John is the most common name on the planet, it is a favourite among game-devs when attempting to make a blank slate for the audience to project on to, but it doesn't match with John here because you've added 'Verkia' a russian sounding surname and a backstory of military service to him, which transforms your blank slate into a boring sounding macho 2d character. His quest to 'save the princess' as we'll call it, is a trope in both movies and bad games. such a thing only works when it tells you something about the character, take Liam Neeson's character in the movie "Taken" for example, the quest to find his daughter is the source of his determination, but also of his cruelty, and you begin to lose faith in him watching the atrocities he commits to find his daughter.

you also need to be far more descriptive in your writing, the scenes come off as boring and repetitive, you reuse words pretty often and by focusing on the moment, you fail to set the scene, which should always take priority. Scene THEN Moment, here's an example.

"Prepare yourself. The convoy will be here in 30 seconds." Lieutenant said on the radio.

The world around me rushed as men gathered their courage, the heat of the sun beat down on the makeshift encampment as if it too, was against us. I drew in a gulp of air calmly, listening to the minutia in my environment, the grass lightly swaying in the drawing wind, making a whispy sound not unlike the searing a bullet freshly landed into cover, or flesh. Birds foolishly settled in the trees nearby, unknowing of the concert to which they would be audience to, moments before the noise drives them to flee. Coldly I cycled through positions, thinking on which would give me the greatest advantage, who I would be with, and who would get in the way of gunfire.

I stationed myself behind a sandbag with a few other militia soldiers.

The setting of the scene makes the action of taking cover more interesting, see?

I know this may come off as a bit harsh, but you have the capability to do it. I would say the immediate thing you need to do is improve all aspects of your english; buy a book on punctuation and grammer, and then move on to structure. Practice writing short stories using a beginning, middle and end formula. READ MORE, this is one of the most important things, read more books, lots of books, and lookup any words you don't know, if you find yourself relying on a certain set of words, look them up in a thesaurus to find works like them (the internet is your friend here).

Don't despair, if you persist and practice, you will do far better

I read this entire post in the voice of Adam west, just because of your profile picture. But I get what your saying. Add color, moar backstory, got it. This is mainly just for me to get my ideas down.

 

[Averant]

Some tips:
1- Get someone to check your spelling/grammar. If you really don't want your current English teacher to proofread it, hold onto the story until you have a teacher you like.
2- Even though lots of people are telling you it's an overused/cliché idea, write what you want to write about. It may not become the next big work of literature, but you'll get some practice in.
3- Remember that every single choice of diction, punctuation, etc. is a highly thought out an conscious decision and means something. Ex: Choose names carefully. The first work that comes to mind is A Streetcar Named Desire, in which the main character (named Blanche, the French word for 'white,' and white symbolises purity) is not pure in any way shape or form. If she had had any generic name, it would not have had the same effect.
4- 'Yelled' already implies the volume of the speaker, capital letters are unnecessary.

@#3 - eeeh... A lot of them, maybe, but not all of them, I would hope. Let's leave the "every single one" part to the official Literature authors, the ones who are actually trying to write a piece of art. A normal scifi, syntax'd like official literature? No thanks, my mind has enough headaches. (Fucking henry james, and his fucking ambiguity theme. Ambiguity! I ask you...)

 

[Dfskelleton]

I'm writing something as well, although I'm not sure if it's going to be a long short story or if I'm going to go back and make it a full book. It's completely normal to think it's not very good, it happens to me to. I'm usually more worried about if other people will like it or share my sense of humour. I'm trying to make it as ridiculous as possible without going beyond physical impossibility.
Also, nice story too. I like it!

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

It reads more like direction for a game than a book.

You need to be more emotive in what you're saying. Don't be so matter of fact about things. It really dissociates us from the characters. They seem more like auto scripts than humans in an adrenaline filled battle situation.

Prepare yourself. The convoy will be here in 30 seconds." Lieutenant said on the radio.

I stationed myself behind a sandbag with a few other militia soldiers.

Moments later, Scout ships arrived overhead.

"HERE THEY ARE!" The militia leader yelled.

Why not try

"The convoy's en-rout. Prepare for contact." The lieutenant bellowed down the coms unit as he stumbled to cover.

