The Constructive Criticism Thread

Thank you for taking time to read through and provide critique. I understand the gripe with the lack of description when it comes to the current area. I did not bother going into too much detail since this is a place that would never be seen again (this is a planned adventure series). As for why I did not want to go into too much detail in how the brothel is "unpleasant" is because I did not want to cheaply show abuse. And as for the powers, they will be explained over the course of this prologue (this is the first part of the prologue).

I am switching it to a third person narration since I feel it impedes how I convey information. For the characterization I have in mind for Edward, he is not the type that would dwell too much on certain things, and would in fact downplay a few things.

Don't catch you slippin' now.

I finally got time to read your first chapter. I like the story but I did find some issues with the execution.

• You need to Show, Don't Tell

The line I just quoted is from your text. I'd suggest to cut everything before it. While interesting, it just goes on and on about what Braeden, or Edward at that point in the story, is. But it doesn't show us anything at all. There's no action and just a lot of exposition.

I also recommend starting with that line because that's the line that grabbed my attention the most. Remember that as a writer you're only given one chance to make a first impression and the very first line of your first chapter is usually that first impression. You want to hook the reader without lying to them.

As for everything before it, I'd say it's a good backstory but it doesn't need to be told all at the same time and especially not at the start. Let us get to know Braeden first and then give us snippets of what his life was before, where he comes from and what's the driving force behind his actions.

• The narration doesn't sound natural.

It is important that you decide who is narrating the story and have their narration be in universe and for it to make sense in the context of the story.

For example, when talking about locations, people seldom give a crash course on the history and geography of the place they're talking about.

I wouldn't say:

"I wanna travel to England which is the southernmost of the four countries that make up the United Kingdom which is located to the north of the continent of Europe in the world of Earth".

I'd use instead:

"I wanna go to the city of London."

"Where is that?" The girl asked.

"Oh, that's the capital of another country. It's far away from here. Just imagine, I need to board a ship to get there."

Remember that what a character knows and a reader knows aren't always the same thing. And that's okay. You don't need to explain everything to the smallest detail to not confuse the reader, just give them enough information so they don't get lost and, if you really need to, give more information through dialogue or actions that doesn't stop the flow of the narration.

• Choose a tense and stick to it.

During the raccoon sequence you use past tense and then switch to present tense and then back to past and present at random. I won't say it's confusing because I thought the context made it pretty clear what was happening, but it's just bad writing. You need to decide if the narration will be in the present tense (I am, I do, I run, I eat, etc) or in the past tense (I was, I did, I ran, I ate, etc).

I think, don't quote me on that, that present tense is the prefered form for the demographic you're aiming to get so I'd stick to that one. Either way, just pick one and don't change back and forth.

• Not enough description.

I will second what the previous critics said and suggest you to add a little bit of description to the places we're visiting. What does the city look like? What does it smell like? Like, based on the last paragraphs I assume it was some kind of seaside town but I could be wrong.

You said this place would never be visited again, but a little bit of description could help us form an idea of what your world looks like and what your character thinks like. I say this because your narrator doesn't have to quote a wikipedia entry for Vespin just stating fact in a nice list-like format. Instead his perception of the place will be tainted by his (negative) experiences while living there.

He may say the city smells of rotten ale and stale piss but that may just be his negative opinion of his mother and the people who live there (and who have visited the brothel) showing through his low concept of the place.

I think I'm rambling now but my point is: use the description to show not just what the place looks like but what the narrator thinks of it. Show us his personality through his description of the things he sees. If he's disgusted of the place, show us why (even if it's just in his mind), and later on when he's off adventuring, show us the wonders he'll find and give us a point of comparison.

• Bonus round: Separate your paragraphs.

A minor complain, but I'd suggest to add an extra space between your paragraphs to make reading easier. I got lost twice because of it, hehe.

Edited by HugoG on Jul 3rd 2018 at 12:21:19 PM

Thank you for the pointers. I was wondering what you meant by this? I get how it is a bit hard to follow, but are you also saying that I was going too quickly?

Also, as I mentioned before, I am going to abandon the first person narration since I feel it clashes too much with my vision. I was always planning on having a script like structure in the near future to make it easier to read (as well as avoiding the pitfalls of first person narration), but I initially went with first person only because there were hardly any other voices so to speak.

Don't catch you slippin' now.

What I meant is that everything before that line is or feels like nothing but exposition.

