Please Review My Story. Harsh Criticism Welcome.

[Deleted member 70223]

I write my daydreams. Please critique as you see fit. All advice is appreciated.

Man’s Best Friend | Scribble Hub

 

[Astrokitten]

First things first, your chapters are too short. This is partially the result of your story-telling style. You spend a lot of time telling the reader what’s happening without actually showing what‘s happening. There’s no descriptions of places or people, there’s almost no dialogue. Instead of just telling us “the main character is lonely and depressed”, you should show us how these emotions affect his relationships with others — are his parents worried about him? What does his roommate think? Is he skipping class? These are just examples of ways to show what is happening instead of just telling us.
Another piece of advice that might improve the flow of your story is the idea of “in media res”, where you start where the action is — maybe start the story when he’s leaving home and show the conversations at the train station between him and his parents and his friends. This would be a good place to establish what his personality is like before he becomes lonely and depressed. This is also just an option, I’m sure other people could argue for you to start your story at any variety of places — like at the first party when the mc starts drinking, or when he meets the dog for the first time.
You tagged the story as psychological which implies that the readers will be deep within the pathology of the main character - ie, know his thoughts and motivations.
My final piece of advice is to just pass your writing through a grammar checker, idk if English is your first language or not and I know not everyone is as nitpicky as I am, but your punctuation stands out as what needs the most editing.
Hope some of this helped. Let me know if you want any clarification.

 

[Lorelliad]

I hope you at least try to reach 1k words. The chapters are too short. I don't wanna say more since I suck at being harsh.

 

[SakeVision]

Read them all. Not gonna lie.

The style is barebones, tenses sometimes mix, heavy tell not show....None of this is bad in itself.
The story is highly metaphorical it seems....I don't think the demons are literal or whatever, and I like it but....

But I have a feeling that it's literally based on your own life, which isn't very exciting.

Op. You can put ocd, depression, loneliness as major themes of a story. You really can. Contrary to what some people say, you can even end it in suicide or describe rape or self-harm and all the things dark in the world.

But please, don't make it blatantly your own blog/diary. That's a huge turn-off. Please, insert them in an actual fictional story. I know it's much harder, but the rewards and feedbacks are gonna be that much better! They really will.

 

[Deleted member 70223]

This is also just an option, I’m sure other people could argue for you to start your story at any variety of places — like at the first party when the mc starts drinking, or when he meets the dog for the first time.

Thank you for taking the time to provide feedback. It is much appreciated.

The bolded part is not from my story, though. You must have mixed it with another.

But I have a feeling that it's literally based on your own life, which isn't very exciting.


But please, don't make it blatantly your own blog/diary. That's a huge turn-off. Please, insert them in an actual fictional story. I know it's much harder, but the rewards and feedbacks are gonna be that much better! They really will.

Thank you for your feedback.

This story isn't based off of my life whatsoever. Other than I have experienced the joy of having a dog. This story is complete fiction.

 

[Lloyd]

I think its easy to read, but way to short with the chapters. Gotta be at least 2k in my opinion. Cause 1k takes less than 5 minutes to read, so it leaves very little impression.