Hey guys! If you could take the time to read two and a half pages of a random scene from my book (it's the only thing I've written of it, I just felt like writing this while I've been worldbuilding and plotting), that would be awesome. I really need tough love. XD ALL CRITIQUES ARE WELCOME NO MATTER HOW HARSH. Please don't hold back, I promise I won't go in a corner and cry about it. I want my writing to get better.
I'll read it
Hey, can I print this out to read and edit? I promise I'm not wicked and I'm not giving this to anyone, I just like to do things by hand first. I'll type out all my comments for you after doing that.
I'll read it
I really liked it, maybe a little less begging but besides that it was great.
I was reading your story and was thoroughly impressed. You have a great talent!
The story was intriguing and the characters introduced so far were very human. Keep going:)
It was good! A little more decription of the characters would be nice though
Yes, go ahead Rebecca!
And thanks guys, I really appreciate the feedback. I agree, I'll probably put in less begging and more character description. thumbs up
Really cool! Asher seems stuck up and pretty cool, I totally called the girl's bluff though, she seems really interesting and I think you should incorporate her more in the future! Overall great start I'd like to read this story.
The girl will be back, you guessed it. ;)
I really liked it
you have amazing talant
It's great, but I agree with Lily. If I were Asher, I would think that the way the girl was pleading with him was a little suspicious. Try making her sound a little more convincing, and cut down on the begging. But besides that, it's a great story. I'm really intrigued and I would like to read the rest of the story when you're done.
wow! this is really good, i absolutely loved it, but the beginning is a little exposition heavy, though that could be my personal preferences. i usually try to keep things somewhat mysterious in the beginning of my stories, but this tactic works just as well, and doesn't detract from the story at all. keep up the good work!
Three Ravens, yeah that's good advice, I'll do that. The friends I've shown it to think the same thing.
Glowingwithpride, this actually won't be the beginning of my story, but a scene further in. Hopefully then all the information that I put in the beginning of the scene will already be apparent from the story that came before it, and then I can cut it if I need to.
There's some nice characterisation going on here, good job!
A useful tip, if you haven't already tried, is to read aloud what you've written. Some sentences are a little bit long, some I noticed had unnecessary info, so reading aloud can really help you spot where it feels clunky. It's good to simplify and cut at times, even if it may break your heart to do so :D
Keep it up :)
Thanks manic, my mom thought the same. I'm glad I'm getting all this advice BEFORE I write an entire first draft, huh. :P
You should probably turn it from view only to comments, because it's a lot easier to comment directly on the document.
The scene is alright, but the pacing is a little off. Things seem to happen way too fast. Try slowing down your scenes, adding more things between his thoughts so it's not just him thinking thinking thinking WOW HE GOT JUMPED it's a girl what a sob story oh well money THE MONEY IS GONE
Despite its length it felt really fast and wasn't that enjoyable because of it, but the scene itself was fine.
nekh Okay I'll turn on comments.
Thanks for the input, that helped changed my perspective on it. I think it'll be helped when it's actually surrounded by the rest of the story, since I was trying to go for a fast-going scene (what do you think could be added to help this specific scene? More descriptions?). I should probably carefully consider if ALL my other scenes are written that way, since I should definitely have variety. Hopefully I can fix that!
i suggest trying to spread things out a bit. when we first start off writing we tend to write really short paragraphs that are dominated by dialogue because talking is easy to write but we don't know how to fill the rest. as we get better we start evening out that ratio, going from
"she was sad. she thought that he hated her. she cried and then ran out into the street and got hit by a car. he screamed."
to something more like
"Oh no, he hates me, she thinks, stepping back. His blank stare just confirms it. There's no empathy in those eyes. Why is she still here? She tries to get away, go anywhere as long as it's away from him. Tears run down her cheeks and obscure her vision. He calls after her, but she ignores him. What could he want now, after he's hurt her? But then she hears the screeching of tires and it's already too late."
okay i'm not good at explaining this but hopefully it made some kind of sense
Yeah I get it, no worries. Thanks!
That was so good! The scene you chose introduced the characters nicely, giving you a real feel for who Asher is. There was some wording I would consider rethinking, particularly in the first two sentences.
Also, the ending was perfect. My cheeks are aching because I’m smiling so hard because it’s so perfect.
Thanks Krista!
(btw I probably rewrote those first two sentences like five times before I shared, I was confusing myself too…)
If you need help editing or anything, I'd be happy to help. It sounds wonderful so far, all of your people are so human.
When editing (you have no mistakes on this one right now but still) it often helps to change the font or size from what you wrote it in or have been editing it in because often times once you read it once or twice or five billion times, your eyes tend to skip over some mistakes.
Thanks @disneyfanatic7, I'd love an editor helper. When I write more random scenes (I'm plotting and worldbuilding atm, but I've been writing some random scenes just to keep my writing muscles in shape) I'll send them to you if you want me to. :)