KittyHazelnut is Weird

Kitty's writing school

*rant rant rant rant ranting every day*

I have to critique some of my classmates' writing for my creative writing class and holy fuck does it make me want to curl up in a corner and cry

So, I present to you, everything wrong with this one kid's writing.

- The first thing we learned is not to info dump. Ever. He started his story out with two full pages (not double spaced) of information about his time machine.

- His paragraphs are at least 200 words each. Paragraphs are supposed to be about 60 words a piece.

- He has no actual scenes. The entire thing reads as a plot summary, nothing more. In the course of three pages, we suddenly jumped from when he was fifteen to when he was 22. I have no idea where the time went, but I'm  vaguely aware that he apparently had a girlfriend, whom he loved very much, and she dumped him when she found out he wanted to be an evil dictator, and it broke his heart. Why did he love her? How long were they together? Did they have chemistry? When did they even start dating? Was his girlfriend cool? I got no freaking idea, because their relationship was summed up in three sentences. I thought it was still character development, but no, this is part of the story.

- He got a job at a donut shop because it would help him get a job at Area 51?

- He got a job as a janitor at Area 51?

- He got a really good job at Area 51 because he started out as a janitor?

- His job has literally no description? Does he just sit around all day in Area 51?

- He suddenly picked up drawing, but it went into no details about his drawing, because, again, there were no scenes — only plot summaries. There was this huge ass list of all the office supplies there (apparently Area 51 has office supplies everywhere) and when he had drawn everything in the building, he left to look for other stuff to draw? An artist would draw the same things multiple times, especially when he suddenly picked up this skill and should have had to practice it.

- He got into a restricted part of Area 51? With no explanation as to how this was possible? He didn't have clearance. Did he steal someone else's badge? You'd think they'd have technology to prevent that.

- There's a literal alien in a restricted part of Area 51 and the character saw it and fainted and woke up and apparently forgot why he fainted but he remembered the alien because he drew it with his photographic memory? What?

- Every time he drew something, it would say, "Mark, being the artist that he was, drew it down." First of all, "drew it down" makes no sense. Second, there's no goddamn reason to say "being the artist that he was" every time he did something artistic. If he needed to keep reaffirming that yes, Mark is an artist, it means he failed developing him as a character with his own hobbies and quirks.

- He did the same thing with "because he had a photographic memory" and I just... no? Especially because half the time, that's not how a photographic memory works?

- It mentions his long and tiring struggle to get clearance to see the aliens again but it never mentions how he actually got clearance or why the fuck they'd let him go about his normal life with extra clearance even though he broke the rules of the place by going someone restricted.

- I don't think the alien actually had anything to do with the story?

- He found a time machine and he thought it was a microwave so he sent a chocolate bar forward in the future but he never finds the chocolate bar so he should have no idea it's a time machine

- But somehow he knows to use it when he's kidnapped (I think? Idrk what happened because the grammar was atrocious but I think he was kidnapped?) and he went back in time to Pompeii