# Writing > General Writing >  My Book!

## yellowfeverlime

I am writing a book. It is very bad, and confusing, but it could go far. It has a copyright, and so it is safe, and... well, please criticize!:



> Jason Stiller sat talking to his girlfriend Katrina Besell, on the beach around sunset.
> Ill miss you I wish I didnt have to go to college so far away. I know well, think, that well see each other again. Anyways, you can always come up to see me. I know that you might miss me and all but, there are other priorities in life. Maybe when we get together again, we can talk about you know the m word. Katrina said.
> Katrina was an 18 year old girl going off to college. She had fierce red hair, and aqua-green eyes. Equipped with a stylish attitude, she was considered her family drama queen. Jason , on the other hand, had jet black hair, and magenta eyes. Jason was seventeen and a half, and was a jock from the day he was born,. He could careless about college and as long as baseball was a sport, he wouldnt even think of stepping foot into a college.
> Jason and Katrina had been going out for the past 8 months. As far as he knew, he hadnt kept any secrets from her, but now he found out that it wasnt like-wise with her., but he couldnt understand why she would just tell him the day before that shes going off to college. He would miss her, and was already thinking up ways to go and visit her. 
> Just say it Marriageand why would you lie to me. You know I wouldve encouraged you to do what you want. I wouldve been there for you
> I was worried I wanted to be with you, without you trying to impress me trying to get me to stay, Katrina said thoughtfully, and now it sounds pretty stupid.
> She leaned in to kiss him, but he quickly moved away, and looked at her with sad eyes.
> You think that you can just kiss me, and Ill forgive you? Jason said, choosing his words carefully, You lied to me. This is a really big thing. You must have known this for a long time. College takes a lot of planning. Ive never cheated, or even lie to you. And you dont even tell me. If you have anymore lies, or secrets, tell me now.
> No, Katrina said as a tear came from her right eye, followed by a second and third, Yes.. I cheated on you.
> ...

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## yellowfeverlime

> OK, well, we were walking down the street, and we saw you. And, well, you kinda looked lonely, and we kinda felt bad for you. We decided that we would like to give you a puppy. A little random and crazy, giving a puppy to a person who could be a convict, no offense to you. But Claire, our dog, had puppies. 2 girls, 3 boys, and we dont want any dogs, except Claire, of course. We have been thinking of who to give them to, but we dont want to sell them they most likely will end up in the wrong hands. But we decided that maybe we would look around the neighborhood to see if anyone would want them. So would you like a boy well, dog, boy um, yea, Sarah said, then said in a tiresome tone,
> At the moment, he saw a yellow dog run out of the corner of the house, and the dog run to the stoop, until it jumped the steps. As if the dog had planned it, it jumped in mid-air, and expected Jason to catch it. Luckily, Jason had quick reflexes. The dog slobbered all over the carpet, and licked Jason in the face. When Jason looked at the dog, the dogs eyes were sad, but were excited.
> Wow! Jason exclaimed, I dont know how to thank you. I think Ive made a friend for life.
> You dont have to thank us. We should thank you for taking him off of our hand, she continued on, and hes a full bred, and we have to show you how to feed him in the early stages. Um anything else?
> No, I dont think so Heres our phone number, in case you need anything, and we live on 23 Newlywed Road. Johnny said, and also muttered under his breath, such a gay street name.
> Sarah came up to Jason and hugged him and whispered in his ear:
> Tiny Alcove, 2 PM, today.
> Jason didnt say anything, mostly because he had weird suspicions that she did not want Johnny to know.
> I want to thank you so much for taking this dog for us. Its not that big of a deal, but,, we just want to thank you. Sarah said a little louder.
> Your welcome. Jason said so it was easy for Johnny to hear.


Thanks, please criticize!

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## B-Mental

Hello again Stevie. Just a couple of things, and I promise to try not to be too critical.

1.This is a story, not a book. Please, before you continue to write more to this, ask yourself..."Whom are you writing for?" Establish your audience, and then try to write to maintain interest for your audience. I don't feel any compulsion to continue to read, if you won't slap me and get my attention.

2. Steve, you write very well, but its sort of matter of fact. Try to suggest some of the details and let the reader fill in the details with their imagination.

3. Don't waste your time getting a copyright for an unfinished project. A copyright is to prevent illegal copying of original work. 

4. Please can we do something about that signature of yours. It is annoying to see that you write a brief post and then your signature occupies the space of three other posts. It is particularly obvious in your post above me 1 signature = 3 paragraphs of writing. Thanks, good luck, and don't stop writing.

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## yellowfeverlime

I have not finished it!!!!!!!!!!! It will be a book when it is finished! And sorry, but maybe you will apperciate the signiature more when you click the link!

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## B-Mental

Sorry clicked the link, and would greatly appreciate it abbreviated to 2 tops three of the links. Thanks. Take a look at your post above, and then at this one. Yours screams desperately look at me look, look, look, look, look,loo,are you looking look again. Do you really need all of these

What is your book about? Describe the premise. Do you like the start of your book?

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## subterranean

I guess Steve has a thing with sites

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## yellowfeverlime

BTW: Exactly; LOOK, LOOK, LOOK! I like to promote my stuff!
And i will write a summary lata. Not now tho.

