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Breadpilled on scored.co
1 day ago3 points(+0/-0/+3Score on mirror)2 children
Two vtuber anime girls discuss the holocaust? Lol, shitpost or theoretical normalfaggot propaganda?
As far as craft goes, your biggest issue is a propensity towards purple prose. Huge chunks of this should be slashed entirely. Short, punchy sentences should be the default; save longer descriptions to vary rhythm or punctuate emotional beats.
Example:
> Rain lashed against the colossal windowpanes, blurring the verdant expanse of the forest into an impressionistic smear of greens and browns.
Shortened for readability:
> Rain lashed against the colossal windowpanes, blurring the verdant expanse beyond.
Example:
> Gura turned, her eyes shining with an adventurous glint that belied the solemnity of their conversation.
Shortened:
> Gura turned, her eyes shining with an adventurous glint.
You should do this pretty much everywhere you possibly can. Always ask yourself, "Can I convey this same idea in *fewer* words?" Again, there's a time and a place for longer, more florid descriptions, but you need to get this down first. Right now you have your foot all the way down on the gas pedal from start to finish.
You also sometimes use excessive commas when you should just create two sentences.
Example:
> The scent of damp earth and ancient pine needles always clung to Fauna’s mansion, a comforting, wild perfume that Gura breathed deep.
Cleaned up:
> The scent of damp earth and ancient pine needles clung to Fauna’s mansion. It was a wild yet comforting perfume—one which Gura often enjoyed.
Also used this to highlight that sometimes your verb choices are a bit mismatched to the image you want to convey. "Wild" and "comforting" are oxymoronic adjectives, and the insertion of "yet" makes them read more cleanly together.
Further, this sentence is operating in a zoomed out storyteller register, but ending it with "that Gura breathed deep" causes tonal clash. Is this a narrator setting the scene, or is Gura here right now, breathing the air in real time with the POV centered on her? In its original form both possibilities are present and in conflict with each other. My version commits to the former.
As for the content of the story, it doesn't work very well, to be frank. The whole thing feels like the author describing redpills to me with an anime girl sock puppet on each hand. The reason for this somewhat ties into my former point. You have multiple conceptual elements that are grating against each other without resolution.
Let's consider the actors we have here. Two vtuber characters. With setpieces like that, there are two obvious directions you could go. You could either go meta and lean into them being a real-life phenomenon, or you could go full fantasy and set up a purely fictional setting for them to exist in.
This story mashes both together like opposite colors of playdough. You seem to be writing them in a self-contained fantasy setting which is taking itself very seriously, but having them talk about the holocaust in the context of absolute meatspace. It breaks immersion immediately.
If you wanted to fully commit to this register, the best thing to do would be to make the holocaust metaphorical and fantasy-integrated. Have them talk about "goblins" who run the realm or some such, let the lies be clearly satirical caricatures of holocaust talking points without being completely on the nose. You trust the reader to put the pieces together. This is very often how successful jewish propaganda approaches fiction.
If you wanted to have them literally just talk about the holocaust, you would've been much better off taking the fourth wall approach and having them meet in an apartment or some such where one of them does their livestreaming. Lean into slice of life/comedy instead of atmospheric high fantasy. Maybe the conversation is triggered by Gura getting pissed off about a content strike for saying "nigga" on stream or some shit. If you're trying to make propaganda here, weebs eat that shit up.
If the original intent of the story was for it to take place in real life, but in a location that is coincidentally fantasy-shaped, then that is not clearly conveyed in the text. The prose doesn't imply it. If you absolutely wanted to keep it in this form, you'd want to throw in something to ground it in our reality ("Deep in the woods of New Hampshire...") Otherwise the reader's brain is gonna default to it being generic fantasy until they crash face-first into the holocaust being name dropped.
Also I don't know if you formatted this differently in a proper text document somewhere, but if not, I also strongly recommend breaking things up into more paragraphs. Example of one block I would split into two paragraphs (with another wording tweak included:)
> Gura leaned forward, her playful demeanor giving way to a more serious expression. “Equilibrium. Balance. That’s it, exactly. The universe, numbers, they don’t lie. They *can’t* lie. They just… are.”
> She paused, gathering her thoughts. Firelight illuminated the contours of her face. “I’ve been diving deep again, Fauna. Into the currents beneath the currents, the things they don’t want us to see.”
Anyways, I hope that all wasn't too harsh. I've written a novel as well as many short stories myself, so I am passionate about the art of writing. As it's becoming an increasingly niche medium for pure fiction in the present day, I hope you continue to refine your craft. You clearly have strong instincts for imagery and sensory cues—you just need to focus on tidying up your presentation and deciding exactly what kind of story it is you want to tell.
I agree with everything this guy said. Also, consider changing up the sentence structure. The overuse of “Name actioned, his noun verbing (adverbly)” is a hallmark of AI slop and poor writing.
Thank you. I clearly have a lot to learn. Can you recommend any good books for improving my writing alone, or writer's communities for improving my writing in a group?
