Bittersweet Candy Bowl Forums

posting a random story, cause shit, why not?

but really, i want to know whatchu think.

first story here, might add more stories later:



[spoiler]

Let's just say for a second, for the sake of the story, that Mike's and Sandy's tree is a bit off of the school grounds, through a small town and through


A tumult of thoughts thrived within Lucy's mind as she walked steadily through the town streets, too preoccupied with thinking to do anything more than move at a steady pace and keep her head focused on the sidewalk in front of her.

This post has been edited by Blue-eyed Fire: 17 February 2012 - 01:59 PM

Not bad, but I'm more than slightly put off by your sad neglect for capitalisation after speech marks and full stops. Also, don't space out the sentences so far: it makes it really disconnected and kills the flow of the story. Apart from that, not so bad.

Not bad! I've seen much worse. I agree with Sammy, proper punctuation is your main issue. Bet let's go into more detail.

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Nothing major here, but you could try rewording it. Try something like:
"Lucy's hands trembled, her fists clenched at her sides. Mike took his time. After a while, he replied without looking up from his work."
Again, there is nothing wrong with how you wrote it, but spicing up the style will make it more interesting to read.

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This doesn't flow well. For starters, "so taken for granted" isn't a good phrase to use here. Try "So blase."

"Anger flared up withing Lucy" could be better phrased as "Anger flared deep inside her." You know, something that flows a bit better. That, however, is stylistic choice.

As far as the "how could he do that" comment, eliminate the question mark. You know, "How could he do that just for the sake of one girl?" Partial sentences should be avoided whenever possible.

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This should be one paragraph. Also, you should avoid repeating points. Fair is used twice here, and the last sentence is almost identical to the next one. Try "That wasn't right. It just wasn't fair. Why did he have to do this?"

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Nothing really wrong here besides the punctuation issue. Drop the exclamation point and try rewording the last bit. Something like "WHY do you have to be such dick?" Lucy exclaimed, shoving her chair back and slamming her hands down on the table."

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Again, this is a stylistic issue, but it feels forced. Try "Despite her intense rage, she couldn't help but cry."

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This could benefit from rewording. Try "Mike didn't bother to look up from his work, or even acknowledge her. The rage continued to build inside her. She was so mad, so pissed. Screaming at him [screaming what?] she shoved him back and tossed his papers to the floor. His chair lost balance, and he hit the ground with a dull thud."

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this bit is fine, but a little revision could help.

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Field of vision can be omitted entirely here. It's unnecessary. For the second sentence, a little revision. Try "For a brief moment, the world went blank. When she came to, she found herself sprawled on the floor, her jaw throbbing."

For the most part, my suggestions are stylistic and not really necessary, but I recommend looking at them anyway. Though short, it's surprisingly good, and even with the future OC that will be appearing. A word of advice: build the story around Lucy, and make the OC a plot device at best. And avoid anything resembling romance/longterm friendship, as it puts your character squarely in Mary Sue/Marty Stu territory which will instantly drop your story's popularity. Remember Zachary? That's a good way to use the character, someone who comes in and out of Lucy's life. I honestly warn against OC's entirely, as any of the secondary characters could work just as well (in most cases.)

This post has been edited by Carcharocles: 13 February 2012 - 05:52 PM

I personally would like to add a little commentary about content. I find it hard to believe that Mike would hit Lucy so hard she saw stars; he may not have much concern for her emotions these days, but I don't believe he's ever been been provoked into violence by anything but violence, and even then he mostly just catches fists and shoves people away (Confrontation being the notable exception, but I doubt Lucy's attempted rape any time recently). You could lead up to such an event later in the story, but I don't think becoming violent is a way many people expect Mike's character to develop in the future, so you should justify an event like this before it happens.

Carcharocles, on 13 February 2012 - 05:48 PM, said:

edited, thanks! Can you be my peer reviewer?

also don't worry, this is a oneshot at best anyway, so he's not really involved.

christ, don't you hate mary-sues?

This post has been edited by Blue-eyed Fire: 14 February 2012 - 07:51 AM

UPDATE:
added more to So Long Goodbye. Story's about.... mm, third of the way finished.

So you added a Fan-Character... Yeah Tae is not going to like this

RedJack, on 14 February 2012 - 04:53 PM, said:

Seconded.

Though possibly it would have been alright if he had revealed his presence, and then Lucy had immediately called him a creepy stalker and driven him away. I'm not really sure off the top of my head.

Borg Lord, on 15 February 2012 - 03:19 AM, said:

oh shit, THAT"S what she meant by fan-character?

shit shit shit.
What do you suggest I should do?

This post has been edited by Blue-eyed Fire: 15 February 2012 - 08:33 AM

Why the fuck was he standing outside her window? Why did she not mind this? This is EXACTLY why Tae hates fancharacters: ridiculous scenarios that would never occur in the story and only do so because someone thinks their self-insert will be a valuable addition. Trust me, he isn't. Just edit him out. You were doing so well so far.

Also, what the hell kind of a shade is "storm-coloured"?

Yeah, if you understand the situation then there is still time to salvage this. Just edit your story to make it include somebody from the BCB cast instead of this fan-character.

First, let me talk about your dialogue in general:

I'm just going to pull together a collage of certain parts of your story. See if you notice a certain pattern.


