User blog comment:ThatCatIsCool/Admins on this wiki./@comment-10950063-20141026191852

Well, you're leaving and it doesn't really matter, but there are a lot of problems with your story. Gator even said in his response that it wasn't only because of caps. Not meeting quality standards isn't a ridiculous reason.

-Almost every sentence of your story is its own line. That's not an effective ways of writing. It's almost always a sign that the work is incredibly rushed. You're not building anything, all you're doing is just telling us stuff. You said, "It's just there because that's what he's typing. The man is going mad. What else am I going to write to show insanity? This is the closest thing to the story that I am able to connect to insanity. What am I to do?"

Well, what you can do is take your time and show us more of what he's going through. Get us more in his head. There are a lot of better ways to show someone is going insane than just writing "STOPSTOPSTOPSTOP." Especially in a story ABOUT writing. Why not have him write an actual story that shows he's gong insane?

Also, Gator's right, you way over use caps. Not just in what this guy is writing, but in what you're writing. There's other ways to show emphasis or yelling. In fact, you do it a lot when you say he's yelling. Is he double yelling when you say he's yelling and you use caps? Is he triple yelling when you throw in three exclamation points at the end of a sentence?

It's repetitive and it's a poor stylistic choice. The same with how you start almost ever sentence with "he". On top of that, there's a ton of punctuation mistakes.

-Your character is ridiculous. He's won seven Nobel Prizes. Seven. SEVEN. He's been writing for 14 years and he's won SEVEN NOBEL PRIZES. No actual person has won the prize more than twice (the Red Cross has won three times) and none of those prizes has been for literature. SEVEN NOBEL PRIZES. You might think, "Well, what's the big deal? I made a mistake." This isn't just a mistake, it's a huge mistake that comes in the third line of your story and has nothing to do with anything. It's a massive red flag at the very beginning that is completely unnecessary. Nothing in the story requires this character to be the greatest writer ever of all time. This is like saying your character can turn into a dragon, but then that never comes into play.

Oh, and the Rubery Award, which by 1978 this writer has won three of, didn't exist until 2010. This writer is so good, he wins award that don't start until 32 years after he's dead. What's less impressive is the five American Book Awards. That came together in 1978, but didn't put out a list until 1980.

-There is almost no content in your story. This character basically starts off insane. You jump right to "STOP GRINNING AT ME." No slow build of insanity, no reflection on the character's emotional state. You just tell us his wife is dead and that he's had writer's block for five months. Doesn't really give us much. Why not just write "No, seriously, guys, he's really going bananas"? It would have more or less the same effect.

This is a third to a solid one-half of your story:

8:21 AM, December 15th

It's Grinning... It's Grinning... It's Grinning... It's Grinning... It's Grinning...

“STOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOPSTOP...”- He jammed the type keys as hard as he could, almost as if he is trying to inflict pain on...a typewriter.

Betrayal, that's what he is feeling, his friend is betraying him. And Ron does not like it.

December 16th

-Same Thing

December 17th

-Same Thing

December 18th

-Same Thing

December 19th

-Same Thing

December 20th

-Same Thing

“THE DAYS JUST PASS BY, LIKE THEY'RE NOTHING. AND THAT'S WHAT THEY ARE. NOTHING. YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE IS NOTHING? YOUR. FUCKING. GRIN.” He typed.

December 21st

8:00 AM

“STOPSTOPSTOP”

9:00 AM

“STOPSTOPSTOP”

10:00 AM

“STOPSTOPSTOP”

11:00 AM

12:00 AM

1:00 AM

2:00 AM

3:00 PM...

etc..

Not effective writing. It's not engaging, it's not creepy, it's repetitive, it's cliche and it's lazy. Again, the story immediately starts at madness. I guess you could argue there's some escalation, but it's so minor and then it comes to this. Your story could easily be judged in under a minute when most of it is repeated phrases and filler like what's above. All of this reads so much like an outline. Where's the content? To be a good writer you have to show, not tell. This is all telling. You tell us he's upset about his wife, you tell us the writer's block is bothering him. Take the time and show it. Put in emotion, put in imagery, show us REAL change. Make us feel the change because the character starts one way and goes to another.

I can't stress this enough: what content is there is ridiculous repetitive. Grinning, grinning, grinning. I get it, that's the point of the story, but when it's just about every line it doesn't work. Also, don't bother to describe how this guy perceives this grin. I mean, you have a picture there, why do any actual writing? Why get us into this guy's head and show us what he's seeing?

What blows my mind is we're missing so much of everything that actually matters, but you throw in some sentences about the guy going to see a movie and giving it a review. That comes in the very middle, right before the section I put above, right before he's supposed to be really going off the deep end. You completely de-rail your story for something that has no consequence. Maybe it could have been justified if you were actually writing. If you showed us what it was like from him to go out during his breakdown. Instead it's just, "I'm crazy. Hm, I think I'll go see a movie. Eh, not that great. NOW, I'M REALLY CRAZY."

Then, there's minor things. Like, you clearly don't know how typewriters work or are constructed. There's a hilarious moment when this seven time nobel prizer winner uses a comma wrong. One of the only times you show him actually writing and he fucks up. You could chalk it up to his failing mental state, but then why would he try for the comma at all?

I don't believe this took you 15 hours to write. There's so little actually here. Maybe it did, but remember effort is shown not told. You could tell us you were working on this for a year, if it's not good it gets deleted.

"Well, not everybody's Stephen King." No kidding, which is why we don't delete everything. We don't require stories to be masterpieces, we require them to be competent. Yours wasn't. I'm sorry, but it was poorly written. That's what it boils down to. If it weren't poorly written, we wouldn't delete it. Why would we? Why? For fun? Out of jealousy? Yeah, we hate good stories. That's why we volunteer our time on a site that's all about writing stories. There's nothing more fun than throwing a good story out, because we just hate them so much.

Did you ever consider, while all of this was going on, that maybe your story actually wasn't that good? Did you ever look inward and think, "Well, maybe they have a point?" I'm just curious and I'm curious how that way you thinking will work out for you.