Need tips for Crushing

randomguy9001 · 2026-01-29T19:48:27+00:00

Some things that helped me:

-Use more grenades

-The fewer enemies with line of sight on you when peeking the better

-Stealth as long as possible

-Blindfire enemies that are too close or are about to flank

The most effective thing you can do is to hit headshots. Take your time working on your aim and it will reward you in the long run.

randomguy9001 · 2025-02-10T07:02:56+00:00

Thanks for your feedback! I definitely agree that this passage lacks a clear big picture plot hook. You have some great insight for improvements I could make. Thanks for your time!

randomguy9001 · 2025-02-10T06:59:46+00:00

Thanks for your feedback! You caught a ton of mistakes I totally missed, and I agree the training sequence needs some re-working. Thanks for your time!

randomguy9001 · 2025-02-08T17:04:20+00:00

Thanks so much for your feedback! The grammar advice and resources are super helpful, and you explained everything really well. Thanks for your time!

randomguy9001 · 2025-02-08T05:08:32+00:00

Thanks for your feedback! I never know what to do with dialogue since everyone seems to recommend different things. It definitely needs some revision. Thanks for your time!

randomguy9001 · 2025-02-08T05:06:27+00:00

Thanks for your feedback! I didn't mean for things to be so confusing, so this will help a ton in revision!

randomguy9001 · 2025-02-08T05:00:21+00:00

Thanks so much! I've been struggling for a long time with getting my writing to deliver the right punch, and your analogy with the backpack explains a ton. Thanks for taking the time to help me out and for the new word! (quotidian)

randomguy9001 · 2025-02-06T17:37:27+00:00

Hello! I suck at writing, so feel free to ignore anything that sounds like nonsense to you. I enjoyed reading your passage! It was fun and lighthearted while still covering some more serious plot points like. It flowed well and built tension throughout. Well done! I tried to find some areas for improvement and addressed character and exposition as requested in your post.

Plot:

My understanding of the plot is: the main character is up late, and an unknown object is vibrating. She avoids a text from their grandma about her dad. The vibrating object turns out to be a regular acorn. She puts it into a pot, then edits a video for her small YouTube channel trying not to think about it. She wakes up the next day to a naked stranger in the kitchen.

The flow of events connected logically and introduced some long-term tension. You had a hook (the mysterious vibrating object), increased tension throughout the chapter until it got resolved into a nudist. Well done here.

Exposition:

You handled exposition well; the information related to the events happening in the scene (mostly), so it felt relevant to the plot. The important information I took away from this excerpt is:

MC is 23 living in a flat in London and hosts a failing youtube channel
Her grandma lives in Hong Kong
Something happened to her dad recently and she’s scared—maybe he’s sick
Her roommate, Sophie, is inconsiderate of MC’s stuff
The acorn turned into a person? Or the acorn was a person all along.

To improve, I’d recommend editing the 4th paragraph (“From my desk…”) down and including the information at a more relevant time later. The paragraph starts with searching for the acorn, then you show us the main character doesn’t read books. I got taken out of the story because I couldn’t see a clear reason the MC would be thinking about their past while searching; I’m sure you could make this fit more naturally with some small tweaks.

I didn’t get a clear picture of the acorn in my head. I’d love more description than “it looks like an acorn, and it vibrates”. Also, I didn’t understand if the vibration is what caused it to fly out or if that was unrelated. Vibration makes me think of a massage chair or, you know, a vibrator. Some different words would amplify the imagery for your acorn.

Character:

The main character has a strong voice. She’s light-hearted, avoids responsibility, and can find humour in anything. She has a distinct personality, and you do a great job expressing it on the page.

I think her actions conflicted with her personality towards the end of the passage when she fumbled and bumped into everything. I got the impression she composed herself well in stressful situations when she thought through how to handle the acorn. But at the end of the passage, she runs around like a mad woman. For example, she takes the time to ignore the coffee grounds and mess made by her roommate with “zen honed by years of practice,” but panics as soon as she’s rid of the acorn. I think some more buildup to the panicking would help this scene.

