April 17th, 2017 at 08:20pm
Cool story development and idea.
Using flashbacks and dreams is challenging because it’s easy to break the story flow and disorient the reader. On other hand when done well, it’s really cool how it plays in a story.
I found the story’s goal in part 7…
“This journal used to be my fathers, he was a traveller as well; he went back much farther than I did and kept a record of his adventures. In the future; -well in my year anyway- if you get caught time travelling the demon of justice captures you, they believe that travelling will mess with everything. But I’ve been coming back to your year since I was a kid; I need to fix what my father couldn’t.” -Sabrina
I have read a lot of writing on mibba and a lot writers don’t have goals for their main characters to accomplish a story from start to end. When I saw that you have one, it really surprised me. That’s awesome!
Keep this in mind about the story goal as you write. You are writing in first person. The person telling the story is Faith. So, if Kaleb is going fix what his father couldn’t start then he is the protagonist in the story. He has to drive the plot, not Faith. Now that does not mean faith still can’t tell the story, it means she tells the story watching Kaleb take the lead to accomplish the goal.
If you ever take the opportunity to see a story botch this concept watch the movie Ironman 3 where Pepper gets superpowers at the end of the story and she ends up of accomplishing the story’s goal instead of the protagonist ironman himself. That’s a huge no, no in writing fiction. The protag must always be the one to drive the plot and resolve the goal.
I say this because you start off having Faith tell the story which by default the reader is going to assume she is the protagonist. If you want her to be the protag, then she has to establish the story’s goal and not Kaleb. Very important. You have Kaleb establishing the story’s goal as presently written.
Good foreshadowing, leading up the inciting event, where Faith encounters the demon. Really good how you build that over the story. However inciting events are for the protagonist. Again if Kaleb is the protag then you have a conflict. You need to revise the inciting event. If Faith is the protag then you need to revise and allow her establish the goal.
Here is one Point of View Error I found in part 2.
I kept glancing up at the boy sitting in the middle rows; he had put down his sketchpad and was now playing some game on his phone. His phone rang and he looked at the name of the caller and declined the call, it was from someone named ‘Julie’ I just assumed that it was maybe a girlfriend he was having difficulties with or it was an ex or something like that. His phone rang and this time he answered it with annoyance in his voice. - Sabrina
If Faith were sitting next to Kaleb, then she could see Kaleb playing a game, then rejecting the call and the caller id name, Julie. Otherwise if she glancing from a viewpoint, seeing Kaleb sitting in the middle of the bus, then it’s impossible to see the smartphone display or what exactly he is doing to his phone.
You are writing first person. It means we can only know what Faith sees at any given point in a scene. On the other hand if you were writing 3rd person omniscient that wouldn’t be problem at all. And if Kaleb were a viewpoint character it wouldn’t be a problem either, but in this scene he is not a viewpoint character. Faith is the viewpoint character.
Faith could however assume that the call is from a girl, but she can’t entirely be too sure at the same time. You do say she assumes. Delete/revise the sentence before you let us know that she is assuming.
One more observation, if I may take the liberty to share…
The story you have as is, makes a fabulous draft. There are many areas where you can show the reader the story as opposed to telling the story. This is very important especially writing in first person. Not so much important if writing in 3rd person omniscient.
In first person you want the reader close to Faith as she experiences the story form her point view, as opposed a detached form of telling. (An exception is the first line of your story, which can be a “tell”, in order to deliver a nice opening line.)
If I may show you:
I became a wanderer, when I ran away from pain and frustration. I can’t believe I am actually going through with this running away thing. My teeth chattered. Numbness replaced feeling in my fingers. That grit vexed my eyes every time the wind hit my face. I looked around. I can’t stay here. If I get caught again it’ll be an arrest. Camping is prohibited. Private property they said. Who’s property anyways? I just need sleep, but I refuse to sleep in jail. Better get my things together and find a homeless shelter.
I took my journal and images of my mother flooded my head. I heard a crack behind me. I gasped. Did I just a hear branch snap? I cleared my mind and listened.
“Hey! You can’t be out here”.
I turned. Two security guards approached me from the nearby tree line.
“This is private property. What are you doing here?”
“I was literally just about to leave. You see me getting my things?”
One of them turned his flashlight on me and squinted his eyes, “Well… Okay.”
The other knelt down closer to me, “You look pretty young. How old are you?”
I shifted backward, crossing my arms, “I just turned 19 two weeks ago.” And don’t get too close to me. I looked at him and his embroidered name, Bill, on his uniform.
“Where you headed?”
I swallowed hard, “You know…”, and shook my head. “I’m not really sure.” I don’t know where I am going. I stood up, uncrossing my arms and hunched my shoulders. My knees felt as if they would give out and I did not look up at them.
“Well, see’n how you ain’t causing us any trouble, we’ll give you a ride to the youth shelter. At least you’ll have a roof over your head for the night.”
Sabrina, do you see the difference? You see how close we get to Faith? We experience her as opposed to being told.
For example:
My thoughts stopped suddenly when I heard the sound of a branch breaking, I spun around and grabbed my flashlight off the ground and shook the snow off it; the button had frozen shut from the cold and wouldn't turn on. The sound of snow crunching began to get louder and closer, and I saw a second flashlight turn on and shine at my face. –Sabrina
“My thoughts stopped suddenly when I heard the sound of a branch breaking.” This tells me. I don’t get to experience her thoughts suddenly stopping from Faith’s point of view. You the narrator are telling me. It’s detached. You don’t want that in first person p.o.v. story.
Best areas of your prose to look for these show-don’t tell opportunities is to find all your adverbs (those “ly” words) and replace them with action words. Even if that means making additional sentences and extending the scene.
You have a great story. Keep developing it. Please don’t take what I offered personally. Have fun! Peace!
Thank you so much for your insight :) I definitely take what you said to mind to help develop my story and my writing skills, :)