Hey, thanks for taking the time to critique this, I really appreciate it. The age of the kids was meant to be 14/15, but it seems you and a few other commenters thought they were meant to be a bit younger. May have to change that. 

In terms of motivations, I think you definitely made a good point there and I hope that’s something I managed to make clearer in the later story segments. (Also the sentence length variance). The general message/theme of the story is sort of each persons individual solipsism and how getting caught up in it can effect their own lives and other peoples, but again that’s not so clear here. 

Thank you again!

**First Impressions:** Overall, I liked this piece! I’m struggling to think of any big criticisms I have with your writing or this snippet overall. I think the pacing’s good, the dialogue keeps attention and is pretty realistic for kids. I just went through to check and didn’t see any ages listed, so from reading this snippet by itself, I am guessing these kids are tweenagers (12-14)? If that’s NOT the case, then you should go back and adjust. I am also getting that George is supposed to come off as annoying/a bit of a bully, so again if that’s not the case, then go back and adjust because he’s kind of a brat. I’m getting the vibe that he’s very judgemental.

Something that could use work is the laying out of George’s motivations to the reader. You explain his reluctance to go on the trip at the beginning, which is good, but I’m struggling to understand his motivation for getting Percy to ask out the girl. It feels like George is teasing Percy in this scene and perhaps his motivation i

Feedback on Adventurous Training

First Impressions: Your prose is quite classical and practiced. It sounds as if you are well-read and have read up on some English classics. Correct me if I’m wrong though. I enjoyed your way of describing the setting (“Great hills that had lain hidden somehow behind gas stations and small hamlet houses now sprung up on the horizon, capped with white and shimmering with the last of the rain.”) I found the ending to a bit abrupt but then again that could just be my preference for wordier beginning chapters.

2nd Read-through: I am skimming more than before and my eyes are picking up on things that I think seem strange or out of place. The bit about Mr. Macnally’s varicose veins came off as a bit of the former and the text message exchange between Percy and Angela came off a bit as the latter. I suppose I find the bit about Mr. Macnally’s legs strange because that is the sole amount of physical description you give anyone in the story.

I also was prepar

Hey! 

You made me really happy with your comments on the prose, so thank you for that! Also wow, this is such detailed feedback. You managed to pack so much in here that it would take far too long for me to reply to it all, but rest assured I read it. 

If you are interested I mentioned the themes a bit in one of my other replies, and since you wondered about it I thought I’d mention that no, the story doesn’t later have any elements of the fantastic (but I did think about it). 

I’m gonna go revise the story based on these critiques now, thanks!

(Part 2)

SETTING: This one is pretty simple. Modern day U.K., with all the smartphones, bells, and whistles you could ask for. I actually enjoy when a writer does not burden themselves with writing in a different time period because then we can write about what we know and let our stories shine brightest. As far as to whether or not, the story could take a turn for the fantastic? I’m not sure, but I’m certainly expecting something out of the ordinary with a name like “Adventurous Training.”

CHARACTER: George and Percy certainly seem like lads I can imagine seeing on a school bus, talking with each other. If we are to understand that our main character is somehow so very different from his trip mates, then perhaps you should expound on that more. What exactly does George and his friends do that is different than what Tom does and Rob and Amy. Just a quick aside, for the sake of distinction, you might want to change Amy’s name to a different one. I found myself calling Angela by the na

Thanks for the feedback, lots of good concise points in here. Definitely gonna go back through with a comb looking for the passive voice and ‘to be’ verbs (I know that’s something I’m bad for). 

Thank you!

Things I liked:   
Idea is cool because you can and do hit on a lot of sentimental feelings with the setting and age   
Imagery is great. I loved the description of Macnally:  
“brown cargo shorts that showed off his varicose veins nicely, and held a clipboard and pen”  
The varicose veins tells me everything I need to know about this guy lol.  
The description of the drive on page 3 is very vivid. I really liked it.  
Really liked: “George was breathing on the window and drawing faces in the resultant fog when Percy turned around.”   
Very nice detail that tells a lot about character & gives lots of emotion to the reader. I did that a bunch on school buses!  
Criticims:  
Hook.  
First sentence was okay, but I would cut the depended clauses and make it super quick to grab my attention. Also, I’m not a fan of how you brought up “adventurous training,” which is incredibly vague and raised so many questions in my head but then just immediately told me what it was. Maybe slowly 

To answer both of your questions: yes it's easy to read, and I *might* read the the rest of the story. The dialogue is excellent and realistic. However, my main feedback is that there're a lot of phrases and adjectives that don't add anything but take up space, and this appears to be a systematic feature rather than localised to a specific region of your text. The other thing is that George keeps alternating between wanting to be a dick, wanting to get along with people on the bus, and thinking that everyone around him is a loser. This is inconsistent and needs to be fixed.

