Weak Tears Under the blackest of Skies (2)

Hi! I'm sorry this review is coming to you so late, November has just been a crazy month for me. But! Here I am so let's see what you've got...

Line By Line

I could imagine that it was quite similar to drowning, even though I had never experienced that feeling. Like one would be surprised by the murderous waves as he tried to slap the water with pleading arms, I also had my share of desperate attempts to protect my face from the fists that seemed to be made of steel.

I think this analogy could have been stronger or at least presented in a stronger way. The idea of being 'surprised' by waves gives it a gentler feel, too gentle for this situation I think. Also, your choice of words is a little weak, both 'murderous waves' and 'pleading arms' could be much better. Here's a quick example of how you could make this more dramatic/ effective:

I've never drowned, or even come close, but I imagine it would feel a lot like this. The desperate need to rise, to surface, but every time you try, there's another wave of fists to knock you down. Every time you think you've found your feet, they're dragged out from under you again. Every breath you try to take is punched out of your lungs. But you keep trying. You keep trying because this time you might rise and see the land.

They never stopped, neither did the pain that spread through my body like ink invading a glass of water- too swift, too venomous.

This is more a query, but have you researched this? Don't quote me on it, but I thought ink was a slow moving liquid? If you haven't, go experiment and make sure your simile is right before using it!

Realism

Where are the apologies? Where are the people siddling away or others suddenly changing tact and claiming to have known all along he was innocent and threatening to call the police, out of their own fear of punishment. Where is the guilt?

The second half of this struck me as very unrealistic, which is a shame as I thought it started out quite well. Have a think and include some more variation of characters in the crowd.

The benefit of re-phrasing

One of my main complaints is sometimes your sentences lack clarity and you have a habit of dropping into passive phrasing. Just by switching some of your syntax around, you could really make a sentence clearer and give it a smoother flow. Here's an example:

My moans grew louder as the tips of their shoes penetrated my sides like a collection of thick nails striking against my flesh and kidneys, forcing my soul to cringe and my body to squirm on the asphalt.

My moans grew louder as my sides were penetrated, the toes of their shoes digging in like nails, grinding into my flesh, burrowing up against my kidneys. My soul cringed back as my body squirmed and flopped on the asphalt like a fish out of water.

Overall

You're right, this isn't great writing. I think the problem is with your plot as much as anything else; there isn't enough drive to keep a reader interested. You need a more interesting/ likeable/ dislikeable/ just generally more dynamic main character. You need to write stronger dialogue so that we can seperate the different people out of the crowd, instead of them sounding like generic voices that could belong to anyone. They should come across as characters in their own right, however little part they actually play.

This could be worked into a good piece though, your first few paragraphs make that really clear. It's a very engaging opening and if you could carry that tension and that feel through to the rest of the piece, you'd have some good atmosphere going on.

I hope you find this useful,

Heather xxx

Hey, Gheal!

Are you stuck on this part? That's not good because I was sure that we'd gone through this in your last post and that you'd gotten a good idea from it somehow and had moved on. But, I understand if you get stuck with such things so I'll try to help you out here. Soooo, let's begin!

forcing my soul to cringe and my body to squirm on the asphalt.

I think this is odd in itself, a soul cringing just doesn't seem to be the right wording here. Try something more real, not that the soul isn't real just something like 'causing him to cringe' would work just right or even his mentality. Soul seems a bit more beautiful as a word in accordance to the pain that he's receiving at the moment.

I coughed again and again, pushing out the droplets of blood that trailed from my gum and inner cheeks, tasting like a strong blend of rust and weakness.

I don't if I mentioned this last time but I really liked this description. I think it was written quite vividly and really provoked the imagery in my mind. Good job!

They never stopped, neither did the pain that spread through my body like ink invading a glass of water- too swift, too venomous.

I don't think you should use the word 'never' in here because honestly, they did stop at some point but I know you're taking into consideration of what Jules is feeling at the moment and that the pain seems to feel like it'll last forever but perhaps reword this to 'it seemed like they'd never stop' instead.

The pain was barely noticeable when I jumped to my feet from my place of slumber on the asphalt.

I find this a little unbelievable because your description of him being beaten was quite vesuvian so I was thinking he was nearly passed out or something and wouldn't be able to get up and even less 'jump' up. So maybe you might want to change that part a little.

"Calm down, Mr Julius,” she assured slowly and nodded twice.

*Mr. Julius
Need the period after Mr.

Do you wish to know what I think? I think it's the most terrible piece I've ever written.

NO!
Let's not go that far, m'kay? It's not bad, in fact it's pretty decent. It's not horribly written but after knowing how you write and understanding your language of words in this novel in particular, I've developed a sixth sense in knowing when you're feeling constricted or when your words seem to show insecurities and honey, I see them.
Where? Well, I think the part you do need to work on is the middle when Julius gets up. Reminder: People who have been beaten like he had don't get up easily especially since he was ganged up on.

Now, another thing I want to mention is Julius reaction towards his beating. He was scared, correct? Then why he try to go after the woman again in the end part? He should've kept his stance in fear, and yes, we know Jules isn't the kind of guy who's scared but there comes a time when fear can gnaw at even the most strongest of men so take of that when you decided to rewrite this because I know you will. ^^

Other than that, your descriptions were still great and your writing was nice. I did notice some oddly broken sentences in the middle but I think that was just you pasting or formatting the spaces in there oddly. Are you perhaps using the 'story' format when you post your pieces? When you submit a work there is an option near the bottom where you can select "story/poem/lyric format" and when you click story format, it automatically spaces the line breaks into paragraphs so you don't have to do it manually like in the past.

Other than that, this wasn't bad. There are few little emotional actions that you might need to look over with Julius's behavior but other than that, it's not totally bad. Yes, it does need some work because it's not as 'tight' as your other excerpts are but I'm sure you can fix that in due time. Think about the scene before you write, put yourself in his shoes and think about what a normal human would feel in this time of distress. Maybe that might help you too or you can always do it the more technical way and look up information regarding people's mentality when they're being beaten or after they've been beaten down. What are you feeling?

Keep working and let me know if you have any further questions! I'm always here for you!

Best of luck,
-Your Pinky