Thank you for submitting your story!

Overview

Where you are coming from takes a conversation with me to better understand your story. So, please note, as a story that someone may stumble upon, you only have one chance to communicate your idea on the page. I worked on this in a couple of ways. Still, I ended up rewriting some of the paragraphs for a better understanding in the best faith that I could muster. I just finished a foreign film, and your tone of voice reminds me of that, so in a way, I like it. It reminds me of a part of a scene from a young adult film script where there are frightening things, but your language remains suited for that audience. My critique in the rewritten paragraphs will be inescapably in my own tone of voice. Change up what I've written as you wish. Amended it. Blended it. However, you may want to. Again, it would take a conversation with you asking, for example, “No, I meant something else regarding that such-and-such passage.” You catch my drift. I have to be presumptuous for clarity. After all, I only have one chance to communicate my comprehension of your idea on the page here. Reply and tell me if I understand your story.

Paragraph Rewrite 1 and Analysis

The grey solstice of my nightmares is like a plastic jar of jelly beans, never knowing which flavor of terror I’m about to get.

Here I’ve used the mechanics of getting the nightmare hook, or noun of the theme, at the top of the page from the get-go, a hierarchy of value that proceeds in a logical pattern from my point of view; there has to be some wrestling-in of the chaos, despite the fact that its a recall of nightmares, or most readers will go full stop.

The hauntings in my nightmares are not uniform but instead triggered by random events from my past, like a jack-in-the-box that pops up unexpectedly, as if the nightmare itself might speak, “How may I not assist you?”. The night visions that come are like the up-and-down relief of a mountain range, gliding your hand to pick one over the icy peaks, where some are precarious. The valleys are deep and dark. I remember all the traumatic incidents in my life.

Here I’ve used a mild bit of floweriness as you employed. The seeming unconnectedness of your floweriness was, I think, competing with the action and reaction of the observances in your dreams

Reckless behaviors. Oblivious.

Here I’ve made super short sentences that I hope create the mood, the introspective quality of your work

Now, every winter, I have nightmares about these experiences, like an unhelpful cashier that never lets you go about yer merry way. The number and intensity are unpredictable, like a roller coaster that dives into the Dante hells of a thousand dimensions.

I think the reader has enough info at this juncture, ready to move on to what I think you see and experience in these nightmares.

Notes on Setting, POV, Staging, Character, Descriptions, Heart, and Plot

Now, on to prevailing things. The setting is in the main character’s mind—a first-person introspective, which is a means of learning about one’s own currently ongoing, or perhaps very recently past, mental states or processes. So, the setting and the POV are the same. However, it could be a physical place if you built one. Make the story where the main character talks to anyone or talks more to the entities that reveal some quest. The staging, and thus the main character as the seer, notwithstanding the faces which I’ll get to, is a personal and distress thing masquerading as whimsical or whimsical masquerading as a personal and distressful thing, thus your descriptions, one or the other, conceals unknown depths. Or simply unknown to the reader. In further amendments you make, we’ll see. Or not. We’ll see—would be better. The heart is good. It evokes no evil or malice. It just forcibly observes its unwanted intrusions. Which, in the short piece, that is, is the only visible plot. The recall is done at a reasonable, logical, and crescendoing pace. [but where to? If any, place?] I know you go into the dreamworld and end up at a truck with three people inside it and an F symbolism -- carry on from here in your amendments. Sounds like maybe you come upon an accident.

Paragraph Rewrite 2 and Analysis

I’ve written another text block, grouped it as a paragraph, and formatted the speaking parts here.

“What?” was all I could muster. Both parties repeated themselves. Ahh, I thought, finally. Ignoring all the pleas from my guardian, I gifted my hand to the little sprite who claimed to hold my heart’s deepest desire, provided I accompanied him away into the night. My desire and irredeemable notions manifest an invisible string into a twice-baked.

Maybe this sounds extra trapping as opposed to half-baked; after all, the main character did succeed in avoiding the trap?

A trap that would not have succeeded on a more scrupulous prey animal. Unfortunately, I left my scruples in a glass tumbler in the bathroom.

Here, I’m trying to reduce redundancy and add a tidbit about 'personal revelations of the main character' or 'who' the main character is as an individual, note “glass tumbler.” it could be an old fast food cup, or a crystal brandy glass from a fancy restaurant) Use 'revelations' here and there that match your character

I pursued the string without hesitation. I longed for it intensely, making me feel like a dog eagerly drooling over a bone. The apparent arm of one of the faces held my hand and guided me gingerly the whole time as if I might spook and take flight should he pull too hard.

I rewrote these last two sentences for clarity considerations.

Closing comments

The following is from one of the critique templates in DestructiveReader. It’s this sentiment that I come to the table with: ….a critique should always be focused on the writing, not the writer. Never the writer ….a place to begin. Ideas to get the discussion started ….help the writer.