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All feedback is appreciated! I hope you like this chapter!
Fun Fact: I originally imagined Frost to look like Billy from Stranger Things but then decided that as much as I love Dacre Montgomery, I hated the mullet look and I no longer imagine him like that, but I did when I first thought of the character, but he was also going to have a very different personality which is probably why I thought of Billy. Have a wonderful day!
I liked the beginning. I think there may be a few grammar errors in here. Paste it in Hemmingway to see what comes up. Also, you might be able to win $35 with this story
You're very welcome! 😀👍
Here is the Seedship version I play:
I found the style flowed quite well and is readable. It reminds me of a noir detective sort of story, especially the part about 'volcano insurance'. My feedback would be that 1) here and there the style doesn't flow well, it may help to read your story aloud next time you edit. 2) slight confusion in the content, ie was the narrator married to Rachel? I didn't find it clear. 3) there were certain questions raised that were not answered, eg. 'They would pay', pay for what? and how? I think this is called 'the other shoe' ie if you mention something significant, you need to follow it up. Stephen King's book, On Writing, has some helpful info on this. But your language and style definitely worked well for me. Congrats on finishing and submitting this one!
Nice work. As it happens I am terminally addicted to writing with pencils, and they must be very sharp or I hate them. It's from being a little kid back in first grade in 1954.
I always ended up with the pencil that hand broken leads inside and I would make frequent trips to the pencil sharpener under the steely gaze of Miss Joyce LaPolla, teacher. It was her first job and she thought she was going to change the world starting with me.
I now have a lifetime supply and several electric pencil sharpeners.
There is a wonderful book about the technology of pencils by Henry Petroski. It's well worth a gander. https://www.amazon.com/Pencil-History-Design-Circumstance/dp/0679734155/ref=sxts\_entity\_rec\_bsx\_s\_def\_r00\_t\_aufl?crid=2DQEK6LI2HJ76&cv\_ct\_cx=Henry+Petroski&keywords=Henry+Petroski&pd\_rd\_i=0679734155&pd\_rd\_r=9a78ff57-c...
r/Shortstories is more for posting your content for reads than it is for critiques and grammar help. You are welcome to post a request at the end of your short story for readers to leave comments, but it is not at all expected of the readers on the whole and copy edits/grammar edits of a story can be quite difficult on reddit.
There are a number of websites that can offer critiques but if you are looking just for grammar help, your best bet might be a volunteer reader (I see one has done so already) or trying a few online applications. Ultimately, people are better, but you may need to go over your own work with a fine-toothed comb.
I suggest running your short story through http://www.hemingwayapp.com/ to see if you have any problem sentences and perhaps an over-reliance on adverbs -- but it is not always correct. More a guidlines on areas you may need to work on. Grammarly (web app) isn't terrible at pointing out some smaller things like comma use and sentence structure. And for your own editing; print out the story, grab a ruler and correct it on the page. You will see more of your own errors when you change mediums (screen to page).
First time, huh? You should keep at it.
I think you can make a longer short story out of this. I would start in a different orphanage and show the two siblings bonding.
If you do, let me know and I would be happy to read and comment.
I am duty bound to pitch my own short story collection. If you are in the mood and are willing to spare £0.99/$0.99 on Amazon,I think you would like them. http://www.amazon.com/dp/B076DPR55J
And to be clear, I will totally still read your story even if you don’t. ��
Best, Maeve
I'm blunt, and I'm sorry, but it's the easiest way to make you better.
Do you read? I mean actively? Like at least a book or two a month?
If you truly want to improve as a writer, go read "On Writing" by Stephen King. Then, religiously read "Elements of Style". There are like 4 editions of it; you should easily find a free PDF of it online. And when I mean religiously, I mean, every, single, day. Before you write one of your short stories, read it and try to apply one thing you learned from it.
Your short stories aren't bad. They certainly aren't incorrect by any standards, but they are definitely not pulling anyone in either. It's actions, all actions you've given me. Wordy, tedious, boring actions.
Take for instance your recent story. She does this, he does that, then some dialogue. That's essentially your story. There is no feeling. I do not know a thing about these characters and feel completely detached from the world.
If this was your intentions, I would tell you, that's great. Though, I feel like this story wants to speak more. It wants the audience to understand your character's struggle.
In between the actions, add her thoughts as she makes the morning routine. Give us what she is thinking, why doesn't she want to open the door? Memories, the inner monologue we all have, the way she looks at the house or things in the kitchen, literally anything! It doesn't have to be explicit, flirt with the pain that is her life, make me feel that dread, that loathsome feeling of her drunk husband staggering his way inside. (Spoiler) Then, when he finally does come home, do more than just calling him a drunk, describe him from her perspective, that she sees him as a vicious, putrid, peice of human filth. This way, you can still shock your audience with the stab, while still giving them a better understanding of your characters and their actions. In other words, make me give a damn.
I'm not going to make a tldr.
Okay, thank you for this submission. This story is structurally, grammatically, and narrative quite bad. I don't want to pick it apart because I don't feel it will add anything to your future as a writer; this story shows great potential, but improper usage of the English language renders it barely readable.
I have some suggestions:
1) https://www.amazon.ca/Elements-Style-William-Strunk-Jr/dp/020530902X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1482029865&sr=1-1&keywords=the+elements+of+style -> Read and memorize this. It will be the best .99 cents you've ever spent.
2) Practice writing shorter stories. <1000 words. It will cut out all the crap many new writers buffer their language with.
3) Don't tell stories with dialogue tags. He said, she said, I said, etc. is all you need. It becomes terribly difficult to pick apart the tags and the story for a reader.
Further reading suggestions:
1) Character and Viewpoint - Orson Scott Card
2) Plot - Ansen Dibell
3) Conflict and Suspense - James Scott Bell
If you plan on taking this career seriously, these are all good places to start -- after The Elements of Style of course. Best of luck with your writing, feel free to send me any of your subsequent works.
Edit: I had a few more ideas after I clicked post:
1) Unwriting by Kenny Goldsmith
2) "Shitty First Drafts" - http://wrd.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/1-Shitty%20First%20Drafts.pdf (it's a PDF, so the whole thing is right here.)
3) 20 Master Plots - Tobias -- try to tell some of these stories in the fewest amount of words, I do it for practice all the time.
4) Keep a writer's journal - write all your ideas, drafts, clippings of other good stories, etc. It's like a database of knowledge for you to look back on when you're stuck.
Hi! Long time no see!
I read your short story and here follows some comments:
- I think you shouldn't divide your text into sections as you did here. It's very obvious where the description part is and where the narrative part is. I think you should mix them all. You could narrate what happens and, little by little and at the same time, describe how they are.
> “Wait!” she cried and floated over to a crib which held our new-born child, Chichida.
- As you didn't describe how they cry, I couldn't imagine how she cried. It's like Stephen King said is his book On Writing: telling a story is like telepathy. You send an message from your brain to the readers' brain. In this part, you didn't specify how I should have imagined the way they cry. You do this just later on:
> tears starting to roll down my face and as I look into a pool of water and see my own reflection I realise why the humans called us the saddest race, for the tears follow the lines made by the black markings below my eyes.
And you haven't said they had a child before. This child just pops up.
- The story is very cliché. The exact same thing could happen between humans themselves or between humans and any other alien race. There's nothing special regarding the race you created. You should turn this race into something unique and describe things just this race can experience.
I'm sure you can create a good story from this short story. If you find my comments helpful, have them in mind when making a longer story. When I post my own story, I'd like to receive your comments as well. See ya!
I know it sounds like sarcasm (I probably should have said more ;) But if your a 'young budding writer', the only way to get better at it is to write, edit, rewrite, reedit, do some reading, move on to a new story, maybe copy and rewrite another writers story, etc. etc.
In my personal opinion, the only way to get to be 'good' at writing is to do it an excessive amount. Set some time aside on a daily basis (at a coffee shop or the library or wherever you can set some time aside and concentrate on writing) and use it to write.
After that its kind of a you thing, write about whatever you like, describe things they way you want to, have heroes that you like, or villains that you think are fitting.
If you spend a lot of time writing, you will refine what you do and get better at it. be critical with yourself when you edit, and try to improve on what you have written--its much harder in the beginning to erase things and try and replace them with 'better' things, but each time you do it becomes easier.
you can read books about writing, or about authors (I enjoyed Steven Kings book 'On Writing', or Wikipedia's bio's on, say, Vonnegut), you can watch videos on writing (there's even a couple of movies, 'Freedom Writers' and 'Resurrecting the Champ'-- while they arnt't about the skill of writing, they do focus around writing. Or check out youtube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_W-r7ABrMYU&feature=youtu.be) that's a link to a Ray Bradbury talk)).
Any number of people who claim to be authors and writers (me included) could offer you a million and one tips that work for us... But the only thing that all writers and authors have in common is the fact that they write.
If you want to be a writer that is the one thing that you have to do, write.
I think “struck him in the side of the head” should be “on”. At the end of the long paragraph you say the doctor raised a “muttering something”, which looks to me like a typo — like you should remove “raised a”. I think this would benefit from putting the conversation between the doctor and the protagonist in dialogue, with a bit of description between dialogue prompts. You can also use spaces between the dialogue to bring the protagonist’s feelings about doing the right thing forward, or otherwise developing the character a bit. As it is, the narrative fails the “show don’t tell” rule, and that paragraph is a bit long and chunky. Best of luck. (Please check out my anthology of SciFi short stories told from a female perspective at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B076DPR55J )
Not bad. You have a typo in the second paragraph, “led me, led me”. Also, later in that paragraph you use “lead” where I think it should be led. Is this an excerpt, a beginning, or meant to stand alone? I think it works fine as an excerpt, but if it is meant to stand alone I would encourage you to devote at least a paragraph near the top to developing the main character a bit more. You could also consider a bit more description of place during the torture in order to make the ambiance more vibrant. Best of luck, Maeve (Please check out my short story anthology at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B076DPR55J)
On a side note - the characters in this are all drawn from the novel Crashed America - which is currently free on Amazon Kindle until the 20th (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00JZQA5Y6/). The Kindle app is free too, so you don't need a reader to get it.
Thought I'd post this here. My brand spankin' new five story collection of quirky/odd/offbeat tales. It's $0.99 but if you're a buck short, I'm also making Lawyers vs. Demons free for a few days. Hope you get a kick out of 'em!
Just to add, No Cure for Shell Shock, the collection this is from, is free on Kindle until the 14th @ https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01943SIIO/ You don't need an Amazon reader, you can get the app on any phone or tablet.
Okay, thank you for this submission. This story is structurally, grammatically, and narrative quite bad. I don't want to pick it apart because I don't feel it will add anything to your future as a writer; this story shows great potential, but improper usage of the English language renders it barely readable.
I have some suggestions:
1) https://www.amazon.ca/Elements-Style-William-Strunk-Jr/dp/020530902X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1482029865&sr=1-1&keywords=the+elements+of+style -> Read and memorize this. It will be the best .99 cents you've ever spent.
2) Practice writing shorter stories. <1000 words. It will cut out all the crap many new writers buffer their language with.
3) Don't tell stories with dialogue tags. He said, she said, I said, etc. is all you need. It becomes terribly difficult to pick apart the tags and the story for a reader.
Further reading suggestions:
1) Character and Viewpoint - Orson Scott Card
2) Plot - Ansen Dibell
3) Conflict and Suspense - James Scott Bell
If you plan on taking this career seriously, these are all good places to start -- after The Elements of Style of course. Best of luck with your writing, feel free to send me any of your subsequent works.
Edit: I had a few more ideas after I clicked post:
1) Unwriting by Kenny Goldsmith
2) "Shitty First Drafts" - http://wrd.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/1-Shitty%20First%20Drafts.pdf (it's a PDF, so the whole thing is right here.)
3) 20 Master Plots - Tobias -- try to tell some of these stories in the fewest amount of words, I do it for practice all the time.
4) Keep a writer's journal - write all your ideas, drafts, clippings of other good stories, etc. It's like a database of knowledge for you to look back on when you're stuck.
Hey. Thank you, that means a lot to me. If you have a Kindle, you can download the full collection for free until midnight tonight (21st). There is a free PDF on the site, too. Appreciate the kind words. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N4D6EMX/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1482234917&sr=8-1&keywords=graeme+keeton
This story was chosen to be part of an Anthology of Horror Short Stories called the Nightmare Collective.
You can download the free ebook here Clicky