The Worlds of Askamar and Udaris

[L.E.]

Hi everyone,

When I first joined the group back in October I mentioned that I was working on a website about my fantasy world, featuring maps, creatures, character profiles and other information. It took a bit longer than I expected, but the website has finally been published.

You can view it at www.askamar.com

Please take a look and let me know what you think!

[Yoly]

Great! The site looks *very* cool.
Thanks for sharing!

[Mark]

Very good Louisa. Looking to reading the books.

[Gary]

Did you put that site together, Louisa? It looks great!

Some very minor notes:

1. The ellipsis at the end of the first paragraph needs a period after it. "..." is an ellipsis and "...." is an ellipsis at the end of a sentence.

Edit: I have a tendency to over-use the ellipsis, so when doing a 2nd or 3rd draft of my own writing, I always make a point of asking myself if I really need that punctuation mark. I didn't notice over-use on that page, but I feel obligated to give you the same note I always give myself.... (See, do I really need that?)

2. In P2, I'd shorten this sentence: "On this website you will find an alphabetic reference guide to Askamar and Udaris (to which I plan to keep adding more entries, maps and illustrations), descriptions of the books I have written and a gallery of artwork."

Something like: "Here you will find a constantly updated guide to Askamar and Udaris, descriptions of the books, and an art gallery."

3. In the text box describing the first novel, you've got hyphens where there should be a dash (technically, an endash as there is text after that punctuation mark, but a lot of people use an emdash because it is bigger and more dramatic. It's a website, so like anything else, it's your choice, really.) The first paragraph has an emdash doing the same thing.

4. The textbox is the book blurb, correct? I'd change "long to" in P1 to something else as that same term is used in the textbox/blurb. Something like "plot to" or "dream to" or "intrigue" (whatever best conveys your sense of that effort) would be less repetitive.

5. It'd be nice if you could make the graphics on that page hotlink to the gallery, and the graphic for the book cover link to the Amazon page for the book.

In any case, you get full nerd points for this kind of background info. Personally, I completely geek out on fantasy world maps and glossaries.

[L.E.]

Thanks for the encouragement, Mark and Yoly! I’m glad you like it!

[L.E.]

Wow, Gary, thank you so much for taking the time to write such detailed feedback. I really appreciate it (especially your advice for improving the blurb)!

For some reason I never realised that an ellipsis needed a full stop at the end of a sentence – I’ve always treated it like a question mark, which makes no sense because I know that you should add a question mark or an exclamation mark at the end of an ellipsis when it is needed. You obviously have a keen eye for grammatical details.

I’ll carry out as many of your suggestions as I can (I did make the site myself, with a little technical help from my father, so there are a few things I haven’t figured out quite yet – like how to turn an image into a link and how to include a dash rather than a hyphen in HTML – but I’m sure I can look it up).

If you see anything else that could be improved, please let me know. It’s really good of you to help me out like this!

Edit: I’ve made those changes now (silly me – I just needed to copy the dash I’d somehow created in the first paragraph and replace the m with an n....)

[Gary]

Louisa wrote: "Wow, Gary, thank you so much for taking the time to write such detailed feedback. I really appreciate it (especially your advice for improving the blurb)!"

You're very welcome.

Louisa wrote: "For some reason I never realised that an ellipsis needed a full stop at the end of a sentence – I’ve always treated it like a question mark, which makes no sense because I know that you should add a question mark or an exclamation mark at the end of an ellipsis when it is needed."

I tend to use the ellipsis as a "nudge, nudge" cue to the reader, or as a marker to note where I'm not finished with something. The latter is fine, but the former isn't a particularly good technique for story-telling. In something informal like email (or on a bookclub message board...) it's perfectly fine, but when writing something literary I should have more faith in the comprehension skills of readers. In either case, in a second draft I will remove the majority of those marks.

Louisa wrote: "You obviously have a keen eye for grammatical details."

Grading papers, grading papers, grading papers.

Louisa wrote: "I’ll carry out as many of your suggestions as I can...."

For the most part, take them with a grain of salt. Some are stylistic.

I note you're from the UK, so my understanding is that punctuation can appear outside (to the right) of a closing parentheses in the Queen's English. Americans sometimes argue about that one. My own take is that everything should go inside parenthesis. That is, it should go full stop, closing quotation marks (if any) and then closing parentheses (or bracket if that's the mark being used.)

But God Save the Queen and all that if it works differently on your side of the Pond.

I should also note that I think I over-use parentheses in a first draft, and often find myself taking them out of later drafts for similar reasons to the second draft removal of ellipses. Either they aren't really necessary, or it should be 2+ sentences in the first place. I didn't notice that in particular in your site, but I again feel obligated to give you the same note I give myself.

Last, I am not personally opposed to "alright" rather than "all right" but some folks do find that one objectionable. I think "alright" means "OK" where "all right" means "correct" and that's fine, but there are the grammarians who disagree. Again, up to you.

[L.E.]

I agree with you about alright and all right. However, it sounds like there are still some grammatical disputes going on, and the differences between US and UK English only serve to confuse matters further.

I doubt my own knowledge of grammar is perfect. I just follow what I remember from school, copy what other writers are doing, and occasionally look things up in New Hart’s Rules.

It sounds like you’re a teacher, though, which must give you an advantage!