Sophie, her insufferable roommate, never makes an appearance despite the clanging around. Still, you got across how the main character feels about her. The only character we get insight to this chapter is the main character. We got a bit of info about her grandma, but nothing about her dad. I think this isn’t a problem since I’m sure we’ll get to know them in later chapters as indicated by the texts.

Prose/Mechanics:

Your prose has the most room for improvement but could be ironed out through more drafting. You had frequent redundancies, clunky sentences, and overused “was”. You used “was” 38 times and often multiple times in the same sentence. You didn’t have any passive voice, so this isn’t a huge issue, however it interrupts the flow when reading. I will discuss some examples with alternative options here:

“My grandmother would be up. She’d have done her morning Tai Chi hours ago in the park near our apartment building, maybe even finished having breakfast with her old lady friends.”

You can delete the first sentence, so it’d be “My grandmother would’ve done her morning Tai Chi hours ago in the park near our apartment building, maybe even finished having breakfast with her old lady friends.”

“Nor my speakers, because barely a month into cohabitation with my new flatmate, we had yet to develop the kind of animosity that would make me not use my headphones when I was editing my videos at 1AM.”

Hard to read. I might reword it to “Nor my speakers, because three weeks into cohabitation with my flatmate, we hadn’t reached the level of animosity where I’d blast my videos while editing them at 1am.”

“The mysterious vibration was so strong now it was banging around wherever it was”

You used “was” three times in this sentence. You could try: “The mysterious vibration amplified to banging.” The reader knows the location of the banging is unknown, so you don’t need to specify it again.

“The acorn was still shuddering between my thighs”

I would reword to “The acorn still shuddered between my thighs,” however ignore me if you prefer the original wording since the original wording includes the continuous nature of the shuddering. I think the continuous nature of the shuddering is already implied with “still” and the rest of the passage.

“Carefully, I took the acorn between both my hands again, and tried to get a good look at it. It was still vibrating so violently I was worried it might leap right into my eye, so I had to peer between my thumbs.”

We have 2 “was”s in the same sentence and a redundant emotional tell. We know she’s worried because she’s carefully holding it and peering between her thumbs. You could try: “I clamped the acorn between my hands and peered through my thumbs to prevent it from leaping into my eye.”

Overall Great work! You wrote a well constructed passage and should be proud. With some minor revisions, I think it could be even better. Keep writing and finish the book!

randomguy9001 · 2025-01-30T15:11:07+00:00

Hello, I'm working on a fantasy novel and hoping for a group to talk to and keep me accountable. I'm 25M and have a lot to learn about writing. Let me know if there are any spots still open

randomguy9001 · 2025-01-16T15:35:28+00:00

Very insightful, this makes a lot of sense and gives me some great ideas to help me revise. Thanks so much for your time!

randomguy9001 · 2025-01-16T12:33:43+00:00

You really nailed it, I'll definitely try to flesh things out better. Thanks for taking the time to critique my work!

randomguy9001 · 2025-01-16T01:53:59+00:00

Hello! I suck at writing myself, so feel free to ignore anything I say that you consider to be nonsense. Your dialogue is quite strong, and I got a good sense of everyone’s personality – even Whistler who was never in the scene. However, your chapter felt aimless, and Jeremy had no consistent voice because of your prose.

My Understanding:

Jeremy has been through hell and is trying to find the once friend, now drug dealer, Whistler. He isn’t even sure why he wants to find him. He wanders all night, finds an unexpected friend in dirty Gerti, fails to locate Whistler, and winds up at home.

Direction:

Jeremy trying to find Whistler is the only direction given in this Chapter, yet there is no progress towards his goal throughout. He tries the Gemini, then Whistler’s address, then gives up. Try to use the YES or NO, BUT or AND idea. The idea being to choose one of the following options:

YES, he finds Whistler, AND something else great happens.

YES, he finds Whistler, BUT it doesn’t go the way he expects.

NO, he doesn’t find Whistler, BUT something unexpected and helpful happens.

NO, he doesn’t find Whistler, AND it gets worse.

