need help with book

[chuckey]

I am currently writing a book. (my first one) and i need help. mostly with quotes and how the should be set up. i have a lot to write, but i hope to finish by October next year. the beginning is a little confusing but if you read the eventual book it will fit all together. here is part of my book.
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FULL MOON ON CHRISTMAS

“Granddad!, hurry up or we won’t find it!”
“Hold your horses jimmy, let me just finish my moon pie.”

Today is a special day for me. Today is the first time I going to pick up the Christmas tree with my granddad. My granddad is an old fellow, but he still thinks of himself as 65 years young. Granddad looks like any other old man. Grey beard, wrinkled sagging skin and few liver spots hear and there, but boy is he strong. Every year he and my dad would go chop down the biggest pine tree they could find in the forest behind our house. Every year they would go until my 14th birthday. This time it’s my turn to help.

“Granddad, granddad!, is this it?”, I said with a grin on my face.
I had just eyed upon the biggest pine tree I had seen in my life. Strong thick branches, lush green pines and not a single one too sharp.

“Yep Jimmy that’s the one! Hurry up and pass me the axe.”, replied granddad.

As I passed him the axe I cried, “Aww can’t I chop it down granddad? Please, please, please?”
“I’m sorry Jimmy but I can’t let you. You never know when something will happen, now pass me my axe.”, granddad said in strict tone.
I passed him the axe without saying another word. “Now stand back jimmy, don’t wanna get hurt now do ya?”, said granddad.

I saw him work, swing after swing. I knew granddad was strong, but only after 15 minutes granddad had already finished chopping through the thick trunk of the tree. “TIMBER!”, he yelled and the tree fell down with a loud THUD!, that sent all the birds in the trees to fly away in fright.

“Hand, me a moon pie jimmy, all that chopping was hard work and I sure am hungry.”, said granddad with short breath.

Moon pies are my granddads favorite snack. He would eat five or more a day! My mom would come home with a box of twelve of them and he would finish it all in a 2 days. Granddad always came up with excuses with why the box was empty. “The cat ate them!”, “I dropped the box in the dirt!” “I thought you got two!”, but the funniest one he came up with was, “A horde of rabid squirrels came in took the box and ran off!”

I would always laugh at his reasons and he would keep on saying that’s what really happened. “I swear! That’s what really happened! Would I ever lie to you guys?”
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suggestions on quotes and paragraph placement would be nice.

[ShastaTwist]

I'll read it when your grammar and spelling improves.

[chuckey]

thank god this was from a crappy 6th grade project. i got a B though.

[lord_carbo]

From what I know and see and assume, most of you lack the literary knowledge to be able to effectively criticize this. Only mead and Shasta's opinions count.

Greatest advice I could ever give you: buy a style guide. Either The Elements of Style or On Writing Well.

Originally Posted by LazyShadow

Wow O.o...People are Dicks huh? O.O

He's posting bad prose on a forum for everyone to see. He wants "help." Saying, "lol gud jawb," is not help.

Originally Posted by chuckey

thank god this was from a crappy 6th grade project. i got a B though.

I got an A+ on a creative writing in 6th grade. I wrote it 30 minutes before school started. Six pages long. Another time, I had my writing used in one of those example packets for state exams (what to write, what not to write) and from there I found out that I got a 6 out of 6. Again, 6th grade.

And it all sucks.

B's in 6th grade English are repugnant in hindsight.

However, the flow is snappy and fast. Maybe almost too fast.

If you write well, this is not necessarily a bad thing. Useless words detract from those that count. Worse still, assuming the reader cannot fill in the blanks, whether in creative description or practical application, is an insult to everyone unwitting enough to read something you have written.

Basically, make every word tell. Always.

[mead1]

I didn't enjoy this at all. The young-in-spirit old person archtype is played to hell already. Your characters don't interest me at all, you switch without warning from past to present tense seven-hundred times, and most of all, there's no real story to it at all. It's just an extended character description of one uninteresting character. I can't see how you intend on turning this into a book, but if you do, I'll re-evaluate this when I can see the whole it's a part of.

[chuckey]

I really never intended to turn this in a book. I just wanted to see how people would respond to a writing essay done in 6th grade that i wrote. I know that i don't have the greatest punctuation or use the best grammar, but at least I know how i changed as writer from 6th to 10th grade. (I am a much better writer now) What I've always needed help with was dialog structure and the placement of a paragraph afterwards. If anyone of you people can help me with that then I'll be good to go.

I write really good poems, infantile though. (contradiction much?)

[ShastaTwist]

Sounds like you're making excuses.

[chuckey]

No, not really. I'm just saying that if I ever intended to make this in to a book, i would need help with dialog and paragraph placement. If you decide to help me or give me a link to a site or thread that could give me some help that would be great!

[ShastaTwist]

Haven't you ever read a book before? There's many instances of dialogue in your run-of-the-mill novel.

I mean, there's instances of dialogue in children's books.

[Cindie]

It does indeed sound like you're making excuses. Why would you say at first that you're going to turn it into a book and you want help and ideas, if you only contradict yourself and say you just want to see peoples opinions on a sixth grade project. But anywho, you need to fix spelling and grammar a lot in this if you're actually wanting to turn it into a book, you need more detail, and you need to have something at the beginning that grabs attention. No offence, but i didn't think it was good at all.

[chuckey]

Hey, everyone needs an attention grabber. I already knew it was utter garbage. All i was hoping for was some constructive criticism. I am working on a few poems though.

[Rubin0]

I am perplexed.


And I didn't get through the second sentence. I feel really bad for teachers everywhere.

[Hallaloth]

Hey people, ever gone back and look at what you wrote in sixth grade? Even the world's best writers gotta start from somewhere! Light do I ever know that...reminds me of how I used to write, I still get passages like this and I'll be going into college next year.

I will say this, there isn't all that much here to hold a reader's attention. However, the flow is snappy and fast. Maybe almost too fast. Give us some more detail, some visuals to what you want us to see. What does the area around this amazing christmas tree look like? How is the night sky the perfect back drop? What does the air taste like? Smell like?

Adding in this minor things (and they can take a while to craft to the way you'll like it) will eventually (after a lot of work) give you something to be proud of. And don't limit yourself with time, trust me...unless you're an author with contracts, time turns into your enemy.

[chuckey]

Thank you for some pretty positive critisism. That's the kind of help I needed. I will take your advise since I obviously need it.

[Hallaloth]

Hey, you're not the only one who needs help! I maybe finally hitting my stride, but even the best authors have a million people go over things before they publish...good luck!

[LazyShadow]

Wow O.o...People are Dicks huh? O.O

[Xx{Midnight}xX]

Originally Posted by chuckey

suggestions on quotes and paragraph placement would be nice.

I might not be the best here but i don't see anything like this:

Jason said, "Blah blah blah." or somthing like that with the few sentences i read.

Originally Posted by LazyShadow

Wow O.o...People are Dicks huh? O.O

Yes.