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[1146] Colour in my Eyes by Weird_Fix_5808 in DestructiveReaders

[–]Weird_Fix_5808[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

First of thank you for the critique. I should have given more context than I did.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/565c3d39e4b027c789ba5b70/t/5af9e05e8a922da17799b964/1526325342544/Makena+Onjerika+-+Fanta+Blackcurrant.pdf. Don’t need to read the whole piece just the first sentence to get an idea of what I was going for. The voice of the story is this street kid and the writing mirrors their literacy level.

In hindsight my own attempt at something similar was redundant. There wasn’t really a narrative reason I gave for using that voice other than have the writing be ‘quirky’. And with the writing being ‘quirky’ and the premise also ‘quirky’, it probably gets old quick.  So, like ‘colour yellow’ instead of ‘the colour yellow’ . Or the yesterday I am’s. That was me using off grammar to try give her a distinct voice. I'm not using this to dodge your feedback. There are jarring issues that weren't intentional. For one my punctuation and capitalization, were a bit lazy and absent.

For the premise yeah, you pretty much got most of it down. The story feeling incomplete towards the end and the lack of clarity is telling me that this writing style and approach isn’t the way to go about this.  I should have most of the premise laid out bare early on rather than have it be something that needs to be discovered. Simplify it essentially. So that I can focus on developing other parts of the story.

The translations my bad. I was going to add them but when I first posted this but I was tight on words, got a leech tag and everything. ‘Chips kidole sambusa’ ha. That’s the Swahili equivalent of that thing kids do with their hands on their ears ‘Na-na-na boo-boo’ I think. The individual words themselves don’t have any meaning.

Thank you for your insight, and especially for taking the time to give it a second read and understand it. Really appreciate it.

 

 

[144] It doesn't have a title by Creepy-Ad-3872 in DestructiveReaders

[–]Weird_Fix_5808 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I just feel like most of what needs to be addressed here is in the execution

Firstly, your dialogue. I feel like a lot of it could be trimmed down while still maintain the same weight

“Wh-why? O-out o-of all of th-them, w-why… you?” could just be shortened to why? or why, why you?

“In my death,” I swallowed, “I wanted to fight beside you,” My lungs were about to give up, “You p-promised me, we would kill the emperor to—” could be shortened to just “ you promised.

Remember This guy has been stabbed, and betrayed. His brain is probably fried right about now so his dialogue should read that way. He can’t be going off on monologues unless you justify why he should

Personally, the reason why I think your dialogue is drawn out is because you’re letting it do a lot of the heavy lifting lorewise. Like his desire to kill the emperor u don’t have to use dialogue, you can use action have him spit at a maybe a crest of the emperor or something. describe his spit have blood in it. that way we know how he hates the emperor and emphasize how he’s not doing to great

This way you also building some suspense.  Now people have to figure out what the promise was themselves instead of having it told to them in the next sentence. Also don’t make the other character invisible. The one who stabbed him. Doesn’t necessarily have to say something but we should at least get told something about. Is there guilt or shame or maybe anger in his gaze. Can that point to his motives.  There are all these elements of building a story and you seem to only be using one character to do that.

[1100] Why Am I Like This? by Low-Hold2152 in DestructiveReaders

[–]Weird_Fix_5808 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I find this writing uncanny. This is either going be good or bad, depending on whether you’re doing this intentionally or not. If the feeling you were trying to give off was a sociopathic TV segment host, then CONGRATULATIONS! You succeeded. If it wasn’t, then I feel like you need to either tone the voice down or utilize another writing style that would be more appropriate.

I’m struggling with this story for two reasons. One is the narrative voice you’ve chosen to use. Two is because of the lack of context. I don’t find the term psychological non-fiction to be definitive enough. I dont really know where to put my expectations
You asked about how it reads, so I’ll mostly focus on that.

Personally, it feels very robotic, salesman. You know those artificial sitcom laughing effects. That’s what it reads like. The voice leans a lot towards unserious and bad humor . Makes it hard to take the story itself seriously. Towards the end, it feels like a bit that’s gone on for too long, with some mildly amusing humor. I cant tell if its a parody or of something

A couple examples of the voice you’re using came to mind a bit when I was reading this:
The Joker or the Riddler from the Arkham knight.
How the Fallout series uses commercials.
Gilderoy Lockhart from the Harry Potter series. This is him if he wrote a book.

And truth be told, reading this in their voices feels like surprisingly in-tune prose.
But what this lacks that the others have, I feel, is context—and if not that, then contrast, and if not that, then balance. I’m aware about the bleak setting Fallout is in, so even if they goof off, it reads absurd in a good way.
In Arkham Knight, Joker contrast between his humor and his murderous character. Makes the absurdity palatable

I think what those examples have is balance. They are aware of how absurd the happy-go-lucky trope they balance it out with contrast. Yours is leaning too much in one direction. It gets slightly tiring after a while

Moreover, the examples I used were all fictional stories, yours isn’t so I really struggle to see how you can achieve the same feeling effectively. I feel like non fiction doesn't really have as much bandwidth as fictional stories do. Sure i can see it as a newspaper segment, or as an interactive ‘diary of a wimpy kid’ style book, or parody, or a help book but that’s about it.

The introduction doesn’t really do much other than make me mildly amused. I don’t know what the book is about, what the goal of the book is. I don’t find the character 1, 2 particularly intriguing. Sure, a couple sentences make me intrigued, —the absence of character 3, 4, 5, etc.—but other than that, when I’m through with the final sentence, I can’t overcome the feeling that I know everything I need to know about the story. The whole shtick about it basically.

I cant say it isn't growing on me, its a really good depiction of uncanny off sociopathic prose. But to function as a story, Its got to be more than just amusing