The cracking of gunfire above my head tore down what little remained of my resolve as I made a break to the tantalising promise of safety that the sandbags held. Where my fellow militia huddled, preparing for the onslaught that was approaching with unwelcome haste.

I'd barely managed to regain my composure as the unmistakable roar of a scoutships engines ripped the airs countenance from above my head. The malignant form blacked out the sun, as if an omen, looming over all of us.

Somehow, over the sizzling cry of the thrusters, I heard a fear laced voice shout out "They're here!"

I dunno. I'm not a writer, I don't even know enough about the situation to characterise properly. And I don't really know any accurate military jargon.

But you certainly need to give the characters more life. Convey emotions in them, through the narrators voice. And add more detail to the world by giving tid bits of info with everything that's being said. Don't make it so matter of fact.

But any way.

Isn't this story.... kinda like Homefront?

Hmmm... your version is a bit too flashy, I'm affraid readers will have to have a dictionary by them while reading it, but I do get your point. I will try to add some flare outside of the quotes. (They usually try to keep it simple in battle, but I agree his discriptions can be more colorful)

So how about this?
"Prepair yourself, the convoy will be here in 30 seconds" Lieutenant solumly wispered into his radio, sounding as if he feared it would be the last sentance to ever leave his mouth.

I ran to cover against a sandbag, surrounded by a few militia soldiers clad in woodland camoflauge and wearing paintball masks... I never got why we wore those, They couldn't stop bullets, and they made your head uncomftorable. I looked to the bland grey skies, and I saw it. Several Nazi scout ships hovering to our possition, Their black shells made the sky look even darker, and they red LPainting on them perfectly finished the "We are evil pricks" effect. The nazi soldiers began to rappel down Near our possition. I readied my rifle for battle.
That is what it will be like in the second run, but with proper grammer and stuff like that. I plan to expand on more things, and add some imagery to it.

I wouldn't say it is anything like homefront. The Nazi's don't control america, but america is fighting with 40/60 odds against them.

Yea. Like I said, I'm not a writer. I suppose that just reflects the kind of books I'm used to.

That's certainly a lot better. Less matter of fact and more characterising. Build on it like that and you'll probably start to like it a bit more.

It's got more soul now. Building the world through the narrators asides and analysis' is the sign of a more astute writer. Giving you a wall of text to tell the reader what could have been alluded to over the course of a few pages tends to switch people off.

Apart from that. I'm going to need more info on the history of these events and the politics behind them.

Like why are socialists invading people? It doesn't really serve their agenda at all.

And calling them Nazis is a bit odd. I understand what you're doing. You're trying to build up the readers hatred of them by associating them with something we can all recognisable hate. But it's really not going to do anything but confuse the reader. If you're using terms like socialist and Nazi to describe one set of people. It really becomes unclear.

Why not make up you're own derogatory name for them that the reader will eventually come to associate with 'danger' and 'threats'.

Like Killzone did with the Hellghast. Calling them Higgs even though they're pretty aesthetically Nazi'ish.

And it's just the 'America defending itself against invaders on it's own soil' that kinda makes me think 'homefront'/

Well, they are facist, but the Nazis called themselves socialist, so it is like that, and america just got bored of calling them by there full name, and just shortened it to something every non WBC american hated. NAZI!

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

well, there's a lot of passive language in your writing. Instead of "they were shooting, my rifle began shooting," use "they shot, I fired." Mix up your vocabulary. when it comes to battles, if they're supposed to be fast and furious, use your words accordingly. Short, two or three word sentences to describe an action, maybe. Don't worry about grammar until after yuou've written it and had fun.

Otherwise, keep going

Thanks, That boosts my morale.

The characters quotes during battle are usually like what you described.

 

[EHKOS]

Look, everyone sees their own work and says, bah that sucks. But most times it's really good. Just keep it up. And make many friends read it.

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

It reads more like direction for a game than a book.

You need to be more emotive in what you're saying. Don't be so matter of fact about things. It really dissociates us from the characters. They seem more like auto scripts than humans in an adrenaline filled battle situation.

Prepare yourself. The convoy will be here in 30 seconds." Lieutenant said on the radio.

