This is my first post to this website. I'm not sure how this site works or even if this is the right place to post this, but I figured I would give it a shot! Any feedback would be greatly appreciated, and I am up for any suggestions on how to improve my writing. This is a very short piece of work that I plan on expanding and posting more to later.
Motion. A simple word, a simple concept. Everyone is familiar with motion. In fact, we observe it everyday. From the trees blowing in the wind outside our living room window, to waking up in the morning and stretching our tense muscles, motion is everywhere. But you see, motion is an interesting part of this world. With proper training and understanding, someone such as yourself could learn to take advantage of motion, and bend the energy it creates to your will. Very few people have acquired this talent, mostly because people tend to estrange from those with seemingly uncanny ability. But for those willing to learn the secrets of motion, the benefits can be great. My name is Micheal Kinston, I am a Motion Bender, and this is my story.
My life began as most, birthed from my mother's womb, brought into this world by two loving, caring parents. I loved both of my parents very much, and was greatly depressed when they were both mysteriously killed. We were shopping at the local supermarket, and on the way to the car, a strange man in a hood approached them.
“Give me the ring,” he said, “and I won't kill your boy.” The man then began to sway back and forth, all the while circling his arms around his head.
“I'm sorry sir, but I don't understand,” my mother said. “What ring?”
“Don't play stupid, woman! If you continue to resist, I will kill Micheal without hesitation!”
The man continued to sway, and I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand on end, and my ears popped as the pressure in the air rose. I looked to my father, who had his hand in his pocket. He appeared to be toying with something in his hand. I thought it was his cellphone at first, possibly dialing 911, but the object in his hand seemed too small to be a phone.
“Honey, do something!” shouted my mother. My father turned to look at her, a worried look on his face. He hesitated for a moment, then turned to run away.
The air popped and hissed around the strange man's hands, and he thrust them forward, towards my parents. An invisible wave of energy rushed through my body, and everything went black.
Points:
Time spent:
Canary word: Present
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,861 Reviews
Welcome,
I am also new here, but I will do my best to help you if you have any questions.
I love your work. It's touching, and I could feel the emotions of the character. I think the dialog could be a bit more natural, but I still like it as it is.
Keep writing, the more you write the better you get.
TheNewHero,
I greatly appreciate all of the time you spent to help me with my work. I plan on following your advice when it comes to writing more of the story, and hope to avoid the DCT!
The "Show, don't Tell" principle seems to be something I might have a problem with while continuing the story, because I always find myself over-explaining things.
I would like to mention, though, that this is something I would like to make much longer. This is only a small portion of what I would like to write, and I posted it while it was short so that I could take advice early in the writing process. I will add more soon, maybe going from the flashback of his parents dying to the present, and jump straight into action.
And again, thank you for the help! It is greatly appreciated.
~Mhutch
Hey mhutch, welcome to YWS! If you're confused about anything, don't hesitate to message one of the people with the colourful username. The ones in green are moderators so you'd have luck messaging them. I'm going to be reviewing your work today, telling you what I think of it, mostly...
Telling
Showing
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As the above reviewer stated, you've made this easy to read and it's well edited. I won't even talk about punctuation. Instead I'd like to ask you how you plan to make your piece longer.
You have an interesting story here. Motion benders, I mean. I'm also kind of into that genre (superheroes and such) and we should
fightdebate sometime. The only thing that stagnates in your story is your writing style - honestly. I usually hate advising people on how to write because everyone has their style, but I don't see much else that I can say about you.The first thing is that this is written as a log book. It may well be one, but you should state that. Nothing really happened here beside your main character telling us something. There was somewhere where you broke the point-of-view from him telling us a story to something actually happening. What I"m saying is that if you want to write about his parents' death... do so. If you want to explain what a motion bender is, you can either do that or weasle it somewhere during the story. Keep in mind that as a first person narrator, you risk the dreaded Couch-Trap...
... The Dreaded Couch Trap is when the narrator talks as if the reader's actually listening. He's not, he's reading a story. He's not talking with his friend sitting on the couch opposite him and therefore the narrator shouldn't continually explain everything. He should just tell the story and in turn, that explains everything. That brings me to my next point.
An important technique in writing prose that works perfectly well is the 'Show, don't Tell' principle. What that outlines is that the best way to give information to the reader without sending them to dreamland or making them sigh, is to sneak it in some action. Action, action, action. Not necessarily gunfights, but something ]/i] should be happening for 80% of the book. And explaining doesn't count. Let me illustrate.
I want to explain to you that Peter Parker is a superhero with spider powers. I'm going to first do it by TELLING you and then I'll SHOW it to you:
Observe that nothing is happening here. I'm just telling you what happened.
Observe, the second one is WAY longer. Now equate that into book terms. If your book is currently 10 chapters of telling, imagine how long it could be if you were showing. The second one is more exciting. One draw-back is that it's long, and writers tend to put it some unnecessary bits like repeating stuff to make sure the reader catches how it works, so sometimes you need a mix of showing and telling.
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Overall, I loved your story. If you look at the top of the page it says 'Likes' just underneath and including the Facebook button. One of those is mine
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Stay Strong,
God Bless,
TheNewHero.
Hi mhutch, welcome to YWS!
Should be "two", not "to"
There isn't much I have to say about this, it's pretty short and well edited already
Sorry I can't be of much help!
~Lauren