ok , how exactly would you spell, or describe, the hatching of an egg. I havent wrote a thing today trying to figure out how to describe a egg hatching. like you all say show dont tell. so how would you describe the sound. I know i ask for alot of help, you guys are great. thank you jim
First, I think it depends on the kind of egg. Is it a normal chicken egg, or a giant dragon egg that's made of gold? Focus on the material of it. Delve into texture, and as for sound...it seems to me like it would be a rip going down the center of something, so, better yet, the sound that ice makes when you throw it in water. If you haven't heard that, get some hot water and throw an ice cube in. I think that could be a good allusion to make, or maybe chipping flakes of rock of a block of granite, or anything hard, rough, and sudden. Maybe talk about the stretching of the inner membrane; you could liken the pieces of the egg falling off to pieces of a puzzle...you have a wealth of imagery at your fingertips. If this is not a "natural" egg, then look at the material it's made of. What does that material normally sound like when you hit it, or it drops, or shatters? Then take that, and apply it. Cheers.
how does this sound. Pulling the car to the side of the road. Bill looked in the backseat to see what all the noise was. The noise, Which reminded him when he was a child, taking handful's of dried leaves and crumbling them . Amazement set in as Bill watched the smooth surface of the egg begin to distort as little jagged fragments began to break away. eight little black talon's protruded from A larger jagged crack now forming down the center of the shell,and with a might shove. snapped the structural integrity of the shell, prying it open. As if the shell was actually french doors, welcoming the baby dragon into the world. i dont know about this, maybe its ok
it's a mess as is, so you should do a good proofread and edit before posting, if you want valid relevant feedback...
ok here goes : mammamaia, incase you didnt realize this i am not a professionl writer. As far as i understand it, you do not have to be a profesional writer to be on this forum, if you do plz tell me and i will find help elsewhere. If you read my original post you would have read i was looking for help on how to describe this. I am a welding instructor were i work, regardless of how the welding looks no matter how terrible, i always give advice on how to make it beter, and give advice on what went wrong. Your post. as far as im concerned is useless to somebody trying to advance their skills. If your not part of the solution, then your part of the problem. i take it you understand what i mean but i will explain it anyways. If your not going to help the people here then your actually hurting them. jim
To begin with, I agree with you Harris about proofreading. If you're not going to take the time to read something because it's not grammatically perfect, then don't even bother to post. That said, since this piece is so short, I'm gonna just do a run-through of it. What you have, content-wise, is fine; you just need to work on delivery somewhat: Overall, I think you've got it down fairly well. I would describe in more detail (if you already have not earlier in the piece) more about the shape, design, color, and texture of the egg. Even if you have previous to this passage, I'd bring it up again, just in passing. If you want to get even more detailed, add some more lines about the leaves analogy, it's a good one and I think you can do more with it. A good start!
that was a valid and valuable piece of advice... if you're not going to bother doing a decent proofread of your work before posting it, how can you expect to get valid advice?... and anyone who wants to be a writer should at least know that sentences begin with a capital letter [yes, i know i don't use them in posting and emails, but certainly do when writing a piece of work!], that capitals don't go in the middle of sentences unless it's a name and that plurals are not formed with an apostrophe... i fail to see how it hurts people to point out that it's best to go over your work and correct obvious mistakes before posting it... i see doing that as helpful... i'm sorry you two apparently can't...
thank you scvanger, that is what i needed, i didnt worry to much about capitals, all i was trying to do was get the general idea across on how to work it. I have learn alot just from reading your post. for mammamaia: There is one thing your forgetting, everybody is not a perfect writer, what may be a obvious mistake for you, might not be for somebody else. What if the first time you drove a car, your mom said get out you dont have a clue what yor doing. your not going to learn till you make mistakes and have somebody correct you. its ok to say its junk, i dont have a problem with that. but plz explain why its junk. jim
It's not necessary to be so unpleasant to each other. Scavenger's edit is a good one. She is right to say you can take more time over the description, and I think it's worth it. Reptile eggs tend to be rubbery--is your dragon more like a bird? At the moment, I have a mental picture of a sort of giant chicken's egg on the back seat of the car; but with a magical creature like a dragon, you could make the egg any colour you like; or indeed, any mixture of colours you like. It could have speckles or more complex patterns. It could camouflage itself chameleon-style and make itself the same colour as its background (which might explain why we don't often find dragon eggs!) Regardless of what you choose, it's the little details about the egg that'll bring the scene to life in our minds.
