AbdullahTrees Story Review

https://pastebin.com/u/AhnafAbdullah27

The Mess

The descriptions inside the house and outside were written quite well, allowing the reader to clearly visualize the scenes.

However, I feel the writing is quite confusing regarding the character's perspective. For example, the story begins with him opening the door, and then he notices the crack (third paragraph), suggesting that the crack is in the room he is entering, but the crack is located next to his bed that he was hiding in.

The first five paragraphs focus on the destruction, with specific references to valuables like the Playstation and TV. This is an effective way to imply that the character's emotions are overcome with despair and sorrow, while elegantly avoiding any explicit text about his feelings.

But once he sees the horizon, his perspective completely flips. While it makes sense that the beauty of the horizon provides solace to this miserable suffering, the transition feels too forced, with him literally running back to get his camera (if it's even intact), as if the view intoxicated him to forget all the losses. The concluding sentence doesn't seem appropriate, as if the story is ultimately about the beautiful scenery, betraying the devastation of the first five paragraphs that dominate the story.

Grammar Nitpicks: saying that something is in a definitely not good position is incorrect; adjectives preceding a noun cannot be negated by having "not" before them. You could correctly rephrase it by saying the "position was (definitely) not good" or use a different word to convey "not good" like "troubling" or "problematic". Also, the final sentence uses commas inappropriately to separate different components. While the actual sentence is not meant to be grammatically sound anyway, it would be more appropriate to use periods instead, or keep the commas except the second one (after "scenery") should change to a colon.

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No Name 1

This one is alright, I guess. A notable highlight in the writing is how it conveys to the reader an impression of what kind of people are on the ship purely based on their speech style and behaviors, even if it relies on stereotypical assumptions, while the narration avoids actually mentioning pirates or any explicitly negative connotations... until the last paragraph, which kinda ruins it. But prior to that last paragraph, the writing maintained a good balance of sustaining this impression without going overboard on the details.

The last paragraph just feels off in general. He only just started accepting the reality of being in a ship, while still missing key details of how he got here, but he suddenly starts worrying quite a bit about how the captain is like. The transition seems rather unnatural, as if he has some specific phobia of authority figures in ships, despite arising purely from "fables" he heard. Did an older sibling terrorize him with pirate scares in his childhood?

Also, something that really confused me was the character finding "the guys who woke him up". The early paragraphs didn't suggest he was woken up by anyone, with no indication that he saw anybody directly near him, nor did anyone directly speak to him. I was under the impression that he woke from the rough swaying of the ship, which explains his reaction of "EARTHQUAKE!!!" before he could even process his environment.

Overall, the writing is generally decent, though the last paragraph hurts it a bit.

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No Name 2

The writing keeps getting worse, which is concerning. The biggest issue here, I would say, is that it tries to describe intense action sequences while failing to clearly describe the scenarios.

For example, the third paragraph mentions the protagonist "crept up the wall". Is she climbing the outer wall to a building roof? A tall wall that fortifies the hideout? A short wall that acts as a fence? Where did the voices come from? Where they near his wall or further away? Did they see her up there? Did the "fight" happen while she was entirely on top of the wall?

I expect the author imagined a clear visualization of the events, but the actual text that was written failed to convey the relevant details, so what's left is just vague ideas of a fight happening and such. On that note, the fight was "exhilarating", but the very next line seems to imply frustration ("simply too many"); maybe the intended word was "exasperating" or "exhausting"?

The dialogues may have tried to add more flavor, but the flow didn't seem very consistent. "Finally! About time!" indicates the protagonist was expecting the copter to show up and it was even late, only to then ask why it was there. Protagonist said she asked for an airstrike, but the copter already just "mowed" down the ruffians... is that not an airstrike? Or did the protagonist actually call for some broader destruction, like a carpet bombing (which explains why they secured the protagonist first)? The last line about not needing the airstrike raises the question of why the protagonist even called the "airstrike" to begin with, as this is the same person who set up the sticky bombs even before calling the airstrike.

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The Broken Bridge

This is a rather unremarkable piece (but still better than No Name 2). The main problem is that nearly all the details are conveyed through narrative descriptions; an important writing principle is to "show, don't tell", i.e., avoid direct descriptions, but let the actions and dialogues of the characters imply the relevant details for the reader to infer.

The dialogues felt a bit off. The concept "civilization" is abstract enough that Gin's reply about being more worried about "civilization" didn't feel like a proper contrast to Tobi lamenting about getting back to civilization. It would flow better if it was something like "how are we supposed to get back to the city now?", "If I were you, I would be more worried about the city itself".