I stationed myself behind a sandbag with a few other militia soldiers.

Moments later, Scout ships arrived overhead.

"HERE THEY ARE!" The militia leader yelled.

Why not try

"The convoy's en-rout. Prepare for contact." The lieutenant bellowed down the coms unit as he stumbled to cover.

The cracking of gunfire above my head tore down what little remained of my resolve as I made a break to the tantalising promise of safety that the sandbags held. Where my fellow militia huddled, preparing for the onslaught that was approaching with unwelcome haste.

I'd barely managed to regain my composure as the unmistakable roar of a scoutships engines ripped the airs countenance from above my head. The malignant form blacked out the sun, as if an omen, looming over all of us.

Somehow, over the sizzling cry of the thrusters, I heard a fear laced voice shout out "They're here!"

I dunno. I'm not a writer, I don't even know enough about the situation to characterise properly. And I don't really know any accurate military jargon.

But you certainly need to give the characters more life. Convey emotions in them, through the narrators voice. And add more detail to the world by giving tid bits of info with everything that's being said. Don't make it so matter of fact.

But any way.

Isn't this story.... kinda like Homefront?

Hmmm... your version is a bit too flashy, I'm affraid readers will have to have a dictionary by them while reading it, but I do get your point. I will try to add some flare outside of the quotes. (They usually try to keep it simple in battle, but I agree his discriptions can be more colorful)

So how about this?
"Prepair yourself, the convoy will be here in 30 seconds" Lieutenant solumly wispered into his radio, sounding as if he feared it would be the last sentance to ever leave his mouth.

I ran to cover against a sandbag, surrounded by a few militia soldiers clad in woodland camoflauge and wearing paintball masks... I never got why we wore those, They couldn't stop bullets, and they made your head uncomftorable. I looked to the bland grey skies, and I saw it. Several Nazi scout ships hovering to our possition, Their black shells made the sky look even darker, and they red LPainting on them perfectly finished the "We are evil pricks" effect. The nazi soldiers began to rappel down Near our possition. I readied my rifle for battle.
That is what it will be like in the second run, but with proper grammer and stuff like that. I plan to expand on more things, and add some imagery to it.

I wouldn't say it is anything like homefront. The Nazi's don't control america, but america is fighting with 40/60 odds against them.

Yea. Like I said, I'm not a writer. I suppose that just reflects the kind of books I'm used to.

That's certainly a lot better. Less matter of fact and more characterising. Build on it like that and you'll probably start to like it a bit more.

It's got more soul now. Building the world through the narrators asides and analysis' is the sign of a more astute writer. Giving you a wall of text to tell the reader what could have been alluded to over the course of a few pages tends to switch people off.

Apart from that. I'm going to need more info on the history of these events and the politics behind them.

Like why are socialists invading people? It doesn't really serve their agenda at all.

And calling them Nazis is a bit odd. I understand what you're doing. You're trying to build up the readers hatred of them by associating them with something we can all recognisable hate. But it's really not going to do anything but confuse the reader. If you're using terms like socialist and Nazi to describe one set of people. It really becomes unclear.

Why not make up you're own derogatory name for them that the reader will eventually come to associate with 'danger' and 'threats'.

Like Killzone did with the Hellghast. Calling them Higgs even though they're pretty aesthetically Nazi'ish.

And it's just the 'America defending itself against invaders on it's own soil' that kinda makes me think 'homefront'/

Well, they are facist, but the Nazis called themselves socialist, so it is like that, and america just got bored of calling them by there full name, and just shortened it to something every non WBC american hated. NAZI!

Still.

I'd give them another name.

Maybe they can be a completely separate political party that arose due to economic instability.

With it's leaders fast tracking towards power by promising a quick end by way of military conquest ect.

That gives you licence to make up your own names for them and use relevant current affairs to link your story to the reader.

We'll, the groups outside look and all spells out NAZI. But they are called (in english) The International Socialism-facism party. So what am I supposed to call them? The ISFP? that sounds a bit odd. I understand what you are saying, but I would prefer to keep it there.