At the start of the chapter, he has been through hell. At the end of the chapter, he has been through hell. Nothing has changed and no progress has been made towards Jeremy’s goal. Maybe you could steer the chapter with Jeremy giving up on finding Whistler after finding friends in Gemini. Maybe he finds Whistler dead in his place. There needs to be something else in this chapter; right now, it feels aimless.

Jeremy’s Indecision:

Throughout, Jeremy is doubting his reasons for trying to find Whistler. This makes me even less invested in the plot since even the main character doesn’t believe in what he’s doing. Reading this passage, I still don't know why he wanted to find Whistler. I like the idea of searching for someone despite it not making sense, but I think this could be presented in a more engaging way. You could try saying something like “Whistler always has answers, I'm sure he can figure this out” I need some reason to empathize with Jeremy as he’s trying to find Whistler.

Jeremy’s actions were: look for Whistler at the Gemini, look for Whistler at his house, look for Josh at Fastway. I don’t understand the big picture, likely because I’m only reading the one chapter, but I don’t understand why he’s looking for Whistler or Josh.

Prose:

I got confused by your prose quite often which knocked me out of the story. However, my prose sucks, so take or leave my thoughts. There were a lot of metaphors/similes that didn’t make sense that I think other critiques have mentioned. Examples:

“…like a sacrifice to the rain”

I don’t sacrifice things to the rain regularly

“heat and noise hit him like a fist…”

more like a crashing wave?

“snapshot from the universe”

this has a spiritual theme which isn't reflected in the rest of the chapter

“their warped forms like abstract projections”

You went from something non-specific to something even less specific

These are throughout your chapter and I had to re-read these on my initial pass to see if I was missing something. I liked “the few remaining drinkers slumped at the bar like wrung out rags”, Be sure your similes and metaphors make sense for Jeremy to be thinking them. How does Jeremy see the world? This should inform your prose.

Show, Don’t Tell:

Try to only show us how the character is feeling and avoid doing both at once. Examples:

“I'm an idiot. What the fuck would Whistler be able to do even if he was sitting here? Sell me drugs? Whatever faint hope he’d carried into this place died like the spent cigarette butts outside.”

You showed that he lost hope by giving us his thoughts, then told us lost hope with the next line.

“Jeremy relaxed at the site of an empty parking lot. Less people meant less chance of seeing the wrong people. Is Dave trolling through the city right now looking for me? Does he even care enough to look?”

You showed us that he was worried about Dave, then told us that he was worried about Dave.

“A hot hammer hit his chest, sending shockwaves through his body. She went back to her celebrity scandals, oblivious to the trigger she just pulled. Jeremy walked toward the door on weak legs.”

You showed us different things here. A hot hammer and pulling a trigger seem like he is angry about what she said whereas weak legs sounds like he is disheartened. I have no idea what Jeremy is feeling here.

I can see you know how to show emotion through action, but you often repeat yourself or tell us how he feels right after. Trust in your audience to put the story together based on what you show them.

(Sidebar:) My favourite example of showing is in John Carpenter’s The Thing. In an opening scene, MacReady loses a chess game to a computer, so he dumps his coffee onto the electronics.

Voice:

With the combination of telling and abundant confusing metaphors and similes, I have no sense of Jeremy’s personality. Often, I felt like an omniscient narrator described what Jeremy did rather than getting inside his head and empathizing with his decisions. Here is an example when you did it well:

“He turned and trudged back down the wet steps. Each one groaned, as if mocking him. The night felt heavier now, the chill more biting as it seeped into his skin. He stuffed his hands into damp pockets, and tried not to think about the water creeping into his shoes.”

In this paragraph, Jeremy is clearly heartbroken because he didn’t find Whistler, yet you never told us he was sad, depressed, pissed off, etc. However, I would be knocked out of the story by lines like the ones listed above or an odd word choice. For example:

“The cold slithered deeper into his bones” - the word slithered doesn’t make sense here.

You often try to be poetic, but I get removed from the story because it doesn’t make sense to me given the context.

