My biggest problem is trying to get enough backstory in place that can be easily implied, so I can focus on just one day in a superhero's life... With out some idea as to where and how the character came to be a superhero, this just falls inwards on itself. I feel like the one day thing is the hardest part of this. I keep feeling like I'm going to be spending more time on the character's history than on the events of the day!
Unless the superhero suffers from severe anterograde amnesia.
TECHNICALLY, the prompt says it has to be 'about a superhero'; it only implies that the superhero has to be your protagonist. So could your main character be someone whose life is centered upon that hero? For example, instead of writing about Batman, write about Alfred?
This may be stretching it (well, it is stretching it), but could I write a day in the life of a normal person living in a world with a superhero population? I mean, it wouldn't really be a "normal" person per se, it would just be a James Bond in a world filled with nothing but lots and lots of Superman type folks.
How can you consider writing without a hidden meaning good? Without these hidden meanings for the reader to interpret, it would be just as dull as reading from the dictionary. Being able to follow guidelines to produce "great writing" is not interesting or artistic.
Writing to have a hidden meaning for a reader to interpret is just like giving them a puzzle that there is a right answer to to solve. It is quite possible to simply create beautiful imagery, or a great many other things, as others have said, and have good poetry, without hidden meaning, that is not the same as reading from the dictionary. There's a difference between saying "like a forgotten toy" and "like a prototype beta max tape." That's the difference of discussion.
A poem. No guidelines. I'm not following any sort of language, aesthetic, or anything. It might as well be a poem made out of hidden meanings. Without something the reader can recognize in the sentences, the poem has no base substance. Sure you can see that the top line comes from mashing the top row of keys on the keyboard, the middle row from the middle of the keyboard, and so on, but of what worth is hidden meaning when it isn't applied to an image or to the words presented, and how hidden is a meaning that is applied to Jimmy's mouse in "The poem about Jimmy's mouse"?
In the specific case you referred to (I happened to hear it straight after they found the body >.<), I feel sorry for family members. They're going to get hit hard by this. That's mainly what I feel bad about - The people that are still alive that are really going through the loss.
I had that happen for a few days. I couldn't really sleep because of the coughing. But... I just went to the doctor, got a prescription of codeine, and it worked fine.
Yeah... the prompt beats me. My only idea was super action packed action, with a blissful ignorant someone or other missing it all by chance, and having something to do with the prompt... or something... O_o
-We have a duck pond close to our school, so we fed the ducks and gradually walked back to school, leading the ducks with us. It wasn't as good as some of the other stuff we did, but the school had a hard time getting them to stop coming back.
-Try to go home with the teachers, and constantly ask them how their spouse is doing, how the family is, what kinds of plans they have for friday, etc.
-Mosh pits. Just get up and push people, and flip all the tables and such. We started one of these after a team won a review game, and we've never done a review game since.
-Make a maze out of people (this only really worked at my school which was indoors and had tight hallways), so everyone has to walk through you.
-Jump on other unsuspecting students' backs and yell "ALPHA MALE!" (or just scream or make some other loud noise). After this started becoming common, everyone started waiting for class with their backs to the walls, and no one dared walk through the middle of everyone else.
-Whenever a teacher refers to something, ask with lots of enthusiasm if it's the new iPhone. Every once in a while, a student would stand up in the middle of class and yell "I'VE GOT THE NEW iPHONE!" and everyone would tackle them.
Just remembered a prank someone played on a mean math teacher at my high school: stacked up all the tables and chairs (stacking chairs) into a large, stable tower in the center of the room.
That so wasn't my class... >>; You missed the dog. The math teacher had a giant stuffed dalmatian as a bathroom pass of all things (it was disgusting), so we, I mean they put it at the top holding a sign that said "I did it."
Some other stuff we've done...
- Picked out a certain time, then at that time during class, break out into screaming out car alarm noises. It's a cacophony!
-Storm into the principal's office, applauding. Or just applaud and give standing ovations whenever possible.
-We had a teacher foolish enough to leave the room during break before class and leave the room unlocked, so we put all the tables into one giant desk, put all the chairs around it, and expected him to stand in the middle and lecture. He didn't, but we spent the class in a giant circle around a giant desk.
-We had these large wooden benches, and a teacher who's door was in a short U type recess in the wall. So we took a trash can, stacked a bench on it, stacked another trash can on top, and so forth, until the door was blocked off. We didn't want class that day, and we all ended up getting kicked out of school that day, so we didn't end up having class.
-Grab some giant tails with those wishy flying things in them and smash them EVERYWHERE inside. They stick to all kinds of things.
I'll probably think of more later, but I'm getting kicked off the internet now.
I'm looking to buy a keyboard too, actually. I mainly need it to be portable though; I'm constantly moving around. I won't always have a computer where I'm going, either. This is something I could generally save for, so price isn't so much an issue, as long as it's not like $1000. Is there a such thing as a collapsible keyboard?
It's certainly a lot easier to read, and naturally a lot of the restating metaphors and such have been removed. Just a few grammar police issues; Mainly just the first sentence. Proofread and you should be good to go. =D
Hmm.. It certainly makes more sense, but I'm still stumbling over it. I'm guessing it's because I'm just not one for big words, but I think part of it is "putting the ceiling in the room", as it were. If two people are talking, and you're describing the room, you don't say it has a ceiling. You might say it doesn't have a ceiling, or something is weird about the ceiling, but if its a normal ceiling, why mention it?
Hot spittle seeps between massive fangs as the mouth anticipates the tearing of flesh, the cracking of bones.
It's good. I like it.
The angels are innocent. They feel no sympathy for the prey, no disquietude when the predator’s jaws clamp down on its bleating throat. The falling blood has all the beauty of a soft spring rain cast in crimson.