I'd recommend starting with the raccoon incident (more or less) and just add back some of Braeden's backtory as it becomes relevant. In short, skip the backstory and jump straight into the action.

Your story honestly gets better in the second part, roughly after the line I quoted.

I'm glad that you decided to switch to 3rd person POV. 1st person (in my opinion) is an exceptionally hard style to nail down. Play around a bit with different ways of writing your prose. Sometimes it takes a few tries to find what works best for your story.

Regarding your decision to not describe the setting much: on the one hand, I can understand why you made that choice. Why focus too much on an area that, from what you describe, will not have much relevance on the rest of the story? It shows in the way you've written this chapter, but unfortunately, I think your lack of interest in it translates to apathy for the reader. If you don't even care enough to tell us about this place, why should we care either?

While this place may not have much impact on where Edward goes, it certainly has an impact on where he's been. This is your opportunity to show the audience why Edward wants to leave so badly. You can tell us over and over again that he's had a bad home life, but unless we see that squalor, feel that dirt and unease, we'll never really understand it. Meander through the area. Show us what makes it bad, and help us see what Edward sees. This will make his motivations all the more powerful, and highlight his adventures even more. Just imagine what it'll be like when he sees something truly amazing when he leaves, what it would feel like after having nothing but misery for his childhood. You have such a great chance to show us what impact this place has had on Edward as a person. Don't squander it.

Now, about abuse and its portrayal. Like what I said with your use of language in my previous comment, you need to decide what you as the author are comfortable with writing, and what you think your target audience will be comfortable with reading. Abuse, when portrayed well and with respect to its victims, can be a powerful tool and add significant emotional depth to your story. I repeat, when written well. Its even more cheap, in my eyes, to mention something as dark as sex work in your story and then brush it off, like you want it there because it seems bad but you don't want to say why it is. If you are not comfortable showing what it's like for this kid to be the child of a prostitute, to live in a brothel and all that entails, if that's not something you want to write about, cut it. There are other ways to show a troubled childhood without going to that extreme.

"Can't make an omelette without breaking some children." -Bur

I'm keeping the broad strokes and I'll do a major rewrite. I'm not sure if the raccoon incident will be kept since it comes off as a bit trite to me in hindsight.

Edit: To spoil a bit of my future plans, his life will not be getting better for a while. And as for the reasons why I went with him growing up in a brothel, there are quite a few that I was planning to have payoff latter (and to show hints of in the next part).

Edit 2: There is another reason why I didn't want to go into too much detail for Vespin. Vespin is named after Amerigo Vespucci, the one that eftectively discovered the Americas. In other words, Vespin is a stand in for the US. And the reason I chose a racoon and had that guy remark how Edward/Braeden may have something in common with it? Take those first two letters out and see what slur you get (Braeden is black). I was being a bit coy as to not come off as "anti-American", and I'm not sure if I should worry too much about it.

Edited by Kakuzan on Jul 3rd 2018 at 2:08:19 PM

Don't catch you slippin' now.

I'm ending my turn. I would like to once again thank everybody who read through and gave their thoughts. If anyone wants to, you can PM me in regards to my WIP.

Don't catch you slippin' now.

Since Kakuzan has ended his turn early, we move up the schedule for the next person on the list. That would be Joacobanfield.

Now, we've got a couple of points I'd like to address before we begin.

First of all, one of the rules says we could give priority on the list to somebody who gave criticism during the previous turn. While I think that's a fair rule (it promotes participation), I think we should make an exception just this once so the people who have been in the queue for months can get their criticism.

As for the second issues, Joacobanfield has two entires they'd like reviewed. While we don't have a rule stating limits of any kind (be it length or number of works) I think it's fair to treat their submission(s) as one turn.

So anyway... let's continue.

Joacobanfield: July 5, 2018

Hopefully they're still around, hehe.

I'm here to remind you that I've added my entry for a later date, which is a new version of a story I've worked on.

Just heads up.

The only good fanboy, is a redeemed fanboy.

So Joacobanfield hasn't replied after the 48 hour waiting period (I decided to wait a little bit more because of the weekend) but they still haven't replied to my message nor posted anything in these forums since March. Following the rules agreed upon during previous dead periods, I've moved Joacobanfield down the list and will remove their name if they do not respond in two weeks.