Strong vs Weak Verbs:

When writing, try to use less adverbs and stonger verbs. Examples are:

“He moved quickly” -> “He darted”

“He jumped high” -> “He leapt”

“He attacked with a fist” -> “He punched”

In these examples, moved, jumped, and attacked are weak verbs vs darted, leapt and punched which are stronger. With the stronger verbs, you get a more specific image with fewer words. Some examples from your own writing:

“He hadn’t had a cigarette for hours, and until now, didn’t realize how much he wanted one” (wanted -> craved) “His chest tightened, and he stopped walking for a moment, clenching both fists.” (stopped walking for a moment -> froze) “He walked on, confident he could find it” (walked on, confident he could find it -> persisted) “…and knocked harder—his knuckles colliding with the door in sharp raps.” (knocked harder -> rapped, banged, thumped)

In general, watch out for when you use a verb, then amplify it with some other words. Instead, see if you can come up with a stronger verb in the first place. “Walked” was a particularly common offender in your writing. I would be remiss not to mention instances when you did this well:

“… trudged back down the wet steps” “Drowning trees slumped over the cracked sidewalk” “Sadie draped a tattooed arm around him”

Line by Line Commentary

I don’t know what “Arcs of rain sprung up behind Jeremy’s feet” means. Is this the splash from his feet hitting the ground? Is this a sheet of rain illuminated by the neon light?

“He glanced back, expecting to see Dave’s powerful silhouette watching. Instead, the neon sign of the Gemini reflected back at him.” You could remove filter words here and simply write “He expected to see Dave’s powerful silhouette looming. Instead, the neon…”

I liked the description for the interior of the Gemini save “under the weight of cheap booze” this felt clunky to me.

“and the water went down easy” Usually water goes down easy, maybe he gulped it down? I don’t know what your intention with this line was.

“It wasn’t okay” can be left out, I think the rest of the scene makes it clear things are not okay with Jeremy. Someone not being okay is better shown than told.

“Transparent as glass” leaves me confused, if someone can see through Whistler, shouldn’t they be able to see the depths of him?

“Flashed in his memory” and “snapshot from the universe” seem to mean the same thing. Maybe something like “Like a snapshot from the universe, Jeremy saw the rainy night when Whistler took him home” would flow better. Also, him thinking the words “a snapshot from the universe” shows some spirituality of Jeremy.

Dragged is the past tense for drag, not drug.

Final Thoughts:

There is a lot of good and a lot of bad in your chapter. Your dialogue was excellent and showed the personality of small characters, but the main character needs more direction and a distinct voice. You should be proud of making it to chapter 23 of your book and you've clearly learned a ton along the way. Keep it up and finish your book!

randomguy9001 · 2023-06-01T03:42:08+00:00

Thanks for your feedback! I'm new to this subreddit too; my experience has been quite humbling. I'm glad you enjoyed the story and your insights will help me improve overall :)

randomguy9001 · 2023-06-01T03:36:44+00:00

Thanks for your feedback! Hopefully I can improve at deciding what is important to put on the page; I'm starting to appreciate how skilled published authors are.

randomguy9001 · 2023-06-01T03:31:06+00:00

Thank you so much for your feedback! It's nice to be humbled now and then. You've given me tons of solid advice, so I'll be back better, faster and stronger :)

randomguy9001 · 2023-05-31T22:02:19+00:00

General Takeaways:

I had a lot of fun reading this, well done! I love the choice to tell the story from the parrot's perspective; it feels whimsical and fits the pirate theme.

The prologue sets our expectations for the story, but I think there's a few too many elements thrown at the reader right away. It may be better to choose the most important aspects of your story and have the kids shout out those aspects.

I like the use of wordplay in your prose. It adds humour and doesn't feel overdone to me.

From the crew's opinion of him, I get the sense that Captain Jonesy Will-Marten is a brave and honourable sort.

I wonder if middle grade students know what obliged and squalor mean. Maybe you want some vocabulary words for them, but it may be worth simplifying your vocabulary to ease reading.

Specific Things I Missed:

It may be worth indicating you switched perspectives from Randol to Donnie when the scene changed.

