Hi BoJo,

Welcome to Book Country!

Tell us more about what you mean by "numbers," and maybe some more about why you think they are necessary to tell this story.

Lucy

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Writing fiction for the printed word is a profession. And like any other we cannot practice it successfully until we're prepared to perform it professionally, as the consumer views that. It's such a difficult profession that the average writer writes, polishes, and puts aside a half million words before they sell a word. It's so difficult that only one in a thousand who try succeed. And they are not people who simply sat down and said, "I think I'll write a story." Desire isn't enough. Talent isn't enough because untrained talent is no more than potential." Luck plays a part only after you've become that one in a thousand through work.

As with any other profession, it's all in the becoming. Why? Because anyone can tell the reader that the protagonist felt terror, A writer terrorizes the reader.

Hey Jay.. I'm glad you still around and that my 'sledging' hasn't give you the shits (that's aussie for upset you)

I found a recorded lecture by "Dwight Swain" yesterday and pulled it down. It was an enlightening listen.

I also picked up a copy of his "Techniques of a selling writer" the other day. Hopefully I've learndid a thing or two and are slowly getting edgermercated.

Sorry for the thread Hi-jack BoJo ... Just thought I'd pipe in and let you know... it's worth a look at for sure.

Cheers

AL

Most readers want characters to have a name that they can pronounce when they see it.  (Result of research done by me at many venues--the #1 reason people gave for not reading SF/F was "I can't say the names so I can't remember them."

Purely anonymous characters are not interesting.  Characters are one essential element of storytelling, and "unknown" doesn't cut it. 

What you can do--although it's difficult to do well enough that people will stick with your story--is make your characters anonymous to each other, but not to the reader.   In one of the earlier Peter Wimsey stories by Dorothy L. Sayers,  Peter infiltrates a criminal organization where the members are known only by number, but the reader of Wimsey stories is well aware that the discharged servant is actually Peter (whose death has been faked, including the reading of his will)  and has therefore a person to care about.   The other members are identified only by number and are masked, but their different characters are indicated by Sayers--who was an extremely talented writer.  The only numbers the reader is likely to remember are 1 and 2 (man and woman) and the main action is the infiltration and the intentional unmasking of Peter with the consequent threat to his life. 

A much easier approach would be to have them hiding their intent from one another--and, if hiding their identity, doing it with a name readers can read and remember.  Or you could use nicknames or internet tags.  Or, for something short (so it won't be too annoying) you can make characters memorable by labeling them (appearance, occupation, rank, etc.)  However, in longer works, reading "The scarred man" or "the freckled girl" over and over and over becomes comical.

Rethink the rationale behind your insistence that characters must be anonymous to readers for the story to work.   Maybe this is actually the idea for a play...where the physical presence of different actors, the different voices, could interest the audience and keep it oriented to who did what. 

You just had someone who makes her living by selling what she writes tell you what you needed to do. You're rationalizing that away?

Let me put this as clearly as I know how: Before we can run we need to learn to walk. Nothing you learned about writing technique, so far as approach, goal, and structure is applicable to fiction for the printed word. Nothing. And at the moment your writing, and your decisions as to what to do and what not to do is based on that inappropriate schooldays training. And as Mark Twain so wisely said, "It ain't what you know for sure that gets you into trouble, it's what you know for certain that just ain't so."

You're free to write in any way you care to. No one is going to impose their will on you. But you are not writing for yourself. The readers you have so far said they wouldn't have read on. That is both undeniable and immutable.You don't get around it. You don't that steps to shorten the time that's it's unacceptable. You fix it. And if you can't because the story won't work without it you put the story aside till a way does occur and move on.

When you try to sell a story there are over a thousand people in competition. And some of them have been polishing their skills for a decade or more. Some have attended classes, workshops, retreats, and more. Some have people at Ms. Moon's level mentoring them. And that is formidable opposition. You are not going to compete in that game of musical chairs until you take steps to learn the skills the pros take for granted.

Jay I'm not rationalizing anything away. I posted the first comment in response to the first person who asked me to go into further detail of why I need them to be anonymous, and to Elizabeth I was seeing if the idea I've been considering would work, or if I need to just go with the idea of changing it over to a script, not play since too much magic and scenes wouldn't be able to change fast enough, but maybe a movie script would work. I'm sorry if this upset you, but considering the amount of work I've already put into  this I want to be certain of what I'm doing before making major changes, and I definitely don't want to scrap the whole thing over one problem.

Also it is not that readers won't read it, I've had this story on another sight where it was critiqued chapter by chapter and the only complaint was the numbers get confusing. Chapters where the games weren't involved or the numbers mentioned were less, I had great reviews. Now I'm working on getting it to flow as one piece and want to eliminate this distraction without wrecking the story.

--edited by BoJo Johnson on 7/28/2014, 4:41 PM--

Ian, that's a great recommendation.

Might I also suggest posing this question to an editor? We are running a blog series in August called "Ask an Editor," and we've got a truly fantastic group of editors who are going to answer Book Country members' questions. Great opportunity for us to learn more about how to reorganize our writing so that it resonates more with readers. Check it out! And don't be shy: Ask away!!

On the subject of writing sites, haven't you noticed that most critiques for any story are positive, yet no one is offering a contract for that story? How many of thise critiques came from people who actually know what a publisher will say yes to?  Unless the critiques came from editors or published writers you're having people who cannot sell their own work tellg you what your work needs fixed in order to sell. Follow their advice and you'll be just as successful.

You left school knowing nothing about how to write fiction  for the printed word. We all do because in school we learn nonfiction writing skills. And the reading you did no more taught you how to write for the page than does having carpets teach you how to make them.

I know, I'm telling you things you don't want to hear. You worked hard on the story, and you put a lot of yourself into it. So it's a lot easier to believe people who are saying "Nice job." But if you accept praise without question you have no choice but to accept criticism with exactly the same enthusiasm. And here's the thing: you can have a thousand amateurs tell you they loved the work. They're outvoted by one editor who says no. And while you've spent time talking with others who knew little more than you do, how much time have you spent researching what acquiring editors look for, and hate, in the work they see? It's their opinion that matters.

Can you say really you're serious about writing if you've taken no time and spent no money on becoming a professional as the professionals view that term?

You haven't given any reason why readers can't know who the prince is before the end of the game.  Other players don't have to know.  Judges don't have to know.  Nobody in that world has to know.  But readers can know, and can be rooting for/against the real prince as he tries to maintain his anonymity...because readers are not playing the game (hmm...did you approach the novel as a game designer approaches a game?  Where the players are supposed to solve a problem?  That's not what novels are.)    You've experienced problems with readers finding the numbers difficult--that is the take-home message.  That part of your idea does not work.  So change it.

He could also have a pseudonym (any of the "numbers" could) as others have suggested, in addition to the numbers.  After all, a character given a number (as prisoners have been, in the attempt to dehumanize them)  still thinks of himself by a name, not a number.  A character (or person) may become so committed to a pseudonym that he thinks of himself as Gregor rather than Alan much of the time, but Gregor will have been given or made up a life story, a human story, on which to build the fake identity.