Anyway, to try to get back on track, I've sent a message to Huthman who wanted us to criticize his web serial novel. I hope he is still interested in getting critique; I love web serials.

Huthman: July 10th, 2018

Edited by HugoG on Jul 10th 2018 at 12:34:13 PM

Jinkies, it's my turn now.

The draft of the first chapter of the Theriomorph Chronicles: Subhuman is too big to be placed on the forums. However, I can provide excerpts and samples as well to the link to the first published chapter.

This is the opening lines.

I can't paste you more of the story because how wordy the chapter draft (12537 words!)

Up in Useful Notes/Paraguay

Do you want us to critique just the excerpts you will post here? Could you upload your draft to Google Docs or some file sharing service so we can view it in full?

Spiral out, keep going.

Now, the full draft of chapter 1 is published in FictionPress. Right now, I'm on a hiatus on writing Theriomorph Chronicles: Subhuman under Chapter 3 and I'm writing on a superhero story tentatively called PP.

Just in case I'm busy, the full draft of the first chapter is in FictionPress.

Up in Useful Notes/Paraguay

@Huthman I've been reading through the first chapter of your story making bullet points as I go, and although I'm not very far I've already got several things written down. I can either just read it through and give a summary of my thoughts, or I can continue the bullet-point method throughout, which would be far more in-depth but also take a lot longer. Which would you prefer?

"Can't make an omelette without breaking some children." -Bur

The bullet-point method please because it's my first try here.

Up in Useful Notes/Paraguay

I commented as I read, so there may be some things I ask that get stated later on. For the most part I've tried to erase those points however.

