forum Critique meeeee (Don't hold back)

Started December 08, 2019 by Khai

tune

(I know I need to do indents)
(The text messages are supposed to be in italics)
I'm open to constructive criticism and any thoughts or ideas. :)

Sophia 's POV

My breath came out in tiny white puffs in front of me. My three warm-up laps were a normal part of my routine, but today I stuck with just two. As the music played in my ears, I moved onto practice my shooting.

I set up the three balls, that were brought from home, on the center line, and began to dribble down the field, feeling satisfied as my cleats dug into the turf. As I got closer to the goal, I prepared myself to shoot. Adjusting my feet, I kicked sending the ball soaring into the upper left corner of the goal. Smiling in satisfaction, I jogged over to the bleachers to take a drink of water. Two sips and done just like coach always said.
I got ready to jog back to the field when I noticed two guys on the other side of the track. I try to get a closer look to see if I know them, but I still can't see. I shrug and go back to my drill.

About a half hour, later I'm sweaty and ready to go home. As I'm walking over to the bleacher I turn to look at the guys from earlier who have now made their way onto the other half of the field. Now that they are closer, I can make out their appearances. One of the guys has the ball and is trying to get around the other and to the goal. He's doing a pretty good job. The other guy trips up a few times which allows him to get around him and shoot a perfect kick into the goal. He goes to get the ball out of the goal as the other guy says something to him. I hear them both laugh.

I look away just as my phone starts buzzing. Mom, of course.

Where are you? You're gonna be late.

It was only 6:25. School starts at 7:45.

No I won't. I'm on my way.

I changed out of my cleats and into my normal sneaker then stood, gathering my things and putting them in my bag.

As I was walking to my car I heard voices. I look around trying to identify where they are coming from, and notice the two guys from earlier walking out of the gate. I continue to walk to my car a blank blank blank, put my bag in the passenger seat, and get in.

My phone alerts me of another message. This time it's from Adaline .

Meet me by the benches.

I quickly type my reply.

Okay.

Suddenly I flinch at the loud smack on my windshield. When I look up I see the guys from earlier I see the guys from earlier, one of them holding a ball with a panicked look on his face. He jogs over to the side and motions for me to roll down the window.

"I am so sorry. I wasn't paying attention. The ball completely slipped from my hands." He explained.

"Its fine. I don't think there's any damage."

"Really?" I nodded. "Great I thought you would be so pissed."

I laughed, "Nope It's all good"

He chuckled nervously, "I'm Adrian ."

"Sophia" I replied.

"Well It was nice meeting you. I guess I should let you go." He stepped back from the car.

"Bye" He waved. I smiled politely before driving off.

okay okay!! first off, thank you for being brave enough to share your writing!!
some points:

• grammar mistakes here and there, but nothing TOO big (except what is 'blank blank blank'?)
• emotion! E M O T I O N!! you can double your manuscript just by adding emotion. put yourself in the character's place - how would she feel? shy when she's talking to the guy? admiration when watching him? exhilaration when working out?
• work on transitions. like don't just describe "a half hour later" or "in a couple minutes" for example. like maybe make them a bit smoother, have them be told through the perspective of the girl. how does she know it's been 30 minutes? does she have a watch? does she time her goals?
• dialogue's a bit flat. i'm assuming the guy is a love interest? if so, spend more time writing the meet cute

that's all, thanks for listening!

I agree with sabaism for most of their points. One thing I will add - and something I noticed straight away - is to both break up your sentences and put them together.

• The very first thing I noticed is a really long sentence that could easily be broken up - I set up the three balls, that were brought from home, on the center line, and began to dribble down the field, feeling satisfied as my cleats dug into the turf.
  The commas allow you to describe things, but too many of them and it becomes confusing. You could maybe do something like this - I set up the balls brought from home on the center line, then began to dribble down the field. My cleats dug into the turf, making me feel satisfied. This still tells the same story but allows a more flowy read.
• I only noticed this on one particular section, or really one section that could be improved while also making grammatical sense. That is - My phone alerts me of another message. This time it's from Adaline . This is something that can be easily fixed, again to just kind of make it flow better. Maybe something like this - My phone alerts me of another message, this time from Adaline. I completely understand where you're coming from with the way it is written, but I do reckon it sounds a bit better as one sentence.
• Something I noticed while I was looking over it is that it changes tenses a lot. I believe that you're trying to write in past tense, but there are a ton of sentences in present.
  This - Suddenly I flinch at the loud smack on my windshield. When I look up I see the guys from earlier I see the guys from earlier, one of them holding a ball with a panicked look on his face. He jogs over to the side and motions for me to roll down the window. - should become this - Suddenly I flinched at the loud smack on my windshield. When I looked up I saw the guys from earlier I saw the guys from earlier, one of them holding a ball with a panicked look on his face. He jogged over to the side and motioned for me to roll down the window. (i also saw that you wrote something twice, i bolded it so you could see where it was)