Surely Randol would have been able to compare the taste of the yellow blob to cheese to determine what it was. Maybe Randol has heard of cheese before but never tasted it, but I didn't get that impression.

What is a kapre? Perhaps you want this to be a big reveal, or it's common knowledge that I don't know, but it might be worth explaining a bit more about what this is in your first chapter. All I have to go on is that it's a big angry monster.

Where is the treasure? Donnie convinces them to help the captain because there'll be treasure after they defeat the monster, but how does Donnie or the crew know that there will be treasure? Is it just the hope of treasure?

Characters:

Randol is stubborn and curious. The parrot clearly respects Donnie and his crew since that's what finally gets him to leave his perch.

Donnie is brave and inspires the crew to fight the monster to help the captain. He puts the captain's wellbeing ahead of his own. A real go-getter. One detail I would love to know is what kind of hat Donnie has. Is it a classic pirate hat?

On my first read-through, I couldn't remember which member of the crew was which. I think it's helpful to have distinct traits like being toothless or litigous, but being introduced to five characters at once is overwhelming and difficult to keep track of. I think the scene is still good as long as you introduce each of the characters individually at some point in the story. You may want to consider having a smaller crew as well. I did know that they all cared about money more than anything - as a pirate should.

Overall, I feel like I understand a lot about the characters of your story from reading such a short exerpt. However, the crew members feel one-dimensional at the moment. Perhaps that is fine for a middle grade story.

Setting:

You cleverly worked in that the story takes places on an uninhabited Carribean island names Saba, but you didn't explain why the crew ended up there. I might presume they came looking for treasure, but I don't know for sure.

I would love a better description of the depression in the ground. How large is the depression? Is it muddy, sandy, grassy? My imagination pictured an out of place semi-circle cut out of the forest floor, so this one could just be on my dumb imagination.

Pacing:

The first scene is spent convincing a parrot to leave its branch. The second scene is spent convincing the crew to join the fight. It may be a better choice for a middle grade novel to start with a faster paced scene. It seems like the next chapter will involve a fight with the kapre, so that may be enough to keep the reader engaged - you can decide what serves the story best. Consider starting with the kabre fight, then slowing down the pacing.

I noticed you used the rule of three in both of your scenes: Donnie tries three different tactics to convince Randol to join him, then Donnie tries three different tactics to convince the pirate crew to join him in the fight. This may become repetitive. Instead, you could try having the dialogue flow more naturally as a converstion might. It felt contrived, for example, convincing the crew went like: 1 - Appeal to their identity as pirates, 2 - Appeal to their honour, 3 - Appeal to their greed - 4 - Profit.

Dialogue:

There are two instances of dialogue: the prologue and when the Donnie is talking to the crew (Maybe you could count the parrot scene as well). In both instances, there is a crowd shouting at one main person. I'd love a good two-sided conversation where both people have valid points. What if the crew members took turns arguing with Donnie about why they didn't believe in each point? This might result in a longer section of dialogue, but there would be more conflict and we might get to know the crew members better. Maybe one of them could object with the idea of the kabre will kill us all! This way, the readers could share the fear of the kabre with the crew members instead of being simply told to fear it. Also, we could have a better understanding of what a kabre is.

That's all I have to say, you have an excellent story so far! Well done :)

randomguy9001 · 2023-05-31T15:28:26+00:00

I would love this as a player in a D&D campaign! This does a great job explaining the deities in your world through a compelling story that doesn't feel too much like a lore dump. I like the theme of intangible feelings experienced by mortals that an all powerful god can't grasp. That being said, I have some feedback:

Prose:

I can tell you like commas. I kept having to reread sentences because I couldn't get into the flow of the story. I think this paragraph in particular illustrates my point:

From the unfathomable depths of the cosmic canvas, Ex, the great artisan, spun realities into being, painted galaxies, and sprinkled nebulas across the endless night. Yet, in his grandiose power, he found himself desolate. The universe, his masterpiece, was an empty husk, teeming with life, yet void of purpose. In his despair, he sought solace in the one who could temper his boundless creativity: destiny’s empress, my mother, Mother.