• In your opening lines you mention that a wet towel is covering the main protagonist's face. If that were the case, how would he know where he was, or that he was even on an operating table. Build up suspense, and really put us behind his eyes and in his head.
• You use too many fragmented sentences. While a few here and there can work well as a means of demonstrating the main character's thoughts through narration, too many often disrupts the flow.
• Like I mentioned with the previous author here, really focus on showing instead of telling. There's no tension in telling us "the boy could not remember his name," but there is tension in him having that realization through action. For example, say after he recognizes that he's in a hospital, he might check for some sort of identification on his wrist. Then, after finding none, he might feel fear that no one would be looking for him. No one would be looking for... (and then BOOM, realization).
• Sounds can't stand still. It's sufficient to just say the footsteps stopped.
• You have some Department of Redundancy Department moments. For example, you say "Then it said in a young girl's voice" and then "He realized the sound was a girl" shortly afterwards. Proofread and make sure you're not saying the same thing twice, whether it be close together or far apart.
  • Reading further along I also see that you sometimes say the same word twice in a sentence. For example "he looked down at his hands and saw that there was X on his hands." You want to avoid this.
  • That being said, it's not wrong to remind readers of plot/character-important details before relevant moments. This is just not one of them.
• Again, Show, Don't Tell. Don't tell us she picked the lock, show us taking the surgical equipment and jamming it into the lock, let us hear the click as the shackles come free. Go micro (though not subatomic; we don't want to get lost in the Quantum Realm for 30 years).
  • Her hacking off the rest works, though because that creates an image in my head thanks to the stronger connotations of the word "hack".
• Use more concise sentences. "The boy lifted his arm" is much more to the point than "The boy tried to lift his arm and was very successful." In writing, you do something if you can, but try if you find that you cannot.
• People ask questions to other people, not towards them.
• "In the moment of flashing blur, he tried seating himself of the operating table, trying to remove the stun of light, saw the girl's face in a blurry and flickering fashion." This sentence was very hard to read, and even harder to follow , not to mention it's grammatically unsound. "Saw the girl's face in a blurry and flicking fashion" is not a complete thought. Separate it from the previous sentence where the comma was and add a "He" in front of it.
• "The girl had red, shoulder-length hair." This comes out of nowhere and feels intrusive. A better place would've been when he first sees her. Also Show, Don't Tell!
• "You look a bit dizzy" is a statement, not a question. No question marks.
  • "Should I do it for you" is a question, as well as a complete thought. There should be a question mark there.
• "'I beckon I don't need,' the boy said without any expectations beyond his normal expression." This sentence doesn't make sense. I'd rewrite it.
• I do like the fact that the boy's horror dawns on him once he sees his own body. This is also a case where I like the fragmented sentence with the "His body" line. It has impact. I think it serves as a good confirmation that something in fact is wrong with him, that something happened, but I'd also include more detail. What makes his body monstrous? What exactly does he see at this moment?
• People don't say "ouch" when they fall, especially not when they're in shock.
• The reveal that there's been carnage in the surgery theater adds to the suspense, and it is probably your most descriptive part (so far). However, I encourage you to dive even deeper and give even more detail. This is your chance to be truly visceral in your writing.
• Why were the scientists armed with guns? Wouldn't it make more sense for security to handle any threats while the scientists work?
• Show, Don't Tell! Don't tell us that the boy was in "a state of angst." Show us.
• How does the boy know he's responsible for the carnage? Didn't he wake without any memories?
• I'm confused why Warren doesn't even question what a theriomorph is after Meredith says it aloud. Her age is not the most dramatic thing she just said.
• Again, you start using the word theriomorph without explaining what it is. That would be like if I used the word "blorp" for an important plot element but never took the time to explain the concept of a blorp to the audience before widely using it. You do explain it later with Meredith, but you shouldn't refer to the creature as its name until we, the audience, know what it is.
• Warren's suddenly chivalrous behavior comes out of left field, especially since we've seen no previous indicators of this attitude previously. Having worked with elementary/middle school aged kids several times for my job, I can 100% guarantee that none of them speak like this.
• So is this a secret lab or a regular hospital? I'm having difficulty establishing the exact nature of the setting. If it's the former I can understand why the interior would look decrepit, since its founders would likely be going for something nondescript. However, if this was meant to be a normal hospital, there is no way in hell it would be rusted over.
• Wait, what makes Meredith exclaim that Warren is intelligent? The way he speaks? Show us something indicative of his intelligence instead of just telling us it.
  • Shortly afterwards Warren uses the word "tummy," which is diction I'd expect from younger children. 11 is when kids are just starting middle school, which means they'd only use tummy ironically or risk getting teased by other kids their age.
• "...since I defeated the creature, why not I break down the door?" Awkwardly phrased. Rewrite.
• You have several dialogue tags that over-explain things to the audience. We don't need to be told that Meredith is replying because of how Warren asked her because we already saw him ask. Your dialogue should stand on its own. If the audience can't tell why a character does an action or how a line is being said, then it needs rewritten.
• Why wouldn't Warren consider himself human anymore? Isn't he just a person who was experimented on? That doesn't change his species.
• Not long before you were telling us that Warren speaks to Meredith as though she's a lady, and yet now he's using language like "Just one problem-o girl." Keep his personality consistent. Either he's a uptight kid who speaks beyond his age, or he's a normal eleven year old.
• You do a good job demonstrating Warren's youthful innocence by having him do the Superman pose. There isn't a single kid out there that wouldn't do that if they had the chance.
• The public seems rather cavalier to the massacre in the hospital as well as the fact that there are children flying around. Where are the police responding to the 911 calls from the hospital. And did not one single person capture the kids on their phone? That just strikes me as unrealistic.
• You don't need to mention seeing people of all races at John F. Kennedy International Airport; it kinda comes with the territory. Additionally, it's not relevant to the narrative.
• Confirmingly isn't a word.

I just noticed that Warren's section of the narrative has ended, so I'm going to end my critique here as well and use this opportunity to summarize my thoughts.

Let's get what needs improved out of the way first. You need to work on showing instead of telling. At too many points you told us rather than showed us, and many of these tellings were unnecessary in the first place. Really go over this piece with a fine comb and find all the places where you told, then ask yourself how you could show it instead. Additionally there are many great resources online that can help you distinguish how to show in your story.

Additionally, your characterization seems jumbled and contradictory. A good chunk of this comes from your dialogue, as characters will speak one way at one point and then an entirely different way the next. Which is fine in certain circumstances; I wouldn't talk to my professor the same way I shoot the shit with my friends. Your characters give off different personas when it doesn't make sense for them to. I'd also read aloud your dialogue and try to make it sound more natural. At many points I tried reading it orally to hear how it sounded, and many times it sounded unnatural ("If the clipboard should say I have the power the fly - I'll try to fly when the time comes" for example).

Now the good. You've got a powerful imagination, and I think there's a lot of potential to bring these images to life. I think you've got a strong grasp on what you want to do and a clear idea of what you're dealing with. You understand that this process would be torturous to a kid, and that there'd be hell to pay for inflicting that kind of pain on them. You've got a lot of room to grow, but I think the payoff will be more than worth it.

