Haha. Nothing was taken into offense or personal Kelly, believe me. I have looked at my story from an outside point of view, and even that left me like "Wtf?!" Lol. As for the whole character thing, I totally know what you mean that it lacks depth. I spent far too much time on setting up the plot and describing the scene that I kind of placed the characters on the back burner, and in actuality, that's the most important part of the story. The characters are the ones that are telling the story, and you can't neglect them like that. I'm at a point where I'm still learning and even then I'm looking back and I'm like "Gee, what the hell was I thinking writing this stuff the way I had?!" Lol. But I totally see what you mean with my characters seeming flat. In one of my other stories, I did just that where I delved into the psyche of each one of my characters and that indeed made all the more difference. This is a story I want to work till the end, but in the near future review and possibly rewrite the whole thing, with all these critiques/feedback in mind.
Another thing I agree with is the fact that it doesn't seem like a story to just pull people in and drive them crazy for more. To be honest, I was actually shocked to see how much attention this story was getting, and I seriously think it was based on the creativity factor and how original it seems. Other than that, I thought "how could people possibly like this story?" and I don't mean to always down talk this story, I mean, if people didn't think it had potential like you said, it wouldn't have been nominated and selected to be a featured story of the month. But the fact that I started this story at a young age and it's still progressing over years and I'm continuing to grow and learn more and more about writing, it's completely leaving me like "Damn. Wtf?" Lol.
I'm known to not take criticism so well because my mind is quick to make it a personal thing, but I have truly grown and learned that criticism is to help make a person better so I'm proud to say that I'm at a point where I love any and all critiques when it comes to my work.
I noticed you kept apologizing and reassuring me, but hun, I took all your advice into consideration and it's all helping me to become a better writer, so really, thank you for all this. I mean, you took time out of your life to read my story and even took time out to type up a long critique, and you must be crazy if you think I'm gonna bypass that with anger and take your criticism personal, haha. It's all outta love and it's intended to help me grow as a writer.
Anywho, back to the critiques and story, lol. Looking back at this story and answering questions and reading critiques made me realize that I need to change the way I approach writting. Like I said before, I'm the type of person where if I have an idea for a story, just an idea, not the whole story plotted out in my head, I'll be quick to spit it out and want to post it for reviews. Lol. When that happens, there's no set plan for how the story goes, which characters will be involved or make appearances, who the characters are in the story and how they will be affected throughout, etc. I make it all up as I go along and it seemed to be working well for me for quite some time... but the fact of the matter is, all those stories are INCOMPLETE. Lol. Well, except for one, and I must admit I had a better set plan for that story than the rest. But anywho, it's a real challenge I set up for myself because when it's something you make up as you go along, it's all ideas that has to come up right then and there, you have no idea/plan to fall or refer back to. My method makes it easier for writers block to creep up and captivate me for a really long time, hence the last time I updated Satan's Playground, haha. This whole... experience has taught me that I need to change my ways to help better improve my writing.
There isn't a lot of personal interaction really going on between the guys, like you said, where they try to deal with their raw emotions, and even then I don't really express their motions vividly like you said. It's funny because I was thinking the same damn thing you said, with the whole "Okay... they're in a haunted place, there's ghosts and they've encountered them, so... why the hell are they still there doing all this?" Lol. And like you said, I didn't really delve into why they're still there doing it all when they're lives are at stake, nor did I really delve into their thoughts about their lives being on the line. Having that said, I've been looking to making my chapters based around their thoughts and emotions rather than having it all being about what's around them and what's going on. I need to have a perfect balance of that. I feel like I'm gonna throw people off with my... upcoming chapters and the fact that it doesn't entirely link correctly back to the beginning, but honestly I kind of enjoy how people are able to differentiate my writing from the beginning to what was posted recently. Like I said, this is a story I'm gonna finish off then take and heavily revise or even rewrite it, because I must agree (not to sound conceited or anything, lol.) but this story does possess a lot of potential and having that said, it's something I should really take my time with if I want to do it right. Although it seems as if I have a lot of negative things to say about this story, this has got to be one of my favorite stories that I've written and one that I would like to work on making it better.
As for the grammar, lmao at your thought of English not being my first language. Hehe, although I love writing and enjoy doing it a lot, grammar is one of my weak points. I'm glad to be in a place where people will correct my grammar because that is one of my weak points, and if I can have people point it out and correct it, that's a helluva lotta help, lol. Wow, this was a LONG response, haha!! Thanks again Kelly, for taking time out to read and review. Your critiques will definitely help me with this story, as well as future works and all I can say is... thank you.
Btw, I actually didn't even realize that I put "seen it" instead of "SAW it", lmao.
Author
Topic: Featured Story of the Month for October: Satan's Playground by rebellious_one (Read 12610 times)