Anybody want to critique my story?

I’ll take a look. My first thought is that even though you can’t copyright a title, it would be best to avoid duplication of a well-known title recently used.

First sentence: “thru”.

We can get relativistic about spelling if you wish, but it’s the first sentence of the story, and it annoyed me enough to stop reading and comment. What will a professional editor and commissioning editor think?

Too many “descriptive” adjectives and adverbs; unnatural dialogue.

@the100thmonkey: “relativistic” means having to do with Einstein’s general and special theories of relativity. it doesn’t have any other meaning.

@Ria777 . . . You are correct.

@Ria777 You are incorrect

See definition 2.

I could only read a couple of paragraphs. First of all, the first sentence is cliched (it was a dark and stormy night) and doesn’t really make me want to read more. You have to hit me hard right at the beginning. You have ten seconds to get me. Second, the language is overwrought and stolid. It sounds like you’re trying. It isn’t very natural. Felt like I was reading some classroom assignment by a middle schooler. Ok, maybe a horny high schooler (just randomly checked some other paragraphs).

Look, I know I’m being Simon Cowelesque, but shit. You asked, and I hate having my time wasted. And it’s so much fun to rip into something.

Writing is hard, and writing fiction is even harder (just made that up). Don’t be discouraged. Just lean something and try again. For this, I suspect you need to figure out where the story really starts. I think a lot of your opening description is wasted, and stops the reader from going on. It doesn’t show much of an interesting eye for detail, nor any great facility with language.

Think about it. Read it again. Then cut out all the shit at the beginning and start where the story really starts, and I’ll take a look at it again. If you want me to. ;-)

@the100thmonkey: whoops! I screwed up!

We could get relativistic, though. I’ve often wondered what it would be like to have a mass of several tonnes while moving at a significant fraction of C. :)

well don’t try it in this solar system.

Right off the bat the word “thru” threw me. I immediately assumed you were a kid.

It didn’t keep my attention. For one, the images you were trying to paint started out at odds…one second “The skies held a dangerous electrical charge that threatened to unleash a torrent of fury…” and in the very next sentence it got downgraded to “It was going to rain soon.”

I assumed the story was going to have some strong connection with the storm, but in glancing through the paragraphs, as @daloon did, it looks like the storm had nothing whatsoever to do with the story. And….noting that you dedicated about a million paragraphs to the sixteen year old’s naked features and sexuality (whereas usually only three or four sentences are needed) told me that this was about adolescent hornieness, which would have very minimal interest in the general population. Perhaps other teens or grown men who like to think about 16 year-old-naked girls would like it.

Which brings the question: Who IS your target audience?

So, for what it’s worth, that’s my opinion.