Story Feedback

[musclemom]

Hi, this is a romance/comedy story about a divorced man, now has the responsibility of taking his daugher to martial arts....where he falls for the female sensei..

Scott sat in his daughters martial arts class, staring down at his phone.

He was 41 years old, tall and thin and recently divorced.

He shared custody of his 11 year old daughter and was now taking her to martiail arts.

He paid little attention until when they were done.

"How was class?" he asked his daughter. "Great" she smiled. "Sensei Sara wants to meet you, she met mom and likes to know the parents"

Scott turned around and saw a short woman, about 5'2", with short dark hair tied back.

She had a white martial arts unifrom on and an impessive looking blackbelt arouind her waist with all kinds of stripes on it.

Scott walked over to her, careful not to step on the mat. He knew what much.

Sara spun around to meet the man approching her. He was tall and very, very thin.

"You must be Heather's dad" she said. "I'm Sara, I just wanted to meet you to have a face that will pick her up" Sara smiled.

She stuck ouf her hand and Scott shook it. Her bare forearm was massive! Her grip was strong too.

"Nice meet you" he said.

He turned to leave, then turned back around, she had gone into her office, but he went to the door and knock.

Sara looked up at him. "Can I buy you a coffee?" he asked nervously.

Sara knew of the recent divorce. "How about you come here tomorrow night? I have an open dojo for adults and we can spend some time together then" she smiled.

Scott agreed, not seeing the harm.

As he entered the dojo that Friday night, he was dressed in sweatpants and a tshirt.

 

[ThisAdamGuy]

Have you ever heard the saying "show, don't tell"? Because your writing is 100% tell, 0% show.

 

[musclemom]

What about this...

Ex Wife

Restaurant Opening


Scott looked around the restaurant and was satisfied. He had finally fulfilled his dream of owning his own restaurant. He had been a successful chef in large cities, but came back home to a large size town in central Illinois to be close to family and to open his own place. It was finally coming true. It was an American Bistro theme with a changing menu. He hoped the town would support it.

He was 40 years old, divorced for 7 years and had no kids. At 6'1, he was tall, but weighed a very slight 160 pounds.

He worked hard and found it even harder to find a woman who would stand by him. His ex wife was gone and he hadn't seen her in years.

Opening night was two days away, he had a decent staff and had spent all his money on the remodel and marketing.

There was buzz around town as it was a different approach to food then the locals were used to .

He had to wait 48 hours to find out what might happen.

Sara, Scott's ex wife was back in town after 5 years, she looked outside of her small office at the rain pouring down outside. It was mid August, so the Midwest humidity was in the air.
She turned back around to look at her desk and the pile of suggestions she had to go through. She was 36 years old and single. She
worked as a community service and outreach librarian in the small town library. Part of her job was to go over requests for new materials
and she had put off the large pile now in front of her. She picked up a few suggestions and started to read them. She had been born in the town and
only left to go to college.

She passed by the small mirror on her wall that was at an angle and showed if anyone was coming around the blind corner. The mirror showed that she was
5'1", and had 150 pounds of very thick muscle on her body. She wore a long skirt that hid her massive thighs, a sleeveless top showed off her huge arms that
were bigger than almost all men's. She turned back to her desk and took a drink of water from her water bottle. Her thick neck muscles flexed as she swallowed
3 long gulps. A large black fitness tracker was wrapped around her large forearm. Her short dark hair was tied in a 3 inch ponytail off the middle of the back of her head.

She put the suggestions down and sat down at her desk. She was scheduled to have a blind date that night right after work. Her friends had set up a series of blind dates for her.
She could see the si restaurant down the block where she'd go to meet the first date, a lawyer from across town.. She was pretty confident, but still a bit shy and reserved. An odd combination just like being a librarian and a bodybuilder.
She felt happy, but there was still that missing piece....sharing life, sharing goals, sharing moments with someone. She hadn't had a serious relationship in 4 years and was hoping
one of these blind dates would work out.


As the hours ticked by, it was nearly 5 o'clock. She was meeting her date at 530. Her palms were getting sweaty. Nervous and anxious. She took some deep breaths, the humid air in the library didn't help. Four fifty seven. She didn't have the man's number but she could text her friend and bail.
"You'll never know," her inner voice told her. She sighed as the clock hit five o'clock. She collected her things and locked her office. She said goodbye to her co-workers and put her things in her car and walked to the restaurant for her blind date.

Scott was running around the restaurant, managing the staff and ready to unlock the door at 5pm.

There were a few people outside, but not a large crowd.

He welcomed the first few guests then retreated to the kitchen to get ready for orders.

