I had to reread some parts multiple times cause I found it to be going too fast. But, other than that I enjoyed it a lot, especially the writing. Keep it up chief.
You were offering to critique as well, yes? I wrote this thing on a whim and it's the first story I've ever written. But please, don't spare my feelings. Thanks in advance.
docs.google.com
Too fast you say?
I see I see. I was worried that it would drag, so I tried to keep it snappy. I'll slow it down a bit, thanks!
Also, where did you learn to write well? What resources did you use?
Brandon Sanderson's lectures on YouTube "write about dragons", the Chicago Manual of Style, lots of YA fiction (stay away from dystopias, embrace fantastical pixie people like Brian Jacques and Tony DiTerlizzi), and even more painstaking hours of practice, anxiety, masochism, and self-hatred. But please find a healthier process than me. I believe in you.
I read your yarn, it's honestly decent, all things considered. Put it through some editing passes and it'll be more than decent. You're dialogue is well-developed, it doesn't feel like the characters are just puppets saying what you want them to say in monotone, which is much harder to pull off than you would think. The only exception to this bit of praise exists early on take this bit:
"I'm fine, Sarah, all right. If you've come here to browse the lab, as usual, just do it quietly, all right. I need to focus right now. And don't drop anything ag- what are you doing?!"
You've already established that Sarah regularly picks through the lab in the narrative and both Peter and Sarah understand this very well, the red section exists solely to make sure the reader understands. But because you've already established this it sounds kind of handholdy and even a bit pretentious. There's a bit of chunky text as well.
Like what I just did to you here. Yes? (sorry)
Lemmie give it a little snippy snip.
"I'm fine, Sarah, alright? If you've come here to browse, just do it quietly. I need to focus right now. And don't drop anything ag- what are you doing?!"
Better? Worse? Use your own judgement, and don't take any of my advice as gospel. I don't know what I'm doing most of the time.
You do have at least one strange tense shift that needs to be dealt with and you can be a bit more efficient with your narration, but I found Remedium to be pretty entertaining. It's on par with most stories on this platform. It has a light, slightly zany tone, mostly due your use of onomatopoeia, a dying art worthy of more respect than it gets, don't let anyone tell you it makes you sound unprofessional, people
pay me to use it.
As a fast and dirty tip, you'll usually improve your work by leaps and bounds by simply removing everything that doesn't add description, emotions, or useful information in a text if you aren't actively trimming it already (do this, even for dialogue, most people don't get super wordy... until they do, but you have to be consistent with those types of characters). Simply deleting unnecessary "hads," clunky tangents, and unsure language does wonders for your flow.
Stay awesome!
