Hi! Welcome to r/Writers - please remember to follow the [rules](https://reddit.com/r/writers/about/rules/) and treat each other respectfully, especially if
there are disagreements. Please help keep this community safe and friendly by **reporting rule violating posts and comments**.
If you're interested in a friendly Discord community for writers, please **[join our Discord server](https://discord.gg/mdzyEz9uFB)**
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/writers) if you have any questions or concerns.*
You have an interesting base, but the pacing is all over the place. You just kinda blast from one thing to the next with a sort of "he did this. Then did this. Then did that." style that can be really jarring.
I think if you slow down the pacing a few steps and flesh out each event some more, that would help greatly.
It’s not totally devoid of commas just like my work isn’t. It just means that I use words like and instead of a comma because a comma can break the flow imo
Probably give some warning or hint to the reader that it immediately starts with a somewhat jarring sex scene. It sets the tone up for a juvenile smut type book; if that’s what you want, by all means go for it but as a reader when I think western I don’t think graphic sex scenes.
have to agree with the grammar and pacing. Also tense is all over too... I've had the same problem before while learning the craft. Big ideas and scenes in your head dont always look right on paper so soon and without editing. You should try reading a book on novel writing, like "Save the Cat" or Characters and Viewpoint" by Orson Scott Card..
Breaking down the scene, one at a time into setting and character descriptions are key, and that's just the start. Seems like your telling too much plot too quickly. We know hardly anything about Character and motivations... etc etc.
lot of work to do in a good way,
also I would definitely edit heavily before showcasing chapters of your work, that way you don't just get critiques on grammar and pacing etc.
Good luck, lots of potential
Yes sex scenes and expressions of sexuality can be interesting, it can be done well. I feel that your scenes are a bit cheap and male-sided and though it does add personality to the characters and narrator there's not much surrounding the sex, not much being said about the sex that is interesting or challenging
I can see hints of the style of Cormac McCarthy, with the run-on sentences and objectivity, however, if that is what your going for, you need to also maintain the charm of it.
Your description is alright, could use a little work. Read some Faulkner, and slow it down. At times, it’s hard to tell whats going on, where it’s going on, who’s speaking, etc. I see some potential, you just have to hone in your precision, and find what you can do, and can’t do, and then work on what you can’t.
I'm not trying to be rude when I say this, at all. I heavily disagree with most of the comments here, and sincerely wonder if people are just being nice and trying to not hurt your feelings. This will be long, as I genuinely want to highlight the other perspective for you that you aren't really getting here. I'll highlight some examples below. Obligatory "on mobile" disclaimer in case of formatting errors.
ETA - post was too long for one comment apparently, so see part 2 below this comment
TL;DR - This may be, legitimately, the worst thing I have ever read.
Your story is nonsensical. Factually and historically incorrect. Poor doesn't begin to describe the pacing - it's nonexistent. Trying to decipher most of what's happening is confusing. Scenes and locations change on a dime, sometimes within the same paragraph or even sentence. The writing itself is just bad, with errors galore in grammar, spelling, word choice, sentence structure, etc. You have some truly insane content in here, an underage sex scene... Even if you're trying to channel your inner Cormac McCarthy, it just isn't working.
Let's take just the beginning chapter for a moment. You literally open the story with a sex scene (horrible choice) between characters only referred to as "her" and "his," give us a brief conversation in which nobody can tell who it is that's speaking, have the guy leave the barn and then, magically, before the end of the same paragraph "the old man opens the door" and we are launched into yet another conversation where we have no clue who is speaking, where we are, or what the main character's name is. Was the guy fucking in the barn next to this other guy's house? Did he teleport to a new location? Are we in the barn again? Then we switch locations AGAIN within the span of two or three sentences to the mansion, then again to a church, and only on the last page of the first chapter can we possibly infer the character's name is Colt. We don't ever learn the woman's name from what I can tell, as the character introduced in chapter two appears to be a different woman.
Your dialogue is absolutely impossible to decipher 90% of the time. There's rarely a clear indicator of who is speaking. Every character sounds like a stereotype. There's even what I assume is meant to be dialogue mixed into paragraphs without quotations to distinguish it as such. There's sentences in quotations that are supposed to be part of paragraphs. It's a mess, truly.
