forum I'll critique your stuff!!

Started June 16, 2018 by @TryToDoItWrite

tune

12 years old: The school therapist notices his behavior and begins talking to him. He is diagnosed with depression.

I want to hug him this poor child

4 years old: Diagnosed with autism
5 years old: His father caused a brain injury resulting in his Savant Syndrome
7 years old: He had a cat and his father killed it. (Pets are a common treatment for autism because it teaches compassion)
11 years old: His sister’s injury/death
12 years old: His mother killed herself
13 years old: The school therapist notices his behavior and begins talking to him. He is diagnosed with depression.
13 years old: Ran away from his house
14 years old:Taken in by a family who took pity on him. They sent him to school and helped him to college.

18: He attempts suicide. . .?

True

13, maybe?

4 years old: Diagnosed with autism
5 years old: His father caused a brain injury resulting in his Savant Syndrome
7 years old: He had a cat and his father killed it. (Pets are a common treatment for autism because it teaches compassion)
11 years old: His sister’s injury/death
12 years old: His mother killed herself
13 years old: The school therapist notices his behavior and begins talking to him. He is diagnosed with depression.
13 years old: Attempts suicide
14 years old: Ran away from his house
15 years old:Taken in by a family who took pity on him. They sent him to school and helped him to college.

This??

It kinda feels like there's a lot going on. Autism, abuse, depression, suicidal tendencies…

But they are a result of each other

What if in the end. . . He succeeds in killing himself?

And he meets his sister and mother in Heaven

Then he can't have roommates

And for the first time ever, he is truly happy?

Roommates???

Lol… Okay so I used him in a roommate RP and him and his mates are really close and he's happy because he finally has a family that loves him

Autism, abuse, depression, suicidal tendencies…and roommates XD

. . .

Lol yes… I'm insane

Wow, there's a lot going on here!

@grammarqueen4 I'm starting to look at your character rn! sorry i've been traveling and offline :(

Okay…First off, just gotta say that she's super cute! You've got your aesthetic and feel going for her. I think what it's lacking is depth of explanation. This doesn't mean you haven't thought your character out! Of course she can exist fully in your mind but from what I see on the character sheet, she's incomplete. It's mostly the Nature page.
So I'll just ask some questions that can help you think through the reasons behind your choices for her:
What about her parents motivates her? Is she trying to please them? Or does she need to look after them?
Being "too kind" is not a flaw in my book. Being kind is a virtue. Is what you're hitting at is that she can't say no to anyone and thus becomes in danger of being walked all over? Does she ignore the bad about someone because she believes in the best?
Überhappy 24/7 is a start with the personality, but again, it needs more. Is she introverted? Extroverted? Try looking up myers brigg personality typing to get a good more in depth outline of who your character is.
Anyways, I like what you're doing! She has lots of potential to be an awesome character! Keep it up and keep writing :)

Could you critique this story snippet for me? It's a backstory for my character Rie and I'd like to know if it's repetitive or boring. Here's the link; https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gCbrO_-ZUEnFnXXc8Tt077IBnMuocsQaxgoHFqQ_uTI/edit?usp=sharing

Hi, @barabara! This was actually a pretty cool scene/snippet, so awesome job! The feel was obviously serious and dramatic (which is super hard to pull off, i know so kudos to you for getting it going!! ) I have to say though, some of it worked for me, and some of it didn't. This, of course, is opinion, so take it or leave it! I'm here to give honest thoughts and try and be as helpful as I can! Please, don't hesitate to ask me questions after the critique about what you wanted specific answers on or clarifying what I said (and this goes for anyone asking for critiques) I say this because it was a long passage and I can't talk about everything.

Okay! enough chatter! let's dig in!

• Gripping opening line, not gonna lie. It really sets the tone v. quickly.

• The snowflakes drifting lazily back toward the ground seemed to mock the corpse at my feet. Even as they melted on her cheek, they seemed to laugh at her death.
  These two sentences have so much potential that I think is a little bit wasted. The best way to juice the ironic bitterness that you want going is to focus closely on some part of the snow and juxtapose it to the corpse it's landing on. Think of it like a zoom in on a moment.
  I'd do something like this: The snowflakes drifting lazily back toward the ground. One floated to land softly on my mother's blood stained cheek. It melted there, and the water droplet slid off her face like a tear.
  Don't state that the snow on her face is ironic. Show it.

• you say that her combat skills abandoned her/ was lost in the space of three paragraphs

• This would be the first time I felt fear.
  I'd say: That was the first time I felt fear.

• Okay i don't have a lot of context to go on. I was confused by who the main character was and what she had done to anger the cloaked men. Since this is a backstory, it wouldn't hurt to just outright state it. It's super hard to balance show/tell. I feel ya

• wait wait wait. what happened to the sister exactally? did the main character kill her??? why? This part is a little unclear

• The running in the snow reminded me of a scene from the book Night–a true story about the holocaust which is absolutely heartbreaking. If you're hardcore going for the serious, dramatic and heart wrenching narrative, read that book.

• Some more horses passed by me going in the opposite direction that I was.
  I'd delete "some." all you have to know is that more horses passed by. "some" implies that it is an unknown number, but you already implied that with "more"

• okay, main character had a very long monologue that was (prepare for brutal honesty. I don't hate you, i just want to help) pretty boring to read. my eyes skimmed right over it, because it wasn't truly gripping. it was everything that you, the author, knew was running through her head. I get writing that all down for the first draft, but you should delete a lot of it.
  Frankly, the best part of the whole monologue was this:
  I wasn’t a child anymore. I was the ghost of a bloodstained battle. A memory of red staining the peaceful snow. That’s what I would have to be. That’s who I would have to become and embody if I wanted to live. I would become the void that my mother had awakened. With blood on her chest and tears in her eyes, she created a creature of death with the last rise and fall of her chest. I wouldn’t forgive. I couldn’t forget.
  Shorten the whole thing up, would be my advice!

• This would be a battleground, but not one of blood and death. One of survival. From here on out, I would have to fight for every breath I took. I would have to kill others in order to stay alive myself, but I knew that.
  this part lowkey contradicts itself because it says it wouldn't be a battleground of death, but she knows she has to kill people

• Snow seeped into my veins, reaching my heart and soothing my pain. Tears I would never cry froze inside of me. Frozen along with the world around me, I waited. DanG son that was a good couple of lines! Try not to use froze then frozen right next to each other. I'd use "iced over" instead of "froze" in the second sentence.

• ** I probably would have smiled if I hadn’t snapped out of my thoughts in time to see the second to last wolf shot down. The last wolf stood in front of me while the others took refuge in the trees. I felt my eyes widen, the pack was giving up on one of their own.**
  It's not clear how many wolves are in the picture at this point. "second to last" makes it seem like there are only two, then it says that the "others took refuge in the trees." maybe make it more clear? give numbers?
  Also, grammar note: The last sentence is a run on. You need a period in between "widen" and "the pack"

• the dialog with the wolf, Accalia, didn't seem natural. It seemed too commanding. I'd edit it to something softer, if you know what i mean?? Does the main character know the wolf already? Can she communicate with animals? Is the wolf sentient? It's pretty unclear

• oh no her twin's not dead. i get it, i'm sorry

WOAH OKAY that was a lot!

Hope this was helpful! That was a lot of material to cover and I didn't go as in depth as I certainly could have! if you have any small sections that you would want me to fixate on, just hmu and let me know. I'm always happy to help!
This is actually an awesome set up and I can see this plot and characters going many different directions!
Keep it up and keep writing!
:)