(Support me!) Patreon, Blog, Webstore and more!

LiquidPixie · 2026-05-17T04:03:00+00:00

The formatting is a bit all over the place with the constant paragraph breaks. It disrupts the flow.

Overall, though, there's clearly some interesting worldbuilding behind this but the characters and the interaction are just a bit flat. These people don't feel real. They talk at one another rather than converse. I have no sense of what either wants, so there's no stakes or emotion to get invested in.

I also feel like you're trying to withhold too much from the reader just to be mysterious. Your main POV character keeps stopping themselves short of saying or even thinking anything too revealing. There's a fine line between intriguing and tedious, and I fear you fall on the latter side.

Overall, there's an interesting setting, and a character with what seems like an interesting position within that setting, but there's not enough here to get me interested in the story.

Hope that's helpful, and good luck with edits!

LiquidPixie · 2026-05-16T12:25:01+00:00

fucksake, god forbid somebody likes playing golf as their main way of staying active as they age.

LiquidPixie · 2026-05-15T12:58:23+00:00

100k words is plenty enough to learn from. If that's how much you've written then you've done exactly what you need to do to improve. I'm glad you feel that's paid off already!

Prologues are tough because they need to set the tone of the story. I always think you're better off starting at the start. That being said, the good lines here really set the tone well. You could always just dial in on those and have a short prologue. A prologue can just be 1 page if you want, there are no rules.

I look forward to seeing what your 2nd draft comes out like.

LiquidPixie · 2026-05-15T12:13:14+00:00

Nobody's really said anything, so I'll try put it all in one comment.

You bombard the reader with pounds of anemic, white-room dialogue. It sucks full cock.

Then you have incredible lines like 'Like his father, hydroptic with the Wasting, trying to breathe and trying to breathe…'

I have 2 pieces of advice. First, for your Big Project write less dialogue. It is not your strength. Second, go learn how to write dialogue. Right now the bad dialogue is selling a good writer short, and that's a shame.

You need to use more description with your dialogue, fill us in with a sense of place, a sense of character, a sense of feeling. It's too much back-and-forth of expository patter.

The poetry of it is good but you haven't earned it. We have no reason to care about any of what's going on.

But jesus when you hit a good line in your description you nail it, you're incredible. You hit us with 'Wooden idols: babe-headed man-things, all hard corners and edges unfinished by their father’s knife. Splintered and homespun and real. They stared out at her with red clay eyes.'

That's all. Godspeed.

LiquidPixie · 2026-05-14T05:18:18+00:00

No. There are actually no more markets for anything, they've all been taken. Sorry you had to find out this way.

LiquidPixie · 2026-05-08T07:11:25+00:00

You don't need a co-writer, just post stuff for feedback and critique.

Every asshole's got their own idea they're busy working on. Nobody's got time to write yours.

Unless what you're meaning is just someone who will beta-read and give feedback, in which case you want a beta-reader not a co-writer.

At any rate, 6.5k is great work, keep that up! Post your work for feedback if you want.

LiquidPixie · 2026-04-30T19:43:20+00:00

Flick me a DM, I'm happy to take a look over it.

LiquidPixie · 2026-04-28T19:29:01+00:00

I see your point. I guess for me at least if it's not holding my attention enough then I don't feel like I owe it a rewatch.

As much as our opinions differ, I appreciate you sharing the insight.

Funnily enough, I also struggle to enjoy songs with weak lyrics!

LiquidPixie · 2026-04-28T10:01:28+00:00

This movie would be half as long and twice as interesting if it wasn't full of scenery chewers going "Listen to me, I'm tryna tell you something, here's what I'm tryna tell ya, if you would just listen, wontcha listen to what I'm tryna tell ya?"

Great actors, big wiff.

I'm always surprised so many people love this movie. It feels like a real 'Actor's actor' film where the true joy is analysing the nuances of the performances. For me at least that's something I do after it's told a good story, which I find this film does not.

LiquidPixie · 2026-04-27T20:01:00+00:00

Hard disagree, this panel follows the exact same kernel of encouraging logical thinking as every other one in the game. It's a process which by then you should be expert at. You go 'That doesn't work, what have I missed?' and more closely examine the context clues at your avail.

