Hello All,
I’ve come to the conclusion that we HOs are a very literate bunch. Please go to a page I made on Facebook and read the short story I wrote called Sideways Boy here:
I would like a critique, even as small as whether or not you like it, but feel free to speak your mind. You can reply to the story/post there or come back here as you wish.
Thank you very much.
Hi David,
This is an incredibly sweet story. I’m a huge cat lover and a total sucker for this type of thing, so I look forward to reading more! That said, I did notice while reading that there isn’t a lot of variation in the length and structure of sentences - the vast majority are of medium length and made up of two phrases separated by a comma. A bit more variation would create a much more interesting and musical flow to the language. Please do let us know when you have another installment, though! 
How personal. How heartfelt. And dare I say poetic? (To keep this discussion connected to food, I read your post while eating lunch.)
If you wanted to take your story to the next level, you could play around with the paragraphs. Experiment with what happens when you break up longer paragraphs into ones that express a single idea. It can help your readers along and amplify your narrative.
I’ll never do better at explaining the power of the paragraph than what you’ll find here. https://www.copyblogger.com/art-of-the-paragraph/
I like to say that I write to find out what I think. Perhaps you are finding the same? Thank you for sharing!
Tyvm @biondanonima !
I really appreciate your feedback. Funny thing is I cut down most of my original longer sentences out of fear of the dreaded run-on.
As for the next installment, well, it is part of a much larger work, only a third of which is about the cats.
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Alright darn it, I read it even though I’m not a cat, reading or literate kind of guy here’s my thought(s).
This line kind of caught me by surprise:
" I wasn’t as fast or smart as Toff, so I let her lead and she allowed me to follow. "
If Sideways Boy is the author of the book, everything is taking place in first person, yet he’s not as smart as his sister? What is Toff on Tesla Model 3 development team? When you present the author of the story as a cat and he’s not the smart cat, my mind goes to Animal Farm. You don’t have any pigs in the area do you? If so start locking your doors at night.
That’s my critique, besides throw a dog in the story for wider appeal !?!?!?!?! Good luck my friend.
I am sooooo sorry. You gave me some great feedback and I don’t know how I missed replying to you. There is no excuse.
Thank you so much and I hope you’ll give the entire book a read when Sideways Boy comes out.
Thanks for reading my friend. There’s actually less cat story in the book than you might think. Would it make you more or less interested to know that most of the book is about a teacher who survives a school shooting and gets PTSD?
reacted this human who has a dog.
