*critique me* (you post, I critique)

[Cadin Araceli]

Star Wars: I Know Places (parts 1-11)

It seems like you have a very good AU going here, but it is hard to get through is because it is so dialogue heavy! It makes is hard to follow at points and makes the story move really fast.

The piece starts off by just kind of dropping us in, and I know we are kind of picking off from a previous story line, but give us a baby prologue to make sure we are all in the story together.

If you are going to have a lot of dialogue, that's fine, but make sure we have more then just dialogue. What are they doing while thy are speaking? How are thy feeling? Is there voice stressed or strained? Are they stand or sitting or moving, how does their body react to this and that sentence. You have so many emotional scenes with not a lot of emotional connect to the characters.

When we do have emotional scenes that aren't all dialogue, you do more tell in stead of show. You don't show that someone is sad, you just say it. It is good to have a balance of both. It is kinda of up to the writer, so maybe just go back over with this in mind.

Showing instead of telling also gives us a chance to really connect with a scene, the character, and keeps the story from rushing (which you tend to do in some parts). Especially when someone goes through a big moment or a big character development.

Also, it might help if you kind of take each post to have it be "focused" on one person. Like this post reveals how this person is feeling, and this post is how this person is feeling. It makes it much cleaner and easier to follow.

I think you have a good story here, with really good bones, but expanding would really bring this story together!

[watermelon.]

Can you please critique the prologue of this story I am writing? It doesn't have a title yet though.

http://www.chickensmoothie.com/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=2975098#p96030350

it's a great start, and i can see the story going somewhere interesting - but there's just a few things i'd like to note!

first off, this doesn't have to do with the writing itself, but the presentation of it. i would suggest that instead of having it all italicized (well, the portion of it that is), maybe only have some direct thoughts (i'll get to that in a moment) italicized for more effect. i think you can convince the reader even more if it's not all italicized, and maybe create an element of surprise in it as well, when it's revealed that it was just a dream/imagination. i've also noticed after a while of writing on cs that people aren't fond of having everything centered. now obviously that is a personal choice, but you want it to be easy to read for everyone.

the next thing i've noticed is that it kind of flip-flops between present and past tense. for example:


"The sound was closing in on me, its hot breath right behind me. If only I could run faster. But I can’t. I can’t do anything to stop my inevitable death. I am going to die, and it doesn’t matter. My lungs burned and I desperately needed a drink."


the bolded is where it switches. you're writing in past tense, and it suddenly switches to present, then back to past. for this i'd suggest maybe writing something like this:


"The sound was closing in on me, its hot breath right behind me. If only I could run faster, I thought, But I can’t. I can’t do anything to stop my inevitable death. I am going to die, and it doesn’t matter. My lungs burned and I desperately needed a drink.



while reading, i found a lot of repeating words (i have this issue a lot in my writing, oops), which can be replaced easily and make the story more enjoyable to read, being less repetitive. i'd recommend using thesaurus.com, because you can type in a word or phrase you notice repetition in and easily get synonyms for it.

a small punctuation thing i saw when someone spoke is that instead of adding commas, you left it bare. now i'm not sure if it's required, but i know for me it flows better to put something like this:


teeth of the predator, “I can’t play this game anymore” I said, “Just kill me now.”


rather than with no breaks, because it adds something to it that makes it easier to flow. i try to think of it as if you were reading it outloud, you would probably pause there.


okay, i think that's all. overall, it's great, just needs a few small adjustments c:

[Shadow,]

Thanks for the help! I am going through and fixing things right now!

[Cadin Araceli]

All works have been finished! Queue is now completely open~!

[Cadin Araceli]

luminescence. is one of our new critiques!
Thank you for offering to help me, and everyone else!

[Cadin Araceli]

*bump*
I am working slowly on adding those critics to the master link as you guys have voted!!!!

[Amethyst The Gem]

Confide in me

may I ask for some critique on the first chapter please? (the first bit you reviewed was the prologue).

I don't mind if you make the critique public this time.

[Cadin Araceli]

Got it! Added to the list!

[Cadin Araceli]

Confide in me

I think there is a lot of the same thing as the prologue, that while you have a great structure here, it is just really heavy back and forth dialogue, though I doo see that you did put in more effort to break it up!
Besides that, it just seems like I got lost in the sequence of time, so if you could make that more clear! And in the switching of the character we are following, it's very important to make than change super clear!

I am excited for the next chapter! Just make sure we keep getting this nice gradual build of suspense!

[Amethyst The Gem]

thank you for the critique! I tend for some reason to do more dialog than explaining, it's just a habit I can't seem to break.


what did you mean by 'the sequence of time'? I don't quite follow...

thank you again! I'm really glad you like it! It means a lot!