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ani_cat_candy

Should I keep trying to write the story?  

13 members have voted

  1. 1. Should I keep trying to write the story?

    • Yes. Keep working on it.
      10
    • No. You suck.
      3


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Thank you, I'll do that from now on <3

As for the naivety.. That's why I'm here. To learn.

You don't win a war by dyeing for your country,

You make them die for theirs

So I say

Kill them all and let God sort 'em out!

 

 

Nothing is true, Everything is permitted.

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I don't know if you wanted a literary critique but you've got one. Everything here is opinion etc.

 

By far the biggest problem is that you come off as amateurish. I'm not trying to be rude or insulting, but if your only experience is writing self-insert fanfics then it might be best to look at yourself a little more critically. It's really difficult to fix, but you can start by laying off the adjective-verb combos. It sounds like odd advice, but a sentence like

The small red-head in the back seat took a look out the window to see a lovely estate sitting atop a small hill.

sounds really grating.

 

You should integrate your descriptions of things better. Unless you plan for this to be really short, you should extend them too. There's no reason why you can't spend a decent paragraph describing someone, or a house. Shorter descriptions needn't be as obvious as you make them, either.

You also need to describe the main character here, and personify her. She doesn't have any strong characterisation, and your language often makes it unclear whether or not you're talking about her.

 

The dialogue, too, is a little grating. Take:

"Everything will be alright. We'll get through this. I promise."

The fuck is this shit? Not only is it unclear who said it (I presume the boy) it's completely unrealistic. No-one would say that, especially not here. You should think about what someone would actually say, or what you would expect to hear in that situation.

 

The characters tend to suffer from a lack of depth. I know it's short, but many characters come across as unrealistic. Take the mother: she's completely stereotypical. Look at:

"Now! Time for homework! All of you!" The children groaned as their mother herded them toward the study

This is just stupid. I hope you can see why.

Thomas looks a lot like a Gary Stu to me; you should watch out for making any character too good.

 

Your sentence structure is a bit off, too. Most sentences seem to be about 20 words, with two actions in each. It'd be fine if you varied your structure, but you don't. You could try to vary sentence length, and experiment with breaking them up into shorter phrases.

 

In short, there's little point addressing the tulpa aspect until you sort out your writing style.

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Thank you! I really appreciate that <3

Not trying to make excuses for my writing style, but I do think it came out decent given the fact there were 6 kids running around at the time. lol

I also have a tendency to just write the basics, then go back and add details and better descriptions.

I will try to fix it and I know this isn't a writing forum, so I'll try to find one to help with the writing style.

 

I posted that bit mostly to show how the Tulpa (the boy/Gatto) would be portrayed.

She interacts with him as though he's really there, but no one else acknowledges his existence... For most of the story at least.

 

Y'all really have no idea how much I appreciate all the help. Thank y'all! *gives y'all each hugs and a home-made chocolate cake or pecan pie -whichever you prefer*

You don't win a war by dyeing for your country,

You make them die for theirs

So I say

Kill them all and let God sort 'em out!

 

 

Nothing is true, Everything is permitted.

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Please, please, please stop talking like a hyperactive ten year old. Even if you are, no one will take you seriously if you act like it.

 

Also, the sentences seem a bit rigid, if you know what I mean. As if you just sat there, thinking about what must be said, and how to say it. All good writing happens without thinking, and then is edited. Just let it flow.

 

Good luck with it, I'l be keeping watch on this.

 

You spelt "dying" wrong in you sig

 

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Alright, let's get down to business.

 

I've read over your draft, and I'll give you my critique. Don't take anything personally. Just take what I say as constructive criticism. The last thing I want is for you to think I'm an asshole for pointing out the flaws in what you have worked on.

 

First off is the spacing of the lines. I was having a lot of trouble following the story when everything was all bunched together into big paragraphs. It makes the story sound very rushed and makes it hard to follow. Don't be afraid to space out your lines. Not only does not spacing out the lines make the story extremely hard to follow, but it can make it look very ugly too.

 

Second, you used way too many pronouns. I often found myself questioning who was saying what when you used words like "she" when there were two un-introduced characters in the room. Even if you need to introduce the character's names before the dialog, do it. Just don't have 5 nameless characters talking to each other, and the only word that gives any indication of who is talking is she or he.

 

And lastly, you capitalized words that didn't need to be capitalized.

 

-------------

"Welcome home, Dear!"

 

As opposed to: "Welcome home, dear!"

-------------

 

Dear is not a proper noun therefor does not need to be capitalized.

 

 

Just a small thing, but you know, small grammar errors like that can be vexing to people.

 

 

So, let's see some examples of what I am explaining.

 

------------------------

Exhibit One:

 

The boy was thirsty after mowing the grass all day. "Hello, are you thirsty" "Yes I am thirsty, please get me a drink" He said to him.

 

Antithesis:

 

John was thirsty after mowing the grass all day.

 

"Hello, are you thirsty?" John's dad said as John walked into the house.

 

"Yes I am thirsty, please get me a drink." John replied.

 

-----

 

Exhibit Two:

The car pulled up to the house with the little girl in the back seat. She eagerly awaited to get inside and play with her dolls. "Welcome home" "Thanks mom!" She said to her as she got into the house. She than unpacked her toys on her bed. "Feeling okay?" "Yeah I am feeling fine"

 

Antithesis:

 

The car pulled up to the house with the Jennifer in the back seat. She eagerly awaited to get inside and play with her dolls.

 

"Welcome home, Jennifer!" Jennifer's mom called out to her.