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## OedipusReD

i read the last line
it should read
"You're welcome."

and buddy's right, but with audience have a brief (even if vague) synopsis
i've written (wrote?) myself into many a deep holes leading no where in hopes of finding something meaningful, sometimes you get lucky and find treasure, but without a map you usually end up finding more and more dirt, maybe the skeleton of that hamster you buried in grade 3, but mostly dirt.

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## B-Mental

Hopefully you'll come back and see some suggestions that might help

"Jason was seventeen and a half, and was a jock from the day he was born,. "

I can't think of any writers that introduce characters referring to their age in fractions. Can you describe this to me in another way? I'm not sure about the second half of the sentence either. Jock is so nondescript. What type of jock; quarterback, wrestler, center on the roundball team, goalie, gymnast? I'm sure you can find a way to describe the physical appearance more engagingly.

I like the paragraphs in the begining and feel the dialogue is fine, but where are they? Can you set it up better than this?

Writers can spend years writing a piece. Struggling to find just the right word, phrase, or even punctuation. Its very brave of you to put your writing in the public at its inception, but criticism is hard to take (for all of us). OK, nuff said!

Finally, I hope you will accept my apology. If any of my comments have offended. I'm truly sorry.

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## B-Mental

OK, I know that you will come back, so I'll continue to post. Please I'm confused. 



> Jason , on the other hand, had jet black hair, and magenta eyes.


Its a very striking image, but is it really what you want to use?

magenta

adj : deep purplish red n 1: a dark purple-red; the dye was discovered in 1859, the year of the battle of Magenta [syn: fuchsia]

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## Ricardo_b

I'm sorry the off-topic yellowfeverlime, but I am really curious. How do you copyright something, what's the process, where do you go? Just curious. Will need it one day.

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## Reichenbach

Wow! Don't stop writing, it's going really well! Just a couple of little things . . .

1) You use the adjective 'magenta' twice in about three paragraphs. Also you used it to describe the guys eyes? Not so sure of that.

2) Another thing was the opening, it seemed slightly abrupt! Very good, but abrupt!

Trying to be helpfull rather than critical, hope you keep on writing,
Reichenbach

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## yellowfeverlime

to copyright something for free, which means you can sue anyone who uses your poem without permission, go to this website:

http://www.itsonlywords.com

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## Themis

This only works on the Internet.

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## yellowfeverlime

i HAVE a new short story. I ma finishing it now, but i can't wait. So here it is.




> Freckles 
> My dog jumed on my lap and sat there staring at me with those innocent eyes. I knew that he wanted something but i didn't know what it was. 
> "What do you want," i asked, "I've got nothing i can give you." 
> Freckles, his name, just sat there still expecting something, though had no idea that i had no clue what that something was. 
> "What" I asked again, "do you want?" 
> Freckles whined, then nudged my chest. Normally i would have found this somewhat cute and would have gotten up and refilled his bowls, but right now my favorite show was on. It was the season opener, and it was the kind of show that if you miss one episode, you miss the whole thing. 
> "FRECKLES," I screamed, "move outta the way!" 
> Freckles slowly sulked over to the corner, recognizing my annoyed voice. 
> I continued watching my show, and got up during my comercial to fill his bowl with his food and some cold water. He was still sulking over in his corner, but was now asleep. I thought, 'good, maybe he won't bother me.' 
> ...


I am almost finished...

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## underground

well, if you're almost finished, then the book must be a short one. kind of like one of those i'm too cheap to buy and just read at the bookstore to save money and more.

hey, have you heard of fictionpress.com? it's good place for aspiring authors, and you can post your books/stories there for feedback. though if you're planning to contribute an essay, you must also be ready for flamers.

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## yellowfeverlime

actually, that recent one was a short story, not a book... sry bout that.

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## samercury

Is there anymore to the story? I really want to know what happens next  :Biggrin:

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## RobinHood3000

Okay, just showed up here, and would like to offer my constructive criticism on your first post. But first, clarification on copyright law.

Copyright constitutes the legal right to produce and distribute one's work, as well as the defense of that right--it is established as soon as the work is fixed in some tangible form. In the case of most writing, that form is either a hard copy on paper, the data in your computer, or for the rebellious, perhaps even tape recordings. At any rate, once it's created, its copyrighted. You can make your copyright known, if you're worried about someone innocently infringing upon your copyright, with the (c) symbol with or without the word "Copyright,"; the year of completion or year of latest major revision; your name or pseudonym; and the phrase "All Rights Reserved."

REGISTRATION for copyright constitutes something entirely different. Although not necessary to ensure your work is safe, it does allow you to collect damages in a court of law for infringement, a source of considerable leverage when distributing. Most publishers, upon accepting your work, will register it for you. To my knowledge, the only source for a valid copyright in the US is from the United States Copyright Office, the website of which is located here. The processing fee runs around $25 (I think...you'd have to check the site to be certain), plus two copies of your manuscript for the Library of Congress.


