Satan Wrote Words

[SatanInAZootSuit]

So turns out I write stories sometimes. Here's two stories I tried to do. The first is fairly recent. It's a cyberpunk. The second one was written a while ago, and it's like medieval or something. Here it is.

[SatanInAZootSuit]

If anyone wants to give me critique I WANT IT GIVE IT TO ME BURN ME WITH YOUR WORDS

[punpun]

I was procrastinating so I read through what you posted. I'm no editor, but I did spot some things you might want to work on.

For the first story, I'm not a huge fan of the main character's narration. I find it a bit grating, and it swings too easily from "cool hacker" into "trying too hard." Especially when breaking the forth wall and turning towards the audience. Some asides are out of place and mess with the pacing. An example: "Not like Marcus would let me buy shit from the pushers anyway, he hates dreaming, it killed his brother." The bit about his brother is really awkwardly placed. I would separate it into a different sentence, or remove it altogether, then later talk about his brother's death.

I don't know what your ultimate goal for this story is, but you chapters are short and maybe simply diving the story into unnamed sections might work better. You also don't need a label above the section at Deckard's House, simply stating "Later, at Deckard's house," in the first sentence would be enough to establish the scene. My final (and perhaps biggest) criticism is the lack of a fleshed-out setting. There's not much about the setting that seems cyberpunk-y to me, except knowing it's set five years in the future.

The second one, while shorter, I think actually painted a more interesting character and world than the first one. Joseph's story is already quite compelling, even though barely fleshed out. I prefer the third-person narrative, and it works in favor of having a mysterious main character and world.

Although I think there's a lot to work on, the fact that you're actually writing and posting for feedback is good. My biggest suggestion would be to write more. Personally, I want to see more of the medieval story fleshed out, as that seems to be the most promising and already holds potential for a redemption character arc.

[SatanInAZootSuit]

The issue with the first one is mostly the fault of my choices, not only in my story but also on my choice of editor. She's a good friend, but I'm not sure that she's exactly the greatest writer (as I have never seen her writing) and I know that she reads lots of fan fiction, which isn't often the best-written works. The thing about the story that bothers me the most is Deckard. Trying to hard? Yes, that's definitely Deckard. He's barely 20 and has very little social interaction besides Marcus and web forums. I was also trying to make him seem young and stupid while also skilled enough to get himself by. Maybe I should have written him as a more complicated character, but I was writing him as an over-confident dickhead and I wasn't about to change that. Also, I was trying to put forth this idea that his world and ours had some historical split happen, but with how I described the technology, the choice that I made for the split didn't make much sense.

Knowing how cyberpunk usually is, I will say that this doesn't exactly fit into the standard feature that Cyberpunk worlds technology is often further ahead than our own, but this world seems backwards. With a starting point earlier in history, the world probably would have caught up to us at least. Maybe fleshing out the social climate of this different world could make the backwards-ness of technology seem apparent, or maybe I could stop calling it cyberpunk and instead start calling it something else, or I could make the technology focus in some other form of tech possibly? I believe that information security was what I planned the new direction to be, but I'm unsure.

The major goal had two different, very much questionable conflicts that both have similar styles. In both versions, one of the other characters was going to be captured. Marcus was the original form, but I decided that the follow up wouldn't make sense based on prior characterization: Deckard was going to blame Simon for the failure of the mission and they were going to attempt to rescue Marcus from whatever punishment he may receive. For the second version, I had changed Marcus getting captured instead to Simon being captured, and had Marcus blame Simon for the failure, insisting that it was an ambush and a setup. Deckard would want to save Simon in whatever way possible and Marcus would try to convince Deckard that the whole situation was a setup, but would follow Deckard anyways because of their friendship. Marcus would reconsider their relationship, and Deckard would start to question who he was and how he treated people. The character of Deckard was going to grow into a more careful, thoughtful, and emotional person, and Simon would be rescued.

The second story was a reaction to a teacher daring me to do NA-NO-WRI-MO once. I decided to write in a fantasy style with a character who had just lost everything because, well, that's just what I felt like writing. As you can see, I didn't follow through with the dare, but everyone I showed it to praised me for it.

[Courtesy Bee]

You said to burn you with words so here goes.


^{i never thought i'd be using a dA comment on a brony comic as a reaction image but here we are}

editor

To be blunt I hope you didn't pay her.

"It's... well, it's better than the fixer's apartment, I can give it that much"

You need terminal punctuation inside of your quotation marks. If you're going on to add dialogue tags (like 'he said') afterwards then you chuck in a comma, but otherwise go with a full stop. Question marks are an exception. Use them whenever it's called for, regardless of dialogue tags that follow.