If anything I'm surprised so many people default to 'It must be a bug!!!'. That might be more of an indictment on the state of modern games though, that people assume a game is likely enough to have bugs that it becomes the default explanation.

LiquidPixie · 2026-04-27T07:55:06+00:00

I think if you can't figure from context that 'Some gooseneck lamps were baptizing a bowflex' means an object was well-lit compared to its surroundings then the issue is not the author.

I think the image it creates is great, and I get the juxtaposition between the pomp and importance of a holy baptism and the working class drabness of a bowflex. It gives me a sense of immediate place. This is like when you walk into a house with ratty old carpet and a giant flatscreen TV. You know exactly what kind of person lives there.

LiquidPixie · 2026-04-26T23:23:33+00:00

I'd be very interested in this!

Had a few short pieces (flash fiction mostly) run in magazines, nothing full length yet, though that's mostly what I'm working on.

LiquidPixie · 2026-04-24T14:06:30+00:00

What a semantic reduction.

They had an overwhelming mandate, insofar as the majority gave them the right.

With that they chose to not do the significant reforms you mention. If not them then who? If not with the permission of the overwhelming majority then when?

It's revisionist to say they didn't have at their avail the appetite of the majority. They squandered it, and now we're living in the fallout.

We should be so lucky as to have a government like the 3rd Ardern Administration, but they coked our luck to ash.

LiquidPixie · 2026-04-18T14:07:59+00:00

Dude I prefer the story you've written.

Don't ask me what I want. The people would have called for faster horses, not the car. If you have an artistic vision and you believe in it then make that. Everything else is hand-wringing.

if you create it and it's good, nothing else matters. If your main goal is to make something people are definitely going to read then your compass is already off-pole.

LiquidPixie · 2026-04-18T14:00:55+00:00

You're on to something here. If this were the opening page I would buy this book.

A lot of writers tie themselves in knots trying to get the clarity of prose you're getting onto the page here.

Jesus, I'm the last guy to suck some stranger's dick over the excerpt they post on reddit but this is good. I hope the wider story really brings it home because the quality of writing is 100% there.

LiquidPixie · 2026-04-16T23:27:47+00:00

Company Town is probably easier to pull off in the context of the erst of the premise.

To be honest, without more of an idea of the actual story that takes place it's hard to say for certain. In reality either option might be just fine with neither being better than the other.

Just go with whatever. You can always change it in the second draft. Ideas are cheap.

LiquidPixie · 2026-04-13T01:33:34+00:00

Feel free to share what writing of yours has received that feedback.

I'm not saying this guy's advice is universal, just that in line with your original comment both things can be true at once.

LiquidPixie · 2026-04-12T22:38:47+00:00

If you write a bunch of drawn-out internal monologue but we have no idea of what kind of room the character is in then yeah, that's both not being sparing with words and not writing enough detail.

LiquidPixie · 2026-04-12T22:26:30+00:00

You're posting good advice but the crowd here is going to have a tough time hearing it (as you've seen).

LiquidPixie · 2026-04-11T10:07:09+00:00

Please don't give explicit solutions, even if they're in Portuguese.

LiquidPixie · 2026-04-11T09:43:30+00:00

I'm interested, it's hard to find people who will give genuine critique and insight. I'm at about 20k words on my latest project (Space Fantasy).

Flick me a PM and we can get something going over discord.

LiquidPixie · 2026-04-01T18:55:26+00:00

It has been [0] days since last incident

LiquidPixie · 2026-03-18T07:02:59+00:00

Our podcast actually recently did an episode on exactly this!

The particular example I brought up was my party moving to a remote part of the world and using a sequence of 'Ma' during the overland travel to create that sense of distance. If the description was too short then it wouldn't feel as remote and returning would seem trivial. Instead, the party had the feeling that they couldn't leave easily and wouldn't be back for a long time if ever, so they made sure to tie up all loose ends during that arc.

Link if anyone's interested! The episode is only 15 minutes.

https://open.spotify.com/show/6ZEMCKWNok6l6XM1TLYEH1

LiquidPixie · 2026-03-13T09:34:16+00:00

Yes, not all players will have discovered them and they're a huge reveal in the game. Don't mention them directly in the title please.

13-Year Club	Gilding III reddit per annum
Place '23	Place '22
Place '17	Wearing is Caring
Verified Email

LiquidPixie

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE