Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-27974670-20160710070645/@comment-28266772-20160711150941

Hi,

so the first major glaring problem is formatting. I had to copy and paste this into MS word to read so that's obviously a problem. You should make sure your story is properly formatted from the get go - most people won't put work in like I have just to read your story on the workshop so make sure when they click the link it's immediately there, and easily read.

I cannot possibly offer detailed feedback on all 6000 words but I can at least offer detailed feedback on the first section (annotated in [] brackets).

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Part One

“Holy shit, he’s a fucking robot! Look at the gears! And the oil! And the wires, and circuits, and...and...well look!” Troy yelled.

“No, fuck you, fuck you, man! I’m not gonna look at it, and your crazy rambling about it being a robot isn’t gonna convince me! You hit that man! You were doing 100, and you fucking hit him! We’re going to jail! Our careers are over! Do you fucking hear me? Over!” Screamed Nicki, [this should be ‘Nicki screamed’] turned facing [is ‘facing’ necessary here? Either ‘turned’ or ‘facing’ can be rid of, since they both convey the same thing] away from the ghastly sight at Troy’s feet.

“No...no...no...this isn’t happening [I think it looks cleaner to have a space after an ellipses but it’s a matter of taste], I know this isn’t happening, I am certain this isn’t happening. I am dreaming, or I’m high, or I’m...I’m...I don’t fucking know, but this isn’t real!” Divinity blubbered, tears streaming down her face as she sat in the back of Troy’s Porsche [is her seating arrangement something we really need to know at this stage of the story?], her insufferable crying sounding [use of the present tense here is a bit awkward] as fake as the “man” [you literally establish not too long after this that the girl is pissing tears – how is her crying fake? Why would it be fake? She just saw a man get killed – it doesn’t seem reasonable to suggest that her crying is fake] sprawled out on the road in front of us, bits and pieces of metal and rubbery flesh spread out from its shattered corpse.

[can bits of flesh be ‘metal and rubbery’? By definition flesh can only be made of flesh, and metal and rubber made from metal and rubber. This definition isn’t ambiguous it’s just obtuse for the sake of being obtuse.]

I was unfortunate enough to be sitting next to the bitch, her tears dripping onto my suit,  and [formatting] paying no mind to how this might have made me feel. Considering how much I had payed [paid not payed] for the damned thing, and was more or less [why more or less?] not expecting it to be stained by the pitiful sobs of some Hollywood whore I had no choice other than to associate with, I believe I was justified in slapping her moments later.

[It’s hard for me to get into this enough but the whole sentence structure is cluttered and awkward. Jesus Christ can’t the guy just say “fuck, this bitch cried on my suit so I slapped her” – use your reader’s time wisely, don’t piss away the few chances you’ll have where someone’s attention is focused on your work. This goes for the entirety of your story and most of your writing style. Write economically.]

“Pull yourself together. Crying over the deceased won’t bring them back. If anything, having to listen to you cry is making this poor...I’m unsure at the moment whether we can call it a man, but for lack of a better word, this man would be turning and twisting right there on the road. If he were alive, that is.” I said, chuckling at the thought of this faux person, this thing of pseudo-flesh and a metallic interior, struggling to move and stand, like a butterfly pinned to a cork board [I like this imagery right here], it’s [its not it’s] life slowly fading away, as it struggles to escape its inevitable demise. [the cork board image is great but then you nail it to the ground with two more clauses that aren’t super necessary]

[again, as a whole, this is just awkward, and the guy is pompous to the point of being difficult to read. I get it – he’s an asshole – but that just means you need to work harder to keep me hooked and so far having to read this guy’s style of description is a chore]

“Wh-what was that for, Kaz?” Divinity screeched. [what was what for? You never actually tell us when the guy slaps her]

My name is Kazimir Gregori Martin, originally Mikhailov, but my parents changed it fearing that a blatantly Russian last name would make others paranoid and fearful of us. [yeah…because Kazimir Gregori Martin is dodging that particular bullet, right?] Divinity knew this very well, for I had told her time and time again, often emphasized  by a backhand to her once beautiful, but now horrifically flawless [eh? Care to elaborate why her ‘flawless’ face is ‘horrific’?] face. Kaz is a bastardization, nothing more. [why even piss away your reader’s time with this paragraph? Trust me this Kaz asshole is characterized enough, you don’t need to add superfluous details like this.]

“My, my, I must not know my own strength, I merely meant to get your attention, not deafen you. My apologies. And if you’d be so kind as to call me by my full name, rather than that horrific abbreviation you insist on using, it would be much appreciated.” I said, patting her shoulder as she looked upon me, the flow of her tears temporarily staunched.

“I heard you Kaz---Kazimir.” She mumbled. [you should read the wikia’s style guide to get a sense of how to format dialogue correctly]

“I know you did. I was making a joke.” I said, smiling at her.

