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Topic : Looking for some tips on how to improve writing I have just completed my first draft of a novel. Now the story is completed it's time to capture the style so the reader can engage in the - selfpublishingguru.com

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I have just completed my first draft of a novel. Now the story is completed it's time to capture the style so the reader can engage in the story. I want to make sure the story style is easy enough for the reader to read. I have added my first couple of pages below for some critique.

Does the first couple of pages grab your attention?
Is the writing style easy enough to read?
What would you do to improve the writing style?

She has the Sight

Chapter 1

Marston Children’s home is where fate brought the three of us in 2011. Stuck rite in the
heart of Glasgow, the rundown building is an orphanage to many children that have been
abandoned, abused and left by their families to shrivel away into nothing. Most people
who come here are doomed before their feet even get through the door. Kid’s either take
their own lives, turn to drugs, prostitution or serve a life behind bars. Destiny to most
here is to get knocked up, junked up or locked up. Self destruction, demolition,
devastation becomes worse here when too many kids are put together with similar family
traits. A bad start in childhood leads onto being negative, depressive and suicidal in
real life situations. Problems normally start to arise in teenage years and just
deteriorate from there. Life isn’t to chase your dreams here it is to break the law and
chase the dragon. This is how the neglected of the lower class escape everyday
situations. This is the life they are dragged into by their abusers and society. The only
life they know. This was the life and doom that was expected for me Danika Nebulae and
most of my friends. An existence I never wanted but an existence I only knew of, a way of
life that only I could change.

I was becoming an age where I had to go and fend for myself; in fact I had been
fending for myself for as long as I can remember. My mother spent most of my young adult
life in Garvlock Mental institution. The only information I had about my father was his
name Felix Nebulae and that I had the same Aqua blue eyes. The rest of the family didn’t
care much for me. They saw me more of a hindrance due to me being in and out of trouble
with school and the law. I was 17 time was approaching for me to no longer be under the
supervision of the childcare system. At the age of 18 I was expected to go and find my
own way in life. This was the time for me to decide if I was going down the black path
of doom that so many followed or was I going to head into the light, glowing, blistering
white path that nobody that I ever heard of had even stepped in the direction off.
The only beliefs I use to have were karma, what goes around comes around. I was
christened a catholic, and that was the only ties I had to any church. If you treat me
with respect I will treat you with respect. I wasn’t brought up to believe in god I was
brought up to survive. As a young adult I don't follow authority and I don't let anyone
take advantage of me. That’s the way I use to think until the visions started. Now I feel
like there is something else out there. Something that wants me to open my eyes, life was
about to change, I could feel it. Although my upbringing wasn’t the best I felt
protected, protected by something that I didn’t know. I didn’t believe in God or the
Devil, I believed in good and evil and there was a choice in this life to do well or do
bad.

I was a limbo state of mind of how we got here and why we were here. What I did know was
the visions were sometimes events that would happen days later. The first time I realised
this was more than a dream was when I seen my mum lying in bed with pills lying around
her, I knew something was going to happen to her. One week later she over dosed and then
got submitted to the nut house. What haunts me is I don’t know if I can change destiny or
is fate just meant to happen. I don’t know why or how the visions have started or what
they’re trying to tell me. What I do know is: they are a small part of a puzzle that I’ve
yet to figure out.


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I'm afraid this is all too telly. It's more like a news paper article than a story, you're just dumping all the information in one big info dump. This is lazy writing. Instead of stating that "Kid’s either take their own lives, turn to drugs, prostitution or serve a life behind bars" you need to show it through action, dialogue, plot... Show us a day in their lives, paint it to us, show us their misery and let us come to that conclusion ourselves through the action you show. Don't just tell us it is so and expect us to take your word for it. Readers in general don't like to be served things, they want to get to some conclusions on their own.

"The first time I realized this was more than a dream was when I seen my mum lying in bed with pills lying around her, I knew something was going to happen to her." Don't tell us it happened, show us it happened. Show us how it happened, where it happened, how the character felt when it happened. Intrigue us, pull us into the story, don't just dump facts at us.

To answer each individual question:

Sorry, but it doesn't grab me. It's an info dump, I have no feel for the character nor the story. "If you treat me with respect I will treat you with respect" does not give me the feel for the character. For all I know, he could be lying.
The writing style is easy enough to read, and on that I have no remarks. I prefer clarity over all, and the text is very clear, so that's a yes from me :)
Show, don't tell :) Make it a story, not a news paper article or a manifest. You do have a promising story here, you just need to present it better.


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