One Writing Assignment Can Help a Couple Others

Friday, I handed in a homework assignment and somewhere by the end of the weekend I had my entry for Father (paternal) at FaithWriters completed and posted. That was definitely a fun memory. I can't link it yet, but I'll start linking my stories here for you to check out after the winners are announced for each.

I did a thorough critique on chapter one of a novel recently posted by a new member over at the Christian Writers Forum. I find that the critiquing helps me figure out my own weaknesses. Of course, the more I get into critiquing and studying writing, the more I find myself doing it when I sit down for a leisurely read.

So if I'm noticing things, how come when it is time to actually go find an example of an error for my homework, I never find it immediately? I definitely did not find the scene and POV issues asked for in the past couple of lessons in the Lynn Austin book I'm reading. She has it in first person from the point of view of a 20-year-old trying to figure out her lot in life. As she tries to find her mother, she suddenly has all these options she never dreamed of and some pretty interesting adventures. It's so fun to read, I probably would miss a mistake anyway. The book is "A Proper Pursuit" and is quite the intriguing historical novel that happens in the summer of 1893 in Chicago. Anyway, I wound up picking on poor old Isaac Asimov for a couple of assignments because I knew I could find examples in his writing style. I just can't seem to find them in very many modern day writers and especially the Christian ones. Not that any of them are super perfect, but oddly the style of writing these days takes way more care with POV than older styles.

In the end I did get about 75% of my current homework assignment done in one sitting last night. To hit on the point of the subject line, in doing so I took pieces from two works in progress. One, is my completed and mostly edited sci fi novel and the other is my rough draft start to a young adult adventure. In both I found better ways of fixing my wording due to having to rewrite scenes in multiple versions from varying point of views for my homework. Nothing like homework helping works in progress, too. It seems to be leaning that way with several of the assignments out of the fiction section I'm now going through.

This inspires me to try my best at these assignments in order to get the okay to plunge into the journeyman level class for fiction. So far it is proving to only improve my writing right along with FraithWriters writing challenges, critiquing, studying various books about writing, and just simply doing it. It's both easier and harder now. Easier due to knowing the rules of writing better. Harder because I know the rules better. ::laughing:: I'm sure I broke some rules in this post.