Looking for feedback as to where I can punch up my writing. (I'm also hunting for a Beta reader to help with proofreading and such.) https://chyoa.com/chapter/Futurama.984149
I read the chapters 5-9 on this branch. The first thing I noticed is that there are a lot of low-level errors, particularly in punctuation, capitalization and typography. A lot of your commas should be periods, in many places where there should be commas there are none, and there are miscellaneous other low-level punctuation errors. A trick you can use is to pretend being a narrator and read your prose aloud (or 'aloud' in your mind). Every time you pause, that's a sign there probably should be some kind of punctuation there. A short break is a comma (separating related clauses), a medium break is a period (separating unrelated clauses, ie. sentences), and a long break is paragraph (signaling a shift in the subject entirely or a change in perspective between characters). As for typography, the way the text is laid out, try to split the dialogue out from the prose a little more, in order to help it stand out. More than 2 sets of quotes in the same paragraph makes it hard to see which parts are dialogue and which are descriptions. There should also be no more than a little bit of non-quote text in a dialogue paragraph, like this: For example, here's 2 random paragraphs from chapter 8: I would change to: Amy didn't "fire back smacking"; she fired back, and she also smacked the form. Scruffy didn't "finish admiring"; he said something, and he was also admiring someone. And the middle sentence in the last paragraph is too long to fit between 2 quotes, so I separated it, then merged the two quotes into one, because he's not doing anything in between any more. ----- I really like the phrase "tossing it to the ground with all the delicate care of a minimum wage delivery boy". Made me laugh, full marks. In fact, you've generally got a good grasp of humour generally, including in the part I quoted above. The story is funny without trying too hard or jumping the shark (which is always bad, but it's a particular disaster for humour). It's a little too early to say much about the higher level aspects of your writing, like the plot or character development. But... promising so far?
