Ok, well, I'm an aspiring writer, and i'm currently working on a short story for a contest whose deadline is at the end of September. I'm on about the 3rd draft of the story, and i'm looking for some critique.. and since I know I've ruffled enough feathers around here, I figured I could get some pretty blunt criticism.. and since I actually respect most of you (even those of you I enjoy sparring with.. * Verithrax*), I'm looking to see if there'd be anyone interested in reading through the first 5.5k words (about 14 pages, size 12, Courier New), and giving their opinions on what I have so far of this (hopefully) final draft.

As a note, its a fairly dark piece. Supernatural Noir, is probably a decent classification. So, yeah.. if you're at all interested in something like that, I'd be really grateful for the comments.

Um.. I suppose if you're interested, post here or send me a PM and I can either give a link to a copy of it, or attach a word file, or something, depending on how the person would prefer it.

Thanks in advance.

Hrm. Discovering that I can't attach things via a PM, I guess i'll just go ahead and attach it here in an rtf format, which the people interested should be able to open without a problem. If there is an issue, I can always work something else out.

I'm a readin' it.

EDIT: Quick question: Is there meant to be a double space between every sentence?

If by double space you mean two spaces, and not an actual line skip (as in, formating it double-spaced) then yes.. its a habit, because that's the preferred form for manuscripts.

Oh, okay. Thanks

Wow. That was really, really good. I wanna read the rest!

Anyway, I'm not so good at changing the actual words and stuff, but I can spellcheck link there's no tomorrow. I put words I'd get rid of like this, things I added like this, spelling corrections like this and punctuation/capitalisation correction like this.

You seem to have an issue with captalisation in the second part of a peice of speech. You do:

"The quick brown fox," said Joe stupidly. "jumps over the lazy dog."

Where it should be:

"The quick brown fox," said Joe stupidly. "Jumps over the lazy dog."

I purpled and corrected all of those.

Apart from that, Well done!



EDIT: And yes, both your PMs got through

I don't think you want a full stop after "stupidly" there either.

Should be:
"The quick brown fox," Joe said stupidly, "jumps over the lazy dog."
or
"The quick brown fox," said Joe stupidly, "jumps over the lazy dog."

Or, my preference, though I do love my commas:
"The quick brown fox," said Joe, stupidly, "jumps over the lazy dog."

Okies, so I messed up my commas. (I'm, pretty sure I didn't correct any in the story, though, fingers crossed) But Sylphas messed up the Jumps/jumps as well!

No, I didn't.

"The quick brown fox," Joe said stupidly, "jumps over the lazy dog."

It's one sentence, so you don't capitalize 'jumps' in the middle of it.

In your version ("The quick brown fox," said Joe stupidly. "Jumps over the lazy dog.") "Jumps over the lazy dog." is presented as its own sentence, which it is not; it's a fragment lacking a subject.

Oh good lord you're right.

Fallen, disregard half the purples in my proofedit.

This is the last time I try proofreading after an all-nighter

-moves D&D character sheets so she can print this thing- Yeah, thats right! I edit via highlighter and pen.

By the by, what's the competition? There's a good scholarship thing out there for short story writers and illustrators. its 1000$ for the 3month first prize and 5000 for the yearly grand prize heh.

Its the very same contest, by the sound of it L. Ron Hubbard's "Writer's of the Future" Contest.

And thanks very much, Ytraelux. I really appreciate the time you took.

Oh, and of course, thank you Nep, for taking the time aswell.

Yep thats the one! haha.

My pleasure! It was a great story.




































Now get on and write part 2!

Yes, that's the current struggle But, since criticism usually helps me write, I figured I'd throw this up here to get the extra kick. The original 2 drafts were about 11-12k words.. this one is probably going to be closer to 15k.. so I've still got a ways to go, and I've got to bust my ass, in all reality, if I want it to be as polished as can be by the deadline.

You want criticism, eh?

Nah, I'm crap at saying bad stuff about folk when I don't really mean it

I'll read it after work. If I let myself, I can tear sentences to shreds and rewrite until it sounds perfect (to me). I just have a hell of a time actually putting anything of my own down to start. If you provide fodder for me, I'll criticize all you want.

Faaantastic

Minimum word count is 17,000 right??