Other than that, I think it was pretty good. I would never be confident enough to post an excerpt of one of my stories here and accept criticism.

okay okay!! first off, thank you for being brave enough to share your writing!!
some points:

• grammar mistakes here and there, but nothing TOO big (except what is 'blank blank blank'?)
• emotion! E M O T I O N!! you can double your manuscript just by adding emotion. put yourself in the character's place - how would she feel? shy when she's talking to the guy? admiration when watching him? exhilaration when working out?
• work on transitions. like don't just describe "a half hour later" or "in a couple minutes" for example. like maybe make them a bit smoother, have them be told through the perspective of the girl. how does she know it's been 30 minutes? does she have a watch? does she time her goals?
• dialogue's a bit flat. i'm assuming the guy is a love interest? if so, spend more time writing the meet cute

that's all, thanks for listening!

Thank You for responding!

• Blank blank blank was me trying to figure out what kind of car she was gonna have because I had one in mind I just couldn't figure out what it was called. I completely forgot it was there lol.
• This is a really good tip because I knew that this was really missing something I just couldn't tell what it was so THANK YOU!
• You're completely right I will fix the transitions.
• I definitely will work on the meeting.
  Thank You for taking your time to read and respond. I'm always looking for ways to improve my writing.

I agree with sabaism for most of their points. One thing I will add - and something I noticed straight away - is to both break up your sentences and put them together.

• The very first thing I noticed is a really long sentence that could easily be broken up - I set up the three balls, that were brought from home, on the center line, and began to dribble down the field, feeling satisfied as my cleats dug into the turf.
  The commas allow you to describe things, but too many of them and it becomes confusing. You could maybe do something like this - I set up the balls brought from home on the center line, then began to dribble down the field. My cleats dug into the turf, making me feel satisfied. This still tells the same story but allows a more flowy read.
• I only noticed this on one particular section, or really one section that could be improved while also making grammatical sense. That is - My phone alerts me of another message. This time it's from Adaline . This is something that can be easily fixed, again to just kind of make it flow better. Maybe something like this - My phone alerts me of another message, this time from Adaline. I completely understand where you're coming from with the way it is written, but I do reckon it sounds a bit better as one sentence.
• Something I noticed while I was looking over it is that it changes tenses a lot. I believe that you're trying to write in past tense, but there are a ton of sentences in present.
  This - Suddenly I flinch at the loud smack on my windshield. When I look up I see the guys from earlier I see the guys from earlier, one of them holding a ball with a panicked look on his face. He jogs over to the side and motions for me to roll down the window. - should become this - Suddenly I flinched at the loud smack on my windshield. When I looked up I saw the guys from earlier I saw the guys from earlier, one of them holding a ball with a panicked look on his face. He jogged over to the side and motioned for me to roll down the window. (i also saw that you wrote something twice, i bolded it so you could see where it was)

Other than that, I think it was pretty good. I would never be confident enough to post an excerpt of one of my stories here and accept criticism.

Thank You for responding!

• After I posted this I put it in an online editor type of thing and one of the things that it told me was that I needed to break up some of my sentences so thank you cause you made me realize how important this is.
• Reading the sentence(s) the way you put it sounds WAY better.
• I agree. This sentence sounds better as well.
• Thank you for this comment as well because I often struggle with my wording and trying to make it sound right so this was SUPER helpful. (I also see where I repeated the words. I don't even know how I did that and didn't notice.)
  Thank You so much for taking your time to respond. I'm so grateful to accept you comments so that I can improve my writing. :)

Thank You so much for taking your time to respond. I'm so grateful to accept you comments so that I can improve my writing. :)

It's fine! I love helping people with their writing if it's something that I can do.
Again, I applaud you for asking for critiques. I would never have the courage to do that, like at all.