Also, it's not clear how Gin learning there was an earthquake caused Tobi to be concerned about getting back. A later description indicated that their isolation was due to a bridge breaking down, which is not something they learned from the radio. It would have made more sense if Gin added something like "bridge likely won't be repaired for a while", which also foregoes the need to mention the bridge later in the narration (show, don't tell).

This is pretty minor but in the text "Tobi found a handful of nut trees and found a lot of cashew nuts and pistachios", the second "found" is redundant; when "and" is followed by the object, this means the verb carries over (along with the subject).

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No Name 3

Unlike the earlier entries, this one covers events across a relatively large period of time (several months) condensed into quite a short piece (possibly due to character limits?). This makes it a lot harder to maintain a compelling presentation, and it instead feels more like reading a report outlining the events. That being said, within such constraints, the actual events here were decent enough to keep the narrative interesting.

What was done particularly well was describing specific experiences of the protagonist, like the order receipt and the stranger offering money. This allows the reader to have a clear idea of how the situation was like, providing proper context to Tony's actions.

However, this level of detail is not present across the entire piece. The second paragraph, for example, described the corruption of some of the higher-ups, but it would have been better if this was presented as something Tony figures out from his experiences (like after the offer to prolong the project), as opposed to just being stated as fact. Also near the end, the narrative mentions that Tony was threatened, but it would have been better to describe exactly how the threat was given. Even just having Tony read the contents of a mysterious letter would be better than the narration simply stating that he was threatened. "Show, don't tell", once again.

The vagueness of the last paragraph is fine, since Tony's story is already over by that point, but the bit about "no one was grateful enough" is not appropriate. The narration should not claim to make a judgment of whether anyone was "grateful enough", but it should instead present facts that allow the readers to form such a conclusion on their own, such as from his family not receiving any recompense (which the piece ends with) and maybe adding some more details like Tony's name being forgotten after a few months.

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Lost

Like No Name 3, this one also tries to cover a relatively large period of time in a short piece of writing. The initial premise seemed more interesting, with the time-traveler being stranded in the past, but the actual events outlined in the narrative are rather underwhelming. This piece suffers heavily from "telling" instead of "showing", e.g., there is not even a single specific description of an action that Selena did that would help demonstrate the bond that developed between the two, despite this bond evidently being intended as the main highlight of the story. Even her reaction to being taught such advanced knowledge about the world and the future is not conveyed in the narrative.

There are also a few issues with the wordings that lead to inconsistencies or confusion. The second paragraph says "I would be quite lucky to find people using Roman Numerals and speaking in a decipherable language", which implies that he did NOT find such people, whereas I think you may have meant that he "was" quite lucky to find them, given the later descriptions about bonding with the townspeople and especially Selena.

The third paragraph is very confusing. First of all, I think "conscience" was actually intended to be "consciousness", but if the laws ensure that it can't end after the body dies, what actually happens? Does the consciousness simply linger on in the corpse with no agency over any physical bodies, but still somehow being aware of the events around? It lingers on even after Carlos is born again, but magically dies out when Carlos travels back to the past? These mechanics are very unclear, and it's hard to speculate about them coherently. And even then, it doesn't justify the statement about being "doomed to an eternity", because even waiting thousands of years for Carlos to be born and return to the past is still not "eternity", and the narrative seems to suggest that this scenario could be avoided if he returned back to the future, so he isn't "doomed" to this fate.

In the fourth paragraph, the narration says "I could not, and can't afford to alter its future". Putting aside that there should be a comma after "afford to", the "and" suggests that these are two separate ideas, suggesting that the "I could not" meant it was physically impossible for him to do so (whereas the "can't afford to" was about his reluctance to do so due to the potential consequences). But if it was the case that some time travel laws ensure that the future cannot be altered, then the matter of "can't afford to" shouldn't even arise to begin with, and it's also contradicted by his mere presence in this timeline (still an alteration, even if he does nothing significant). And taking Selena into the future seems like a pretty major alteration as well.

Last nitpick I want to raise (for now) is when the protagonist Carlos asks Selena "whether she'd love to join my time in the past". Well, maybe that is what he said, but uh... it's not normal to ask someone whether they would "love" to do something like that. It would make more sense if he asked her whether she would like to or want to or would be interested to, and her answer was that she would love to do so, as opposed to him directly asking her whether she would love to join him.

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The Black Cloud

Back to the old style of having detailed scenes over a short period of time instead of a broader sequence of events. This is one of the better pieces so far imo, with clear descriptions of the events. A good example of showing over telling.