 

[AntonicKnight]

First thing, your English is a little bit on the off side.
Second, you say things like LAV, C4 or HUD and you expect people to understand what you mean with those acronyms like they have been in a war or played a FPS game before which in some cases isn't true.
And third, you tell your character's point of view like it's someone playing a game instead of actually fighting in the front lines....I mean he fires his gun and hits his targets with such ease like he isn't wounded at all or is in any pain which kinda makes it hard to aim a gun. As I understand since you mention this being the militia, your character is an untrained fighter which makes this even less believable that he copes with the heat of battle so well ! Also when he stabbed a man with no pity or remorse, it almost sounded un-human, like he didn't care that he was taking another living beings life(if a cold-hearted protagonist is what you are going for then believe me, no one will relate to him therefor like him.)

I hope I gave you some valuable advice!

 

[Scabadus]

Start with short stories. Do not start with novels.

The thing is, I don't like short stories. I have ideas for them, but I hate making an idea, and not being able to expand around it.

Short stories arn't always about an idea; they can also be a very good way of practising writing. If you don't want to create an origional idea only to leave it as 'only' a short story, try writing some fan-fiction for someone else's idea. You never have to publish it or even show it to anyone else - though having a second opinion is always good - but the point is writing it.

A short (and I mean really short: five pages maximum) story can go from a first draft to a final product in a single day of work. If you churn out a few of these you'll get an idea of what words, phrases and grammer you normally use without thinking, and then change later because you don't like them when you re-read your work. Doing this can vastly improve the quality of your first drafts, and hence your own moral.

 

[Accountfailed]

Is English your second language? I've spotted many errors, both punctual and grammatical.

That aside, your main problem is that the story plays out like a b- videogame storyline, there's no freshness to the story; nothing interesting. It feels like you are rewriting the movie "pearl harbor" in a different setting and with different characters. you have some kind of post apocalyptic future setting but you don't expand on it any further than "world war 3" and "oh, and nazi's too" which, while I am perfectly open to the idea that anything is possible in the world of pen and paper, America -one of 2 final military superpowers on earth(debatebly)- being taken over by a regime that ended in the late 1940's ("the nazi's are dead, and europe is RED!"
-pigwiththefaceofaboy) seems not only unrealistic but borderline absurd. What you have to do, and this will hurt a bit; is rewrite the universe where this story is set, swap out anything that seems remotely videogame-ey (that is, anything to do with an elite unit, advanced weapons, etc...) with things that either fortify/mirror/conflict with the personality or projections of the major characters. Your goal here is to cause depth; to evoke emotion in the reader by using scenes, actions and dialog in a specific way.

For instance; take your main character, John Verkia. John is the most common name on the planet, it is a favourite among game-devs when attempting to make a blank slate for the audience to project on to, but it doesn't match with John here because you've added 'Verkia' a russian sounding surname and a backstory of military service to him, which transforms your blank slate into a boring sounding macho 2d character. His quest to 'save the princess' as we'll call it, is a trope in both movies and bad games. such a thing only works when it tells you something about the character, take Liam Neeson's character in the movie "Taken" for example, the quest to find his daughter is the source of his determination, but also of his cruelty, and you begin to lose faith in him watching the atrocities he commits to find his daughter.

you also need to be far more descriptive in your writing, the scenes come off as boring and repetitive, you reuse words pretty often and by focusing on the moment, you fail to set the scene, which should always take priority. Scene THEN Moment, here's an example.

"Prepare yourself. The convoy will be here in 30 seconds." Lieutenant said on the radio.

The world around me rushed as men gathered their courage, the heat of the sun beat down on the makeshift encampment as if it too, was against us. I drew in a gulp of air calmly, listening to the minutia in my environment, the grass lightly swaying in the drawing wind, making a whispy sound not unlike the searing a bullet freshly landed into cover, or flesh. Birds foolishly settled in the trees nearby, unknowing of the concert to which they would be audience to, moments before the noise drives them to flee. Coldly I cycled through positions, thinking on which would give me the greatest advantage, who I would be with, and who would get in the way of gunfire.

I stationed myself behind a sandbag with a few other militia soldiers.

The setting of the scene makes the action of taking cover more interesting, see?

