Yagyalgo by Vincent Seagraves

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kailhofer
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Re: Yagyalgo by Vincent Seagraves

Post by kailhofer »

I'm afraid this is going to sound a bit harsh, but I didn't make it past the 4th paragraph. I'm sorry, but I just don't have the patience that I used to have. Still, I know what it's like to crave feedback of any kind, so I thought I should say why.

I quite liked the 1st paragraph. It sounded like it was going to be a great story. Good energy and a sense of mystery. I thought I was in for a really good horror story.

The second and third (and at least the start of the 4th) were about how this character got to be where he was. This was a letdown for me, and after that 1st sentence of the 4th, I realized I was staring across the room at something else instead of reading.

The bits of advice I can give are 1) I believe as writers we get 200 words to hook our readers--book, short, or flash, makes no difference. Anything not about doing that probably shouldn't go in those first words; and 2) It's very, very hard to write a gripping 1st person story. Most people think it's easy, but it's not. With 1st person, it's much too easy to wander off the point or explain something when the story needs to advance, and stopping the narrative flow is rarely a good idea. As an exercise, it might be worthwhile to rewrite this story in 3rd person, then compare them to see which readers respond to better.

Just because I stopped does not mean everyone does, so don't lose heart. I'm sure plenty of people finished this story, and I hope many of them found it good.

Good luck to you.

Nate
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