Chapter 1: Dear Binukot, we have examined your work for the great part of our precious lunch break and have come to determine that you have much potential, a natural talent for writing, and a vast imagination. However, we must point out several tiny flaws that plague this spectacular piece of yours, causing the reader to fight their confused way in the dark in order to acquire an understanding of the narrative.
First of all, your use of tenses is quite sporadic. You often switch between the past tense and the present tense, which can seem unprofessional. For example: "Vernon slumps on his bed. He was tired." Vernon *slumps*, in present tense, yet he *was* tired, in past tense? Is Vernon a time traveller?
Secondly, the redundancy. Several passages repeat themselves unnecessarily in different phrasing, describing more or less the same actions. Make sure you don’t bore your readers, and instead provide them with a new development. In fact, you have a tendency to repeat an action when it’s already been clarified to the reader. For example, you write that “Vernon can’t help but smile”, then a few lines later, that “Vernon smiles”, with no other action coming in between. We already know that Vernon is smiling. Stating it again is weird. Is Vernon a broken tape? Give us change. Maybe elevate it - make him chuckle, grin, hysterically cackle even.
Another problem is that sometimes you leave stuff unclear. It’s understandable that you do so since you obviously have a clear picture of the happenings in your mind, but we aren’t mind readers.The paragraph about the finger squeezing was pretty confusing and I had to read it thrice in order to understand your train of thought. Also, the first paragraph was full of contradictions: on one hand, Vernon is happy to be alone, and on the other, he’s feeling lonely and hating it. What is Vernon feeling? Is Vernon suffering from a split personality disorder? It could be useful to get a beta reader to point out such ambiguities.
And last but not least, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, don’t ever use the word BUTTOCKS if you’re not writing a medical report.
All in all, we’d suggest getting someone to edit and review your stories, preferably someone with good English and experience in writing or editing. Also, we’d suggest educating yourself on the art of writing through classic literature.
Cheers, and enjoy typing away,
Your slanty-eyed guru and pale Jewish mentor.
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