The angels were made, not born. They have no inkling of mortality, nor of cessation – they do not sleep. Hatching from the egg, or slithering from the womb; growing in stature and power; reaching the pinnacle, and then slipping; the nagging weariness in the bones; the final labored breath, and the ever-closing of the eyes: it is all a spectacle to the angels. It is a dance, or a symphony, or a circus.
I think there's a lot of restating here, and a lot of information that we don't need, that's just there muddling up your beautiful imagery. The second sentence restates the same thing twice, for example. I'd rather hear just about the disquietude; That way the narrator isn't making the judgment for me. Most readers prefer things that way too, I think. In fact, the second paragraph in this section looks like it's going somewhere, and then it just restates almost the same thing again.
I would put the book back. Potentially, it would be because I read the wrong random page. There's a lot of symbolism and hidden meaning that I just don't get and don't think I would get without having read more. I don't know what a wall of Eternity looks like for example, and as such, it's hard for me to picture what's going on, and by extension hard for me to be drawn into the story. Other things like Throne and Eternity and Child and Great Ones being capitalized makes me think that these things have a lot of importance, but I have no idea in what sense, and so very little meaning is conveyed in just this portion of the book. The Great Ones could be the ancestor ghosts, worshiped but relatively powerless, or possibly quite the opposite.
So, to answer shortly and to the pointly: I have a hard time seeing an image, and I'm guessing its because of the references and things I don't know. If I'm stumbling through abstract concepts and guessing at them instead of seeing an image, I'm going to put it back on the shelf. It's simply not compelling by itself.
Unless the superhero suffers from severe anterograde amnesia.
That might just work.
Writing to have a hidden meaning for a reader to interpret is just like giving them a puzzle that there is a right answer to to solve. It is quite possible to simply create beautiful imagery, or a great many other things, as others have said, and have good poetry, without hidden meaning, that is not the same as reading from the dictionary. There's a difference between saying "like a forgotten toy" and "like a prototype beta max tape." That's the difference of discussion.
wqrq rytrey ytu tyru tyuiuiyutioiu
asdddsasdfdsasf, jkkj;;;llkkkjjkkl;
zxcvvcxxzzxcvvvvxz, n,mnm,n.nm,.mn
A poem. No guidelines. I'm not following any sort of language, aesthetic, or anything. It might as well be a poem made out of hidden meanings. Without something the reader can recognize in the sentences, the poem has no base substance. Sure you can see that the top line comes from mashing the top row of keys on the keyboard, the middle row from the middle of the keyboard, and so on, but of what worth is hidden meaning when it isn't applied to an image or to the words presented, and how hidden is a meaning that is applied to Jimmy's mouse in "The poem about Jimmy's mouse"?
I shall make an attempt... When I have more time this weekend.
-Try to go home with the teachers, and constantly ask them how their spouse is doing, how the family is, what kinds of plans they have for friday, etc.
-Mosh pits. Just get up and push people, and flip all the tables and such. We started one of these after a team won a review game, and we've never done a review game since.
-Make a maze out of people (this only really worked at my school which was indoors and had tight hallways), so everyone has to walk through you.
-Jump on other unsuspecting students' backs and yell "ALPHA MALE!" (or just scream or make some other loud noise). After this started becoming common, everyone started waiting for class with their backs to the walls, and no one dared walk through the middle of everyone else.
-Whenever a teacher refers to something, ask with lots of enthusiasm if it's the new iPhone. Every once in a while, a student would stand up in the middle of class and yell "I'VE GOT THE NEW iPHONE!" and everyone would tackle them.
Some other stuff we've done...
- Picked out a certain time, then at that time during class, break out into screaming out car alarm noises. It's a cacophony!
-Storm into the principal's office, applauding. Or just applaud and give standing ovations whenever possible.
-We had a teacher foolish enough to leave the room during break before class and leave the room unlocked, so we put all the tables into one giant desk, put all the chairs around it, and expected him to stand in the middle and lecture. He didn't, but we spent the class in a giant circle around a giant desk.
-We had these large wooden benches, and a teacher who's door was in a short U type recess in the wall. So we took a trash can, stacked a bench on it, stacked another trash can on top, and so forth, until the door was blocked off. We didn't want class that day, and we all ended up getting kicked out of school that day, so we didn't end up having class.
-Grab some giant tails with those wishy flying things in them and smash them EVERYWHERE inside. They stick to all kinds of things.
I'll probably think of more later, but I'm getting kicked off the internet now.
Hot spittle seeps between massive fangs as the mouth anticipates the tearing of flesh, the cracking of bones.
It's good. I like it.
The angels are innocent. They feel no sympathy for the prey, no disquietude when the predator’s jaws clamp down on its bleating throat. The falling blood has all the beauty of a soft spring rain cast in crimson.
The angels were made, not born. They have no inkling of mortality, nor of cessation – they do not sleep. Hatching from the egg, or slithering from the womb; growing in stature and power; reaching the pinnacle, and then slipping; the nagging weariness in the bones; the final labored breath, and the ever-closing of the eyes: it is all a spectacle to the angels. It is a dance, or a symphony, or a circus.
I think there's a lot of restating here, and a lot of information that we don't need, that's just there muddling up your beautiful imagery. The second sentence restates the same thing twice, for example. I'd rather hear just about the disquietude; That way the narrator isn't making the judgment for me. Most readers prefer things that way too, I think. In fact, the second paragraph in this section looks like it's going somewhere, and then it just restates almost the same thing again.
Sorry if I sound harsh. >.<
So, to answer shortly and to the pointly: I have a hard time seeing an image, and I'm guessing its because of the references and things I don't know. If I'm stumbling through abstract concepts and guessing at them instead of seeing an image, I'm going to put it back on the shelf. It's simply not compelling by itself.