Story_Marc
Share your fun!
- Joined
- Jul 23, 2022
- Messages
- 429
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- 108
Well, this was a unique one to do. I'd pass on this one personally, but my top reason would be that the premise doesn't interest me personally. That said, I give you props for writing with this in mind. Now, ignoring that, there was something I noticed reading the prose that impacted things as well. Well, I'm near positive it did, but I wanted to be transparent about my lack of interest in the premise first, so you can take that into consideration on whether or not you should ignore what I'm going to say.I would also like one if you don't mind. In His Will
When I read this, the delivery felt monotonous. I've three theories as to why for this. First, there's a lack of cadence with this. I noticed you lack sentence structure variety. You tend to rely heavily on subject-very-object alone. Also, sentence length variety might help out too.
The bigger issue is the prominent use of passive voice throughout. I'm sure that's what gives it this detached vibe when reading. In fact, I discussed this recently on one of the things with active writing and passive voice. Here's the video on it:
I can see excessive telling, which, while you can get away with it more in 1st-person, still isn't ideal if you're just telling.
Also, for more smaller things, I see things like rogue body parts. An example of that in action.
With a practiced motion, My left hand retrieved my phone and tapped the app designed to select a random bible verse.
She's choosing to do the action and we're immersed in her, so it should be this:
With a practiced motion, I retrieved my phone and tapped the app designed to select a random bible verse.
To quote a bit from where I learned this...
Body parts that move independently take the character out of the equation. When readers have trouble connecting to the characters in a story, this can sometimes be the cause because we’ve removed the characters from the central role they should be playing. From the point of view of writing in deep POV, animating body parts in this way makes it feel like we’re outside the character again. We see the body parts acting. The character doesn’t seem to have any part in it.
For example…
Her hand shot up.
It really didn’t. She chose, at least on an instinctive level, to put her hand up. Her hand did not act alone (unless she really is possessed).
Fixed: She shot her hand into the air.
One more example.
Rogue Body Part: His fist pounded on the door.
His fist does not act outside of his will. He’s the one pounding on the door. He uses his fist to do it.
Fixed: He pounded on the door.
There is an exception to this, but not important right now. That's the key thing to point out.
That said, I still absolutely encourage you to see through this vision as an actual story. Even if it isn't for me, I am so happy to see someone do something more unique! And I think the premise could work. I guess it kind of reminds me of something like Life is Strange. Which isn't for me either, but I recognize why others can enjoy it.
I might do some more of these this weekend, who knows? Truth be told, I'm kind of feeling eh on helping people right now. I've been questioning what's the point of doing all this for others lately. I know I can help people out, and I usually like to, but... I'm just feeling discouraged. And when the only thing I keep hearing for why I should do it is because it helped them with their stuff, I find it harder to care. After all, it just comes back to how I'm of service to others, not anything with regard to my own work, effort, identity, or ambitions.
I'm not abandoning anything since I do genuinely like helping where I can, I'm just... I don't know, I'm still working my emotions here out.