Points of Interest - Comments

Oh my I'm still laughing at the bad ideas right at the beginning. At first I was iffy as it sounded like yet another teenage drama, but boy was I wrong and am I glad I was. I really liked reading it but it seems it's been inactive for a while, which is a shame. I got sent here through comment swap so... oh well, I hope you continue writing!

This is such a cool idea for a story! You really know how to write humor. It's great. I just hope that later on, more is revealed about the relationship with Adam. I mean there has to be something motivating the main character to just suddenly get up and leave.

Dear author, I found the summary to be strange but interesting in its own way. I liked the first chapter as well but the picture in between the story has to get deleted, otherwise you will be reported. You could use a link in the story or at the author's note. I have subscribed and I can't wait for more. ~Marian.

Dear author, I found the summary to be strange but interesting in its own way. I liked the first chapter as well but the picture in between the story has to get deleted, otherwise you will be reported. You could use a link in the story or at the author's note. I have subscribed and I can't wait for more. ~Marian.

Aww yay(: I was worried!! Let me know when you update

@ Tre.
Thank you so much! Even if it was Comment Swap that brought you here, I'm glad you read this and enjoyed this! Hopefully with all of the feedback I've been getting I'll be able to edit this chapter, and future ones, accordingly and it'll be a little more organized. When I posted it it was literally from brain, to website. Hardly any editing. Probably a mistake on my part. Anyways, a new chapter should be posted in a few weeks, if you're interested. Thanks again! <3

@ Katie Mosing
Hi, Katie Mosing! Yes, this story is still active! I'd decided that I wasn't going to post anymore chapters until the Comment Swap had caught up with me, but I've really missed posting. I'm going to look through all of these comments again, because I've been getting some INCREDIBLE feedback, fix the story accordingly, and hopefully within the next couple of weeks I'll have another chapter up. Thanks for keeping a look on on this! (:

Oh how thrilled was I at the opening! Crocs are jsut a tragic idea! I'm glad she agrees! I'm glad as well that she's decided to go off on her big adventure, everyone has a dream and I'm sure she'll meet hers!

I like the idea of her blogging, the picture in the middle was a good bonus for that. I found the chapter to be a little disorganized though. I'm sure future chapters will be good though, and I urge you to continue. This is a story many could relate to!

Is this still active?

Certainly an interesting start. I think it's interesting that her friend cares so much about the ra "checking her out" when they are supposedly broken up. But then again, she still have feelings for him. I like the title. Makes me interested where she will actually end up going. The junk food comment made me smile. I'm pretty sure if I did this my receipt wouldn't look a whole lot different in terms of junk food. Waffle House, lol. Is the description based on a real Waffle House, I'm not sure I've ever been in one, so I was just curious about that. You have a good beginning, and I may be back to see if you have moved forward with it. Great job.

Wow, not really much I can say after Mr. Comment swap knight lol. But yeah I think you have a good idea here. Every teen feels the need to leave town and go off on an adventure, so its a very universal topic

Dear Fee-hee-hee-heeny!,

The King has sent me for your story. Fear not, it is for literary terms alone. He wanted me to also commend you title. Quite the catch.

I like the structure of your story. I like the way it flows. I like the way the girl's character is a real voice and most of all I like the way you're counting everything in.

The blog is an awesome idea. I think your description could be a little more unique. She's on the move trying to distract herself, shouldn't she flow into the waves of the scenery, the thoughts of the clouds, the whispers of the trees?

I came here on the behalf of the King as a Knight of Comment Swap and I have to say I'm very glad. Although the fact that she's sleeping with a guy that she has no relationship with is very disturbing to me. Maybe if it was her husband? But, even boyfriend, that's just too much. And best friend is way too much. No wonder she's suffocated.

Avoid the "in an instant" and "in a split second" phrases. Everything in stories happens instantly. Describe how fast she is going, give little details. If she's a silent tornado use descriptive words of a tornado like sweeping and crunching and crushing and destroying and whirling and then give silent words like placing and flowing and pacing and tiptoeing. Bring the mood and the atmosphere into your description.

Describe what about his perfection got her riled up. You could describe him perfectly, in the most cliche way, maybe that could bring her into utter repulsion of a sense and make her run.