“It wasn’t very funny...none of this is very funny...pl-please tell me it’s just a dream, Kaz, please say it’s just a dream.” She said, tears once again streaming down her face.

[just to pause – how much time was spent on the guy slapping the girl and ranting about his name? Is this branch of narrative helpful in any meaningful way?]

<p class="MsoNormal">All of this very easily could be a dream. It was certainly fantastical [fantastic] enough to be one, [I’d put a full stop by here. You need to keep your sentences shorter where possible given your tendency to run-on] androids posing as humans weren’t something a sane man would claim to see. Yet there it was, right in front of us. [this style of description is awkward – is this or isn’t this past tense? Shouldn’t it be ‘And yet there it was, right in front of us’?] A perfectly normal looking man on the outside, but once his insides became his outsides upon collision with the car, [again super duper awkward wording] his outsides weren’t as perfectly normal as they once were. It truly was like something out of a science fiction film, the kind I would write. A Nexus-6 out of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep [and….? This is just extra imagery – and try not to rely on other people’s works to invoke an image]. Something that looked so human, [comma is unnecessary] that if any of us were to encounter it alive on the streets, [same as before] we would surely be fooled. So are we blessed rather than doomed in this situation? [why would we be either?] Perhaps we inadvertently saved the human race when we struck this machine. But what if it’s just one of many? [again… what? Why? Why is this guy thinking this? What the hell is even going on?]

<p class="MsoNormal">“We need to hide the body.” Troy said, his hysterical visage replaced by a sobered gaze.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Nicki, you grab the legs, I’ll take the shoulders. We should be able to ditch him in the forest, no way they can trace him to us, right?”

<p class="MsoNormal">“Fuck you, I’m not helping you hide the evidence of your MURDER! [to denote emphasis just use italics and an exclamation point – no need for all caps] I wasn’t behind that steering wheel, I didn’t tell you to drink and drive, in fact...in fucking fact, I told you, I TOLD YOU, not to drink, cause I knew, I just knew something like this would happen!” Nicki yelled.

<p class="MsoNormal">Troy’s arm, darted out like a flash, snatching Nicki’s collar, and pulling him towards himself, and down, kicking at Nicki’s leg and making him fall onto the corpse, his shirt now covered in the grey sludge oozing out of it.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Agh! You fucking piece of shit! His blood’s all over---” Nicki was interrupted by the boot swiftly delivered to his stomach, leaving him breathless.

<p class="MsoNormal">“Shut up. You’re part of this now. We’re all part of this now, you hear me! [question mark needed here]” Troy shouted.

<p class="MsoNormal">He kneeled down to the corpse, and gathered a pool of the sludge into his hands. He walked over to the car, and poured the sludge onto Divinity’s dress, which seemed like a fitting punishment for what was done to my suit, until the bastard did the same to me.

<p class="MsoNormal">“I don’t know what the fuck this is, it doesn’t look like blood, but it sure as hell looks incriminating. So if any of you are thinking of running to the police, just know that we’ll be going down together. Okay? Okay. Who wants to help dispose of the body before someone drives by and sees us?” Troy asked, [with] an off look in his eyes.

<p class="MsoNormal">I volunteered, hoping to quickly resolve the situation and get home, and to a washing machine. Perhaps this suit could be salvaged. [again this is the conditional tense, not the past tense. Pick one and stick to it].

<p class="MsoNormal">-

<p class="MsoNormal">So unfortunately this story is let down by a severe tendency to ramble, with awkwardly constructed sentences and a deeply unlikeable main character. Normally horror off-sets the problem of dickhead protagonists by signposting their obvious demise, and letting us know that they will surely receive their karmic retribution. Unfortunately I didn’t really get this from your story – I just got the sense I was going to have to stick with this dickhead for another 4000 words before getting even the most remote of pay-offs.

<p class="MsoNormal">At the core of this story is an interesting hook but you need to write far more economically. You need to tone the style down, and write every word with a definitive purpose. You characterize the narrator very quickly and very efficiently within the first few paragraphs, you don’t need to spend every word afterwards drilling his personality into every little phrase Your story also starts off in media res and slams the brakes on to explain everything – is this superhelpful or useful? Why even bother starting in media res if you’re going to offset the increased pacing with 200 words of some girl crying and some asshole whining about his name? The first part of this story could be put together with way less verbal baggage, and with a more efficient intro that interesting hook of yours would shine much more brightly. Every point I mention here is tripled for the rest for the rest of your story. Every word must contribute to either the characters, plot, atmosphere, themes, or setting. Keep it short, keep it sweet, and only use fluff for a very clear purpose. As it stands this story has an original premise with interesting characters but there's simply no reason for it to be so damned long winded.