I don't really have any recommendations on that front as I am self-taught and didn't use those things.
I think you're best off just studying the fundamentals and continuing to write as much as you can. Try to decide what you want your voice to be. Are you a grand narrator like Tolkien? A wisecracker like Pratchett? Let whatever your greatest inspirations are help you shape your prose.
As far as craft goes, your biggest issue is a propensity towards purple prose. Huge chunks of this should be slashed entirely. Short, punchy sentences should be the default; save longer descriptions to vary rhythm or punctuate emotional beats.
Example:
> Rain lashed against the colossal windowpanes, blurring the verdant expanse of the forest into an impressionistic smear of greens and browns.
Shortened for readability:
> Rain lashed against the colossal windowpanes, blurring the verdant expanse beyond.
Example:
> Gura turned, her eyes shining with an adventurous glint that belied the solemnity of their conversation.
Shortened:
> Gura turned, her eyes shining with an adventurous glint.
You should do this pretty much everywhere you possibly can. Always ask yourself, "Can I convey this same idea in *fewer* words?" Again, there's a time and a place for longer, more florid descriptions, but you need to get this down first. Right now you have your foot all the way down on the gas pedal from start to finish.
You also sometimes use excessive commas when you should just create two sentences.
Example:
> The scent of damp earth and ancient pine needles always clung to Fauna’s mansion, a comforting, wild perfume that Gura breathed deep.
Cleaned up:
> The scent of damp earth and ancient pine needles clung to Fauna’s mansion. It was a wild yet comforting perfume—one which Gura often enjoyed.
Also used this to highlight that sometimes your verb choices are a bit mismatched to the image you want to convey. "Wild" and "comforting" are oxymoronic adjectives, and the insertion of "yet" makes them read more cleanly together.
Further, this sentence is operating in a zoomed out storyteller register, but ending it with "that Gura breathed deep" causes tonal clash. Is this a narrator setting the scene, or is Gura here right now, breathing the air in real time with the POV centered on her? In its original form both possibilities are present and in conflict with each other. My version commits to the former.
As for the content of the story, it doesn't work very well, to be frank. The whole thing feels like the author describing redpills to me with an anime girl sock puppet on each hand. The reason for this somewhat ties into my former point. You have multiple conceptual elements that are grating against each other without resolution.
Let's consider the actors we have here. Two vtuber characters. With setpieces like that, there are two obvious directions you could go. You could either go meta and lean into them being a real-life phenomenon, or you could go full fantasy and set up a purely fictional setting for them to exist in.
This story mashes both together like opposite colors of playdough. You seem to be writing them in a self-contained fantasy setting which is taking itself very seriously, but having them talk about the holocaust in the context of absolute meatspace. It breaks immersion immediately.
If you wanted to fully commit to this register, the best thing to do would be to make the holocaust metaphorical and fantasy-integrated. Have them talk about "goblins" who run the realm or some such, let the lies be clearly satirical caricatures of holocaust talking points without being completely on the nose. You trust the reader to put the pieces together. This is very often how successful jewish propaganda approaches fiction.
If you wanted to have them literally just talk about the holocaust, you would've been much better off taking the fourth wall approach and having them meet in an apartment or some such where one of them does their livestreaming. Lean into slice of life/comedy instead of atmospheric high fantasy. Maybe the conversation is triggered by Gura getting pissed off about a content strike for saying "nigga" on stream or some shit. If you're trying to make propaganda here, weebs eat that shit up.
If the original intent of the story was for it to take place in real life, but in a location that is coincidentally fantasy-shaped, then that is not clearly conveyed in the text. The prose doesn't imply it. If you absolutely wanted to keep it in this form, you'd want to throw in something to ground it in our reality ("Deep in the woods of New Hampshire...") Otherwise the reader's brain is gonna default to it being generic fantasy until they crash face-first into the holocaust being name dropped.
Also I don't know if you formatted this differently in a proper text document somewhere, but if not, I also strongly recommend breaking things up into more paragraphs. Example of one block I would split into two paragraphs (with another wording tweak included:)
> Gura leaned forward, her playful demeanor giving way to a more serious expression. “Equilibrium. Balance. That’s it, exactly. The universe, numbers, they don’t lie. They *can’t* lie. They just… are.”
> She paused, gathering her thoughts. Firelight illuminated the contours of her face. “I’ve been diving deep again, Fauna. Into the currents beneath the currents, the things they don’t want us to see.”
Anyways, I hope that all wasn't too harsh. I've written a novel as well as many short stories myself, so I am passionate about the art of writing. As it's becoming an increasingly niche medium for pure fiction in the present day, I hope you continue to refine your craft. You clearly have strong instincts for imagery and sensory cues—you just need to focus on tidying up your presentation and deciding exactly what kind of story it is you want to tell.
I think you're best off just studying the fundamentals and continuing to write as much as you can. Try to decide what you want your voice to be. Are you a grand narrator like Tolkien? A wisecracker like Pratchett? Let whatever your greatest inspirations are help you shape your prose.