Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-24774864-20140404173503/@comment-24077689-20140408173425

TIME FOR A REVIEW

First sentence: while the usage of the colon is technically correct, I’d recommend you just separate them into two separate sentences. Stylistically, it’s distracting.

Stay away from silly descriptions that add nothing to the story. We don’t need to know that the protagonist was on his phone. You then segue into the park, “the loosest sense of the term” reads really strangely. There are literally thousands of ways you could set up this sentence. There are millions of ways to introduce the park. This first paragraph is a bit messy; read it out loud, something’s off. The only real issues I see so far with grammar is that you’re missing some commas and semicolons. This paragraph is really juvenile with lines like “man, blah blah wouldn’t have happened. I wish.” It seems like a cop-out. I can tell you’re not a confident writer because you’re not really even attempting to find your own voice. It seems like you’re just recycling descriptions and tropes from other stories.

Let me amend that: it’s a great practice to write other’s work. It’s a great practice to emulate. But you’ve got to give it your own flair. You absolutely must find your own voice.

The arrangement of this first paragraph is sloppy. Outside of the first sentence, it just degrades. For example “I say that in the loosest sense of the term”. “Park” is not a term, it’s a word. You could have easily made that whole line prettier with “I use the word ‘park’ loosely”. Shorter, much less clunky and ugly; and again separate this whole thing into two, you use this juvenile wording like “if I ever saw kids playing there I must be blind as hell”. I guess that counts as giving your protagonist a voice, but it’s also the kind of wording that structure that makes me squeeze the bridge of my nose trying to get rid of a headache. It’s ugly, it’s juvenile and just judging from your first sentence, you can do a lot better.

Right into the second paragraph I’m fucking shocked. I’m gonna revisit the “blind as hell” bit. It didn’t even occur to me that this is a grown man. I mean, right here, your wording makes me immediately think he’s a child or a young man. Personally, it’d be far more relevant for you to clarify “I’m a grown man, I live alone in this two story place across from a small park” or something. I need to know that a lot more than I need to know that he was on his cell phone.

First of all, I didn’t even want to read this paragraph because it’s this massive semi-wall of text. Break this into at least 2 paragraphs. Also, again, watch your comma usage. It should read: “laying, watching TV, and sleeping”.

You’re drowning is inane crap here. If you’re going to describe mundane things, do it with some flair. This is boring to read, a lot of this is a direct cause-effect “I’m not hungry anyway so I opt for tea instead”. You have moments where I feel like you’re about to fucking come out of your shell, but you don’t. It’s obscenely disappointing.

I get the feeling that you don’t actually know how a 28 year old man would speak or act. The voice this guy has belongs pretty decidedly to a teenager. Grown men feel fear, we get unnerved, but we don’t act like a pre-teen who just discovered swear words. Your swearing is far between, but the usage is just banal, it’s very juvenile. It’s not creepy, it’s distracting.

Your descriptions are wasted on things of little importance. This story lacks embellishment; the times that you decide to pick up the pace and actually make some notable descriptions or anything you cut them short. I feel like you’re not giving yourself enough credit.

I’m intrigued by the raincoat man. While the concept does seem cliché, I want to know where you take it. This needs a lot of work, but I think you can do it. Maybe stay in what you know, though. You’re 16, you might think you know about life and the world (God knows I did), but simply put your inexperience betrays you in the writing of the character. It’s obvious you’re not 28, it’s obvious you don’t really know how this 28 year old man would react or anything, because the way he speaks, as it is, I assumed he was about 16 or so.

And while I’m on that, don’t wait so fucking long to tell us that he’s 28, don’t wait to tell us that he owns the house and lives alone. Those are important details.