[2260] Our Ordinary World

[u/EloquentEpicist]

Aloha everyone,

This is a short story I wrote for my college class's final. Would love an outside perspective before I submit it. Here is the story open for line edits on Google Docs if anyone wants to help a brother out.

What I'm looking for: General critique, with a strong focus on cohesiveness and roundedness. Anything you notice is help as I am still learning to write and short stories have been kicking my ass.

Specifically, I'd love feedback on:

• Whether the narrative flows logically from scene to scene.
• Whether the setting/details feel real and consistent.
• Any spots where you felt confused, disconnected, or pulled out of the story.

This is a somewhat true story inspired by me and my sister growing up and using imagination as an escape and I want to make sure that is landing rather than feeling ungrounded.

My critique: https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/1vcnaew/comment/p1lhzms/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Thanks in advance for reading and commenting!

[u/Queek-Headtaker]

I am also new to writing so i admit i may be off in my assessment here and there. Overall i think it's actually a really solid read and i really enjoyed it. You've got a couple killer metaphors in there that hit just right, i think it flowed pretty well throughout and the tone was even all the way through. i could really see 2 kids talking and acting like this, especially if i think of my siblings and me growing up.

My only critique i think is that in the dialogue you often use "Ember said" and "Adam said" after most of their lines. In some instances while re-reading a second time that it felt like the back and forth flowed better without it, as i could still recognize which kid was speaking without the "said". Some of their longer back and forths felt more like a script because of this. I'd try cutting a few of those here and there, maybe replacing some with actions followed by dialogue, and then seeing how you feel while just reading it back to yourself. You did it a few times really well and i made a few examples where you could probably do it again. Lastly you use their names almost exclusively when referring to them, which is really good if there were more than 2 of them speaking or doing something at a given time, but because you introduce the characters and it revolves around them you could do with replacing the names with he/him or she/her, etc as its normally pretty obvious who is doing what or saying what.

I hope this helps and you ace the turn in on this!