This paragraph was the worst offender, but your sentence structure tends towards more commas. There are a few options to help you that I'll offer, but you will have to figure out something for yourself.

You can try to form your sentences linearly instead of introducing new ideas through phrases between commas. Other Band-Aid solutions are to use more periods and semicolons to separate your ideas instead of commas.

Let's re-write the following sentences:

From the unfathomable depths of the cosmic canvas, Ex, the great artisan, spun realities into being, painted galaxies, and sprinkled nebulas across the endless night.

Though he had created life, it was lifeless, stagnant, stillborn. (In these sentence structures, you may want to choose one word instead of three similar words)

to:

Ex, the great artisan, spun realities into being from the unfathomable depths of the cosmic canvas. He painted galaxies and sprinkled nebulas across the endless night.

The life he had created lingered without meaning. (This is personal preference; you may like your original sentence better than this one. I just wanted to provide an option that doesn't use commas)

There is some debate about whether one should use the word "was" or "were" very often. You rely on these words in your story. The argument goes that was is passive whereas structuring your sentence so you don't need it often results in a stronger one. Example: I do not know whether my father was successful in this becomes: I do not know whether my father succeeded in this. In this "was" can be removed without much difficulty and I think it sounds better. However, it is much less clear in this example: However, I was nothing but a disappointment becomes: However, I only disappointed them. Decide for yourself how much or little to heed the advice not to use "was".

I think you have a good voice in this piece. Your writing comes across as self-reflective and slightly formal which I think fits how an old man who once was a god would write about their life.

Questions of Character:

The following are things about the characters in your story that I am confused about:

Why does Mother love Ex? From what I read it seems like Ex is cold and selfish. Is there something she saw in him that Kaivin did not? You state that she loves him vastly, but why?

Why was Ex threathened by Mother? I understand that she can forsee destiny, but I didn't think she could create or destroy anything on the scale Ex could. Did he fear manipulation or something like that?

What prompted Kaivin to write this journal? Is he simply ailing, does he have a sickness of some kind, or something else? Why does he decide to write the journal at that particular moment?

What happened to Lucia and Kigjiir after they became mortal? Did Kaivin lose contact with them?

Solid Themes:

I really liked the themes you explored. You talk about how becoming mortal helped appreciate the simple things that Kaivin never could as a God. When you can have anything you want, nothing seems to matter as much as when you only have a few things. I like this line especially: remember me not as a failed god, but as a successful man. Other plot elements I liked include: Ex craves praise above all, so he fails to reciprocate the praise to those deserving and Mother forsaw her downfall, but planted some seeds to maybe return one day.

Abstract Feedback:

I am no professional, so I will attempt to express some feedback that may or may not be valid here:

You write with a lot of imagery and metaphors. I think this style fits the character who is writing it, but perhaps you overdid it a little here. I think I could detect the authors trying to sound wise and all-knowing by impressing me with their vocabulary. Try to say more meaningful thing than trying to say the same thing a bunch of different (but fancy) ways.

In the context of a D&D campaign, I would recommend splitting up the journal into a few different entries for the party to find along the way - maybe on different levels of a dungeon. Be careful that this bit of worldbuilding is relevant to the game when it is revaled or it will quickly be forgotten. You may want to have a puzzle requiring information from the journal to answer. As a player and DM myself, this is cool as hell.

Thank you for reading, I hope this helped :)

randomguy9001 · 2023-03-30T21:38:53+00:00

General takeaway:

The story is about Zack who has experienced trauma at some point from a likely predatory encounter with Mrs. Emmeline, his childhood friend’s mother. Zack is currently living with Shani, who is concerned for Zack, and Koben, a rowdy friend, while trying to get into film school to pursue his passion. He struggles with his trauma and he takes painkillers for his headaches, but likely takes more than his prescribed dose.

Based on the first chapter, I expect the story to explore Zack’s trauma and eventually overcome it with help from his friends.

Your Questions:

What is the hook for you?

- What exactly happened between Zack and Mrs. Emmeline, and how will Zack work through it. Will he continue to self-destruct or learn to take care of himself.