Okay, now to the critiquing. I assume that in subsequent drafts you'll tweak the spelling and grammar, so I'll skip over it. A humbling quotation from Ernest Hemingway: "The first draft of anything is ****." Keep that in mind every time you start a new piece, revise accordingly, and you'll never go wrong.

The first thing I noticed is that your piece has an awful lot of clichés. I will say this for you: it's relatively difficult to write romantic or dramatic scenes without at least a little cliché once in a while. But you have phrases like "save you from the truth," things that "just...happened," "would've been *there for you*,"(that one's particularly overused) "couldn't believe this would happen to him," and so on. Try to make your writing exciting, make it exquisitely yours. Anybody can write a dramatic scene--people get published and praised for writing them WELL, and that's what you're setting out to do. Even if you don't want to get published, then you'll want to at least write in a way that makes your friends go "Dude, that was awesome!!" (if your friends are inclined to use words like "Dude" and "Awesome") rather than "It was...nice. Really good." (something I'm familiar with). Keep in mind the power of metaphor and figures of speech (just be careful, as certain ones can also be comparatively trite). For example, the phrase "there for you" is just as easily replaced by the word "supportive," and perhaps more accurately. If that's not enough to float your boat (there's a cliché for you), or make you flip your lid (another), or even to make you jump away from your computer like someone crushed a soda can on your forehead (that one's not), then try writing something stylistically equivalent to that last phrase. "Dependable as the Sun," "supportive as the Great Wall of China," or, if you're a religious person, "omnipresent as {insert deity here}" might better work for you. Totally your prerogative, but something to keep in mind.

The second thing I noticed was that you have a lot of exposition/characterization and not enough dialogue. The problem there is that, for at least some of the piece, the two should be the same. You characterize Jason by saying, "He could care less about college and as long as baseball was a sport, he wouldnt even *think* of stepping foot into a college." (emphasis mine) It's a relatively nice turn of phrase, but characterization of what a character THINKS belongs either in his thoughts, in his actions, or in his speech. Perhaps after Katrina leaves him, he practices his swing out of an inability to do anything else, or mutters "Who needs college? I've got my Louisville slugger to come home to..." before breaking out sobbing. You have an entire scene where he's alone and doesn't have anybody watching him, but the jock deal that you billed as such an important part of his character doesn't even come up again.

In the sentence prior to the quotation, you could also put a specific position (Pitcher? Second baseman? Benchwarmer?). Details of this sort tend often to be more engaging. You can also use it to describe more about the character. If he's the pitcher, perhaps he's a stellar leader. If he's the catcher, perhaps he's dependable and reliable (outside of that particular conversation, at least). If he's the benchwarmer, he's got yet another reason to be depressed. Just by replacing one word...simple, yet effective? I'd like to think so.

It appears you like colors. Fair enough, but keep in mind that colors are adjectives, and basing a sentence around the presence of one can sometimes be static and boring. Take your sentence "It had pink flowers interlocking around the border, and the lines were a pale peach, and the ink was in a soft tan color." Each of your three clauses in this (run-on) sentence could use tweaking, but the first sentence comes closer to what you probably want to strive for. What ABOUT the pink flowers? The lines? The ink? Do they glow? Do they shimmer? Do they dance? Do they sit around the house all day eating potato chips and demanding sandwiches from the inkwell? You can put the adjectives "interlocking," "pale peach," and "soft tan" before each of their respective subjects, and VOILA!, you have room to have your flowers, lines, and ink DO something. Remember that a character is READING this letter--how does the fact that he's reading it affect how it's perceived? Perhaps the ink runs from being spattered with tears. Perhaps the lines swim blur together like in a Dali painting. Perhaps the flowers reenact "The Nutcracker Suite" a la Fantasia when our buddy Jason dreams/isn't watching (depending on how surreal you want to be). Using the character's point of view to influence your writing, as well as writing sentences with embellishment before the noun and action afterwards, may make your writing feel more dynamic and, therefore, more interesting to the reader.

Sorry for the massive post. I'll try and get to your other work next time. Best of luck, and I hope this helps.

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## arao

As for the copyright:
This is the wensite for copyright in US: www.copyright.gov
Since the writtings are the copyrightable subject matter, you can register a copyright through procession as described bellow:
1:Make sure your work is a literary work. 
2:Put into one envelope or package: 
	a completed application Form TX or Short Form TX (choose which form to use) 
	a $30 payment to "Register of Copyrights." 
	nonreturnable copy(ies) of the material to be registered. Read details on deposit requirements.
3:Send the package to: 
Library of Congress
Copyright Office
101 Independence Avenue, S.E.
Washington, D.C. 20559-6000 
Your registration becomes effective on the day that the Copyright Office receives your application, payment, and copy(ies) in acceptable form. If your submission is in order, you will receive a certificate of registration in 4 to 5 months.

As how to define whether your work is copyrightable, it must possess the originality and fixation requirements. Originality means the work is independently created by the author and obtain a minimum creativity. Fixation means the work is fixed in any tangible medium ,now know or later developed.

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## yellowfeverlime

Samercury
if you are ever online, plz go to this website, "http://www.geocities.com/yellowfeverlime/stories" This will lead you to my stories website, where you can find the updated versions (sometimes the text is hard to read)

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