forum The Darkness Within (Discont., see latest post) [Sharing & Critiques]

Started April 18, 2020 by Deleted user

tune

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Hello, whomever happened to click on this! This is the "The Darkness Within" critique/sharing thread!
This "The Darkness Within" is a story I'm rewriting since the first one was going absolutely nowhere. It's about a young 13-year-old who finds himself in a tough spot after he has a vision of a mysterious lady calling upon him for help. He wakes up with an irremovable necklace, and he sets out to find out where it came from. But the answer is anything but easy to figure out.

For those who are maybe confused, I did have a thread that I started a little over a year ago, and things started to get off-track a little bit. So I've decided to make a fresh thread. (Hopefully, this won't cause problems.) I'm looking for critiquing and reviewing, since I only have one person looking it as of right now, and I could use more feedback on how to make my writing just a little bit better. I appreciate constructive criticism, but don't say my writing just sucks. That's not very helpful, and I know my writing isn't that bad.

Warning! Contains/will contain:
- Blood and gore
- Death/implications of death
- Strong language
If you are not comfy with any of these things, then I would not read this.

*Reminder: This is a fanfic – certain things may be strange or unreasonable out of context. I'll try to clear them up if they become a concern.

Chapter are links listed below – Let me know if you can't read/view them for any reason:

The Darkness Within - Prologue
The Darkness Within - Chapter 1
The Darkness Within - Chapter 2
The Darkness Within - Chapter 3
The Darkness Within - Chapter 4
The Darkness Within - Chapter 5
The Darkness Within - Chapter 6
The Darkness Within - Chapter 7
The Darkness Within - Chapter 8
The Darkness Within - Chapter 9
The Darkness Within - Chapter 10
The Darkness Within - Chapter 11
The Darkness Within - Chapter 12
The Darkness Within - Chapter 13
The Darkness Within - Chapter 14
The Darkness Within - Chapter 15
The Darkness Within - Chapter 16
The Darkness Within - Chapter 17
The Darkness Within - Chapter 18

Here's chapter 12:
The Darkness Within - Chapter 12

Chapter 13:
The Darkness Within - Chapter 13

Try the link again – I changed it and it should be ready to go.

👍

If you're going to provide feedback, please do it -efficiently so I can work on errors in future chapters. Or just tell me if you aren't planning on giving feedback so I know what to expect since that's why things went wrong in my previous thread; please and thank you!
~~
Another chapter – it's short which makes little sense after a long break. But a chapter is a chapter
The Darkness Within - Chapter 14

Okay so I just read the prologue and here's some feedback! (just a reminder that I am in no way a professional writer, the most experience I have is my high school English classes, but none the less I still have some hopefully helpful feedback)

I took a strong walk through a magical land, one of which I thought I had seen before — rosy pink clouds, milky white >skies and minty marbled stone pathways leading to a prominent, whimsical castle-like threshold on the other side of a >calm, heavenly river.

I already know Im gonna have trouble explaining this so just bear with me, I think you could be more specific here? I understand that there's a white sky with pink clouds, pathways, a castle, and a river, and I like having the basics like that, but I think if you described smaller specific things it could help set the scene even more. Also what I'd really want to see is the contrast between the character and the setting. Because the main character seems to be very dark and dangerous while the setting is very pretty and nice. If you could describe how out of place he is in that world, I think it can help to improve the description of the setting and help explain who the character is right at the beginning. I also think this would be good to add because it makes it more interesting if you start by explaining what this world is and how out of place he is because then you'll have the reader interested and they'll be like something seems off? who is this person? what's he gonna do?

Small young women dressed in purple and red pointy hats and garbs shook in fear of my presence.

Would the narrator do anything to them? Would he just ignore them? This is your choice but I feel like it might be good to and that he does something to them like what he did with the guards to establish more of what his power is and how he's not afraid to use it. Or maybe he just establishes his dominance by walking by them or giving them a look idk.
Also something about the "purple and red pointy hats and garbs" doesn't really flow, I think it would work better like "purple garbs and red pointy hats" or something like that.

My grin faded, really fast as I approached them.

This sentence doesn't really flow, maybe try "My grin faded quickly as I approached them."

One of them called me out once he set his eyes on me,

Im not a huge fan of this sentence, I had to read it twice to get it right. I would say "Once he set his eyes on me, he called out, leading the other to do the same." Or something like that idk.

tall, skimpy spears

I wouldn't use skimpy, its used mainly to describe clothes, and it just makes them seem weak.

I glanced up at them,

I don't think it would be a glance, maybe more of a glare.

It wasn’t clearly apparent to me as to why that rugged remark slipped off my lip, yet I hated it as much as the guards did.

I wouldn't describe this remark as rugged, it sounds more like he's making fun of the guards and taunting them. Also why does he hate the remark? When you say he hates it it makes him sound kind of uptight and not someone who would say stuff like that, but the vibe I'm kind of getting from him is that he would constantly say stuff like this and be totally fine throwing out witty rude remarks.

the primmy petty princess

You have an extra space after this. Also primmy isn't a word, primly is though.

With one swift, outward sweep of my hands, both men flew back by the slap of a dark, black mass. The mass generated from my sheer hatred and anger.

Explain more about what this black mass looks like, is it a solid mass? does it move like liquid? does it take shape of certain items? how does it move? does it grab the men? does it push them? does it just slam into them? there's a lot of ways you could describe what this is, otherwise its just confusing. Also there's something I don't like about the second sentence, I wouldn't say it so outright.