Happy writing.

Edited by randomdude4 on Jul 12th 2018 at 3:43:06 AM

"Can't make an omelette without breaking some children." -Bur

I read about a quarter of the way through (so please fell free to ignore some of what I'm about to say), so I'll give a few thoughts. There are few technical errors (which is not uncommon with web novels) that need some fixing. I feel that quite a few sentences can be reworked and/or combined together. There is benefit to drawing out sentences and monologues to make them stand out, but too much and it can feel tiresome. The same thing with the fragmented sentences. Since this is horror, characters having somewhat jittery thoughts and narration can be a useful tool, but as I said before, maybe not do it too much if you could help it.

As for Show, Don't Tell, I do not think you have to show or elaborate on every single detail, especially if you do not care to. The effort can be better spent towards the things you do care about since readers can fill in blank spaces to an extent, not to mention that an excess of something makes it less meaningful. However, I think there was a missed opportunity where Warren took his bandages off. If you are going for a stylistic choice where his appearance is vague, that is fine. It is horror after all, and a cornerstone of horror is the unknown. But if that was what you were going for, I think it would have been a great idea to juxtapose the omission of Warren's monstrous appearance with the more vivid description of the gory mess around the operating table.

And there is one thing I want to ask: What are you going for? That is admittedly a very broad question, and one you do not need to give an answer to. I ask it because I think it is helpful to have certain(but not necessarily all) things laid out in your head. There may be quite a few things the audience will never learn since you the writer do not care to share it. And that is fine. It is for you to keep everything coherent and consistent. One semi random thing I want to say is to not let yourself be bogged down by whatever genre your story is.

Don't catch you slippin' now.

Just a quick update: I've decided to remove myself for the time being from the feedback wait list. The work I was going to put on there is a chapter in a short story that I hope to one day publish, and after reading the Advice for Protecting Your Publication Rights topic I think it would be safer to not post it.

That being said, I'd still like to contribute here posting critiques for other writers. I just hope it doesn't come off as hypocritical.

Edited by randomdude4 on Jul 14th 2018 at 9:40:08 AM

"Can't make an omelette without breaking some children." -Bur

Hi, Huthman.

I'm about halfway in, almost finished reading Warren and Meredith's exploits. Thoughts:

1. Show, Don't Tell, as was mentioned, especially when it comes to characters' feelings. Don't tell the reader that something is "horrifying", a person can't be told to be happy, sad or terrified. Show the horror, describe it. There are some nice descriptive passages of the Mantis Theriomorph, that showcase your imagination, you should write this way more often. Also, concerning the characters' feelings: the body and the mind are one. When a person is experiencing some emotion, it is always reflected in their body (or it's the other way around, correct me if I'm wrong), even if the signs are not always visible: there are the chest pains, the dizziness, the urge to vomit, the pupil inflation (or contraction), the blood surging to face, etc. Empathy works through the subconscious detection of other person's shifts in their body condition. The readers' empathy to the characters works through the same means, so when there is a passage in the narrative that contains "character A felt sadness", it's the same as the reader encountering a poker-faced person IRL who says "I'm sad" in a matter-of-fact tone. To convey the characters' emotions through the narrative demands a deal of what is called emotional intelligence from the author, their ability to recognize an emotion in themselves as well as in other people on conscious level. I suggest for you to study the link between the body and the feelings it experiences (there are actual books written on that) and try to show the emotions your characters are experiencing through the appropriate means of expression.
2. Related to the above point: Theriomorphs are, for a lack of a better word, hybrids of humans with various animals. Shouldn't they have emotional reactions that are appropriate for an animal they were fused with? Say, a predator Theriomorph shouldn't be disgusted by sight and smell of blood and gore?
3. You need to work on your prose. To put it bluntly, it's choppy, redundant and repetitive. There are about 13K words in the first chapter, but I get the feeling that it could be condensed to a half of this amount. I suggest to rewrite the chapter from scratch, with your aim being to be as laconic as possible and not repeat a verb, adverb, noun (except names) or an adjective within a paragraph. Also, there are lots of Said Bookisms. I come from a culture that has this as a requirement for the writing to be considered good, but this is too much even for me.
4. The story could benefit if shown from first-person POV, or at least third-person limited. You are using (my guess is unintentionally) third-person omniscient throughout Warren's part of the chapter: we're mainly told of Warren's thoughts and feelings but there are also lapses of how the mantis Theriomorph feels and there's the narration of Meredith's actions that happened when Warren was blindfolded. Thing is, third-person omniscient is the most objective way to tell a story, and yours is horror (at least the part I'm reading seems to be so), and fear is subjective. Horror genre relies the most on the immersiveness of the narrative, on the author's ability to put the reader onto his characters' shoes, to allow the reader to experience what the hero(es) are experiencing firsthand, without the comforting buffer of omniscience. H. P. Lovecraft said "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown". It is no coincidence that most of his stories are told from first person POV. When there is a veil on the reader's eyes, there is something for him to be afraid of. So, I suggest for you to remove everything Warren has no way of knowing or feeling from the narrative, rewrite those parts as if you were in his shoes and could only see, hear, smell and touch what he plausibly could.