Also, this is small but instead of "walk right out of the door"(I can see you mean to say that she just did it without a second warning, but just write it without any extra words) just say I walk out the door. Or stride out the door, or march, or some descriptive way of her leaving. This will give us a hint as the readers to if she is triumphant or sluggish or determined as she leaves. We catch on to some emotions and we don't have to guess or take your word for it because we can see it. So we can see if she has confidence or not, if she has purpose or not, which is obvious she does have, but at the same time she doesn't. You can play with these things in descriptions and what she is doing. That way you don't have to spell everything O-U-T. It gets redundant.

I hope you keep writing. This is an awesome piece. I already subscribed a week ago and recommended it when I should have commented. Mind keeping that from the King? Writing of the King. He sent this.

"Strange named writer I believe this play with structure will make your story thrive. Develop your words. Bring in the flow of different sentence lengths. Craft it in. Bring it forth and watch your story sing. Sing your thoughts.

This sentence has five words. Here are five more words. Five-word sentences are fine. But several together become monotonous. Listen to what is happening. The writing is getting boring. The sound of it drones. It’s like a stuck record. The ear demands some variety. Now listen. I vary the sentence length, and I create music. Music. The writing sings. It has a pleasant rhythm, a lilt, a harmony. I use short sentences. And I use sentences of medium length. And sometimes, when I am certain the reader is rested, I will engage him with a sentence of considerable length, a sentence that burns with energy and builds with all the impetus of a crescendo, the roll of the drums, the crash of the cymbals–sounds that say listen to this, it is important."

All the best young writer and farewell.

Truly,

A Knight of Comment Swap

Darn those feelings. I love how you wrote this; many people can relate to the main character's situation. I think the fact that she doesn't want to give up the friendship, but she still has feelings for him, is so realistic.

I like the title; I think it does well at attracting curiosity and relates to the story itself. You've definitely got the grammar down and you give good descriptions. It's definitely interesting. I'd love to read more.

Here from comment swap, and I’m bored of my usual way of commenting, so you’re getting an experimental first comment.

1. Title: I quite like it. It fits in with the roadtrip theme, but maybe could be teased out to be something more like about the relationship or something.

2. Banner: I really like it. I think you found the perfect picture to fit in with your summary. My only suggestion is next time you use outerglow on text is to adjust the color to match more with the rest of the color scheme. Like a lighter blue would have blended in better.

3. Layout: It could use a little tinkering with. The burgundy background color is lovely, but it being the background for the text can be a little hard on the eyes, and the link color is a little hard to read.

4. First paragraph: excellent. I love the humor and the introduction to the issues of the story. And ugh, Wasabi shooters can’t be a real thing. That just sounds like the most awful idea. Crocs and Snuggies should be capitalized because they are namebrands.

You have an engaging writing style, and I can’t wait to see where the rest of this goes for your characters.

First off, I like the title because you worked it into the short description. The short description itself is very intriguing. It definitely made me click on the story. I'm also wondering what these points of interests Anna finds along her journey are.

I have to admit the layout could use work. Not to be really picky about layouts, but just perhaps using a white background behind a dark colour text would be better. The yellow text on magenta isn't the easiest on the eyes. Changing the link colour would also be grand because the blue on magenta reads the same way. That said, not saying the layout deters anyone from reading. Or it shouldn't anyway.

I'm not really sold on the summary. I think it reads more like a short description. It just leaves more to be desired since it doesn't tell much. I feel like the short description tells more than the summary actually. It by no means needs to be long, but I felt it could have used a little something extra.

Have you ever attempted friendship with an ex-boyfriend?

I do enjoy this line because it's so relatable. It does make me want to keep reading since I feel like I have something in common with the main character already. I'm sure most of us know what it feels like, or at least something similar.

Let me tell you this: Next to crocs, snuggies and wasabi shooters, it ranks up there as one of the worst ideas ever.

I feel like it should be a comma rather than colon to separate though. After your colon is a complete sentence on its own so a comma would suffice.

I feel awful in saying so, but I feel you would benefit from a beta, since there are some grammatical errors that could easily be fixed. It doesn't take away from the story now. It could just improve it if you're interested in that.

In an instant, I couldn't stand the sight of him. Here, in my bed. Suddenly, I wanted him gone. I wanted to be gone.

I do love this line. I love how the lingering feelings she has for him spurs on this sudden escape from him, probably because I've done similar so it makes Anna feel relatable to me and I'm interested in seeing what repercussions her journey has for her and what she learns on it. The fact that she doesn't spend money from work either except on groceries is something I do at uni and getting in my car to just go somewhere without knowing where is exactly what I do sometimes. It's just so funny to me that I've found a character similar to myself, since I rarely ever do.