Going through your work now:

* "Adventurous Training", not "Adventurous training". It'd sound even better as "Adventure Training".
* "decently-sized, moderately run down cottage". I get that you're trying to be descriptive, but it doesn't work. "decently-sized" doesn't tell me anything aside from the fact that the cottage isn't absurdly large or small, but readers will assume that anyway even if it's not there. Co

Ah cool, thanks for looking into that! Glad I’m not going crazy lol. 

I think you’re right in that I use them a bit too much though. I read a lot of older books for pleasure mostly and I think it used to be more of a thing that they’d scatter semi-colons everywhere to show people how clever they are.

Hey, thanks for this! I never knew about this use of semicolons, and after looking it up, it does seem that it is grammatically correct, though, not always.

The semicolon can be used to 'outrank' commas in either clause in a compound sentence. That is, to say:

>As she said, I like cakes; and I like pies, especially cheese and onion pies.

is correct (example from internet), and the semicolon is used to clearly demarcate the two clauses, whereas the sentence structure if I had used a comma instead would be less clean. But, it doesn't look like it is correct to use it in which neither clause contains commas. That is,

>She cannot abide tennis; but she loves watching golf.

will be an incorrect use of the semicolon. I re-looked at all your semicolons, and even though I'm not a big fan of using it for a list of clauses, all of them are technically correct (except the last one, which is used for a dialogue). I'd still give a word of caution against using it though, since many readers and 

Hey, thanks for all the feedback. 

Just a question about semi-colons. I'm aware that you might use them for a list made up of many clauses, and to join to related clauses that might otherwise be two sentences. I've read in a couple of grammar books that you can also use a semi-colon in place of a comma when the comma is before a conjunctive (eg. ...said Percy; and picked up his keys...). 

However a number of people on this subreddit point out when I do that and say it's wrong. Is it actually technically wrong?

Just my background: I’m pretty inexperienced in creative writing. I do a lot more academic/non-fiction writing, so I’m very sensitive to things like economy of expression or reading cadence more so than other things.

**GENERAL COMMENTS**

Overall, I thought this piece quite lighthearted and nice, brings me back to one of the books I’d read as a kid. I felt that the first half or so was a little passive, that I’m just reading a sequence of “This happened, this happened, this happened, …” Maybe you could be more descriptive with some of the things happening.

**MECHANICS**

Just a minor thing: Adventure Training sounds more natural imo. But other than that, I don’t have any problems with the title. There isn’t a very strong hook, which you could make, but I think this is more of a minor thing.

I also find that some of your descriptions are indirect, and this kinda “detaches” me from the story, as if I was reading a documentation of an activity called “Adventurous Training”, instead of 

Have him trying to talk to a few different people and they each blow him off or they're busy doing something else. This would add some narrative tension in these scenes, and it would flesh out some of the other inhabitants on this bus.  
Still though, it really doesn't drag too long and you get to a goal for our main character pretty quickly. I would just like to see more dramatization because the way it is its just information.  
I loved the scenes with George and Percy talking about this girl. George's personality was a little different than I was expecting at first. But this is because I didn't get to know him though thoughts or interactions with others before we get here.  
Eventually, Percy got his phone back. But by then, a nugget of an idea had rooted up somewhere at the back of George’s brain. And long before they reached their destination, before they arrived at the pink stucco cottage at the foot of the forested hill, George had decided how he would spend this trip. He would 

General remarks:

I actually really liked this story. Your prose is funny and descriptive and I can understand the action as it happens all the way through the piece.  The characters feel fleshed out and like they've got motive that will make them interesting to follow through the sequels to this section. I enjoyed the read! Now onto some of the things you could improve.

Dramatization & Summarization:

There is a lot of summarization in this story. When you mention simplicity and directness in your language. I am assuming you mean not using frilly adjectives or over describing things and instead using a style like Vonnegut or Palahniuk's minimalism. I think you did a pretty good job of being direct and naturalistic but there are some things that would help here.

Using metaphors and similes to describe things in an evocative manner. This allows you to be more descriptive without being wordy and you can choose real life things to use as comparisons so that it still sounds simple and na

Hello, 

This is the first act of a three act short story I have just written. 

My goals with this story were to be very simplistic and direct with my language, whilst also conveying some more serious themes under the subject matter. 

I'm interested in any and all thoughts you have to share. Specifically, how easy is it to read? and Would you be interested in reading the rest of the short story? 

Thank you to anyone that reads it! 

The story: [\[1,674\]](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1oOCN6kAPT3WKhDvW1HYoDn0x6hSWQBYAPDaqmhaahIY/edit?usp=sharing)

My critique: [\[1,800\]](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/nsnrsb/1840_chapter_1_padas_hatchet/h0ympfn/?context=3)

[1,674] Adventurous Training