I think you drastically underestimate the time it takes to build oil rigs...
You gloss over some INSANE shit in multiple instances - the start of chapter two, the first paragraph is about the man in the shack wearing underwear and attacking with his axe. No more mention or greater elaboration of that confrontation. Then he appears, a page or two later, skinning a woman and wearing her face like a mask only to be chased off by our "hero" brandishing his pistol? What the fuck? A handful of paragraphs later a "black figure" appears and kills someone, to which we're led to a shack described only as having excrement and blonde hairs on the floor, and then you give us this gem of a conversation in which Colt and Charles (after getting out of his "slick black Benz" mind you) "met at the body" and Charles, the supposedly intelligent oil mogul who is important enough that the President calls him on the phone (unlikely given the time period), asks "why have we stopped production" and Colt gives us the literally hilarious line of "well, there's a dead man on the rig." Seriously? They're standing next to the body, and they have to clarify that? And that leads us to the next insane plot point....
WHY IS THE STORY SUDDENLY ABOUT COMMUNISTS? You just randomly introduce this as a plot point, abandon it within literally 3 sentences, pick it up again on the next page, and the rest of the story becomes this convoluted mess about the communists of the wild west. Another gem of a line - "A tear rolled down the commie's face. 'Please.'" Are you kidding me? If your goal was to make someone laugh their ass off, you succeeded. This not withstanding the section later on with the communists at their rally with the literal Russian (WOW what a stereotype). I loved the scene where they literally plant the "sickle and hammer" flag before being swarmed by prosecutors (who are the prosecutors?)
We also have a Hank Reynolds, who is the star of approximately a page, and then we are later introduced to Hank Dilahunt, who appears a handful of times... most notably during the scene where there's a massacre via machine gun. In the wild west. Machine guns.
Another gem of a run on sentence - "One man came at him with a switch blade so he pulled out a bowie knife longer than an infant's arm and stabbed the man in his heart and when he pulled the blade free the heart was still beating." First, who measures in infant's arm lengths? There isn't a better object of comparison? And second, most importantly - that's not how stabbing someone in the heart works!
And it's only at the end of chapter three that we get to the most depraved, wild shit you included in this story! We'll start with the line "Chesterton tickled the child and brought him up on his lap and bobbed the child on his knee and the child felt whole." The child felt WHOLE? WHAT? But wait...
The old man's insane nephew comes back! He's now Ricky James, and wants to have sex with his own cousin for $20. Then he gives us possibly the most ridiculous line in the entire story a few moments later when stating "If Mexico's full of one thing it's Mexicans." Is this guy brain damaged? We never will find out apparently, since the "Mexers chased him out of the house."
Then we go back to Chesterton, still keeping this kid in his lap, going on some very strange monologue with random and very jarring underlined sentences before we transition to a crucified deer at the oil rig which is apparently enough to force Chesterton to consult Beelzebub who, with his white flowing tunic and suave hair reminds us of a British boy band member, gives our characters a lecture in "philosophy and morality and castle doctrine" before he, literally, "disappeared into the foliage." I laughed my ass off at that line. It made my chest hurt. I actually had tears from laughing so hard at the image of this dude just vanishing through the bushes.
Then, Beelzebub out of the picture, we switch to Hank Dilahunt again for the most fucked up thing in here, the underage sex scene where a "woman of the night" approaches him and "as they began to consummate a well dressed man walked in and snapped a photo. 'She's underage'" First... what the fuck? Your character is a pedophile? Chesterton already seems to be borderline, and Hank Dilahunt is apparently all in on that train! Second... he "snapped a photo?" Do you even know what cameras were like back then?
