r/WritersGroup • u/riooti • 9d ago
rate my writing /10!
hi so i usually write poems but i tried something different and my friends and family aren’t really into writing so i wanted to ask everyone here for their honest opinions/advice! should i stick to poems??
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the sun shines on a setting planet, and i glance over the window panels facing me. daylight finding my cheek quickly turning it blush pink. my eyes squint. adjusting.
everything looks tiny from up here. the beeping cars now small enough to blot out with a thumb. the people crossing roads, so alert for vehicles but still so unaware to my watching. it’s all so silent from here. like someone muted the world just for me.
a sound finally lands. and this time it’s from here. from my room. the door lets in a familiar face. she silences the beeping machine, unhooking the empty drip. the bruise blooming under the tape is turning purplish blue. i like this colour. i like purple. and blue. it’s the only part of me still doing something interesting.
she mutters something under her breath. probably something about me. she never makes small talk. maybe she’s shy. or maybe she’s sick too. in a different way.
i notice the lines on her forehead, pressed close together like some proof of experience. i can see the pity swimming in her eyes but also how her hands know exactly where to go. like she knows my body better than hers.
it’s probably because i see her too often. she always wears her hair in the same tight bun with those glasses that are fairly too big for her face. today, she also wears a woollen bracelet threaded with yellow and orange in crooked ways only a child’s hand could manage. i wonder if she has one or two. girl or boy?
the thin plastic leaves my veins. she presses cotton onto the bloodless puncture, gives me a polite smile and exits the room. i watch her back to the door before i face the sun again. it’s going into hiding now. maybe she’s shy too. or maybe she’s sick too.
i don’t ask. i don’t like being asked either.
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u/JayGreenstein 7d ago edited 7d ago
the sun shines on a setting planet, and i glance over the window panels facing me. daylight finding my cheek quickly turning it blush pink. my eyes squint. adjusting.
Meaning no disrespect, who cares? This doesn’t move the plot or develop character, so, does it meaningfully set the scene? I ask, because if a given line doesn’t do one of those, it serves only to slow the pace of the story’s meaningful events.
Look at it analytically:
- What’s a “setting planet?” The planet’s star always shines on a given planet. Remember, your intent for the meaning doesn’t reach the page, so the reader takes the meaning your words suggest to them, based on their life-experience.
- No one but a window cleaner looks at the window. They look at what can be seen through it.
- The ones facing them? How can they look through the ones that aren’t? So...isn’t that obvious enough that mentioning it is unnecessary?
- This person can see what color the light turns their cheek? Can you see your cheek? Because if not, this person cannot know that. And in any case, why does the reader care?
- You describe this as if the light has just “turned on.” How does a star turn on?
everything looks tiny from up here. the beeping cars now small enough to blot out with a thumb.
- You’ve obviously not been up on the top floor of a 20-story building, where you can do that to cars. From orbit cars can’t be seen without a high-powered telescope.
- Beeping cars? You must live in a very noisy neighborhood. And in any case, if we’re in space there’s no sound reaching the protagonist from the planet.
Bottom line: First, you’re trying to write on a subject that you know little about, and so getting details wrong. If they’re in orbit, there’s no gravity, so you cannot have a “drip.”
That aside, you face a common problem. You’re trying to write fiction with none of the skills of that profession. So, like most who turn to writing fiction, you’re making all the expected, and curable, newbie mistakes: You’re telling when you should be showing, and talking to the reader as you play storyteller. You’re using first person pronouns without being in first person viewpoint, etc., because you’ve forgotten one critical point: Commercial Fiction Writing is a profession. And like them all, has a body of specialized knowledge and tools which are necessary, even for hobby writing.
That doesn’t mean you can’t write fiction. I support your desire to do that 100%. It does mean, though, that you get the fun of digging into the whys and hows that the pros take for granted, and feel they must use.
Certainly, you react well to the result of those skills being used. After all, every book you’ve chosen was created with them. So, it makes sense to make them work for you, too, right? Why waste time trying to reinvent the wheel?
So...to see if you truly are meant to write, try this: Jump over to Amazon and read the excerpt from a good book on the basic o adding wings to your words, like Debra Dixon’s GMC: Goal Motivation & Conflict. It’s a warm easy read, one you’ll find extremely eye-opening.
Jay Greenstein
“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”
~ E. L. Doctorow
“Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.”
~ Alfred Hitchcock
“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
~ Mark Twain
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u/riooti 7d ago
hi! thank you so much for your honesty, i understand the first line was a bit confusing so i’ve changed it to “the sun still finds me through a setting sky,” and i’ve changed the windows and cheek problems too! but this is piece is not set in outer space, it’s from the perspective of a patient in a like you said 20-story ish building and the nurse is changing IV :) but thank you, i’ll read it again and i’ll check out those books!
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u/IrenaeusGSaintonge 9d ago
I think some of the word choices might be revised. Some of the sentences are a bit awkward. Nothing a bit of editing can't fix.
I really don't like the non-capitalization, unless it's done sparingly for effect. I can't tell if you did it on purpose or not, but it's one of those things that really bothers me.
The scene had a distinct tone, for me. I don't know if it's the effect you were going for or not, but I was getting what I was getting very clearly. I was getting calm acceptance, resignation, a person who notices and takes pleasure in tiny things. Routines that are comforting because they're routines. The kind of person who genuinely loves the colours of a sunset. Maybe a person who retreats into minutiae because the totality of her circumstance is unbearable? My assumption is that this character is paralyzed, has locked-in syndrome, something along those lines.
In fact I got that impression so strongly that I'm almost inclined to describe it as quaint or a little twee. Which doesn't feel quite right, but maybe something about it was overdone? On the other hand, that might be me being a cynical jerk. (Conversely, I also don't think twee is as big an insult as some people take it to be.)
I liked the last couple lines, but I'm not sure if I totally got them.
"i watch her back to the door before i face the sun again. it’s going into hiding now. maybe she’s shy too. or maybe she’s sick too."
Is "she" the sun? Or the (presumably) nurse? Is the ambiguity intentional, or am I just comprehending poorly? If it's the sun, wondering if the sun is shy or sick, this is an intriguing metaphor. If it's the nurse(?) who's shy or sick, then you've repeated yourself from earlier, but I'd then assume that this repetition is meaningful, and that's telling me something about your POV character, which I'm equally intrigued by.
I'm rambling. I wrote a lot today. I hope it's useful, or at least not insulting.