that is great weaselword. i didnt even think of that about it being more rubbery, or even different color's all i was thinking was an egg, like a chicken egg you exactly correct. I do like the egg changing color's, my biggest problem was i just could'nt picture how to make the sound of an egg hatching. i really liked scavenger example. i printed it out so i could go over mine and his and really get a good look at my mistakes. Then with weaselword's post, it opened up a whole nother ball park with color, spots, shapes, and even texture of the egg. thanks guys/gals. you all have opened up my mind to what it should be. and just not enough to get by with. jim
Well, it's a dragon's egg--let your imagination go wild! It doesn't have to sound like a chicken egg hatching. Do the little dragonlings burst from their egg with a tiny baby roar? Or a little squeak? Does the egg crack or squelch or rattle or hatch in eerie silence? They're magical things--maybe there's a weird, magical sound instead...
eyez... i don't enter contests and i'm not desperate for anything... but you seem to have a courtesy problem, too... sad... harris... i'm a mom of 7 and if any of my kids made a lot of mistakes driving, i wouldn't let them endanger themselves or others on the road, would make them take driving lessons... i didn't say your post was junk, did i?... i only said you should do a good proofread and edit before posting work for critique... what's so terrible about that?... here's a sample of what you would/should have corrected if you did: now, none of that stuff was so hard to see or fix, was it?
That’s Bang out of order. I've warned you before about your tone and your viscous posts. I will not tolerate the insulting of fellow members. Consider yourself Warned.
well me personally i fell i have not insulted anybody, anyway, all i have said was if you wanna call my work junk plz explain, how, why. you say proofread . ok if thats what i have posted , then i gave it an honest effort. if you dont know something is wrong, then you cant fix it. no matter how many times i have read it. Thats why i orginally asked for help to begine with. hence the original post. then you said. its a mess, i take that as junk. i can live with that like i previously stated. but if you could explain why i would much appreciate it. again, if you dont know its wrong. you cant fix it.
Harris, I'm not picking on you and in general, not responding to the first post of the thread. The best reccomendation I can give though is to use a word processor for whatever work you're doing. I wouldn't be anal about posts on just comments but regarding writing work, it's quite necessary in my view to have things as good as you can get them. The one thing that processors don't tend to be good at, is spelling. They'll give you the correct spelling of the wrong word you're looking for at times. The grammar aspect might not always be correct but I would trust it, at least till you get a better handle on things. A processor really helps with the editing process also. You should find it a big difference really. Other than that, I can only suggest reading books, pieces on the forum and writing. If you're writing more out of a hobby than anything else though, again I wouldn't be too anal about it, unless you're showing your work. And no, I'm quite far from perfect myself. I normally let my word processor tell me when to use semi colons and colons. I should stop being lazy really and read up on them.
thats great, can you recommend a great word processor, what i use right now to write with is word pad that came with the computer. jim
if you can get it, ms word is what you should be using... it will help you with many of the things you have trouble with... but it's still no substitute for learning the basics of grammar and how to improve your writing skills, if you want to be a writer...
thank's for the advice, mammamaia, i do belive i am going to have to look into getting somekind of writing aid. there was someone here, i cant remember who, but posted about a writing tool called pagefour, is that worth using. it about 100 bucks cheaper. where as i have to kids, its kinda hard sometimes to come up with the extra money. jim
i don't know that program... looking it up, it doesn't seem to do what you seem to need, which is check grammar, spelling and punctuation... i don't know of anything other than ms word that does all that and does it well enough for your needs... you'd do better to hit your local used book store and get a basic grammar and punctuation guide... spelling will continue to be a problem w/o a good word processing spellchecker...
Microsoft Word is what I use yes, or MS Word as Mammamaia called it. Open Office has also been suggested to me as a alternate option but I have no experience with that.
