Young Writers Society

Hello and happy review day! I know I reviewed this story a long time ago and I'm a little fuzzy on the plot, but I love me a love story so I'll look at this as a part of a greater whole.

My first thought after reading this chapter is that I want it to be longer. You're trying to capture a really strong emotion here and I love the bittersweet longing/sadness stuff but I want more of it. Right now I don't feel like I'm in this characters head feeling lovesick with him. Overall, I think you could add more description especially of this thoughts and feelings. Think about how his body feels, thinking about how this feeling changes how he goes about his day (is he easily distracted, hard to concentrate, walking slowly, tired, etc.) You start to go there, but I want more.

I also want a little more oomph in the chapter. Not a whole lot happens other than him waking up, going home, and finding out she's not there. Don't get me wrong, that's a big moment but I don't feel the sadness and heartache I'm expecting to feel. I think there needs to be more lead-up, more seeing him go through is day, more anxiety, maybe showing him trying to reach her and getting nothing, more reminders of why he loves her and what he fears will happen if he doesn't have her, and then bam she's gone.

I'd be interested to see how he's going to handle this blow! This is obviously a big moment and a big turning point in the story. I think what you have so far is on the right track and it's a good start because it's an honest portrayal of how someone might feel in this situation, but I just want more of it

I'll leave things there for now, but let me know if you have any questions or if there's something you'd like feedback about that I didn't mention!

Mmkay, general impressions today because I feel like my prior reviews did not do enough. Although, in fairness to myself, that might be because I didn't come in until like chapter 8, whereas now I just went back and read the whole darn thing.

I like that you tie Danish's biological parents and Indian heritage into the story - particularly that the title and the main plot, "the dying sun," relates to a legend his mother once told him. I'm curious, though. Why did his parents put him in the foster care system? Were they poor and felt like they couldn't give him a good enough life? Was something wrong with him that made it too difficult to care for him? Were they going to live in India but wanted him to stay in New York for some reason? The foster care thing is brought up so often that readers are bound to wonder, especially since Danish's parents clearly loved and wanted him and weren't abusive or troubled (at least from what we've seen).

The biggest issues you have right now pertain to Danish's character. This chapter, and chapters 8 & 9 even more, were better - there was more dialogue, more interaction between Danish and Sam, and we learned more about Sam.

But you know something? We really know nothing about Danish.

Like, okay. We know he was a foster child, but not why. We know Sam's the first girl he's ever been really crazy about, but we don't really know why he loves her so much, especially since there was kind of this "love at first sight thing" right when they met - which is fine to start with, but over time I'd like to see more build-up of the relationship, endearing quirks she has and things like that. You did get into that later on, like the fact that she's in engineering but loves to paint. Actually, at this point in the story, we almost know more about Sam that we do about our protagonist! His hobbies are, what, drinking? Only we haven't ever seen him go out drinking, we just know he was hungover back when he met Sam.

It helps readers connect more to the characters when we know things about them - their likes, their dislikes, places they feel safe, the kind of people they make friends with, the things they notice, and so forth. We have a little bit of this for Danish, but most of it pertains to his absent parents rather than anything he likes or knows or is at the time of Our Story.

If you're really not sure yourself - if you've been so focused on the love story that you don't know much about Danish that isn't related to the main plot - I suggest character worksheets. They're kind of fun, and they help you think about aspects of your character that you might not have considered. You don't have to put all this information *in* the story, but just knowing will help you write your character more deeply. Just go to Google and search "character worksheets for writers." There are a thousand options, and you can look either in images or at whatever blog links come up. Plus there are simpler worksheets meant for teachers with elementary schoolers, which can be a good way to dip your feet in character building if a 100-question worksheet scares you.

Write on!
Blue