Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-9041013-20170201195638/@comment-28266772-20170203150519

“Ruby, your breakfast’s ready”, shouted Ruby’s mom in the direction of her daughter’s room. Ruby's room was located at the second floor of the O’reilly’s privately owned Glasgow house.

Ruby yelled back, “I’ll be down in a moment”, as she is pulling her hair into a high ponytail.

'[Right, first few lines, and quite a few things to note. First, comma goes inside speech marks e.g. “Ruby, your breakfast’s ready,”. '

'Second, be parsimonious. If the speech includes Ruby’s name we don’t need to know that the mother is shouting in the direction of her room. Similarly, there’s repetition of “Ruby” within twenty words and it feels weird to read. There are snappier, more elegant, ways to word this. '

'Third, I cannot say if you are writing to mean Glasgow Scotland, or Glasgow US (a tiny town in Kentucky, Google tells me), but immediately it doesn’t feel right; what’s it matter if the house is privately owned? What’s it matter what floor the room is on? And if it does matter you need to be clear whether you mean ‘second floor’ in the way the Americans use it (i.e. first floor < ground floor) or the way we use it in Britain (Ground floor< first floor< second floor)). Now, just because you set a story in the UK doesn’t mean you have to write in UK English, but if the floor of Ruby’s bedroom actually matters to the following events then you need to be clear about where it is. If it doesn’t matter then… why include it? Similarly, when you say a Glasgow House, do you mean a house in Glasgow, or the new super-duper energy efficient homes dubbed “Glasgow Houses” because they were first built by the Scottish government? You include a load of details, but they actually confuse more than they clarify. This is what I mean by 'parsimony'; don't include it unless it actually contributes to the story, and this goes for every last single word. It doesn't take long for readers to see that you're wasting their time and they'll just quit before your story even gets interesting.'

'Fifth - New Speaker, New Line. Super simple rule. Really super simple. Someone new speaking? Give them a new line.'

'Sixth – Tense. You swap tenses. Specifically – “as she is pulling her hair into…” should be “as she pulled her hair into…”] '

She looked at the mirror, and with her sleepy green eyes, she sighed to herself, "Oh another day…" Ruby grabbed her school backpack and skipped downstairs into the kitchen.

“Good morning”, said her father, James.

“Morning, daddy”, the teenage girl answered to her father. '[This is redundant. She’s hardly going to be beaming “morning daddy” at the toaster.]'

James looked at her face and asked, “Why don’t you ever smile, darling?”

As she was gently petting her dog, Duke, Ruby looked at her father once more and said, “Well, I just woke up and I’ve to go to school, with all the quote on quote smart kids, I don’t see anything to smile about yet” [yet."]

Before he could answer, Ruby’s mom said, “Well our girl is right, considering she's an Einstein amongst her peers”

-

I don’t have it in me to finish. The mechanical errors ruin this story. It’s a shame that you’d put so much work into something and then show such flagrant disregard for your own time. No one’s going to read something if it’s written like dribble.

Moving on from here I skim read the rest and wasn’t impressed. The style is awkward (e.g. “a toast”/“her screaming was cut short as the object held against her neck was a knife and she accidentally committed suicide”), the dialogue is forced (e.g. “Why don’t you ever smile, darling?”) and the plotline is typical bullied kid gets revenge. I recommend you focus on improving your literacy and read the various guides and blogs on this wikia.