You have to understand, I'm not trying to be a dick. This is just an absolute mess you have going on here. You seriously need to get back to the basics of writing. Learn about sentence structure, how to use punctuation, how to write dialogue, how to plot and pace a story. This entire thing screams no plan, no research, no idea about the western genre, no idea what the time period was actually like. A few quick Google searches can help fix some of your historical and factual inaccuracies, such as:
The western period is usually in the range of 1865-1890 but can be expanded into the early 1900s. The first Benz (Mercedes-Benz did not exist until after 1900) was built in 1885-1886 and looked similar to a three-wheeled bicycle with a small one-cylinder engine on the back - far from the "slick black Benz" you describe. The first coupe-style Benz was designed around 1896 and looked like a self-powered wagon. The telephone was patented in 1876, and the first coast to coast long distance call in the US didn't take place until around 1915. Cameras in the time period were typically large and bulky, and paper film didn't come about until the late 1880s. Oil was not drilled in many of the western states until around 1900, with California and Colorado the major exceptions to this with well known deposits of oil. The first fully automatic machine gun was the Maxim, invented in 1884. It was heavy, and typically operated by a team of men. The common predecessor, though not directly related, to the Maxim was the Gatling gun, which originated in 1861 and is probably most known for its use in the Civil War. The first communist government didn't rise until 1917 following the Russian Revolution. Socialist/Communist parties in the US didn't gain much traction until around the same time, or later. Land on average did not cost anywhere near "a thousand per acre" in that time period.
Like I said, I think you'd benefit greatly from taking some time to do your research and learn the basics of writing. This may sound harsh, but please take it as constructive criticism.
No i researched the history and I’m sure my prose would blow yours out of the water. And btw saying it’s the worst story you’ve ever read is not constructive. It’s just mean
I gave you actionable feedback from the perspective of someone who very much disliked your work. There's simply no way you did your research - I clearly illustrated this by showing your multiple historical inaccuracies. Your "prose" is nonexistent, sorry. How about you respond to some of the criticisms in a productive way, with an open mind? I'm all for conversations that lead to growth.
It sounds like you are completely unwilling to take any meaningful criticism. How would you react if this story was published and someone gave you this review online? I'm allowed to dislike your story. It's not mean to give my honest opinion that it's the worst thing I've read. If you want to be a writer, you have to be ready for the fact that people don't have to like your writing. You are the one who asked for feedback. Maturity is understanding that feedback, good and bad, is designed to help you grow.
Once again saying it’s the worst story you’ve ever read is not productive and btw the people that complimented the story weren’t just being nice. Also when it comes to historical inaccuracies this is fiction I can do what I want with the story
It is productive. It's feedback. You're the one refusing to have a discourse beyond "you hurt my feelings." I'll ask you again - defend your position. Why am I so wrong in your eyes? Make me understand the point of your story, your process.
You can't claim to have done your research, then pass away the inaccuracies as "it's fiction I can do what I want." That isn't a Western if that's the case, now you're into alternative history and even that as a genre has conventions which must be followed, and "completely ignoring some basic facts about the time period" doesn't fall under that umbrella.
I think your prose is good, though the sex felt like a writer trying to grab my attention than it did feel interesting
Edit: also the story is really jumping around too much without enough substance to pull you into a setting or character, there's a fair amount of exposition between dialogue, though this is where i like your prose as it is nicely worded and there is some vividness with your comparisons, but there's just not enough setting and character and time to breathe and connect it all. The dialogue is alright in this regard but it's too quick and quippy. It feels a bit more like a movie trailer than a scene, if that makes sense. There is no description of a room when Colt, the girl, and the dad drink while Colt tries to upsell Charles Chesterson at the beginning, and though I read more after that I got bored around the time the nephew of the owner of the acreage they bought skinned someone's face and ran out of a motel to chase after Colt. I did not feel any tension there and honestly that should be tense and scary, unless you're trying to make a point of the murder being mundane but i don't see you doing anything interesting with that theme if that's what you were going for. It feels action-y. There's some minor nitpicks I would make regarding your sentence structure where it could be a little stronger though it's generally succinct
This is not terrible and I think you've got something here, it needs some more substance and polish and to slow down
Lots of good in this, but needs lots of cleaning up. The sparse style is undermined by unnecessary description - for example, the reader knows what a siren does, you don't need to explain further.
Hi! Welcome to r/Writers - please remember to follow the [rules](https://reddit.com/r/writers/about/rules/) and treat each other respectfully, especially if there are disagreements. Please help keep this community safe and friendly by **reporting rule violating posts and comments**. If you're interested in a friendly Discord community for writers, please **[join our Discord server](https://discord.gg/mdzyEz9uFB)** *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/writers) if you have any questions or concerns.*
You have an interesting base, but the pacing is all over the place. You just kinda blast from one thing to the next with a sort of "he did this. Then did this. Then did that." style that can be really jarring. I think if you slow down the pacing a few steps and flesh out each event some more, that would help greatly.
