Immersion: Baptism by Fire

[Caged Maiden]

Okay, I know this site won't be for everyone--he's rather cutthroat and I'm sure will rub people the wrong way, but I personally like this site. I've read more than a dozen of the books he's analyzed (the look insides, to see what I thought of them) and I really enjoyed this study and the article. The 5 Most Common Writing Mistakes That Break Reader Immersion | Creativity Hacker

I know it isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea, but if you're a newer writer and you want to understand what readers think of book openings, this is a really good place to get some ideas of what not to do. It takes time to read his reports and then find the books and read them, but it's a one-stop-shop if you want to gain deeper understanding of the most common story problems and how to avoid them.

I have to admit, I might be a tougher nut to crack than this even, because I felt (in reading) he may have been a touch generous to some of the books. Now, I don't intend this post as any sort of "look at what these people did." I just want to point new readers to the most common problems with self-publishing before your book is "ready" and this is a place where you can see which books dropped out of the race in three minutes and which went the forty-minute distance. By reading a dozen or so of these books, you might get some ideas how to help your own story shine its brightest. Hope this gives writers looking for some concrete answers something to think about. It's so often hard to provide good examples of the "issues" we deal with in crit and it's even harder for newer writers who either aren't completely comfortable with critique, or who are too emotionally attached to their own stories to enjoy the brutality a crit can sometimes administer.

 

[Terry Greer]

Nice - I've taken the plunge and submitted Jangada - no pain no gain

 

[Incanus]

I've seen this before--I think someone linked to this a few months back, but not here in the Writing Questions section. Yeah, he can be brutal. But if you can get something over this threshold, you're going to be in pretty good shape, or so I imagine. (Good Luck, TG!)

 

[ThinkerX]

Hmmm...I remember reading this before. Still...

What is a little more surprising, however, is that, of the 28 problem-types I’ve cataloged, just 5 of them account for fully half of the WTFs logged to date. Those top five gaffes are:

1.weak mechanics (spelling, grammar, etc.)

2.implausible character behaviors

3.echoing words, sentence styles, and images

4.illogical world building

5.conspicuous exposition (info dumping).

I have to agree with him here. I have been visiting:

Flogging the Quill

for quite a while now. On that site, you submit your prologue or first chapter (or at least the first few hundred words). The goal is to make the reader want to 'turn the page.' I have read probably a couple dozen openings on that site, most of which flunk the test. And the biggest reasons for those failures are all on the above list. Time and again, I see needlessly complex prose, info-dumping, and...'basic logic issues' for want of a better term.

When I submitted the first chapter of 'Labyrinth' to 'Flogging the Quill,' it did get a passing vote - but I took plenty of criticism over grammar, issues another edit pass would have caught.
I plead guilty to two of the five items on that list: grammar is not my strong suit (I rely on the editing programs even now); and if I don't exert iron control over myself, I am quite capable of writing massive info-dumps. Removing or paring down said info-dumps is a bit part of my editing for the stories I submit here.

 

[Caged Maiden]

yeah, I've linked this before too, but we always have new folks coming in or people who haven't seen it. I just like to send newer writers links that sort of support the items we discuss here most often. Thanks guys for reading my thread.

I do a lot of critting, privately, here on MS for people, and on scribophile, and I affirm most writing problems that break reader immersion come in just a few flavors: Weak characterization, poor pacing (which includes info-dumping), Weak descriptions (which includes what he calls weak sentences, echoing words, but also for me includes flat and static descriptions as well as erroneous ones), and general believability (which includes items from lacking tone, all the way to weird character reactions, weak dialogue, and though I don't run into it often, I guess world-building things).

The hardest thing is to sum it all up neatly, but I think he did a good job, which is why I enjoy this site so much. For so many writers, we read the "Do-Not Lists" and check things off the list, but we don't have the deeper experience it takes to see that (for example) the adverb isn't your real enemy, it was the weak sentence structure that led you to putting it in, in the first place. The article is good, but reading the Look Insides is even better, because the reports (where he tells you what each book was about and why he docked them points) really gives a clear description of how it harmed the novel. The good thing about a site like this is that it's not emotional When we get back a crit that has all kinds of negative comments about our story we love and are proud of, it hurts. When the information is presented about someone else's work, it's easier to absorb.

I just spent three days reading a novel I wrote in 2008. I. Feel. Tired. It was steamy garbage and I have no excuses. I didn't know the first thing about writing, and though I edited it (in Oh, I dunno, 2009, 2010, 2012... need I say more?) it hasn't gotten drastically better because the bones of that beast were paper thin to begin with. I'm not freaking surprised it can't stand on its own. It's lucky I have't put it out of its misery.

Anyways, my point is, we (most of us) have similar problems and the "Do-Not Lists" DO NOT help you improve writing a fraction as much as seeing real examples of writing improved upon. I acknowledge this article and process seem a touch callous, but this is a brutal industry and it isn't for the faint of heart. I take this analysis seriously despite its rather brash application and hope it provides some benefit to those who want to know what that "X Factor" is that many manuscripts miss on.

Congratulations to anyone who has the mettle enough to send a manuscript here. You are my heroes.

 

[Caged Maiden]

Thanks Thinker X Now I'm tempted to test myself...

 

[Terry Greer]

Thanks CM - if i get anything (Good or Bad) I'll post it here. It's very hard to get good feedback other than the barest 'it's great' or 'I didn't like it'.

People generally don't like to give their honest thoughts - or aren't always capable of expressing them properly. It's hard to be subjective and to be honest while I welcome critique it often isn't pleasant hearing negative thoughts about something you've slaved over.

 

[PaulineMRoss]

I like the breaking immersion guy better than the quill flogger, because at least he gives each submission a good long chance. With FTQ, it's the first page (17 lines!) and that's it. And time after time he grumbles that there's no story-level problem visible. As if a 600-page epic fantasy needs to toss out the main objective in the first 17 lines.

The immersion guy has been an eye-opener for me. As I write, now, I'm constantly picking up some of the things he spots - repeated headers (He... He... He...) or the plodding thing (He did this... He did that...). Yes, he's harsh, but it does underscore the problems that you just can't see in your own work.

Not that I've had the courage to submit anything, yet... :-(

 

[Caged Maiden]

you and me both, Pauline. Maybe one day.

 

[PaulineMRoss]

you and me both, Pauline. Maybe one day.

What I would love to do, really, is send him the unpublished work. Sending him something that's already published rather defeats the objective for the submitter - it's already out there, it's too late to be finding out all the writing weaknesses.

 

[wordwalker]

I've been recommending Immersion for a while now, and considering Flogging the Quill.

There's another site that gives public critiques too, not quite as well-known but by one of my favorite bloggers: "Real Life Diagnostics" by Fiction University She's not quite as hard-nosed as either, and might be more detailed.