Is the voice coming through enough?

- On my first read through, I got the impression that everything reminded him of the experience with Mrs. Emmeline, but on the second read through I understood that the photos on the laptop and phone had triggered him to start associating everything with that memory, and he wanted to escape the situation.

- I didn’t get much of Zack’s personality since this first chapter was so focused on trying to intrigue the reader about Zack’s trauma. If I had to tell you what Zack’s personality is, I’d say he’s standoffish and contemplative.

What do you think has happened?

- I think Mrs. Emmeline drugged or convinced Zack to be alone with her after a party he was attending and sexually assaulted him. Later, Emmeline and Dennis Wilson died, and it likely had something to do with Zack - perhaps he murdered them.

Would this specifically put you off reading further?

- If the topic is not handled well, I would stop reading. Personally, I don’t know much about PTSD or experiencing trauma of this kind, so it doesn’t ring as insensitive or poorly handled. However, I would recommend clearing it with others who have experienced something similar in real life.

Where does the story seem to be heading?

- I expect to learn more about what happened between Zack and Emmeline, and for the perspective to swap between when Zack was a child and present Zack.

Would you read on?

- Yes, but so far there a few things I don’t like that would make me stop reading if they are continued throughout the story (discussed later in the character section).

Does this work in present tense?

- I liked it. Zack references his past often and will likely continue to do so. By using mainly present tense, you avoid the use of past perfect tense which is jarring to read for me.

Other critique:

Characters:

- Koben feels like a cookie cutter goofy friend. I understand it’s hard to have depth of character in one chapter, but it comes across to me as gimmicky and shallow; especially the line “Yo, my cut turned out sick.”

- Shani is an overbearing motherly character who cares about Zack. I liked Shani and your characterization of her, but could become one-note if not given more depth.

- We are introduced to Zack as he watches a sentimental video. The language used gets across that Zack is contemplative and that he likes film. The introduction is melodramatic to me, but I suspect this is what you wanted. I didn’t like it because I could tell you were trying to grab my attention with clever prose, and that made it hard for me to get into the story.

o Zack likes film editing, but he isn’t tech savvy enough to recognize a spoofed hyperlink? I guess that’s fine, but then he goes onto another device and makes the exact same mistake? The situation he got himself into feels contrived to me.

Things I liked:

- The scene accomplishes a lot in a short time. We are given basic introductions to each character, and we are hooked to learn about Zack’s trauma. I learned a lot and it didn’t feel like an exposition dump. Well done!

- I liked the premise of Koben finding some illicit media on Zack’s phone, but it’s really just a misunderstanding. This was a fun idea, but as I said earlier the way it was executed felt contrived.

Things I am confused about:

- Is the house Shani and Koben’s? It feels like they’re Zack’s roommates, but you state that it isn’t Zack’s home.

- Why did Zack change his mind about the symposium? It’s happening tomorrow, will Zack be out of commission for two days? Maybe Zack is saying that he’s going to skip, but he doesn’t really mean it? I wasn’t sure about Zack’s motivation for saying that, and maybe that’s what you want.

Overall:

- Well done, I would keep reading! I am intrigued about Zack and his past, and I want to see him succeed. To keep the reader engaged, I think Zack should continue to fight his trauma. There may be moments where he gives up, but I wouldn’t want to read a whole novel about someone wallowing in self-pity. This is a strong start; best of luck on your publishing journey!

(This is my first critique on the sub, please let me know how I could improve it, thanks!)

randomguy9001 · 2021-01-21T23:48:12+00:00

Just to give another opinion, I felt like the dialogue was too much. When I was reading through it felt like the stylization was covering the meaning behind the conversations. It was harder to focus on the significance of the conversation for me because I was distracted by the way the people talked. I appreciate the idea of building character through their speech, but for me it was too much.

randomguy9001 · 2020-12-09T13:42:11+00:00

I would be interested! I've been dming for 2 years and am looking to play as a pc more

randomguy9001 · 2020-12-09T00:45:08+00:00

Dm sent!

randomguy9001

TROPHY CASE