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@ZAVEN February 08, 2023

Hello! ZAVEN here, I would like some feedback on the very beginning of my story. I've never been proficient in writing, and as much as I hate to say it, my English writing is probably better than my Japanese, though the bar is kind of low for that. Nevertheless, my English writing still isn't very good and feels lackluster, any advice?

The silence is more than painful. It claws into my flesh just to grab hold of my bones and shake. It caresses me slowly, but it's frigid to the touch. I suppress shivers, such a sign of weakness is no good right now. My eyes have been locked onto my roommate's for what feels like an hour; more realistically, it's probably been five minutes tops. I can see myself in him, his dark eyes reflect to me the sort of man I've become. I see my countenance carved in stone, partially intercepted by loose strands of my hair that have fallen away from the rest. If we were playing a game of poker, I certainly would be winning right now. But alas, we are not playing poker, we're playing a waiting game that neither of us have enough patience for. I distract myself from his eyes and stare into mine.

This is always what happens when Ruo and I disagree on something. 'Something' being my future; our future.

Thanks in advance! This is my first time asking publicly for advice on my writing, so please be gentle and kind.

@Masterkey February 16, 2023

I really like it overall! It's very descriptive (I liked your choice of words!) and gets across the feeling of tension really well. There are a few grammatical errors but they're not a big deal. The only thing that feels off about this excerpt is that it starts off really dramatic and tense (in a good way), but then by the end it seems like what's going on is just a regular argument between two people. Especially since you say this happens every time when they have a disagreement, it seems like either they have a really unhealthy relationship because the main character feels so uncomfortable with Ruo, or it just means that you should save this really good descriptive writing for a different moment. Perhaps this just makes sense with more context that I'm not getting here, but it was a little jarring to feel like I was thrust into a dramatic moment that then turned out to be not as dramatic as the description made it seem. I was imagining something like the person experiencing the painful silence that is crawling into his flesh and shaking his bones was either hiding from a great danger, or he had just confessed something extremely terrible and now he was feeling the silence of the person's shock to have heard he had done something terrible.

So really that wasn't a problem with your writing, because I liked that part a lot. It's less a problem of struggling with HOW to write and more like WHEN to write I guess? When do you pull out the big descriptions, when do you keep it more subtle, when would tense moments like this be appropriate, etc.

I hope I didn't seem too harsh, I don't want to discourage you! Your writing is good!

@ZAVEN February 17, 2023

Okay, thank you.

@ZAVEN February 17, 2023

I find that consistency is a huge problem for me in writing, as well as pacing so I'm steadily working on it. Oh, and could you point out the grammatical errors for me, please?

@ZAVEN February 17, 2023

(And if possible, can you critique the beginning of a story that I'm currently working on? I send an abandoned one to dip my toes into getting critiqued lol.)

@Masterkey February 21, 2023

Hey, sorry I took awhile to reply. I'll get back to you on those grammatical errors tomorrow, and in the meantime feel free to DM me the beginning of your other story!

@ZAVEN February 21, 2023

Thanks so much!

Feedback on the Start of My Story