forum I'll critique scenes!

Started February 21, 2018 by @WriteOutofTime

tune

Shalrath, wow! Well written segment. Very polished and scientific. Sounds like the start of a good, well-grounded sci-fi. My only complaint is the amount of exposition you start with. It's interesting, but it's still an info dump. Maybe you should cut back on the straight information and let that leak more naturally into the story. It gets tiresome after a while to read all those scientific/quantum physics terms while waiting to get into the story. There were no grammatical or structural issues, so I guess that concludes my critique. Good luck :3

Thanks! The story itself is a oneshot from a chapter i havent gotten around to writing yet, so I did have to squeeze in some exposition. There is plenty more written already in this universe, if you'd like to have a read.

@writelikeyourerunningoutoftime
So I am very very aware that this probably has a lot of grammatical issues, but I was more wondering if you could look at the general idea of the scene?(I feel i'm not very good at writing scenes like this so, yeah)
For reference Camie is 4'11 and Lukas is 6'5.
Camie was curled up under a warm blanket on the couch at the house reading a book in the early morning hours. She heard a creaking coming from the stair hallway, Lukas, her boyfriend, poked his head through the door. “Morning Camie!! You’re up early… as normal. Can I join you?”
Camie grinned and patted the spot next to her while she closed her book. She set the hardcover to the side, her attention on Lukas. “Of course!” Lukas happily walked over to the couch and sat down next to Camie.
He tugged at the blanket. “Share?”
“Always.” Camie surrendered half the blanket, but Lukas pulled the rest off of her revealing Camie’s pajamas, an over sized t-shirt and huge sweatpants, which Lukas quickly identified as his.
Lukas raised his eyebrows quizzically. “Um Camie, are you wearing my clothes?”
Camie tugged at the blanket, trying to cover the clothes that were so glaringly Lukas’. “Uh, no?”
“Cam that is not a question you should answer with another question.”
“No, these are definitely mine.” Camie blushed.
“Oh really?” Lukas got up and pulled Camie up with him. He picked her up, raising her above his head, revealing the extra twelve inches at the bottom of her pants. “How come your shirt is down to your knees and how come you have an extra foot of length on the bottom of your pants?” Lukas’ eyes were alight with laughter.
“Put me down.” demanded Camie.
“If I do, will you tell me whose clothes you have on?”
“Fine.” Camie relented. Lukas put her down and waited expectantly. Camie clasped her hands behind her back and looked at the ground, playing the part of a guilty child. “These may or may not be clothes that I stole out of your room.”
“Oh really? They only may or may not be?”
Camie sighed. “Yes they are yours. But they are so much cozier then mine, I just couldn’t help it.”
Lukas laughed. “You can borrow my pajamas anytime you want.”
Camie hugged him excitedly. “Thanks! Now do you want to read with me..?”
“Of course.” The couple sat down together and read the book enjoyably for the next couple of hours until Everleigh and Markus woke up

Ahh I'm sorry! I'd read this the day you posted it and completely forgot to critique it. Sorry for the lateness of my response.

Let's get into the critique! The first thing I noticed is really nit-picky and something that you don't need to worry about that much, but don't!! put!! double punctuation!! Two exclamation points are never, ever necessary. Not a huge deal during a first draft, but still. Other grammatical issues include run-on sentences and dropped commas.

Here's a real, hopefully helpful tip about dialogue –the more you have a character say another character's name, the more stilted your dialogue sounds. Example: You have Lukas say Camie, Camie, and Cam in the first three sentences he says. Listen in on conversations between others. They may call each other's names to gain their attention, or to tease, but beyond that? Not very often.

Building off of the name thing, you also repeat their names a lot in the narrative. Think of it this way: in this scene, there are only two characters. A guy and a girl. Meaning, if you use pronouns "he said" or "she did so and so" it would flow better and retain its clarity.

To be more clear, yours:
“Always.” Camie surrendered half the blanket, but Lukas pulled the rest off of her revealing Camie’s pajamas, an over sized t-shirt and huge sweatpants, which Lukas quickly identified as his.
Lukas raised his eyebrows quizzically. “Um Camie, are you wearing my clothes?”
Camie tugged at the blanket, trying to cover the clothes that were so glaringly Lukas’. “Uh, no?”
“Cam that is not a question you should answer with another question.”
“No, these are definitely mine.” Camie blushed.

Edited version:
"Always." She surrendered half the blanket, but he pulled the rest off of her to reveal her oversized t-shirt and huge sweatpants. Lukas quickly identified them as his.
He raised his eyebrows quizzically. "Um, are you wearing my clothes?"
She tugged at the blanket, trying to cover the clothes that were so glaringly Lukas'. "Uh, no?"
"Cam, that is not a question you should answer with another question."
"No, these are definitely mine." She blushed.

I'm not amazing at critiquing romance/fluff because I don't write it often enough, but from what I can tell, this is really good! Very light and adorable. You've created a very domestic and cute scene that really sets up the characters' relationship. Good job.

@writelikeyourerunningoutoftime
Thank you so much!! I did notice that and in my later writings I've stopped using the names so much. This one is a month old, but one of my favorites. I'm glad you liked the scene