Dreamland Review Archive

Born In A Storm (Yin)

My long slender, yet shaky hands went around my body, the long nails I sported dug into my skin offering me the stability that I was really here and not there anymore.

You have the same problem throughout the chapter.

1.You don’t really have to describe yourself like that. You should just say, ‘my shaky hands'. 'Long and slender' makes the description weird. I don’t go around telling people ‘Hey, last night my hairy, fat, and long legs cramped for hours.’
You see, it’s weird. People don’t talk like that. They would just tell you: My legs cramped.

2.You have issues with punctuation, mainly commas. Supposedly, you should have a period after the word body, not a comma.

3.You have weird word choices. Stability doesn’t work IMO. Maybe ‘protection’? I don’t know. It should be something like this: I wrapped my shaking arms around my body. My long nails dug into my skin, offering me the protection I needed. The pain reminded me that I was not drowning anymore. I was safe here. Something like that (I don’t like my own suggestion. It’s midnight here, can’t think of something better) but you get the gist? Your writing needs a tone to it. The same way you talk. I believe you talk with different tones and mood (unless you’re Eugene from the Walking Dead.)

4.Your tenses issue is not as big as your punctuation issue, but it’s worth mentioning because it still needs a lot of improvement. You have to work hard on your tenses, you have to work harder on your punctuation.

CHAPTER 1
Okay. So this is where things become better and worst at the same time.

The better thing is, you have a strong character voice. Right from the first few lines, the character’s personality prevails. I think it’s your talent. The voice is really strong, we know she’s strong-willed and sad and a no-nonsense kind of person.

The worst thing, you’re forcing your story on us. This is not cliché and normal story, not a jock and cheerleader falling in love yada yada yada.

It could be a good start for some people, but it’s actually not a good start. Not to me. I don’t like it when writers force their characterization on me. Force the plot on me. Something like: This is not what you think it is. Please, I don’t write cliché stuff. This book is better than that.

Guess what, most times, it’s not better at all. Most times, readers get disappointed. Like I did.

What I can suggest is to tone down the sassiness. Sassy characters are now becoming a cliche. Not that cliche is bad. But most cliche is badly written. That’s the issue. You try to make something un-cliche but then ended up writing the same thing. Not because your story is cliche per se, but you’re trying so hard to be different. You try so hard to explain. (Oh God, too many cliches in this paragraph.)

However, I like this paragraph: Life’s bigger than that. Much more complex than those four walls or more than trying to determine your fate and future.

Let’s ignore the grammatical error in it for a moment. It’s actually a very nice insight. Yes, life is much more complex than the world in your school building.

Reading your writing, I actually suspect something. From your syntax, I believe you translate your native language directly to English, structure-wise. I have no explanation on how you write the way you write. Coz your English is not bad. You actually have a wide active vocabulary. It is the structure that is your biggest issue.

You write in italics all the time. Again, I’m not sure why. You seem like you’re mixing up the meaning of narration and thoughts in 1st POV.

Some reviewers stand up to the ‘fact’ that 1st POV is actually the character's thoughts, so you don’t have to italicize anything. Some reviewers, like me, believe in italics for thoughts. But reading your story, I’m not sure which is the narration and which is the thought. They got mixed up real bad.