I'll do the second half later, I need to finish some homework :)

In response to your feedback betsy;

Most of it is description suggestions and explanation suggestions, so those are simple to fix.
With the part about the dark character standing out from the environment: I can't really say how to dix this because he does belong there, but at the same time he doesn't. It's hard to understand because I forgot to mention earlier that this is a fanfiction and most things out of context won't make much sense. I should've told you earlier, but I was afraid it'd prevent other people from reading it.
But anyways, in the simplest terms, the person in the prologue does theoretically belong in the pinky environment, and I know I don't explain that clearly enough. However, at the same time, he doesn't belong because he's the embodiment of evil of a different character. It's SUPER confusing, I know, and it's hard to explain without giving stuff away in the story…. (I guess I need to find a way to clarify things better, obviously….)
I can try to explain better if you want…. (or if not that's okay…)

In response to your feedback betsy;

Most of it is description suggestions and explanation suggestions, so those are simple to fix.
With the part about the dark character standing out from the environment: I can't really say how to dix this because he does belong there, but at the same time he doesn't. It's hard to understand because I forgot to mention earlier that this is a fanfiction and most things out of context won't make much sense. I should've told you earlier, but I was afraid it'd prevent other people from reading it.
But anyways, in the simplest terms, the person in the prologue does theoretically belong in the pinky environment, and I know I don't explain that clearly enough. However, at the same time, he doesn't belong because he's the embodiment of evil of a different character. It's SUPER confusing, I know, and it's hard to explain without giving stuff away in the story…. (I guess I need to find a way to clarify things better, obviously….)
I can try to explain better if you want…. (or if not that's okay…)

No, I totally understand, it was just a suggestion but if it doesn't work then don't add it. Idk if this changes anything but what I meant by that wasn't saying explicitly "he does not fit in" or something like that, but more like "the darkness surrounding him stood out against the pastel colored surroundings" (idk that was bad but you get the picture) But yeah, I assume I'll understand more later :)
Btw whats this a fanfic of??

Btw whats this a fanfic of??

It's EarthBound (or Mother 2 in Japan), one of my favorite games of all time. I'm honestly proud of being part of the fandom, but it's dwindling to say the least.
The reason I was saying "it's difficult to describe" is that there are so many quirky things in this game that make little to no sense without context, so that might cause some issues. Or not, I don't know.
We'll just have to see.

Btw whats this a fanfic of??

It's EarthBound (or Mother 2 in Japan), one of my favorite games of all time. I'm honestly proud of being part of the fandom, but it's dwindling to say the least.
The reason I was saying "it's difficult to describe" is that there are so many quirky things in this game that make little to no sense without context, so that might cause some issues. Or not, I don't know.
We'll just have to see.

Oh that's cool! I can probably finish the next few chapters today :)

Well, take your time if you can. I don't want anyone to rush.

Update:

Although it has been a long time, I do promise that another chapter will be coming out soon; it's just that I've been preoccupied with some other things.

Chapter 15 is finally here! Not that anyone cares, I'm sure, but nonetheless, I finally have it done!

The Darkness Within - Chapter 15

Sure sounds like there's a lot of work going on…

The Darkness Within - Chapter 16

Chapter 17
The Darkness Within - Chapter 17

I might read through and offer some critiques if I find the time. Maybe this weekend

My overall critique of the prologue would be that you have over-described things.
Particularly at the beginning when you're describing the environment, you repeatedly use this sentence structure: adjective, adjective noun
It's very important in a story to use variation in sentence structure to keep the reader interested, especially in the beginning.
I also found that a lot of the adjectives you used are quite obscure. It's also important to use words that a general audience can understand easily even if that means using adjectives that seem plain and boring but are actually quite effective.
This leads to my next point of advice - give the reader some room to visualise your story. You don't need to lay everything out immediately.
And finally, don't be afraid to take your time when describing actions and scenery. Rather than trying to use one or two adjectives to describe something, you can use a sentence or two which sounds as if it contradicts my previous statement but when you allow for more words when describing something you can imply rather than state what's happening or what's being seen.
Overall, not a bad prologue

I'll continue to critique the other chapters if I have time

Critique for chapter 1
This is better than the prologue in terms of writing and I also found it more interesting overall. The descriptions were milder and I appreciate how in-depth the description of the headache was.

There were a few grammatical issue like putting a comma before 'and' when it wasn't needed like here: "I slid over to the bush, and waited dead silently."
There were also unnecessary elaborations and information like this “He tried his best to degrade his younger brother, even though nothing changed — including his loss.” despite this information already being shown in the previous sentences
The over-use of adjectives is less significant but still there and also the misuse of some words like 'useless' in this sentence “Especially when I’m put at an useless disadvantage….”

A pretty good chapter in general

Thank you for your critiques!
After rereading the prologue after several people commented on it, I've decided that when I have the time, that I'm gonna rewrite it entirely. There are just so many things I tried to pull off that didn't work, so I'll have to give it a major do-over and hopefully it'll be clearer – I'll also implement all the suggestions that people have made, so don't worry!
As far as chapter 1 goes, I'll try to make things flow smoother and fix the errors with the adjectives (because sometimes I don't realize how weird it sounds until I come back to it and I'm like "What was I thinking when I wrote this?"
—–
Also, the thing is, I've been thinking about how to make the story go a bit smoother (because as of right now, I have no idea where the story's going (which is super bad on my part). I don't know what that's gonna look like as far as getting new chapters out, but I'll have to work things out before I advance the story any further.

It's been a good long while.
Not sure if I want to keep doing this tho (I'll keep writing it, yeah, but by the looks of it, maybe I should stop updating this since it looks like no one's necessarily reading it. But I'll give it some thought.)

The Darkness Within - Chapter 18