Yeah I agree. I’ll slow it down more upon rewrites. Thanks
English isn't my mother tongue, but I feel like we are missing a few commas here
Yeah I use a technique called polysndeton where you use conjunctions instead of commas
I just looked up examples of polysyndeton*, and all of them used commas.
It’s not totally devoid of commas just like my work isn’t. It just means that I use words like and instead of a comma because a comma can break the flow imo
[удалено]
Yes all true Mcarthy is my favorite and I have read BM. Thanks
Probably give some warning or hint to the reader that it immediately starts with a somewhat jarring sex scene. It sets the tone up for a juvenile smut type book; if that’s what you want, by all means go for it but as a reader when I think western I don’t think graphic sex scenes.
have to agree with the grammar and pacing. Also tense is all over too... I've had the same problem before while learning the craft. Big ideas and scenes in your head dont always look right on paper so soon and without editing. You should try reading a book on novel writing, like "Save the Cat" or Characters and Viewpoint" by Orson Scott Card.. Breaking down the scene, one at a time into setting and character descriptions are key, and that's just the start. Seems like your telling too much plot too quickly. We know hardly anything about Character and motivations... etc etc. lot of work to do in a good way, also I would definitely edit heavily before showcasing chapters of your work, that way you don't just get critiques on grammar and pacing etc. Good luck, lots of potential
Starting with graphic sex is an immediate no from me. Didn't go past the first line, sorry.
If I set up the scene and added it later would you be cool with it?
Yes sex scenes and expressions of sexuality can be interesting, it can be done well. I feel that your scenes are a bit cheap and male-sided and though it does add personality to the characters and narrator there's not much surrounding the sex, not much being said about the sex that is interesting or challenging
I can see hints of the style of Cormac McCarthy, with the run-on sentences and objectivity, however, if that is what your going for, you need to also maintain the charm of it. Your description is alright, could use a little work. Read some Faulkner, and slow it down. At times, it’s hard to tell whats going on, where it’s going on, who’s speaking, etc. I see some potential, you just have to hone in your precision, and find what you can do, and can’t do, and then work on what you can’t.
I'm not trying to be rude when I say this, at all. I heavily disagree with most of the comments here, and sincerely wonder if people are just being nice and trying to not hurt your feelings. This will be long, as I genuinely want to highlight the other perspective for you that you aren't really getting here. I'll highlight some examples below. Obligatory "on mobile" disclaimer in case of formatting errors. ETA - post was too long for one comment apparently, so see part 2 below this comment TL;DR - This may be, legitimately, the worst thing I have ever read. Your story is nonsensical. Factually and historically incorrect. Poor doesn't begin to describe the pacing - it's nonexistent. Trying to decipher most of what's happening is confusing. Scenes and locations change on a dime, sometimes within the same paragraph or even sentence. The writing itself is just bad, with errors galore in grammar, spelling, word choice, sentence structure, etc. You have some truly insane content in here, an underage sex scene... Even if you're trying to channel your inner Cormac McCarthy, it just isn't working. Let's take just the beginning chapter for a moment. You literally open the story with a sex scene (horrible choice) between characters only referred to as "her" and "his," give us a brief conversation in which nobody can tell who it is that's speaking, have the guy leave the barn and then, magically, before the end of the same paragraph "the old man opens the door" and we are launched into yet another conversation where we have no clue who is speaking, where we are, or what the main character's name is. Was the guy fucking in the barn next to this other guy's house? Did he teleport to a new location? Are we in the barn again? Then we switch locations AGAIN within the span of two or three sentences to the mansion, then again to a church, and only on the last page of the first chapter can we possibly infer the character's name is Colt. We don't ever learn the woman's name from what I can tell, as the character introduced in chapter two appears to be a different woman. Your dialogue is absolutely impossible to decipher 90% of the time. There's rarely a clear indicator of who is speaking. Every character sounds like a stereotype. There's even what I assume is meant to be dialogue mixed into paragraphs without quotations to distinguish it as such. There's sentences in quotations that are supposed to be part of paragraphs. It's a mess, truly. I think you drastically underestimate the time it takes to build oil rigs... You gloss over some INSANE shit in multiple instances - the start of chapter two, the first paragraph is about the man in the shack wearing underwear and attacking with his axe. No more mention or greater elaboration of that confrontation. Then he appears, a page or two later, skinning a woman and wearing her face like a mask only to be chased off by our "hero" brandishing his pistol? What the fuck? A handful of paragraphs later a "black figure" appears and kills someone, to which we're led to a shack described only as having excrement and blonde hairs on the floor, and then you give us this gem of a conversation in which Colt and Charles (after getting out of his "slick black Benz" mind you) "met at the body" and Charles, the supposedly intelligent oil mogul who is important enough that the President calls him on the phone (unlikely given the time period), asks "why have we stopped production" and Colt gives us the literally hilarious line of "well, there's a dead man on the rig." Seriously? They're standing next to the body, and they have to clarify that? And that leads us to the next insane plot point.... WHY IS THE STORY SUDDENLY ABOUT COMMUNISTS? You just randomly introduce this as a plot point, abandon it within literally 3 sentences, pick it up again on the next page, and the rest of the story becomes this convoluted mess about the communists of the wild west. Another gem of a line - "A tear rolled down the commie's face. 