Wow, Panda, this was excellent and exactly what I needed.
I really appreciate the dialogue tags and beat explanation. It’s always been something I know I need to improve on, and try my hardest to make it both flow and feel stylistic, if that makes sense? I almost always take issue when I’m reading tags and they’re really odd ones, where a basic said or asked could have worked instead. I feel I did exactly that, and perhaps overdid it. I think whilst writing I want the characters to kind of feel dynamic, and have some kind of weight behind what they’re saying.
Another point you briefly mentioned were exclamation points, for some reason I dislike looking at them in prose, especially when they’re overused. Some authors are very liberal with exclamation points and can feel cheap/be unnecessary. Not sure if there is any merit to what I’m saying with that and perhaps I need to reevaluate myself with that. Maybe I need to think about utilising them better. (I know i used a few in this comment, love them for social media related stuff. It’s a paradox.)
As for commas and full stops (Periods. I’m an Aussie, sorry 😅) will be the death of me, I swear. I need to both go back and properly line edit and take my own advice and read it aloud to myself to see find those awkward phrases.
Thank you for your kind words of encouragement too! Yeah, I kind of knew the vagueness wouldn’t gel well with everyone, but I’m perfectly fine with that. Wasn’t here to win it, but saw it as an opportunity to have people assess my writing, and to have a little fun of course.
For my story overall though, I think the ending didn’t land the way I wanted it to and does make the story as a whole fall flat a touch. It needs a few more reworks, but it is what it is and I am pretty happy overall. I scored higher than I thought I would.
Honestly, as someone who aspires to write, with too many books in the oven, this was amazing, Panda. I can’t thank you enough. I will definitely be participating in the next writing jam, it’s too much fun not too. Your critique has been some of the best I’ve received, ever, and I appreciate that. I write a lot in my free time and will be practicing with those dialogue tags and beats, and hopefully my submission in the next writing jam will be an improvement over this.
I’m afraid I didn’t get to read your work, I got to 24 rating but moving home got in the way. I will be reading through yours now though. I probably can’t provide as detailed a critique as you were able to, but I’d love to read yours nonetheless!
Thanks again,
Sam