The brief descriptions of the other villagers in the beginning helped establish the happy atmosphere in the first half (which was further amplified by by the chief's declarations), while the second half transitioned to a state of gloom and dread. In particular, the second half did not explicitly make any negative statement, but the way the situation was described implicitly conveyed this sombre environment. The last sentence "We can now only hope" hints at the fear and despair, concluding the story.

A few minor nitpicks: "Mathias quickly ran in home and left the young coconuts and then ran out to his father" has two uses of "and" to connect three sequential events; the first one should be replaced with a comma. When using an apostrophe after a name ending with S, there should still be another S after the apostrophe; the omission of the S is only for plural nouns that end with S.

Finally, despite my praise about the descriptions, I don't think the overall story itself is very remarkable. There is a happy environment from good harvests, but then there are dark rainclouds that worry everyone... and that's it? It was presented well, but the overall story itself is on the weaker side, I feel.

By the way, the greeting exchange between Matthias and his father makes me wonder if the black clouds are going to bring Divine Punishment for Shirk.

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Last Great Adventure

For an action-oriented piece, this one is a huge improvement over No Name 2. The overall story is fine, and the specific events were conveyed clearly, and the presentation was very well done. Probably the best piece so far.

Some minor issues I wanna point. The narration changes how it refers to the retiring veteran: it's Gregory in one place, Cross in another, or even just Greg. While different characters may refer to the same person differently, the neutral narration should be consistent.

When the European is first seen getting out of the car, the narration describes him as "shady". This is a subjective word, which characters might use to describe someone, but a neutral narration should not. On that note, the narration also describes a "right hand" following behind. Based on the wording, this person is not someone specifically known to the detectives, so the neutral narration should not assume that he is a "right hand". Personally, I'd have assumed he was just a bodyguard. Also, I don't think "mince" works as an adjective, nor can I decipher what you tried to convey from it.

Franklin saying they found the queen bee in the nest might just be a character quirk, because the proper saying would be to find the queen bee in her hive.

Near the end, "what happened next was all a blur" is not exactly appropriate for an independent narration. I suppose it could be interpreted as Gregory's perspective, as the narration was focusing on him at the time, but I expect he'd have maintained his concentration on all the details for a while until he confirmed there was no further threat. It may have been a blur for Franklin or Javier, but not for Gregory.

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Unforgettable Day

Looks like Last Great Adventure was an exceptional case, as this is another piece that fumbles up the action sequences even harder than No Name 2 (though No Name 2 is still worse overall).

It started off fine, with a few minor issues (covered later). But the last two paragraphs completely ruined it. Once again, this is a (rather severe) case of "telling" instead of "showing", where the outcome is just stated without any details on how it was achieved. The three robbers just somehow emerge victorious against all the police???

What makes this far more egregious (worse than any of the individual shortcomings of No Name 2) is that this is done after presenting an incredibly intense and exciting situation, where the odds seem incredibly stacked against the protagonist's team. They were incredibly outnumbered, facing professional police officers (including helicopters!?) while carrying a lot of cash (quantity emphasized earlier). They planned for a simple heist (simplicity emphasized earlier in the piece), and they wouldn't even have brought guns if the protagonist didn't make the specific decision to buy them (implied earlier to be a personal choice as opposed to an integral part of the heist). The fact that the protagonist had to buy them indicates that the team did not already possess such weapons, suggesting that they weren't particularly experienced with using them, especially for such a big gunfight.

It's like, everything in the piece so far built up to the immense hopelessness of this one moment. And this despair was set up impressively with careful excellent writing so far to effectively convey the gravity of the situation. But this only makes the complete absence of a resolution that much more disappointing. All that build up, only to dismiss it all with a "we still won somehow" conclusion. It just completely ruins the entire piece.

There are other minor issues in this piece. If the protagonist had an impressive criminal record, why was she also "starving" as she put it? I'm guessing there was supposed to be a sequential transition from starving to criminal, but the writing doesn't make that clear.

A plan to rob a bank would not be "lacklustre", despite the relative simplicity of the procedure, especially with the previous paragraph emphasizing the risks. Having only one guard is not a "coincidence" by itself (unless the writing implies it arose from a coinciding event, like if the other guards were called out elsewhere to deal with an unrelated incident); it would be more appropriate to call it a "stroke of luck" or "convenient happenstance".

The narration should not specify exact amounts of money, since I highly doubt the robbers took the time to accurately count the money with such precision during the heist. It would be more appropriate to present them as rough estimates that the protagonist inferred from visual observation.