Notice anything? No? Well, let me point out three things that you have done that are writing sins.

Allow me to demonstrate with an example of my own: "'I'm very angry at you for repeating these three flaws over and over!' I said angrily, anger welling up inside of me."

So without further ado, three things... The first two kind of go together... Ahem: Stop stating the obvious, stop stating what you could just as easily show, and stop repeating yourself.

Between all of those quotes, there are seven mentions to anger. Now, as a rule of thumb, you should avoid at all costs stating how a character feels. Those actions, such as Mike shoving Lucy, shows well enough that he's mad, and yet you seem to feel the need to say that his voice is "bursting with anger." You don't need to say how they say it unless there is ambiguity ("Well done," for example, could be sarcastic or sincere, so say "he said sincerely/sarcastically") or you want to break up a wall of straight-up dialogue.

There are very few cases where stating a character's mood is justified. I can only think of two cases off the top of my head: if the character him or herself is narrating (thus establishing bias and kind of treating the writing like a diary), or if a character feels a certain mood but tries to mask it with another.

Secondly, stop repeating yourself. As I said, seven mentions to anger in those quotes I found. I--we, everyone who is at all intelligent understands that Lucy is sad and angry and Mike is downright pissed after the first mention. Your job as a writer isn't to hammer things into our skull like some madness mantra ("LucyisangryLucyisangryLucyisangryLucy--"). It's to describe the details of the events (okay, it's a lot more complicated than that, but you definitely shouldn't be repeating yourself).

Now then, let me tell you about Aaron:

I'm going to do my best not to be an echo of what other users said about how him standing outside a window just creeping on Lucy is just downright awkward and out of place.

Instead, let me tell you this: characters are people, not tools. You know who uses people as a means to an end in real life? Sociopaths and avaricious individuals.

I think you need to understand that a character is not a plot device--in nearly every case. The only time a character is even able to be considered similar to that is if they are a minor character who has a job that relates to the story or whatnot.

But in Aaron's case, what is he? Some random, supercilious nobody that Lucy knows who just decided to peer through the window and watch Lucy get yelled at by Mike. He's not even relevant--he's not even important! He's just... there so that the story can advance.

Allow me to let you in on a little secret that every writer should know: characters make the story; a story does not make the characters. If I was a writing teacher I'd have you write this on the blackboard 100 times straight... Characters aren't there because the story needs them; stories act a certain way because of the characters.

Compare any success story to any one that was a flop in terms of writing. You'll find that except in a very select few cases, characters are why people love the story. Characters need to be realistic. Characters need to be relate-able. Characters need to be human (well, of course, unless they're not human, but in the case of our lovable cast of anthropomorphic cats and dogs they are human by nature).

Why was something like Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin such a success? Well yes, because it enlightened people to slavery, but people loved Tom. They were happy when he was happy, and sad when he was sad, and heartbroken when (well, if you've read the book you know what happens).

I'm sorry if this feels like an attack on you, but it's not, by any means. You've chosen an emotionally charged scene. If you want, I could show you how I'd write that, but I'm not going to just do that without being asked since you might understand at this point.

Seriously, good luck, and don't lose hope. Just make sure you keep improving.

Not a bad start, but there some issues.

Grammatical errors are pretty apparent, but other people have already mentioned this, so I won't go into deeper detail.

The clarity of when and where this story "So Long Goodbye" takes place is rather unclear. Only at the end do we realize it's in Lucy's bedroom. I figured they were at school or at the library or something. Somewhere public. But nope, just in Lucy's bedroom. Why? A little bit of establishment beforehand would aid this story. Where are all of Lucy's pets, anyway? Is anyone else home (because surely they would've heard the screaming). Not to mention, when does this story take place? In the current times of the comic, or...?

I don't mind fancharacters (not as much as some people), but one simply wasn't needed for this story. Why not Augustus? I think he would have been FAR more effective to use instead. A fancharacter is fine, but you have to at least take some time to establish who he/she is and what their relationship is to some of the other characters. Aaron just shows up almost completely randomly, outside of Lucy's bedroom window, no less. Isn't Lucy's room on the second floor of her house? Is Aaron psychic, like Lucy almost feels he is? Does he have floating powers? What exactly is his purpose, other than being rather confusing and stupid?

Lot of plot-holes and inconsistencies, but for something you wrote in like 20 minutes, it's not the worst thing in the world. If you continue it and fix these errors as you go along, you should be fine.

Lux Aeterna, on 16 February 2012 - 02:34 AM, said:

I feel bad that some of those were my recommendations. ;__; Honestly, the writing before was worse, but I should've taken my rewrite examples just a tad further.

o.o

I just read it over again with all the posts in mind and realized I just posted a piece of crap. o.o sorry guys.

........now I may have to rework it over again after I reread it. The whole idea now seems a bit crappy.
I will try to make another oneshot/short story, see how you guys think it needs improvement. It might, I think, take several ideas to get one that matches with BCB. In the meantime, there's gonna be a spoiler with a bunch of crap writing in it. Whatever you see inside it isn't finished, I'm just using it for a place to toy with ideas, I guess.

what do you think are good fic ideas for BCB?

This post has been edited by Blue-eyed Fire: 17 February 2012 - 01:47 PM