Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-26479861-20150421122327/@comment-26479861-20150502072846

Underscorre wrote: I'm a little out of practise at reviewing stories, so this could sound a bit clunky, but all WW stories should be reviewed.

I'm sad to say, I think there are quite a few issues with this story, mostly with the plot as a whole. For example, how did they forget each other? I know you mentioned Alzheimer's/memory problems as a possible cause, but that still doesn't explain why they both forgot each other at the exact same time. If they had forgotten each other, why does John just walk up to Garry and allow him to stay in his house? This could just be me being ignorant, but I don't think many people are prepared to walk up to a random homeless guy and allow them to stay in their house. Why is there a random little girl targeting people who forget each other? What about this little girl makes her stronger than two fully grown men? I'll get to this a bit later, but it certainly needs more explanation.

Many of the lines are redundant, and do nothing to advance the plot or help us to understand the characters. For example, the very first line, "John was walking to the shopping centre, because his car was broken down in the repair shop." How does the fact that his car was broken down do anything for the plot whatsoever? It doesn't, it's effectively useless.

All the characters are very bland and, if you were to switch the roles of the two mains, you wouldn't know the difference. C'mon, Garry's been living on the streets, but his character is no different in personality to John? Work on developing the characters. Going back to the little girl, it's an extremely generic villain. There's no explanation of why she has it in for people who forget each other, why she's so powerful, or anything. She's just an unexplained, underdeveloped, Mary Sue. Work on the reasons behind her actions.

Something I did like about this story was that the plot was decently unpredictable. I was pretty sure Garry was going to be the villain the whole time, but as it transpired he was just another victim. Maybe you could have planted some evidence that would allow the audience some indication it was possible they were married, not so much that they'd guess, but such that, if they read it again, they'd think ah, that makes sense.

Overall, the story could use a lot of work. It has some potential, but the plot and characters need some fleshing out.

Well, I was thinking she could be some sort of demon, making people forget each other so if they died nobody would care? That's why they forgot each other at the same time. This is basically a first draft, and I was planning on improving the characters a bit, and filling some plot holes I found. Anyway, thanks for your help!