Don't Look At Me Like That (Patrick Kane) - Comments

I love this story, and Patrick's back! Oh my god I wonder what will happen between them now. I like how you've evolved your writing, you have nice emotions in it. I like the drama as well. I can't wait to see what happens next. Update soon, looking forward to it for sure.

Like most of these comments, I lack much experience with hockey. That being said, I always love to watch it and I find it to be an extremely sexy sport for some reason.

You're ending the story soon, as said in your last update, and I think that is a good thing for you. Now, don't take this as me saying that your story sucks so bad that it just needs to stop. That's not it at all. I personally think you have improved greatly over the course of writing the story (even if it was two years ago that you updated last) and that starting new things is always refreshing. Sometimes working in the shadow of a rushed, toss up piece can bring down the writer, whether they notice it or not. I have a story that I just can't stand and I haven't updated it for months because of this. In light of the fact that it has been two years, I have a feeling you've already begun something else and I'll bet its awesome.

Let's get to the critique:

There are a lot of predictable moves in this. That being said, I hate this giving and receiving this type of comment because a story can be so stereotypical that it would make your eyes bleed if you noticed, but it could also be so well-written and unique in every other aspect that it disguises it and makes it realistic. Unfortunately, this story lacks uniqueness. Examples: invited into locker room (typically backstage), immediate relationships (with the team, in this case. Further, rid the comment "she's a keeper". It's a cop-out.), getting assaulted by a random person at a club or party and of course the cheating. Personally, I love cheaters in stories because even if the writing sucks or something, I still get riled up. Even still, the scene was basic and I felt that it missed opportunities to emphasize mistakes and the human reaction to being so disrespected by someone they loved. To add, when she saw he was flirting with another girl, the delivery of her realization was awkward. "Patrick was sitting on the couch with an arm around another girl. And that girl wasn't me." You've already established the girl was not Kelsey in using the word "another".

You also seemed to struggle greatly with punctuation, but being a grammar obsessed person, I shy away from going into detail about this because it just takes too long. Also because we all make careless mistakes.

I don't want to come off as completely negative, because I'm not. I loved the way you made the team act with Kelsey and one another. I don't know enough about the Blackhawks to say that it's realistic, but that's the beauty of reading something unfamiliar. I enjoyed it. There is honestly more things that I appreciated, but I read much of the story noting things I could help improve, and despite the fact that I liked reading it, this drowned out my overall ability to remember these positives. That's not to say the negatives outweighed, I just obsess over them so that nothing else seems to register. It's actually an issue.

Oh! I did like her obvious attraction towards red hair! That was a noticeable quirk that quietly but effectively helped define her character. Good thing I looked up both Patrick and Jordan to see this!

I'd say please continue to write, but I'm sure you do and I'm also sure it's ten times better than it was two years ago. We could all use some polishing! I'm definitely going to check out more of your stuff now and this story has opened my markets to a little bit of hockey, so thank you for that.

Let me begin with saying that I don't normally like internal monologue in my stories; however, you do it in a believable and likable way. Good job!

You do seem to have some discrepancies with tense. You switch from past and present tense interchangeably and that's a big concern for readers.

"For as long as I could remember I had lived in Chicago." Doesn't she know where she has always lived? Maybe change it to say "I have lived in Chicago my entire life" or something like that.

Also, I wouldn't use caps lock so much in your dialogue. An exclamation mark is enough to let your readers know you are having your characters yell or shout. All the capitalization takes away from the actual story.

Hope that my comments help. Keep up the good work!

I think you made a good choice in choosing the sport Hockey. No one ever really writes about a truly manly and amazing sport anymore! At least not in the stories I read. I find it fascinating. I really like this story, But I agree with one of the recent comments that you could be much more descriptive in your writing.

Your story has a lot of potential and with the proper editing and such, it could be a lot better. :)

@ ThereIsNoSpoon.
Thanks love!! :)

Oh wow... I love this. <3 I've just started reading it and I love it. Expect another comment when I've finished. c:

This story is like exactly my life and how I want it to turn out.. I love Patrick Kane, I'm an only child, and I have a crazy friend named Emma too!

I love this story so much! I keep rereading it! xD

I like your writing style most of the time, however this was on the comment swap, so I struggled to read it due to lack of understading of outside factors (I gathered it was too do with hockey), but this isn't really a problem with the story. You have good grammar, but I think you could maybe be a bit more descriptive sometimes :)

I, too, agree with a lot of the below comments. Especially the "show don't tell" comment. This is constructive critiscism, by the way, it's certainly not easy to display your work to any kind of public, and I applaud you for that. You should practice describing characters in a more subtle way, you know? Instead of saying "She had blond hair and blue eyes," state something like:

"She twisted her light golden hair in her fingers, her light blue eyes observing him with curiosity."

