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The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > Fiction Farm to Table: Artisanal crits ITT
 
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rohan
Mar 19, 2008

Look, if you had one shot
or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted
in one moment
Would you capture it...
or just let it slip?

:siren:"THEIR":siren:

beep-beep car is go posted:

Hi! I'm looking for crits on my short (only 3800 words!) that was popular on /r/HFY and Tumblr.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JDMXf4fCDpKDqvjeLEQzlhA1F8jMvj5mMFcZV0mP9nA/edit?usp=sharing

This is a self contained story, but I plan on using the crits on my longer stuff. Thanks for reading!
I’ll try and offer a more substantive crit later, but on a quick first read I’d recommend paying attention to your tenses: you begin in past, and then switch to present when Captain Shimmer reminisces, and then you alternate back and forth a bit. eg:

quote:

The human made an entry into his pad. It chirruped at him, and he narrows his eyes slightly. He sighs and looks up at Shimmer.

All of these verbs should be in the same tense for the story to work: right now, there’s an awkward shift between “chirruped” and “narrows” which takes me out of the story.

* # ¿ Jul 15, 2023 03:06
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# ¿ May 15, 2024 00:04
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rohan
Mar 19, 2008

Look, if you had one shot
or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted
in one moment
Would you capture it...
or just let it slip?

:siren:"THEIR":siren:

beep-beep car is go posted:

Tense errors are my cross to bear. It’s the thing I seemingly have the most trouble with. Thanks! I’ll go correct them.
They’re difficult! Especially in a first draft when you’re still working out the narrative voice, it can be easy to slip and fall into a different tense, and that could then influence the way you write the rest of the story. A story told predominantly in present tense might have more immediacy and tension than a story written in past, for instance.

I think your narrative felt more confident in the past tense narration, but it might be worth experimenting between rewriting scenes in each tense to see how it changes the story and how you tell it.

* # ¿ Jul 15, 2023 03:31
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The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Creative Convention > Fiction Farm to Table: Artisanal crits ITT