beginning of story - critiques welcome.

CountingR

Gonna take this out for a while and do some actual work on it, its only a sketch of a story really. I'll repost it at another point when its a bit more developed. Cheers for the comments though!

pickarooney

Great start. More please!
(not exactly useful feedback, but hey)

CountingR

Original post updated. Come. Read.

pickarooney

Can I just ask if you worked and worked on that or wrote it out more or less in one go?
So far, so (very) good, but it must be a bit of a strain to keep the quips a-crackin' line after line. It's extremely easy to read, in any case, which is more of a compliment than might be obvious.

CountingR

Thanks for the comments pickarooney. It's written pretty quickly really (a few hours overall). I guess with the jokes it's not that hard. I would find it a lot harder to write something more serious. If I'm just being silly with it, I don't really overanalyse it as much. Anyway, thanks for the comments. I'll post some more soon.

CountingR

Another update on the story. The end of chapter 2. Feel free to give advice etc.

ddef

hello there! Allow me to throw in my 2 cent on chapter 1 if you don't mind.
I'll start with the positives. As said the story is easy to read. You may think that might make the piece unsophisticated, but realy it's just a different, lighter style of writing used, and it fits perfectly with the witty approach to the piece. Using an official, formal tone and still using humour would have created an unsatisfying paradox. Also, the point of ch 1 was that you were explaining how you are not a writer, so using 'big fancy words' wouldn't have fit. (apologies for rambling, just jotting down points.
Another part I enjoyed were those suttle witty comments you made, almost as if you were unaware of your own humour. ( forest gump like. ( couldn't think of anything better, sorry )). Favourity quote would be 'by the length of my stubble , I reckon I've been here for... Genius.

Moving on to a bit of constructive crtizism!
I didn't feel as if the tone was constant the whole way through. I thought you would go from humorous to factual then back now and then.
I thought you rambled a bit. Such as talking about the boulder and it's bad rap. You first started talking about not being a writer and how you can express yourself on paper and not in real life, and you gave a falling boulder as an example.
All fair and good you would give it as an example, was a crazy but witty comparison of the 2, but my main point is that you said you were just giving it as am example and so I expected you to go back talking about your writing style, but you didn't return to that.
If you wanted to move on to talking about your experiences, it should be a gradual change of story and not just from 1 to the other in a flash.
You said " your probably wondering why I was on that hill...". To be honest I was wondering when you would return to the point you were making previously.



Whoa, that's a biggie! I hope this helps bud, and remember it is just my opinion so others are different. I hope you don't feel I was trying to knock you, I am just saying my thoughts on it's good qualities and room for improvement in my mind.
Overall a very well written peice. Job well done buddy

CountingR

Hey ddef,

Thanks for the comments. It's always helpful to hear another perspective. I kind of thought the move from the example of the hill to the actual hill piece was too quick. I've altered it a bit to (hopefully) make a smoother segway into it.

I want it to be a quick move in a way so that the author introduces an example which would point towards some simple sort of wisdom on his part and then very quickly go back on that to show his stupidity in the most ridiculous way possible.

Cheers for the comments though. All taken on board.