That's all that I have for now. I'll continue reading tomorrow and try to post a critique some time next week. I hope the above was useful to you.

Edited by Millership on Jul 15th 2018 at 12:33:40 AM

Spiral out, keep going.

I don't think posting a link would be a problem. It is only if you post the actual work on the site.

Don't catch you slippin' now.

Well I completely misread that. I thought it had said "don't post it or link to it," instead of it advising to just link it away from the site. My bad. I'll add my name back to the list at the bottom.

"Can't make an omelette without breaking some children." -Bur

Hey friends, the thread seems to have slowed down a little bit and we've only got a handful of critics so... yeah.

I'm at fault here since I've forgot to post my own critique, hehe. But I'll get to it tonight, I promise.

In the meantime, I hope we can get a few more critics before the end of Huthman's turn, next Tuesday. So please, if you know anyone who'd be interested in participating, let them know about this thread.

Happy writing!

So, I finally got around to reading the Theriomorph Chronicles: Subhuman. I am a fan of the horror genre and some of my own books fall on that category, so my perspective may be biased, please don't take it personally.

The Good:

• The premise sounds interesting. The story has the potential of becoming a good horror story. I found parts of it, especially the beginning, to be quite unnerving. Not to mention, the idea of having a Humanoid Abomination as the protagonist is interesting, to say the least.

• Another good point I found in your text is the personality of the first two characters, Warren and Meredith. It can be improved, yes, but they do seem to have distinct personalities. I've always felt that characters are the cornerstone of any story, so having interesting characters with their own distinct voices is crucial if a text is to succeed and become “good”. I also found them to be, if not realistic, at least believable. I could believe two kids like that exist in the world.

• The world-building feels right. This is one of the hardest points for me to describe, so bear with me. I feel that you've got a good handle on how much information you should provide the reader. You reveal things as they become relevant and while some revelations may seem obvious to us, you don't insult our intelligence by explaining things that don't need explaining. The story kept me asking, but also gave me enough information so I could infer some things that weren't told.

The Bad

• The opening line is weak.

I know it's easy to get trapped in the hell that is the first line, revising and rewriting until the blinking cursor of doom begins whispering words of madness and despair. Yet I believe it's one of the most important things in the text. It must set the tone, every word must be chosen carefully to properly reflect the essence of the story, and it must make the reader ask questions and make them want to know more.

Your opening line is not bad per se, but it is rather weak. I would suggest giving more punch to every word you use in your opening line. As I said before, your opening line is the first impression your readers will get, so it's important to make it count. You only get one chance.

You're free to ignore the above changes I'd make to your text. It's just an example of how, adding a few words here and there, could make your opening line stronger without losing any of the important information you wished to convey in the first four paragraphs.

• Abuse of the passive voice.

I feel one of the reasons why your story lacks strength it's because you abuse the passive voice. The passive voice is used to show interest in the person or object that experiences an action rather than the person or object that performs the action. In other words, the most important thing or person becomes the subject of the sentence. While it does have it uses, you'll notice that the active voice makes your writing clearer and easier to read.

It's easy to fall prey of the passive voice because that's how we talk. We seldom stop to analyse our every word and decide who is the most important thing or person in any given sentence. The house was built by the boy is good enough when talking because we're just trying to provide information, the details and structure are irrelevant if it's understandable.

However, every word counts in writing and we must direct the reader's attention to that which we deem important. So, even if it means the same, The boy built the house in 1994 is clearer than the house was built by the boy in 1994. It is a stronger sentence and the boy becomes the subject, a.k.a., the important part.