 

"Thanks, mom!" Jennifer replied as she ran up to her room.

 

Once she was in her room, she began unpacking her dolls and got ready to play.

 

"Feeling okay?" Jennifer's mom called from downstairs.

 

"Yeah I am feeling fine." Jennifer replied.

 

-----------

 

See how much easier the antithesis was to follow? Just try to keep that in mind when you write your next chapter.

 

 

By the way, I took the liberty of editing the sample you posted. I didn't edit much, but I spaced it out so you get an idea of what I am talking about.

 

The only thing I did not fix was the grammatical errors (the pronouns).

 

Edited Version: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HB_3WQQL91gTka3wBbnPfu4a4zNvgU1YYJ51QypwvUo/edit

 

Keep in mind that it was a lazy edit made at 2:40am

 

 

 

TL;DR: Don't use pronouns when you have a lot of ambiguous characters talking to each other at the same time. Space out dialog scenes. Don't capitalize nouns that are not proper nouns.

 

 

Hope it helps.

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Not to be rude or step on any toes or anything like that at all, but ummm... if we/he/she/it/they are going to write a novel, shouldn't it at least be made with half-way decent grammar, and a halfway-decent storyline? and kid you can't spell for shit

Ermahgerd Ver fer Vernderterr

 

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I'll give you my two cents on your story so far as well. The more crit, the better right?

 

Over-all it's good, I do kinda want to find out what happens next, however-

 

1) You rushed the start I think. A lot of stories begin with the very first moments of a "new life" type situation, in this case, Candy arriving at her new home. The problem with this I find is that we don't know Candy, why shes going there and how we should be feeling. What I mean is we are reading about a girl moving house, and apparently it's not for a good reason. Well that's not especially interesting. If we knew that, for example, her parents died and how they died, and what she lost and then a little information about her new home on the trip over, mixed in with some descriptions of the area (not the immediate area, I mean what state she's in and maybe the date, etc) then we would already be "with" her as she started off, rather than watching her start off, if you get me?

 

2) You introduced a lot of new characters and rushed past quite a few scenes. There was the car ride, the arrival, meeting everyone, going to her room, sleeping, waking up all in the space of 7 paragraphs. This would have been a whole chapter, yet you trimmed the fat and stuffed it into about 3 pages. The fat is the good bit, its what we want to read and it's usually the best way to get the reader involved. You're writing a story, not a nursery rhyme.

 

3) The overall presentation was a bit amateurish. This has been said before but it is the biggest point I will make. I don't know how many stories you have written before (more than me, I'm sure) but coupled with the rushed opening, the way you described everyone and the scenes were barebones. We don't know what Candy looks like, what her (quite obviously) imaginary friend looks like, (he never appeared anywhere and then he's suddenly in her room and she knows him well. He's either a ghost or an imaginary friend, this is made too obvious to a reader), we don't know what her family looks like other than pre-school descriptions of their hair and eyes only.

 

Try re-writing the opening and make sure you space out the events and increase descriptions in number and detail. Leave out a few characters for now so we can get to know some of them well and give us a bit more background. I don't know how you plan on handling the tulpa character but if you plan on "revealing" what he is steadily over the course of the story I would rethink how you can include a character who can seemingly be anywhere and never interacts with any other character.

I did a short story for an exam last summer which had a tulpa character in it. How I handled it was I only made her appear when the host was alone, and she never interacted with anything. No descriptions of how things moved through her or people ignoring her (I did include short sentences of how a bench didn't even creak when she sat on it, etc). I gave little hints away subtly that indicate that she wasn't "there". Then as the story came to it's end I put in parts like the host character only buying one train ticket and only his footsteps echoing in an empty street.

 

I do look forward to reading a revised opening, or an improved second part.

frt

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Thank y'all.. I'm sorry if I sound like a hyperactive 10 year old.. I'm just trying to express my gratitude for the help.

Yes, my spelling sucks. Always has.

 

Again, that was just the rough draft. I always go back and add details later. Not trying to make excuses, just saying it will have more meat added to it during the revision... Which I'm working on every time the internet goes down (every few minutes)

Trying to type fast before it goes down again so sorry for any typos.

You don't win a war by dyeing for your country,

You make them die for theirs

So I say

Kill them all and let God sort 'em out!

 

 

Nothing is true, Everything is permitted.

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Okay.. Got it fixed up a bit.. Maybe it'll make more sense this time?

Again, far from finished. I'll continue to revisit older parts of the story as it goes on.

 

Plot bunnies will start popping up later and let readers know what happened and why she's there later.. A flash back of some kind.. Likely in the form of Candy having a nightmare.

 

I'm board and waiting on my registration to a writing forum to be approved.. Sorry for bugging y'all.

=(^_^U)=

 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GoDbRXfdNJtFSBxv2ZOeItNMS0Y5WH6WoT5cFhIjCV8/edit

You don't win a war by dyeing for your country,

You make them die for theirs

So I say

Kill them all and let God sort 'em out!

 

 

Nothing is true, Everything is permitted.

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It looks better, though still not ideal, if you ask me. Dialogue (to be blunt) still sucks, and it's still way too short for what is actually happening. I'm sure the writing forum can help you more than I can, though.

 

Plot bunnies will start popping up later and let readers know what happened and why she's there later.. A flash back of some kind.. Likely in the form of Candy having a nightmare.

Unnecessary. It's not a film; you can talk about what you want when you want, and I'd advise against flashbacks as a means of revealing backstory unless you can make them reallly good.

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