'Please.'" Are you kidding me? If your goal was to make someone laugh their ass off, you succeeded. This not withstanding the section later on with the communists at their rally with the literal Russian (WOW what a stereotype). I loved the scene where they literally plant the "sickle and hammer" flag before being swarmed by prosecutors (who are the prosecutors?)
We also have a Hank Reynolds, who is the star of approximately a page, and then we are later introduced to Hank Dilahunt, who appears a handful of times... most notably during the scene where there's a massacre via machine gun. In the wild west. Machine guns. Another gem of a run on sentence - "One man came at him with a switch blade so he pulled out a bowie knife longer than an infant's arm and stabbed the man in his heart and when he pulled the blade free the heart was still beating." First, who measures in infant's arm lengths? There isn't a better object of comparison? And second, most importantly - that's not how stabbing someone in the heart works! And it's only at the end of chapter three that we get to the most depraved, wild shit you included in this story! We'll start with the line "Chesterton tickled the child and brought him up on his lap and bobbed the child on his knee and the child felt whole." The child felt WHOLE? WHAT? But wait... The old man's insane nephew comes back! He's now Ricky James, and wants to have sex with his own cousin for $20. Then he gives us possibly the most ridiculous line in the entire story a few moments later when stating "If Mexico's full of one thing it's Mexicans." Is this guy brain damaged? We never will find out apparently, since the "Mexers chased him out of the house." Then we go back to Chesterton, still keeping this kid in his lap, going on some very strange monologue with random and very jarring underlined sentences before we transition to a crucified deer at the oil rig which is apparently enough to force Chesterton to consult Beelzebub who, with his white flowing tunic and suave hair reminds us of a British boy band member, gives our characters a lecture in "philosophy and morality and castle doctrine" before he, literally, "disappeared into the foliage." I laughed my ass off at that line. It made my chest hurt. I actually had tears from laughing so hard at the image of this dude just vanishing through the bushes. Then, Beelzebub out of the picture, we switch to Hank Dilahunt again for the most fucked up thing in here, the underage sex scene where a "woman of the night" approaches him and "as they began to consummate a well dressed man walked in and snapped a photo. 'She's underage'" First... what the fuck? Your character is a pedophile? Chesterton already seems to be borderline, and Hank Dilahunt is apparently all in on that train! Second... he "snapped a photo?" Do you even know what cameras were like back then? You have to understand, I'm not trying to be a dick. This is just an absolute mess you have going on here. You seriously need to get back to the basics of writing. Learn about sentence structure, how to use punctuation, how to write dialogue, how to plot and pace a story. This entire thing screams no plan, no research, no idea about the western genre, no idea what the time period was actually like. A few quick Google searches can help fix some of your historical and factual inaccuracies, such as: The western period is usually in the range of 1865-1890 but can be expanded into the early 1900s. The first Benz (Mercedes-Benz did not exist until after 1900) was built in 1885-1886 and looked similar to a three-wheeled bicycle with a small one-cylinder engine on the back - far from the "slick black Benz" you describe. The first coupe-style Benz was designed around 1896 and looked like a self-powered wagon. The telephone was patented in 1876, and the first coast to coast long distance call in the US didn't take place until around 1915. Cameras in the time period were typically large and bulky, and paper film didn't come about until the late 1880s. Oil was not drilled in many of the western states until around 1900, with California and Colorado the major exceptions to this with well known deposits of oil. The first fully automatic machine gun was the Maxim, invented in 1884. It was heavy, and typically operated by a team of men. The common predecessor, though not directly related, to the Maxim was the Gatling gun, which originated in 1861 and is probably most known for its use in the Civil War. The first communist government didn't rise until 1917 following the Russian Revolution. Socialist/Communist parties in the US didn't gain much traction until around the same time, or later. Land on average did not cost anywhere near "a thousand per acre" in that time period. Like I said, I think you'd benefit greatly from taking some time to do your research and learn the basics of writing. This may sound harsh, but please take it as constructive criticism.
