Passionate Critiques [CLOSED]

ᴢ-ᴀᴘᴏᴄᴀʟʏsᴘᴇ // ᴊᴇʏ_ɴᴀᴛʜᴀɴ

You asked me to critique you on your story, and I'm glad that you did. Just remember I am not a professional, but I have thought very thoroughly about everything that you will read here.

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@Jey_Nathan

First of all let me start off by saying, this is a really good book. You have a good plot and good setting. Your cover is especially good, people judge books by their covers [even though they tell others not to]. Your cover is simple but it's so interesting because it draws in the sense of darkness and horror. Very good.

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Let's begin with the characters and we'll use the twins as an example.

The twins: While they are twins you give them a sense of difference. You don't make them the same exact person like some people like to do. The good thing is you give them personality. One is more headstrong while the other is a joker. When most people think of twins they for some reason believe that they are alike in every way possible. And while this might be true for some twins it is not true for all. So you did a very good job at this, but I have some tips and tricks that might just help you with developing these characters a bit more starting from the very beginning.

You have the ingredients for creating outstanding characters. It's all there right in front of you, but I can tell that you're having trouble with putting the ingredients together. Characters are dolls so to speak. They are just outlines or ghosts of what they could be. In your book, they are dolls without the stuffing. You give them personality and flare but you've overlooked a few main parts about a character.

1). Motive; A character is dry if they don't have a motive. Now, you don't need to give each character a specific motive and write it in full out detail within the book but for your main character/characters, you will want to help the reader see what the motives are. [I would recommend not giving small characters big motives. Examples for good motives for a small character are; to be loved, to fit in, to show that they are strong, etc.] Motives back-up or "justify" the reasons behind the character's actions.

2). Flaws; I am sure that you've never met someone who's perfect inside and out. And if you tried to tell me that it would be a lie, because everyone has their flaws. So why should any character in q book be any different? When writing a character you should think about what faults hey have. What holds them back? What mistakes have they made? Do they talk too much and accidentally share secrets? What is their flaws or flaws? Remember to make them as human as possible unless they aren't and then...Well...Then the rules change after that. No one is perfect so your characters shouldn't be either.

3). Don't let them have too much peace time: This is important. If you're on an island that provides you with everyone that you need what will you learn? You won't have stress. You won't feel anything but happiness and that's actually not very good. Give your character hardships [don't get too extravagant with it, make it realistic.] so that they can learn and grow. Usually, characters that have troubles or problems thrown at them in the midst of a calm event are more likely to grow and develop a lot better.

That's just a few tips to help you round your characters a bit. Hopefully, it helps. Remember this, "Characters are just dolls until the author sprinkles them with their creativity, words, and dreams." So go ahead and sprinkle your characters with some of your own magic, you'll be surprised at the results.

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Next is the setting;

You do an okay job at this. But you're still not there....Don't let this discourage you. You start off small, everybody does. There are some questions that you leave unanswered such as; what does the hospital look like? What does the house look like? Where is the hospital? Where is the store? What time is it? These questions are essential for a reader to know what they are reading.

Some people just can't seem to find the right order to use for a setting, and sometimes they don't know how much setting to put in. So they might put in too much and overload the reader with the little details that they don't need to know. Or they could not put enough detail and leave the reader wondering what is going. With the third person view, as you are doing, there are plenty of ways to write a setting. But writing it well is the difficult part. If you're doing the book in third person limited it's a bit easier since it's only one person really seeing and we can go into their head [The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer is an amazing example of this type of viewpoint]. If you do third person but with multiple viewpoints s it's a bit better and gives you a bit of freedom [The Gods of Olympus by Rick Riordan is a good example. Notice how he labels each chapter with the name of the person that he wants to focus on so that the reader knows instantly who's mind they are looking into].

Setting, it's a difficult thing to do when you first start writing. So I have one tip to help you with it.

Tip: Clear your mind for just a moment. Put on those headphones, turn on music that helps you get creative. Open a new document but don't write anything....yet. Just stare at the clear, blank page. Your mind should be just like that. Blank. Watch as the blinker-typer-thing flashes on the page for a minute. Now start writing. Write every single detail about the setting, don't hold anything back. Write until your fingers feel like they're going to fall off. Write and don't stop to correct anything. Let your mind run wild. Do this for 5 minutes at least. Once you've written all that you can stop and read over what you just wrote. You'll notice that you have lots of information...some will be unnecessary, but a lot of it will be helpful for the story. Delete all parts that aren't needed. No re-read over it again. Delete parts that aren't needed. And once more re-read the work, you'll notice that the setting will become clearer. Now rearrange sentences in their appropriate places. By the end, you should see a crystal clear image of what you had in your head.

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Then there is your overall writing; You went with third person, have multiple characters, it's an end of the world book with some adventure included. It's got a good plot, that I believe after a bit of editing will start to show in a clearer way. You've got the ingredients for such a book that could be outstanding after the ingredients are measured and put in properly.

I would advise you to re-read your chapters before posting them, because I have found countless grammatical and spelling mistakes that could easily be fixed. [NOTE; You use a lot of commas, try splitting up the sentences do that they aren't run ons because a reader needs time to breath. Replace most of your commas with periods. It'll help your story to make more sense and flow a lot better.] Checking your spelling and grammar or have someone else do it, so that it looks a bit more professional.

Try to be a bit more descriptive with some of your scenes, because you have it written down but he reader sometimes needs more insight.

Your format is okay, but the Emojis really don't need to be included unless it's a texting conversation between people. Try to space out your paragraphs. Vary the length of the sentences and the paragraphs so that your story doesn't sound monotonous.

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T's praise: Nathan, your writing is good with just a few adjustments that need to be made. Your plot is great and the ideas that you have are amazing. Keep at it buddy because you have talent and I bet with a bit of clean up your story could be outstanding.