Three couples were seated first by the hostess, then a tall, thin man in a suit was alone, waiting.

The hostess asked him if he wanted a table for one, "no, I'm actually waiting for a blind date" he said.

"Well, I can see you anyway" the hostess smiled. Matt agreed.
Scott nervously checks in on the kitchen staff and finds all in order and ready for orders.

Scott then walks back out to the front to chat and greet customers. He stops by one table with a cute young couple looking over the menu. He is excited for the big night and smiling ear to ear.

He walks to the front and sees a tall handsome man in a suit anxiously standing alone. He thanks the man for coming to his restaurant opening.

The well dressed man tells Scott he is waiting for date tonight, and he was nervous because its a blind date.

Scott could see how nervous the man was, about his age, probably the first date after a divorce he figured. He was very thin too.

"Well, dessert is on me" Scott said as he went to the next table.

There was a steady crowd, but not crazy.

He wasn't sure what to expect, but was glad people were at least showing up.

Scott is still nervous, but a bit more relaxed now. He glances over at the tall man waiting for his blind date to arrive. He can’t help but wonder about the guy, after all, he sees a bit of himself in this man as he assumes he is divorced like he is, a similar physical build and he is nervous to be on a date. Scott feels a bit of jealousy as he has not been on a serious date with a woman in a while and hasn’t been intimate with a woman for quite some time. His mind wonders for a second and he wonders what kind of woman will walk through the door as this guy’s blind date?

As Sara walks up to the restaurant door, she notices a tall, handsome, thin man dressed in a suit nervously standing and appears to be alone. Is this her blind date? She quickly thinks of her ex as they are the same age, height and build. The thought quickly goes away and she nervously puts her right hand on the door and slowly opens it and steps through the doorway.

The man is now at a table and Sara waits in line to be seated.

There is only one hostess working, so she has to wait. She starts to rethink what she's wearing, was the choice of a sleeveless top too much, will her date freak out over her arms?

It's happened before. She was doing this date as a favor to a co-worker who lived next to her date.

She was finally the next to be seated. The hostess brought her over to a two top table, it was the man she saw from outside. Tall, very thin and handsome. He was dressed in a full suit.

"Sara?" he asked. "Yes, Matt?" she asked.

Matt stood to push her chair in for her. He towered a foot taller than her, but felt weak when he saw her huge arms. She was very cute for sure and he was hoping she wasn't dismissing him right away.

 

[Fairemont]

How much writing experience do you have?

I can provide feedback but the answer to this will greatly influence how I go about it.

 

[musclemom]

How much writing experience do you have?

I can provide feedback but the answer to this will greatly influence how I go about it.

Not much

 

[Fairemont]

As a previous commenter stated: you rely entirely upon telling, and never on showing.

This is a common concept that many people tout about whenever reviewing other people's works, though generally when they have no idea what else to say, because it can sound like they know what they're talking about and apply to just about any work in at least one or two places.

It is not the case here.

The language you use in your prose is clipped, stilted, and reads a lot like a check list. A happens, B happens, C happens, etc. You also have an extreme emphasis on dates, time spans, and numerical physical descriptions. You also jumble a lot of vaguely inter-connected tidbits together with things that have no point being where they are. This yields something rather difficult to read.

Now that I think about it, this feels an awful lot like rudimentary script writing. It is very minimalist, but enough to tell people what is going on.

-----------------
Let's break some stuff down, starting here:

Scott looked around the restaurant and was satisfied. He had finally fulfilled his dream of owning his own restaurant. He had been a successful chef in large cities, but came back home to a large size town in central Illinois to be close to family and to open his own place. It was finally coming true. It was an American Bistro theme with a changing menu. He hoped the town would support it.

He was 40 years old, divorced for 7 years and had no kids. At 6'1, he was tall, but weighed a very slight 160 pounds.

He worked hard and found it even harder to find a woman who would stand by him. His ex wife was gone and he hadn't seen her in years.

Opening night was two days away, he had a decent staff and had spent all his money on the remodel and marketing.

There was buzz around town as it was a different approach to food then the locals were used to .

He had to wait 48 hours to find out what might happen.

This appears to be the revised introduction. It puts us in contact with Scott. It tells us what Scott is currently doing, where he is at in his life, some of his physical proportions, and details regarding his martial life.

From a reading perspective, the only thing truly relevant right out of the gate is what Scott is doing right now. Scott is currently(?) within the restaurant that he has recently purchased and is preparing to open. We don't actually know for sure if he is there, he might be elsewhere and thinking back. It's hard to tell.

This introduction is tricky because not only does it throw a bunch of non-immediately useful information at us, but it ends very quickly. I'd suggest an alternative approach.