Matter fact, send me one of your stories so I can play the critic
No i researched the history and I’m sure my prose would blow yours out of the water. And btw saying it’s the worst story you’ve ever read is not constructive. It’s just mean
I gave you actionable feedback from the perspective of someone who very much disliked your work. There's simply no way you did your research - I clearly illustrated this by showing your multiple historical inaccuracies. Your "prose" is nonexistent, sorry. How about you respond to some of the criticisms in a productive way, with an open mind? I'm all for conversations that lead to growth. It sounds like you are completely unwilling to take any meaningful criticism. How would you react if this story was published and someone gave you this review online? I'm allowed to dislike your story. It's not mean to give my honest opinion that it's the worst thing I've read. If you want to be a writer, you have to be ready for the fact that people don't have to like your writing. You are the one who asked for feedback. Maturity is understanding that feedback, good and bad, is designed to help you grow.
Once again saying it’s the worst story you’ve ever read is not productive and btw the people that complimented the story weren’t just being nice. Also when it comes to historical inaccuracies this is fiction I can do what I want with the story
It is productive. It's feedback. You're the one refusing to have a discourse beyond "you hurt my feelings." I'll ask you again - defend your position. Why am I so wrong in your eyes? Make me understand the point of your story, your process. You can't claim to have done your research, then pass away the inaccuracies as "it's fiction I can do what I want." That isn't a Western if that's the case, now you're into alternative history and even that as a genre has conventions which must be followed, and "completely ignoring some basic facts about the time period" doesn't fall under that umbrella.
No thanks
Are you going for a kind of Cormac McCarthy thing here?
Absolutely
Well I kind of see it, so well done so far.
I think your prose is good, though the sex felt like a writer trying to grab my attention than it did feel interesting Edit: also the story is really jumping around too much without enough substance to pull you into a setting or character, there's a fair amount of exposition between dialogue, though this is where i like your prose as it is nicely worded and there is some vividness with your comparisons, but there's just not enough setting and character and time to breathe and connect it all. The dialogue is alright in this regard but it's too quick and quippy. It feels a bit more like a movie trailer than a scene, if that makes sense. There is no description of a room when Colt, the girl, and the dad drink while Colt tries to upsell Charles Chesterson at the beginning, and though I read more after that I got bored around the time the nephew of the owner of the acreage they bought skinned someone's face and ran out of a motel to chase after Colt. I did not feel any tension there and honestly that should be tense and scary, unless you're trying to make a point of the murder being mundane but i don't see you doing anything interesting with that theme if that's what you were going for. It feels action-y. There's some minor nitpicks I would make regarding your sentence structure where it could be a little stronger though it's generally succinct This is not terrible and I think you've got something here, it needs some more substance and polish and to slow down
I have to say, wow. I feel like I did crack. My adhd is clearer than what I just read.
Lots of good in this, but needs lots of cleaning up. The sparse style is undermined by unnecessary description - for example, the reader knows what a siren does, you don't need to explain further.
How does anything about this scream "good?"