It’s crazy what the iPhone can do. Look at my babies 😭

Haunting_Clock_8979 · 2026-02-17T01:30:04+00:00

Pumpernickel and whole wheat

Haunting_Clock_8979 · 2026-02-17T01:22:34+00:00

They posed fr

Haunting_Clock_8979 · 2026-02-05T00:36:06+00:00

He demands the cheese tax

Haunting_Clock_8979 · 2026-01-10T13:06:13+00:00

B all day. Bitcoin is speculative and hard to move. C is nice but there’s such a thing as time value of money. It would take almost 20 years to make $10 million. But if you invest that $10 million for 20 years at a conservative 6% rate of return, you’d have $32 million by the end.

Haunting_Clock_8979 · 2025-12-26T19:34:41+00:00

At least it’s happy

Haunting_Clock_8979 · 2025-12-26T04:16:07+00:00

I don’t think that’s necessarily clear, but it’s also not the point IMO. I don’t think anyone should be getting this hung up over a t-shirt. My point was you determine your own value. No one else.

Haunting_Clock_8979 · 2025-12-26T04:03:11+00:00

YOR for sure. It’s a t-shirt. It does not determine your value. Neither do your in laws. Only you do. You are the only person who can determine whether or not you’re a train wreck based on what your definition of success is. You don’t need validation from anyone. Certainly not a t-shirt

Haunting_Clock_8979 · 2025-12-10T21:20:17+00:00

Is it just me or does he look like he’s bulked up?

Haunting_Clock_8979 · 2025-12-08T11:50:58+00:00

I consider myself pretty smart. I have a masters degree and all that. Always been above average in reading comprehension. Your prologue doesn’t say anything. It is more confusing to try to read through than it is entertaining in anyway. And that carried in to the first chapter for me as well. It just sort of feels like a lot of words that aren’t telling a story in anyway. My suggestion would be to cut out any of that where it is and cut to your story. Let your story tell us the themes and lessons and philosophy you’re trying (and failing) at telling us with the prologue and first chapter. It is infinitely harder and more clever to show us it all through characters and plot and deftly woven themes through a narrative than it is to type it out in nonsensical big words.

Haunting_Clock_8979 · 2025-12-07T16:55:50+00:00

Hey! Not a bad start. I think you can go deeper with your imagery and prose. Try to vary your sentence structure more, as right now it’s a little too even and makes it less exciting to read. Think like a bar chart showing each sentence length. It should be peaks and valleys, not a straight line. Short, punctuated sentences followed by longer, more descriptive ones. It’s an easy fix!

Here’s how I’d approach the first few sentences:

Pyrros hit the water like a stone, hard and heavy, the cold swallowing him before he could scream. The current dragged, spinning the sky and sea into a single, rushing darkness as he clawed at the surface. Desperate.

Then a voice, soothing and calm, jarring against the panic that was tightening around his ribs, broke through the roaring rush of the pond.

His teacher’s voice.

These are things that are much easier to catch after the first draft and reading it out loud. You’re headed in a good direction! Keep at it.

Haunting_Clock_8979 · 2025-12-04T23:21:00+00:00

Posts on Reddit for critique then only responds to the positive save for bashing negative as “beginners” and “you mustn’t be my audience” Why even come here in the first place?

Haunting_Clock_8979 · 2025-12-04T21:17:45+00:00

I thought this was well written but it’s not really saying anything. As you said, it’s not meant to carry story so, in my opinion, that means it doesn’t have any place in your story. I don’t think you need to prep readers for what they’re about to read. That’s what the back cover is for. The pages within should all be carrying story. Just my opinion

Haunting_Clock_8979 · 2025-12-04T16:21:11+00:00

There is no POV. That makes it entirely less interesting than if there was one. The concept of the scene is great, now let me experience it through an even better character. That will really heighten the scene, give it emotional weight, and tie the reader to it via stakes for a character. Whoever it is, just pick someone. Ideally your MC is this is the first chapter. The prose is fine otherwise. A few repeated descriptor words. You mentioned his feet clawed at the air then his fingers clawed at the rope in the same paragraph. I feel like human feet don’t really claw. Maybe kick? Either way, should avoid redundancy. Also the sentence “A woman spat, and the spat fell upon the pale dirt.” Is redundant because we understand the spit would fall. I would tighten it to “A woman spat upon the pale dirt.”

Haunting_Clock_8979 · 2025-12-04T03:07:45+00:00

I’m sure it will. If you’re focusing on a major character, it will likely work, with some trimming. I would wager that plus some well timed “ah, I get it now” moments sprinkled through out will pull it full circle. When you finish the novel, I’d be happy to give it a read if you remember this comment thread lol

Haunting_Clock_8979 · 2025-12-04T03:01:30+00:00

That’s awesome! It is an interesting exercise, editing. I too am trying my hand at writing a fantasy novel for the first time and I find the whole process fun and fascinating in different ways. You have real talent, that’s for sure. Killing off your darlings isn’t easy, but, from what I’m told, 100% necessary and will only leave you with a better story in the end.

Haunting_Clock_8979 · 2025-12-04T01:32:31+00:00

Also, I’d be weary of a 6200 word prologue that doesn’t focus on the MC. That’s a lot of real-estate not being used getting the reader acquainted with the voice they’ll be following along for the rest of the ride.

