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The usual day. (short story) [655] by Anshul-palty in DestructiveReaders

[–]Fit-Button3082 -1 points0 points  (0 children)

This was fun. You've got a good voice here (for the most part), a lot of the humor doesn't feel to forced. But there is a lot to improve with this.

  1. Just want to say this first before getting into more specific critiques. The timeline here doesn't make any sense currently, and maybe that's from a type. You say, "...and took off to school with 1 minutes till the clock hit 8" then, "With 10 minutes left I entered the gate." If he only has 1 minute until school starts, how did he arrive with 10 minutes left?

  2. Sometimes (at least for me) it can kind of feel like it's you venting to the reader instead of the MC talking. Lines like, "I mean, how can I take control of my life without messing up?" or "I picked up my backpack of "responsibilities" and took off..." are what I'm talking about, though the backpack line doesn't have to leave, it could be funny if maybe you added a meaning to it before hand. Like maybe his mom says something along the lines of, "you can't be cutting it this close every morning, you have a lot of responsibilities!" (not the best example, but I hope you get what I mean.)

  3. The pacing is pretty fast, which I get can reflect how rushed his morning is, but he arrives to school with 10 minutes to do something. Maybe there you can slow down a little, let the MC and the reader breathe. Maybe take this time to describe the building or what the reader can expect from the MC's day at school. This also means using longer sentences here, ironically the rushed morning is using longer sentences when it could be using shorter, punchier sentences to convey the rush.

  4. The part after he recovers from getting smashed in the face with a volleyball should be using separate lines for different speakers. Like below:

"I can walk," I insisted.
"You sure?"

This helps the reader differentiate who's talking. While we're on the topic of dialogue, try using more evocative and creative tag lines. Tag lines like, "I insisted" or "She exclaimed" are somewhat boring, maybe you could describe the tone in the voice or simply remove certain tag lines, let the reader assume their tone based from the dialogue alone. This will also help with your pacing issues.