The first surprise was presented decently, no issues there. The sight to behold was presented too similarly to the first surprise, likely intentional but the similarity in nature really diminishes the impact and the writing feels repetitive. The final nasty surprise makes it even worse, though it would have worked really well as a contrast if there was only one pleasant surprise emphasized earlier instead of two.

To clarify, this piece is mostly written very well, and it's mainly the last two paragraphs that mess it up. If those could be rewritten in a manner that justifies the buildup in a satisfying manner, it would be an outstanding piece overall. That's easier said than done though, given how disadvantaged the protagonist's team is, with all the unfavorable factors implied across the piece. But if an author is unable to write a satisfying resolution to a challenging scenario, they should have avoided setting up such a challenge to begin with.

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When their eyes met

Seems this was written by someone else, so I'll keep this brief, as they might not appreciate or even receive the feedback.

The writing itself was okay but the scenario felt too contrived, and I'm not sure how the contrast between how their days went relates to the boy's infatuation and his attempts to talk to her. The girl's reaction seems unnatural in this situation, especially with the context of waiting for some other handsome guy, unless she's deliberately acting it out to make the boy suffer. The narration states that the two started to feel a connection within themselves, but the girl's side seems inconsistent with her apparent attachment to this other handsome guy that she was waiting for and immediately clings to once he shows up.

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The figure in the long black coat

This is a nice piece, with a good overall plot (despite being only an introduction to what could be a much larger story) and solid presentation in general.

The biggest problem here is that, once again, it tries to cover too much in an insufficiently small quantity of text. But if we consider this as an enforced requirement, this piece does a great job within such constraints. The start (murder) and end (laptop) were written very well, and while everything else in the middle (investigation) is relatively weaker in presentation, it effectively serves its purpose in connecting the two.

There are some other minor issues, but they don't really hurt the reading experience. The "22 minutes ago" suggests there is a point of reference for the present, but such a point is not implied within the piece and having everything in past tense would therefore suggest that the present is after the end of the piece, but it's clear that the murder did not happen only 22 minutes ago.

"the girl was hit in the head by a baseball bat sent flying"

The wording suggests it was the baseball bat that was sent flying (like if the murderer threw it at her). Could fix this by writing it as "and was sent flying", so the subject (girl) carries over. On that note, "girl" may not be appropriate for a 22-year-old woman.

"although no fingerprints existed"

The wording is too general, when it should be limited to the bat alone.

"victim's family members and office-goers"

Who are the victim's office-goers? Did you mean her colleagues? Her clients?

"Another wave of sadness swept the case."

This is written as if it were a later development, even though her marriage happened well before the murder. If you were implying that the investigators learned of this later, this should be clarified. It's also odd that the investigators already started interrogating her family and colleagues before finding out she was married. Was this a secret marriage that only her closest associates were aware of?

"After barraging into Juno's house"

Did you mean "barging". I mean, I guess the police may have barraged the front door with bullets, but it's unlikely that it would help them with entering the house.

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No Name 4

This is a very good piece, probably the best so far. The writing is excellent from start to finish, where the details not only convey Haku's current actions and observations, but are carefully written in a manner that alludes to his long-term experiences. The overall plot is decent and may not seem all that notable, but the presentation really makes this piece shine.

Some minor issues, as usual. The second paragraph mentions "his cosy bed", but it should be "a cosy bed" as this is strictly hypothetical (he doesn't have a bed).

The woman and her child are from "apparently opulent origins", but "origins" should be about about race or lineage, which doesn't quite fit with "opulence". Maybe something like "status" or "standing" would fit better than "origins".

"He witnessed both the mother and her son eating a marvellously delicious chocolate eclair and a slice of cheesecake cooked to perfection"
The wording implies that the mother and son were sharing the same single eclair and the same single slice of cheesecake, which is rather odd (but technically possible). If there were two (or more) of each, they should be in plural. If they were eating different stuff, then "both" should be omitted and a "respectively" should be thrown in later.

Finally, at the end, the wording suggests that the message was in the £10 note itself, but it would make more sense if it was on a separate piece of paper accompanying the money.

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No Name 5

Is this a Rurouni Kenshin fanfic?

This isn't really a story, but nor is it trying to be one, as the focus is on describing a particular individual, as opposed to recounting specific events.

It's pretty well-written overall, not much to comment on here.

I should probably point out that "deceit" is a noun, not a verb, so "need to deceit" doesn't work. Could change "deceit" to "deceive" or change "need to" to something like "resort to" or "rely on".