Xzaro
It's like 3AM and I can't sleep. I saw something online that reminded me of this very specific day in my life when I was taking psychiatric medication. I know there are errors in grammar. I probably used the "I" too much and cliche words but I'm just trying to get the ideas across and hope you (the reader) can understand what was happening. Please let me know of suggestions with word choice, the many "I"s, the ending "lesson" I try to show, and anything else. And yes, this is all based on surreal things I saw/felt that day
This somewhat colors my perception of the thing you've asked to be critiqued. I wish you had left out a little information here and let the piece speak for itself. Not sure if the colored perception of mine will be reflected in the critique, but I wanted to be sure to acknowledge it just in case.
(Small font size removed because how I do critiques, it would annoy me.)
Xzaro
A long time ago in one of my delirious states of mind after taking medication, I got angry with my parents because of some stupid reason I can't remember. I stormed out and
1] even though the sun was setting and the night sky felt dreamy, I just wanted to get the hell away from there. I walked all the way to my high school several miles south and
I climbed over the gates because nothing was stopping me when I was in
2]these states.
3]Walking up the stairs, I found a bunch of boxes scattered around the second floor and
4] I thought “something must be hiding in one of these”.
5]I grabbed a twig and started knocking them
6]all over before finding myself walking in some sort of
7]weird lemniscate pattern. After awhile, I looked to the doors and I could clearly see a cat tail. It went inside the art room
8]and I chased after it, only to find the art room dark and empty.
The words "even though" make me think you were trying to relay that it is possibly dangerous to go out on one's own, but the description of a setting sun and a "dreamy" night sky makes it sound like a pleasant dusk.
1a] The setting sun description makes me think dusk, while the word "night" makes me think the sun is supposed to be already gone. Some rewording may be in order, or maybe you use a different wording for the time you are describing than I do.
2] Odd sounding wording. Suggested rephrases: “this state”, “this type of/sort of state”.
3] I would suggest describing the school more before this sentence. At this point, I didn’t know the school had stairs, so its almost as if they magically appeared.
4] Why? I realize that the character/you were in a drugged state, but why jump to the conclusion something was hiding in one of the boxes? There is a possibility that my lack of knowledge/experience on the subject of being in a drugged state leads to my confusion here.
5] Where did the twig come from? According to the previous sentence the character/you were on the second floor. Did the character/you run down stairs to get the twig? Was it just laying around on the second floor? Was the second floor outside or inside? If outside I could see there being a twig laying around, but inside it would be somewhat strange.
6] It sounds like many or all of the boxes were being knocked over at once, or knocked on the sides, as in tapping on the sides to see if anything moves on the inside or comes out of the box. A slight rephrasing would help. Suggestion: “…started knocking them over one by one…”, “…started tapping them on the sides…”, “…started tapping on the sides of the boxes…”
7] According to dictionary.com a “lemniscate” is “a plane curve generated by the locus of the point at which a variable tangent to a rectangular hyperbola intersects a perpendicular from the center to the tangent. Equation: r 2= 2 a 2cosθ” <-- I do not understand what that means, and therefore have no idea what you are trying to say, if you are using the correct word. The reason I say “if you are using the correct word” is because the word program I use says the word is misspelled and suggests “lemniscuses” instead, which is also misspelled or not a word according to dictionary.com. The closest word being “lemincus” which is “a band of fibers, especially of white nerve fibers in the brain”, in which case walking in that sort of pattern doesn’t sound like it would be possible. And, if you are using the right word, what makes the pattern “weird”? (this last question is probably due to me not knowing what the word means, so I wouldn’t know what it would be if it weren’t weird)
8] Are classrooms not locked at this school? That is very strange. Most teachers I knew throughout my school years would lock the classroom whenever they would leave.
8a] Did the character/you go in and chase it around for a little bit before realizing there was nothing there, or did the character/you enter the room in an attempt to chase after it, only to discover there was nothing there? The phrasing sounds like you mixed the two options up and I can’t tell which you meant.
8b] “…only to find the art room dark and empty.” Shouldn’t it be apparent the room is dark?
Xzaro
I walked back down the stairs,
9]kinda scared of myself. The trees above me looked like they were going to grab me like something out of Harry Potter
10]and the front of the school was the only place where I figured I could get some sanity because it was just plain grass and some pavement to walk on.
11]It was nice for a while..without any trees or boxes in sight... but I couldn't help but notice a fallen palm tree frond nowhere near any sort of logical source. After staring at it long enough I could swear I saw it the shape of a girl, curled up in a fetal position
12]like in pain. I approached it cautiously, and when it no longer looked human I checked my phone and I saw a text from one of my female friends
13]that she was on her bed crying because of an argument she had with her mom.
Why? Is it some sort of illogical thing because the character/you was on something that was messing with the mind, or because the character/you thought they were going crazy?
10] Remove the “and” and start a new sentence here. (I’m not the best at spotting run on sentences, so this is more of a guess than anything else.)
11] It seems you jumped from thinking about the front of the school to being there. A better transition would be nice.
12] Odd Sounding wording. Suggested rephrases: “…like she was in pain”, “…as if in pain”, “…as if she was in pain”.
13] Odd sounding wording. Suggested rephrasing: “…that said she…”, “(period) It said she…”, “…she said that she…”.
Xzaro
It was all too creepy for me. I don't remember how I got home that night, but when I was in my room with the lights out and only
that darkness to keep me company, a small light came from my window
14]lit a point in my room. It was nothing, probably a car light or a reflection of something but for that night that light was perfect and reminded me of something innocent, like some part of me from when I was a kid was reaching out to me.
15] I couldn't sleep that night but all that insanity at least for a few hours, was less about escaping and more about finding home in that night light, and keeping the monster away that was now myself.
Odd sounding wording. Suggested rephrasing: “…lighting a point…”, “…and lit a point…”, “…which lit a point…”.
15] Another sudden jump. I suggest a better transition.
(I like this last paragraph most. Less stuff for me to point at and complain about.)
16]I also just realized that the twig from before just stopped being mentioned after the first paragraph. Did the character/you toss it away, or continue carrying it around, or what?
Anything colored
green is something I think you could probably take out with little to no change (other than those words being gone of course).
It needs some more/better descriptions, some punctuation fixes, and maybe a few less “I, me, and/or my”s, but it’s a nice start. Also, there is a probability that your memory about the night this happened is a bit fuzzy, but for areas that you might not remember so clearly, it might be a good idea to add something in to flesh things out. If you want to keep it hazy for example, you could say “I don’t remember what I did with the twig, but it wasn’t in my hand anymore when I got to the bottom of the stairs” or you could say what exactly happened to it (even if you make it up).
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