I know this may come off as a bit harsh, but you have the capability to do it. I would say the immediate thing you need to do is improve all aspects of your english; buy a book on punctuation and grammer, and then move on to structure. Practice writing short stories using a beginning, middle and end formula. READ MORE, this is one of the most important things, read more books, lots of books, and lookup any words you don't know, if you find yourself relying on a certain set of words, look them up in a thesaurus to find works like them (the internet is your friend here).

Don't despair, if you persist and practice, you will do far better

I read this entire post in the voice of Adam west, just because of your profile picture. But I get what your saying. Add color, moar backstory, got it. This is mainly just for me to get my ideas down.

Hehe, sorry. That happens a lot xD
Don't be afraid to abandon elements that won't work, creative control is one of the most important things a storyteller can have. look at George Lucas, had there not been the technical limitations back when he made the first 3 star wars films they all would have turned out terrible. he had some seriously bad ideas which he had to remove because there was no way to do it at the time. I am currently working on my own story/universe, and I've had to sacrifice so much of the original setting that at this point (2 years development there and abouts) that it no longer resembles the original idea in almost any way. Most of the times you will have to do that, or it won't be a story worth reading.

 

[Vault101]

I am worried about the state of books, with borders and angus and roberson pretty much going under

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

First thing, improve your English
Second, you say things like LAV, C4 or HUD and you expect people to understand what you mean with those acronyms like they have been in a war or played a FPS game before which in some cases isn't true.
And third, you tell your characters point of view like its someone playing a game instead actually fighting in the front lines....I mean he fires his gun and hits his targets with such ease like he isn't wounded at all or is in any pain which kinda makes it hard to aim a gun. As I understand since you mention this being the militia, your character is an untrained fighter which makes this even less believable that he copes with the heat of battle so well ! Also when he stabbed a man with no pity or remorse, it almost sounded un-human, like he didn't care that he was taking another living beings life(if a cold-hearted protagonist is what you are going for then believe me, no one will relate to him therefor like him.)

I hope I gave you some valuable advice!

English part, got it.

Though I apperently didn't provide enough backstory with the character. Militia soldiers are the equivelent of the army. They are well trained, and the best of all of them to cope with bloody and death deffying situations was John. He has little pitty for the enemy, the ruined his life, and he wants revenge. He shows fear of death, and sometimes feels bad about killing, espicially after battle. But he knows it is necisary to get his life back. He views his killing as retribution for the millions of innicent that were killed.

 

[Mouse One]

Lots of fairly good editing advice here. But I'll give you a tried and true axiom:

Write first. Edit later.

You probably hate your book because you're letting ye olde internal editor second guess you. Remember-- it's a rough draft. It is not the final product. Once you've "finished", you still have 90% of the novel ahead of you. Plenty of time to hate it then.

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

Lots of fairly good editing advice here. But I'll give you a tried and true axiom:

Write first. Edit later.

You probably hate your book because you're letting ye olde internal editor second guess you. Remember-- it's a rough draft. It is not the final product. Once you've "finished", you still have 90% of the novel ahead of you. Plenty of time to hate it then.

Well, I think I'll hate it much less when I update it after I make the rough draft. It's not like me to hate it, I plan to make 3 installments, With the first being my true loved one.

 

[DefunctTheory]

Though I apparently didn't provide enough back story with the character. Militia soldiers are the equivalent of the army. They are well trained, and the best of all of them to cope with bloody and death defying situations was John. He has little pity for the enemy, the ruined his life, and he wants revenge. He shows fear of death, and sometimes feels bad about killing, especially after battle. But he knows it is necessary to get his life back. He views his killing as retribution for the millions of innocent that were killed.

Your understanding of what an actual militia is is false, and your main character is practically choking on cliches and contradictions.

 

[Technocrat]

Even the Nazis can't reliably be called socialist. Socialism wasn't at the forefront of their agenda, nationalism was. Hence the "Na" in it. In an American political context, socialism is something completely diametrically opposed to Nazism. It would be akin to a fast food restaurant like McDonalds claiming to be an animal-rights organisation.

Stress the Nationalism part, otherwise you're going to lose a lot of credibility in the story from people with any grasp of politics and history outside of high school. Something like the "National Front" (although that's already a group).