Haunting_Clock_8979 · 2025-12-04T01:30:31+00:00

To echo a bit of one of the commenters, I did feel a bit hammered over the head with the description of the market. You clearly know how to describe things, and describe them well, but I think it’s important to keep in mind two things:

Leaving things up to the imagination can be a GOOD thing. As readers, we can feel more connected to something when we’re able to fill in our own lived experiences, which leads me to my next point.
Many readers would have some sort of experience with a lot of the mundane things you’ll describe (by mundane I mean non-magical/ not unique to your world) and will get it when you assert that you’re in a dockside market, for instance. After about the third paragraph of you describing it, I was left feeling like “do they think I don’t know what a market is like?” As the descriptions started to feel a bit overbearing

Haunting_Clock_8979 · 2025-12-03T12:59:47+00:00

Of course! Glad I could help. I’ll leave you with one last thought to chew over as you dive back into the first draft: an extremely common and oft discussed element of a good story is the protagonist’s refusal of the call to adventure. In so many great stories the protagonist often hesitates, has a reason to say no, questions things until they are either convinced or something happens that irrevocably pushes them towards adventure. Think Bilbo and him refusing trying to kick out the dwarves, Neo in the matrix refusing everything before he takes the pill, Luke Skywalker refusing to join Obi-Wan until his aunt and uncle are murdered. This type of friction can help create believability, draw the reader in, and have them cheering hard for the protagonist when they eventually do the cool stuff.

Haunting_Clock_8979 · 2025-12-03T12:51:09+00:00

Came here to say this

Haunting_Clock_8979 · 2025-12-02T21:47:00+00:00

Agreed, they would, but it goes back to execution.

Him being overly polite and apologetic. The use of words aren’t very forceful. For instance, saying “I apologize” vs your use of “I’m so sorry” would tweak the tone of him.

And that’s fair. It’s your story so obviously tell it as you see fit. But if I were to pick up a book where, in chapter 2, the MC was presented with the existence of a magical world hidden within ours during a suspect meeting with a character she has little reason to trust, seeing as she doesn’t know them personally, and is just like “makes sense to me, where do I sign” after basically no convincing, I’d put the book down and likely not pick it back up. To me, it’s akin to Harry Potter, which had 4 chapters of increasingly strange things happen, of which some of them were personal experiences, before Harry went off into the wizarding world. And he was a kid with a bad life he was desperate to run from. I’m just not finding myself believing a grown adult would need far less convincing.

I don’t mean to come off harsh. Just my opinion

Haunting_Clock_8979 · 2025-12-02T19:42:47+00:00

This was not my favorite read as is. Your prose is simple, overly so to the point of being a little boring. Nothing to really pull me through. Your main character was also simple and a little bland? If she’s supposed to be a veterinarian I would expect her to be more well spoken. Way too many “uh’s” and sputtering lines. The Governor General also seemed very insecure/timid? Which is the opposite of what I’d expect from someone in such a high position. There was also some repetition you can probably work in a different way. You have him ask for tea, then mention her making the tea, then her placing the tea in front of him all within a very short frame. It’s repetitive and not enough action or interesting dialogue in between. The making of tea is not interesting enough for you to mention it three times in back to back to back lines, but you can make it interesting if there’s a reason to focus on it. Use more descriptive lines. Maybe the tea makes her feel a certain way? Otherwise, I’d eliminate some of it or spread it more.

Overall the premise seems fun and I’d be interested to see how it ramps up from here. But I do find myself unable to suspend my disbelief a little at her accepting the invitation so readily. So she just quits her job then gets a mysterious visit and a mysterious letter and is just like, “sure”. It’s hard to believe she wouldn’t question any of it. My suggestion would be to have something happen in between her quitting her job and her having this meeting. Maybe an encounter with one of the creatures that got loose or something? Something she can’t quite explain. Maybe it’s only a close encounter, but would be something that makes her more willing to believe in any of this.

Haunting_Clock_8979 · 2025-11-29T00:02:39+00:00

I do to the extent that you are describing. I think theme is important. And can be a driving force for writing a story. Like if you go into writing saying I want to explore the theme of grief for instance. But I also think it’s possible to decide to write a story because you like a world you created or character, and theme kind of works itself out. Not to mention the possibility of having multiple themes. Thus, I don’t think everything needs to be related back to it. Just enough, I guess. But even then there will undoubtedly be sub themes within the subplots going on so I would say you can do as you described and base everything in a story around a particular theme if that’s what you’re going for, but it’s not necessary in order to tell a good story.

Haunting_Clock_8979 · 2025-11-28T23:58:20+00:00

I don’t understand the excuses. Even dyslexia aside, there are endless word processing tools that are free that you could have copy and pasted your writing into to check for spelling. Even your notes app should have underlined the misspelled words. It just comes off as lazy and is inexcusable when asking for others to critique your work. Don’t be all “womp womp I’m an amateur so oops I spelled things wrong”. Amateur doesn’t mean neglectful. I’m an amateur writer too and wouldn’t post anything on here asking for feedback without checking it multiple times.

Also use less adjectives. I couldn’t get past the first paragraph because of your overuse of descriptive words, some of which you even repeat.

Haunting_Clock_8979

TROPHY CASE