• Crutch words are the bane of any respectable writer.

Alright, I'm being melodramatic here, but I think that phrase holds a little bit of wisdom. Crutch words are a collection of words we fall back on when we've lost our footing in a conversation. As someone who has a severe stutter in real life, I know we can be seduced by the allure of certain words that may give us more time to complete a sentence or properly formulate a thought when we're at a loss for words.

The most common ones are "um", "uh", "ah", "er", "actually", "so", "like", etc. But be careful, for they are not the only crutch words. In fact, each person can have their own personal crutch words.

In your case, I felt you overused quite a few words and I think that, if replaced, would make for a better writing. I think you should find your crutch words, replace them, and rewrite the text as necessary.

For example, started. It was especially egregious because I saw you used the word at least six times in ten paragraphs or so.

• She started walking towards
• She started unlocking the shackles
• The girl started asking
• The boy started standing up
• He started gazing
• He started shaking his hands

Then, during the fight scene, you overused the word "causing". I even saw the same word used twice in the same sentence, just a few words and a comma apart.

• Causing immense amount of pain
• Causing its arm to be chopped
• Causing a amount of its blood
• Causing large amounts of red-green blood
• Causing it to spray blood on
• Causing it to be detached

The Odd.

• Watch your tenses.

While reading your story, I noticed you switched from past tense to present tense and back at random. The most glaring example, occurring only a few paragraphs into the text, was this:

• Point of View shenanigans.

On the one hand you use a rather detached narrator which makes me think of a Third Person Omniscient narrator who can see what the characters are doing AND feeling. But on the other hand, the narrator seems to omit certain pieces of information because… reasons.

For example, at the start of the chapter, the narrator tells us the boy doesn't know where the sounds come from, but then the narrator knows the girl is gazing at the operating table while the boy is supposed to be blinded by the towel. It feels like we jumped from the boy's head to the girl's without notice.

I would highly recommend sticking to just one Po V character. It'll make things clearer.

• Oh, purple prose, why must you torture me so?

You used the word said only 38 times in your text. I checked.

While I commend your knowledge of the English language, I'd suggest you to drop all the flowery synonyms for "say", "ask", and "reply" and just stick to the most basic of rules: When in doubt, use "said"; it's one of those invisible words that most people will ignore, drawing attention to what truly matters in dialogue: the dialogue itself.

You can check our article on Said Bookism to learn more about the word "said" and why and when it's useful to use over all its synonyms.

Anyway, I don't want to repeat myself or the points brought up by the previous critics. I agree that you've got a great imagination and you're well on the way to becoming a good storyteller, but you need to practice the craft side of the equation.

Happy writing, friend!

Edited by HugoG on Jul 19th 2018 at 12:36:30 PM

Hi again, Huthman.

I've finished reading the second part of the chapter. The same issues listed by me and other critics persist, so I won't repeat them. Christopher's part of the chapter is different in that it's mostly dialogue, so this critique will mostly address issues concerning that.

1. Read the dialogue out loud. Written language, public speeches and casual conversations sound different. The dialogue between Christopher and his boss has the context of private conversation, but sounds like an interview on a television channel. Always read the dialogue out loud, get the feel of the conversation, notice where it sounds unnatural and forced, and then you'll be able to fix it. Also, you know, listen to (and participate in) IRL conversations to have something to compare to.
2. Avoid As You Know. Never put words in mouths of your characters for the reader's benefit. The reader doesn't exist in the story's world, your characters are not aware of the reader, they shouldn't spam Info Dumps in their speech. The aforementioned dialogue feels like an interview in part because of that.
3. Maintain the dialogue's tempo. In general, the dialogue tags shouldn't be longer than the piece of dialogue that they are surrounding. Unless the situation calls for a pause in the speech, limit yourself to "said X". Dialogue tags can even be omitted altogether if there's a sense of urgency in the scene (and/or it's clear who's speaking). Dialogue is about the only part of the writing that must make the time span passed in-universe as close to the time span required to read it. Again, you can only get the feel of the timing if you read your dialogue, tags, intonations and all, out loud. And don't put the dialogue dags in front of the characters' speech. It breaks the flow of the writing.

That's about all I have to say. I hope my critique was useful to you.

Spiral out, keep going.

May I ask how long ago this was written?

Don't catch you slippin' now.