I don't know if I quite love the blog format yet. I see definitely how it moves the plot along and allows the reader to get more into Anna's personal thoughts. I think I just need to see it used more since I'm not used to it in stories that often.

I've never been a fan of song dropping in a story, so the playlist just threw me off. I don't see what it adds right now to the story. Maybe it will have some significance later on, but for now it just seems like putting in a list of songs you like or were listening to while writing this. I know what she says about how the playlist will allow her to cry, but I don't see why I need to know what's on the playlist to know that. I'd say if the specific songs do not influence the story in some way, I'd put what you imagine her listening to in an author's note rather than right in the middle of the chapter.

I also feel like you spend quite a few paragraphs talking about the bacon when it doesn't move the plot along. Of course mention your character needs to eat. She is human after all, but I don't see a significance in that much talk about the bacon.

The voicemail I would probably put in quotes since Adam is speaking it directly on the phone and you do the blog entry in italics already so a distinction between spoken and written would be good.

I do enjoy how she left out that Shane is flirty with everyone to make Adam jealous. It illustrates she does still feel something for him. I also like that she then gets upset about him getting jealous since he has no right to when they're not together. That's such a common thing I see in people who aren't together for whatever reason, but still like each other do. It's a crazy back and forth, playing games, and for you to include it just makes their relationship feel real. People can read that and go oh, I know people who actually do that to each other.

Again, not really sold on mentioning everything she buys though. You could easily not mention everything by name and still get the point across that she's stocking up on supplies and a lot of it is typical gas station food.

I wasn't sure why look in the following paragraph was italicised. The little exchange with the cashier took me out of it for a moment. Was he criticising what she bought?

Destination: To be determined.

I love this ending line. I think it's a great starting point for her journey now.

I think you have a lot of potential to explore here. There's so much you can add in with Anna's relationship with Adam, where she goes, who she meets, what role they might play, obstacles she might encounter like running out of money, getting lost, even the people back home trying to find her. There's a million ways you could go honestly so I'm curious where exactly you take it. I'd definitely keep writing it. It seems like you have the start of a good, strong protagonist and a good basis for conflict. I really do like how you've set her up and that even if a lot of people wouldn't just get up and go like that, it's still realistic that some people do. I've run away to different countries sometimes to escape so I really just love that about Anna. I feel so far Anna's personality is coming across well, like you've shown she's impulsive and independent in her actions without coming out and stating she is. I'd love to see how you develop Adam and their past as the story progresses. I'm asking now why did they break up? They clearly still care about each other so the fact you've set up this question of what went wrong is great. I feel like it's going to make sense of Anna's need to get away from him in the future.

Hope you keep up with this story. :)

The second line in the beginning got me laughing and agreeing immeadiately. I already like Anna; the way she phrases things seems very relateable. Anna seems inspiring to me, as I don't know many people who'd be brave enough to up an leave on a trip that has no destination. Her attitude and emotions regarding her now strictly friends relationship with Adam are also real emotions and seem like something it'd be normal to feel in a such a situation. I think you've done a wonderful job with Anna and have a very promising start.

I'll be subscribing. :)

Grammar

In this line, " Everything is exactly the way they were, pre-relationship" one of the tenses is wrong.

"I have to wait until the tomorrow for " the doesn't need to be there.

I don't think you needed the first set of page breaks.

Side note, this is probably me being picky, but I most college students, especially at my school, call their Resident Directors 'RDs".

Plot:

I think the plot seems promising, so far. It is very vague right now, which can be a good thing! I always like road trip-esque stories, and I think this will be one of those great "finding myself" fictions that just takes the character to the edge and back.

Characters:

I think you did a great job introducing Anna. She seems very interesting and you can just tell that her relationship with Adam broke her down and now she's on a journey to find herself. I think that's something most girls can relate to and I think she's going to be a very memorable character!

Comment swap, here:

The idea and plot you're working with is intriguing and you're very descriptive, especially with Adam. I love the incorporation of music, as well. Be careful that you're the same tense all the time unless you're doing a flashback. Also, watch for some grammar and spelling issues. Great work, keep writing!

I like this a lot. I'm very surprised that I would cause the spontaneous trip theme is getting kind of old. I wouldn't to do far as to say its completely original but it is different and I like that. The layout colors, however, burn my eyes. Its good do far though (:

Here from comment swap!
I have to say that you're story is unlike any other that I have ever read on here. It's original and I love it. The plot is great and the fact that shen has nothing planned and doing everything on a whim give it a true sense of adventure. Love it keep it up! It's fantastic!