Let's be less technical and more poetic, or at least think of it as poetic.

Rather than saying he is 6'1" and 160lbs, find ways around it. That's fairly average, maybe slightly more-so than that. However, unless the major selling point of this story is going to be physical parameters, and judging by your screen name, that may be the case, you could just leave it for later.

Likewise, let's try to establish a little more rapport with Scott and the reader. We don't necessarily need to know about his marital life, how long he's been divorced, or that he is or isn't worried about where his ex-wife is. We don't even need to know that he is struggling to find a new girlfriend/wife.

Based on what info you have presented thus far, and what I think would be a good approach, I'd switch back and have Scott interacting with one or more of his staff. You call them out as decent, so you could have like a waiter/waitress or host/hostess going over the little details regarding customer greeting, seating, and the menu. In fact, it'd be a good time for him hand off the completed menu so that they could put it where it needs to be for seating customers.

This little interaction won't be particularly exciting, but it would be a good way to start showing who Scott is as a person. He's an avid and excited bistro owner. He hires a good staff. He cares about that staff and treats them well. Etc.

--------

I'm a little too hungry to dig in further, so I'll leave you with what I have so far to think about.

Just try to review your writing as if you were a reader. Not just any reader, but a reader that might not share you personal preferences and interests. Ask yourself: would they like what I wrote? Would this interest them? Do they need to know this? What else could I do that I haven't done?

 

[LEGENDGOD1]

As a previous commenter stated: you rely entirely upon telling, and never on showing.

This is a common concept that many people tout about whenever reviewing other people's works, though generally when they have no idea what else to say, because it can sound like they know what they're talking about and apply to just about any work in at least one or two places.

It is not the case here.

The language you use in your prose is clipped, stilted, and reads a lot like a check list. A happens, B happens, C happens, etc. You also have an extreme emphasis on dates, time spans, and numerical physical descriptions. You also jumble a lot of vaguely inter-connected tidbits together with things that have no point being where they are. This yields something rather difficult to read.

Now that I think about it, this feels an awful lot like rudimentary script writing. It is very minimalist, but enough to tell people what is going on.

-----------------
Let's break some stuff down, starting here:



This appears to be the revised introduction. It puts us in contact with Scott. It tells us what Scott is currently doing, where he is at in his life, some of his physical proportions, and details regarding his martial life.

From a reading perspective, the only thing truly relevant right out of the gate is what Scott is doing right now. Scott is currently(?) within the restaurant that he has recently purchased and is preparing to open. We don't actually know for sure if he is there, he might be elsewhere and thinking back. It's hard to tell.

This introduction is tricky because not only does it throw a bunch of non-immediately useful information at us, but it ends very quickly. I'd suggest an alternative approach.

Let's be less technical and more poetic, or at least think of it as poetic.

Rather than saying he is 6'1" and 160lbs, find ways around it. That's fairly average, maybe slightly more-so than that. However, unless the major selling point of this story is going to be physical parameters, and judging by your screen name, that may be the case, you could just leave it for later.

Likewise, let's try to establish a little more rapport with Scott and the reader. We don't necessarily need to know about his marital life, how long he's been divorced, or that he is or isn't worried about where his ex-wife is. We don't even need to know that he is struggling to find a new girlfriend/wife.

Based on what info you have presented thus far, and what I think would be a good approach, I'd switch back and have Scott interacting with one or more of his staff. You call them out as decent, so you could have like a waiter/waitress or host/hostess going over the little details regarding customer greeting, seating, and the menu. In fact, it'd be a good time for him hand off the completed menu so that they could put it where it needs to be for seating customers.

This little interaction won't be particularly exciting, but it would be a good way to start showing who Scott is as a person. He's an avid and excited bistro owner. He hires a good staff. He cares about that staff and treats them well. Etc.

--------

I'm a little too hungry to dig in further, so I'll leave you with what I have so far to think about.

Just try to review your writing as if you were a reader. Not just any reader, but a reader that might not share you personal preferences and interests. Ask yourself: would they like what I wrote? Would this interest them? Do they need to know this? What else could I do that I haven't done?

"I don't like first person, present tense, or Xianxia, but this? There is an elegance to this story that inspires me!"
"Magical, Outstanding, Original, Special, Excellent! This is very much worthy of anyone's time."
"I don't think I have ever seen better fights or action scenes written down than this."

DAMN, If I didn't have exams, I would definitely go and change the perspective of my story's first few chapters because I have shifted to TPP in chapter 10 and later. I hope you read it and enlighten me after I have fixed those issues. also I have posted a thread, do provide your insights on it.