That came out of the blue, so it may sound strange, but you get what I'm laying down? But continue practicing your writing, you can only get better the more you do it. Let me know if you need help. Good luck!

comment swap
Definitely agree wtih sammy-poo about the amateur quality to opening a chapter with "so-and-so's POV"
also i'm not sure why you went with such long chapter titles. only the actual chapter title is necessary. your way just clutters the page. your layout is also very bland and that isn't very exciting to the reader. it's clear that you're getting somewhere and have potential to write a great story. but the content reads like a blog and the dialogue doesn't come across as very believable. try and throw in some more background details and imagery as well!
best of luck!

I want to say, first off, that I've never read a hockey story before. I've never even seen a hockey game! I do like the dialogue in the first chapter between Emma and Kelsey. It's fun and lighthearted and sets the mood well.

I have a bone to pick with the narration, however; you're doing a lot of showing, and not a lot of telling. Don't worry, though, that's a common mistake and can be easily remedied through effort. Instead of telling us exactly who Kelsey is and just stating things about her, let us infer it through narrative clues.

Also, sentence variation! Try adding longer, more complex sentences between the simple, choppy ones to create more diversity. :)

Intriguing idea, though! I do like the actual content of the story, and Emma's character makes me laugh. Very enjoyable. Besides the stylistic things I pointed out, this is really fun to read.

First of all, you should never start a chapter with "so-and-so's POV", in fact, you should never do that. It seems very amateurish.

There's a lot of voice in this story, which is a good thing. Having a voice is very important. But I find there's a little too much voice, and not enough proper grammar. It's ok to have your own writing style, but just remember that you are still writing and it needs to be edited properly or else no one's going to want to read it.

This story seems like it has a lot of potential, but I think there's a lot you should probably try working on. A lot of the sentences are a little clunky, and the capslock is a little distracting. I'd suggest putting it in bold or italics or something. Also, just to stick with Mibba rules and guidelines you should take the tag out the title so it's just 'Don't Look At Me Like That' and you can put that it's a Patrick Kane fanfiction in the short summary. But you should keep writing this.

I love this story!! I'm going to be really sad when you decide to end it! However i can feel there's going to be a bit more drama before you end it well that's at least what i'm hoping! Really loved chapter 27 and i can't wait to read what is left to come before you end this story.

Mm. Okay. I'm a hockey fan, a fanfiction fan, and an incredibly avid writer, so with that said I need to be brutally honest with you.
Okay, well, not brutal, but honest.

From a fanfiction/writer standpoint, I understand where you're coming from. Honey, we've all been there. We want to let out our dreams and fantasies in a way that can be appreciated from a view rather than in our heads. You're allowed to do that, in fact I personally encourage it. You can write for yourself, great!

But if you want people to read and comment on what you've written, you're going to need to put a little more effort into it that that. You're going to need to create an original concept, with real personalities for the characters you chose, and not start off your story with, "I woke up to the sound of my alarm clock." NEVER start anything (especially fanfiction) with a variation of, "I woke up to my alarm clock and saw what a beautiful day it was out today and thought oh my life sucks but wait! Today is special because something incredible is going to happen to me that's totally unrealistic and I'm going to spend the next paragraph explaining how it happened in detail that is not nearly enough for it to make actual sense! THIS IS DESTINED TO BE GREAT." Because not only is it overused, but it is incredibly uninteresting.

MOST IMPORTANTLY THOUGH: I really want you to continue writing, despite what I've said. Please do it, because if you like it, then this is the best thing for you. And practice makes perfect, and you're starting by writing about something you love, and that's perfect, if nothing else is.

You might want to edit your chapter names. But other than that I think you should opt for beta. I hope things turn out better, and you can find someone to beta for you. You seem to have a good writers voice, and you just have to strengthen it. Go Blackhawks! Oh, and I forgot to mention that your characters seem a little underdeveloped.

You might want to edit your chapter names. But other than that I think you should opt for beta. I hope things turn out better, and you can find someone to beta for you. You seem to have a good writers voice, and you just have to strengthen it. Go Blackhawks!

Ok, so right away I’m going to have to be honest right away. I’ve never seen a hockey game before. Also, this was the third story in a row that I’ve found for hockey though, all through comment swap. I liked your story. It was a good story, but I think that a few things you may want to change are little things like grammar mistakes. Besides that, I agree with the other people on the few other things, like with them all traveling together, and her right away being with the guys, and for everything to happen that easily. I understand its fan FICTION, but I just think it could be stretched a little more, although that’s just my own personal opinion. Besides that, I think you did a good job, and with a little work it would be a great story. Maybe re-read it before you post it, or even a beta, I think would help you in no time, and would help you improve on everything. Besides that, if you post again, I’ll definitely read it, as I think you are going to improve greatly soon.  Keep working, and I can’t wait to see what else you post.

I'm sorry because I don't want to be mean, but to me this story is not particularly good. It doesn't seem very likely that the entire team goes everywhere together and the only woman ever around is this one chick? Also, how does she support herself....go to school? Just hang out? And there are a ton of misspelled words. You do write well, and I like your dialogue.