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![Working Title: Story 1 [WIP]](http://d.furaffinity.net/art/cutecatalex/stories/1533674491/1533674491.thumbnail.cutecatalex_prologue_or_chapter_1_to_story.docx.gif "Click to change the View")
3 submissions
Just a little story I've been working on, please let me know how you think, criticism is wanted but only constructive please!
Category Story / All
Species Housecat
Size 50 x 50px
File Size 22.9 kB
Listed in Folders
There is a lot of good character work being done here, concentrating on relationship and growth. Paying attention to that stuff in a story can have a great impact for your audience and add you your realism while avoiding the pitfalls for tropes and stock character syndrome. I also like your use of the smaller aspects of weather in the environment, though environment description is something to keep working on as place is important, creating scene for your audience can really aid in their attachment to the story. Place is important to your characters, so thinking of how to make that connection come to life for the audience is something to work on. Treating place and setting as a character is a way to approach it.
Really, most issues with the story are mechanical in nature and will be rubbed out with time and practice.
Use past tense instead of present tense, you slip at times. Past tense actually gives an illusion of happening to an audience (brains kind of read tense backwards on the written page).
EX: He chuckles at that present versus Past: He Chuckled at that.
Repetitive Sentence structure and word use: You sometimes fall into a repetitive sentence structure and word use.
Adam blanked, He blanked. Alan blanked. Think of ways you can start a sentence and structure it. Actions and senses are usually a good place to do this. DO not use the same sentence structure back to back, the first paragraph has some issues with this, and the first word, sentence, and paragraph is what the audience is familiar with. Be ware the same word too. You use chuckled 4 times and laugh 3. A thesaurus can help. Again think of tying actions to character and description can help find new avenues of things happening. Showing through imagery and senses is where the strength of the written word lies. You do do this and it shows, but the repeating sentence structure turns it into a telling instead of a showing sometimes. That's something that will just come up to you with practice. A good way to practice is sitting down in a place like your room or park and writing down everything you see, feel, and sense and explore ways to expressing it.
The big problem though actually is in your anthropomorphism: The point of anthropomorphic characters is that they are anthropomorphic. They allow us to explore avenues of the animal and the human. We don't get any sense of this until the deer comment which catches the audience as a bit of a wtf? If you are using anthropomorphic characters this needs to be expressed throughout a text. Use the anthropomorphic characters to your advantage, tails, ears, fur, teeth, paws, claws, senses, emotions. Give us what it means to be an animal person amongst animal people. Else, well, they could easily be human and there would be no purpose to the anthropomorphism. The deer thing is acceptable in the pondering of the what if from a comedic perspective.
Beyond that though, you got some good strengths in the character department, the rest will come with time.
Good luck.
Really, most issues with the story are mechanical in nature and will be rubbed out with time and practice.
Use past tense instead of present tense, you slip at times. Past tense actually gives an illusion of happening to an audience (brains kind of read tense backwards on the written page).
EX: He chuckles at that present versus Past: He Chuckled at that.
Repetitive Sentence structure and word use: You sometimes fall into a repetitive sentence structure and word use.
Adam blanked, He blanked. Alan blanked. Think of ways you can start a sentence and structure it. Actions and senses are usually a good place to do this. DO not use the same sentence structure back to back, the first paragraph has some issues with this, and the first word, sentence, and paragraph is what the audience is familiar with. Be ware the same word too. You use chuckled 4 times and laugh 3. A thesaurus can help. Again think of tying actions to character and description can help find new avenues of things happening. Showing through imagery and senses is where the strength of the written word lies. You do do this and it shows, but the repeating sentence structure turns it into a telling instead of a showing sometimes. That's something that will just come up to you with practice. A good way to practice is sitting down in a place like your room or park and writing down everything you see, feel, and sense and explore ways to expressing it.
The big problem though actually is in your anthropomorphism: The point of anthropomorphic characters is that they are anthropomorphic. They allow us to explore avenues of the animal and the human. We don't get any sense of this until the deer comment which catches the audience as a bit of a wtf? If you are using anthropomorphic characters this needs to be expressed throughout a text. Use the anthropomorphic characters to your advantage, tails, ears, fur, teeth, paws, claws, senses, emotions. Give us what it means to be an animal person amongst animal people. Else, well, they could easily be human and there would be no purpose to the anthropomorphism. The deer thing is acceptable in the pondering of the what if from a comedic perspective.
Beyond that though, you got some good strengths in the character department, the rest will come with time.
Good luck.
Thanks so much for the feedback, I haven't really worked on that story for some time now, but I agree there are some issues that I've noticed in my story writing strengths. I'll definitely look to improve on structure and what-not. Some of the ways you told me were great ideas and I thank you for that, very helpful!
As far as the deer thing, I assume you mean they were hunting deer? I was going to go with the concept that only certain animals have anthro qualities, like cats, dogs, or anything else I think may fit the narrative on my story. Whereas animals like deer, cattle or other generally speaking prey animals may be considered just that, animals. I may work on that side more to develop the lore and open up more avenues on what is there and isn't there because at some point you do need to stop and ask, what do these people eat? If cats are anthro are cows nt? And if they are... That's a pretty big deal if you think about it. I digress, there's a lot of ethical questions behind that and not really a big deal as far as my mechanical issues with the story.
But yes anyways, thanks so much for the help! If you have any questions or anything you can reach me on my discord much quicker!
As far as the deer thing, I assume you mean they were hunting deer? I was going to go with the concept that only certain animals have anthro qualities, like cats, dogs, or anything else I think may fit the narrative on my story. Whereas animals like deer, cattle or other generally speaking prey animals may be considered just that, animals. I may work on that side more to develop the lore and open up more avenues on what is there and isn't there because at some point you do need to stop and ask, what do these people eat? If cats are anthro are cows nt? And if they are... That's a pretty big deal if you think about it. I digress, there's a lot of ethical questions behind that and not really a big deal as far as my mechanical issues with the story.
But yes anyways, thanks so much for the help! If you have any questions or anything you can reach me on my discord much quicker!
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