3 big knocks came from the door, suggesting my beater friend Marcus was here.

Use 'three'. You should almost always use the word instead of the digit when mentioning numbers in fiction. It looks better and reads better. Listing the year in numerals in fine though. There are people who break this rule (42) but it's only worth doing for effect. If the number is unreasonably large and unwieldy to type out then use your better judgement. Along those lines, you list some kids ages later on and you should be using 'nineteen and seventeen' instead of '19 and 17'.

Ready to restyle the dudes face?

What you've written here can roughly be translated as 'are you ready to restyle the one face of many dudes' whereas I'm pretty sure you mean 'are you ready to restyle the face belonging to The Dude'. Use apostrophes to indicate possession (ie the dude's) and in contractions such as 'can't', 'it's', et cetera. This trips a lot of people up so don't feel too bad about it, but it's worth reading up and getting that shit set in stone in your brain.

I agree with everything punpun said. It's good to know that Deckard coming off like he's trying too hard is deliberate, but at the same time it comes off as the author trying too hard. Striking the balance between a character trying to show off how cool and edgy he is and not coming across as shoving slang and cool mannerisms in the reader's face can be difficult. Especially in first person.

It might help to make his narration less wordy. Anathema to the NaNoWriMo state of mind but fuck the NaNoWriMo state of mind anyway. Problem solved. It'll make your writing snappier. Here's an example of how you could do that with your opening lines.

Boston, 2021. A city too willing to let go of its past, filled to the brim with criminals. Most who can stay far away. Some of us never had the choice, trapped here in an aging city, scum taking over the roads and walls that hold in the worst of it. What a place to live.

It's far from perfect but I'm tired and have never been great at rewrites. If I were writing this I'd probably overhaul the whole thing but I don't want to bring personal taste and writing style into this more than I need to. Here's why I made the changes I did. 'Boston, 2021.' works better as its own standalone sentence fragment but that's okay as it immediately tells the reader where and when they are and moves on. It's impactful. On their own, shorter sentences/carefully used sentence fragments help to sort of speed up the text and make it feel more exciting. You don't need a million of them, but it's worth mindfully sprinkling them through piles of longer sentences so the writing doesn't drag or grate on the reader.

Also, that comma is important. Deckard isn't from the two thousand and twenty first Boston. He's in Boston in the year 2021. Everyone knows what you mean, but getting it right is important. It also helps the flow. Yes, this is worth considering for two words.

I removed 'historic' because while descriptive, it's not helping you pack a punch in those first few lines. It doesn't tell the reader anything they need to know right now, if they even need to know at all. If the historical significance of Boston is important to your story you can paint a picture with words later on and illustrate it with whatever details you like. That way you'll better convey to the reader exactly what you mean by 'historic' and why you want them to know that. Even if it's only for the purpose of setting the scene, you'll still be better served by dropping in details later than flat out stating 'historic' as your fourth word. If you're worried you won't get around to doing that, it's not important.

Now I'd like to be clear that I'm not against sprinkling adjectives in at all. I like details! I like otherwise insignificant window-dressing filler words, as long as they're interesting and help to paint a clearer picture of the world the author imagined.  'Historic' ain't that. Sorry. Doesn't belong in the opening, either. You aren't starting with any exciting events. You haven't got a hook. This isn't necessarily a bad thing but it does mean you have to keep your writing tight.

'Way' and 'of all types' had to go because they bogged down the flow without adding anything but the idea of 'this, but REALLY this'. A good rule of thumb is to avoid as much as possible qualifiers like 'very', 'really', 'totes mcgoats', 'extremely' and so on. When I first read that idea I scoffed because how else are you supposed to add impact? Conciseness is how. Believe me, I know how counterintuitive this feels, but puffing up your sentences with words supposed to make them more intense just makes them bloated. It also dulls down the effect of those qualifiers when you find an exception where you really do need to use them. On top of all that, 'way' wasn't the correct word to use. Even if Deckard would've said it, it doesn't feel right to read. The correct word would've been 'far'. I would've kicked 'far's arse, too.

Speaking of 'far', I get why you repeated it in the next sentence. Honestly, you could get away with that if you're attached to how it flows. My biggest issue with the sentences starting with 'most people' is the repetition of 'choice/choose'. While 'far, far away' is deliberate, this clearly isn't.  Repetition can be used to great effect but it has to be carefully considered to be done in a way that's clever and not flow-breaking. Be careful to avoid overusing words that aren't the super common ones you can't go two paragraphs without, because readers do notice. It'll knock them right out of the story. It's stilted.

