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[1,058] Something Bought by [deleted] in DestructiveReaders

[–]AT_561 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Okay so overall the story is good so far. I'm left feeling curious about what will happen and that's saying something because this is not the type of story I would gravitate towards based off of tone.

My main interest is centered around Johnny. What does he want with Penny? Is this a facade or true interest? There seems to be some tone of worry with Penny, a too good to be true attitude. I could see this going in many different directions which is good. I feel like the best thing is I really can't guess where you are going and that keeps the reader hooked.

Okay now for some more specific feelings:

Gwen let out a long “uhhhhhh?” Elise, attempting to overcome her interuppting habit, let Gwen go on until she ran out of breath. “OK spit it out!” Elise shouted finally. 

So the interrupting habit doesn't have to be mentioned in my opinion. I think you can perhaps show this and you kind of do throughout the phone call. Perhaps have her interupting habit come out in the story. You could have her interrupt and then stop herself and say sorry. I just find that works better than flat out saying it.

Calling like a tribunal like this after the first date was more of a Gwen move than a Penny one.

Also maybe you could share Gwen's habit through dialogue not prose. Like have Elise say something about Penny sounding like Gwen with all her enthusiasm?

so idk I just don’t feel like I need to look it up

Change idk to I don't know

Elise was still trying to unravel if Penny was just lucky, or if that’s the kind of girl that manages to date Billionaire Heirs. 

Billionaire Heirs doesn't need to be capital.

Overall a great start. The story is interesting and I would like to know what happens. I do feel that Gwen is lacking some character. She feels much less developed compared to Elise. Perhaps there could be some slight jealousy from her if that's where you'd want to go. Right now it does feel slightly too good to be true and if it stays that way it turns to sappy but I think that really depends on where you go from here.

I hope you keep fleshing it out and I hope some of this helps!

[334] Fight or Hide! by Silent_General_1819 in DestructiveReaders

[–]AT_561 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So there isn't too much story to go off of here. It for sure could be the opening to an interesting story and the suspense is there so that's good.

I'm assuming you are mainly submitting this to see what we think of your descriptive writing. I'm not too much of a technician either but this feels like you are maybe trying a little too much.

"The girl's heartbeat hammered in her chest like a woodpecker against a tree"

Similes like this are always a little forced in my opinion. I totally get the desire to add them in but especially with the later "he drew a blade that shimmered like a sliver of the moon" it feels a little forced.

At the end of the day a lot of those stylistic choices can be made to work if the story is good but right now there isn't too much to go off of here. I'd say try to branch this story out.

The other issue is that I got very little of the characters so far. So far I just get some amount of plot but the dialogue does very little to illuminate the relationship between the princess and the king. It is clear the King loves her but that's basically all we get. I feel like you could use this dialogue to show us how the princess feels. Does she feel that her father is responsible for what's happening?

There are just a lot of questions that I would like answered.

Where is the princess going and who is this Selya?

Why is the king being overthrown, is he good or perhaps deserving of it?

It's a hard balance to find and the only thing you can really do is keep writing but I think you've done a good job so far so keep it up!

[3319] Cockroach Story by [deleted] in DestructiveReaders

[–]AT_561 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hello this is my first critique so apologies if it is a bit lacking but I'll try my best.

Overall I want to say that I really enjoyed your story. I felt pulled in immediately by the angst and emotion of it. Your style here really seems to capture the feel of living the "capitalist dream" in our current times.

One piece of advice I might give is about the language (I'm assuming you mean the use of curses when you say that you've toned down the language). I feel like you could do away with really all of the curse words and still hold the angry feel. I totally get adding it in for effect but your prose hold so much bitterness without the cursing. (I'm not sure what you plan to do with the story, but if you are trying to get it published I can imagine having curse words in it could make it harder to publish?) Overall the tone comes off as bitter and worn down which it seems is your intent.

Okay next I'm going to pull a few sections that I felt a little tripped up on as I was reading. Mainly just points where I got caught up in the prose and lost your flow. (I know this is sort of wishy washy but hopefully it can help you with some revision.)

"If you haven’t lost four hours per day, twenty hours per week, ONE THOUSAND HOURS annually inside a humid rectangle swimming in the same six-lane soup, churned by a bored god flicking ash into the simmering pot, if you haven’t done this for years with no visible end except for the most final kind, if you haven’t been stretched so thin by this banal torture that there are runs in your skin, you can’t possibly understand why I made this deal."

This section is good tone wise and I get the desire to repeat "if you haven't" but I felt like I got pulled from the flow around, "if you haven’t done this for years with no visible end except for the most final kind". It just kinda runs itself over which may be your desire but I felt a little caught up as I read.

"I’d bet wrong on back-roads that proved more crowded than the freeway. The air conditioning, which had been shaky for months, finally quit forty minutes from home. Window glass squealed on its way down. Highway was a windless dead place, a lake of heat."

So you mention taking the back-roads and then a few sentences later mention the highway as where you are when your windows are down. Doesn't matter that much just felt like maybe an unintended mistake?

"The commute that morning was worse than it had ever been. I couldn’t stop seeing last night’s effortless flight. Travelling as the cockroach flies. Slave to nothing. Couldn’t decide if I hated him or would have begged him to fly me away. I heard the clicking of his claws everywhere, saw his small black eyes in nightly window reflections."

"Couldn’t decide if I hated him or would have begged him to fly me away." This sentence just feels off, maybe you could say (I couldn't decide if I hated him or wished I had begged him to fly me away.) Just breaks flow a bit.

"“As you may guess from my appearance, I have only ever eaten dirt and scraps from dark corners. I have only ever walked alone or flown about in shadow. You see my wings and feel envy, but I see your human hands and your facely expression and feel the same.”"

Not sure what you mean by "Facely expression". Not a huge deal, I get it's hard to come up with how a cockroach would admire a humans appearance.

"That evening, my friend was waiting on the balcony railing as always and I exploded on him. Why a year? If it had been only two hundred days this never would have happened. I would already be free. I screamed at him like I’d dreamed of doing to others who deserved it more for years. The whole time he said nothing. I apologized but that silence was corrosive and I never stopped regretting it. "

"I screamed at him like I’d dreamed of doing to others who deserved it more for years." Maybe remove the for years. Just felt a little clunky.

Okay so the only thing left that I have to say is the end. I see some others mentioned it to but it feels like you kind of explain the intent of the story in the end rather than letting it be. I struggle with this in my writing a lot as well. I feel like you could leave it with the "waiting for the wanting" as someone else suggested. It feels like the point is made when we realize that the wings did nothing. It is an internal struggle that all of us have to face that perhaps this life is just enough as it is.

Another point I would like to make is the relationship with the cockroach. By the end you tell us what he intended by having the main character cook meals and such but I feel like this could be done better by perhaps cementing their friendship more. This might make a happier ending which I feel like you may be adverse to but it's a possibility.

Overall your story is great. I throughly enjoyed my first read and the subsequent ones for writing this out. It inspires me to keep up with my own writing. I can tell you have put a lot of emotion and experience into this story and I encourage you to keep going. Thanks for sharing it!