I like 'trapped in an aging city'. You don't need the 'here' because that's implied. You've established that Deckard is in Boston and never had the choice to leave. Cut that shit like eyes from a potato. You could change 'an' to 'this' if you prefer.

To be honest I had trouble with the rest. The use of 'encrusting' is awkward. Don't get me wrong, it paints the picture you want. Knowing exactly what you're trying to stay doesn't make it feel right though. I'm not so hot on my replacement of 'taking over' either, but I heartily recommend you rethink your word selection.

Same kind of deal with 'worst bits of the city' in that while I'm not sold on my replacement I feel it shows how you could fix the issues. 'Bits' was removed to prevent bloat and 'city' for the same reasons as the 'choice/choose' stuff above.

I'm cool with the last part.

I'm not doing any more of this word by word correction because frankly I'm tired as hell but I hope what I've written helps. I want to be clear that this isn't me pulling some showoffy 'look at me i am so smart' kind of deal, it's just the best way I could think of to explain how to make the narration snappier. It's worth repeating that first person is hard. There's a reason so many people hate reading it. I think it's also worth repeating that Deckard's narration doesn't have to sound exactly the same as his dialogue.

Moving on to your second piece!

I like this a lot better. Even though Joseph has no idea where he's going, what little you have of this story already feels like it has direction. I'd still personally change it up and shorten a few sentences (for example, your second sentence could be 'the forest's trees offered little protection from the midnight rain') but I don't have as many issues as I did with your first story. You wrote One Darkness later, right?

I don't want to discourage you. The fact that you're even asking for critique is good. There's a lot more I could say both good and bad but I have to go the fuck to sleep so I'm closing out here lol. Keep at it.

i have not proofread this post for the last few paragraphs

[SatanInAZootSuit]

One darkness was earlier, but Also emotionally charged in a way. I have no idea why I chose first person for the cyberwhatever one (cyberdecay?) but I'm probably going to stick to it. Thanks for the advice!

[Nikaer Drekin]

I only got a chance to read a bit of the cyberpunk one, but I don't think you need the intro section. To me, it would be more interesting and natural to just start with Chapter 1 (because you've honestly got a good hook/opening line there) and work the exposition in as you go rather than just dump a bunch of it in a paragraph up front.

In fact, this is advice that has worked well for me in the past- ask yourself, "Is my first paragraph essential? If I cut it, will I lose something from the overall story?" You'd be surprised how often the answer is "No".

[SatanInAZootSuit]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rhi9CBZEyi8u-Yy1CEk3jcAOdj3lJmhCU1EyL0XBEHQ/edit?usp=sharing Story number three. I wrote what's here just today. Tear it apart, you jackals.
(NOTE: This link allows commenting.)

[eldritchhat]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rhi9CBZEyi8u-Yy1CEk3jcAOdj3lJmhCU1EyL0XBEHQ/edit?usp=sharing Story number three. I wrote what's here just today. Tear it apart, you jackals.
(NOTE: This link allows commenting.)

Ok, I just left a shit ton of comments, and I hope that helps. :P

Seriously, I like it, (you may or may not take this as a compliment, but) it reminds a little of Stephen King. However, the problems I noticed the most were:
1. Very passive role for the main character, and, thus, the audience. Even if your character just thinks they're doing stuff on their own, but are really controlled by an unseen force, or, that they are trying things and continually failing, it is infinitely more interesting and immersive than just falling into situations.
2. You have a lot of good imagery here, but not a lot of emotional ties. If we could know more about Gered and this place he is in (perhaps you could make it similar to a place that once had meaning to him, so that you compare the two), then we would be more invested in Gered and this strange place, and thus more susceptible to the spooks.
3. EXPAND ON THIS. While you have laid the seeds of dread, this will not affect the audience much once they finish reading. The best horror stories will cause a chill to go down your back and a fear of sleeping without the lights on FOR BOTH THE WRITER AND THE READER. You have to be scared if you want your audience to be scared.

I suppose you can take this advice with a grain of salt, as it's from one amateur horror writer to another. However, I love horror and have read quite a lot of it, so I can typically distinguish between the good, the great, and the 'meh' horror.

Keep on writing dude.

[SatanInAZootSuit]

Thanks. The concept behind that specific story is mostly focusing on personal emotional stuff going on in my head, mostly being displayed through alternating dream sequences and real life events. I'll definitely develop it further.