Your "The Issue With Thinking and Sensory Verbs" section hits the nail on the head.

Honestly, this is a solid short story. I don't finish reading a lot of the stuff posted on this subreddit, and if I do, I usually can't be bothered to write an in-depth critique to help improve it. The fact that I did with yours is a good sign, I'd say.

# Formatting

This will include the simplest changes, yet will make the story much more readable.

First, you don't need to add lines between paragraphs; instead, highlight your entire text, and hit the "Add space before paragraph" command in the menu at the top of the page.

Two, change the font size to 12pts. The text is too tiny, and I had to zoom in to read it comfortably. (You could also change the font to TNR or Georgia, but Helvetica is totally fine too.)

And three, add paragraph indents. Makes the story more appealing to the eye.

# The Issue With Thinking and Sensory Verbs

Thinking verbs: Thinks, Knows, Understands, Realizes, Seems, Believes, Wants, Remembers, Imagines, Desires, etc.

Sensory verbs: Hear, Look, Note, Notice,

Good advice! What do you usually expect for line spacing, single or double?

You are more than welcome to write in whatever style you please, but as a reader--I find your formatting difficult.  If you intend to submit, this formatting will also almost certainly go against style guides.  There should not be additional line breaks between paragraphs, new paragraphs (including dialogue only) should be indented.  I am not dyslexic but I have ADHD so when things are hard to read, I legitimately struggle to read them, and thus I could not get very far into your story.

**POV**

It’s like a close third person POV that centers on Dr. Whitaker. Sometimes it feels like it veers into first person though:


>This technology would be even more powerful. How would it be corrupted?


This is a parenthetical question that Dr. Whitaker is asking to himself, I think. But it’s written as general narration, so the implication is sort of that the narrator is saying that. I think it’d work better and be clearer if you italicized it and just referred to it as Dr. Whitaker’s inner monologue.


There are a lot of lines that feel like little asides or thoughts of Dr. Whitaker (like the one above) — those tend to take me out of narration. Think more specifically about what sort of narration you’d like to use. Third person close, third person omniscient? 



**DIALOGUE**

I think I’ve touched on much of the dialogue. The main problem I have, which I mentioned in the comments on the doc, is situations where you jump from one character’s dialog to a different character’s ac

**DESCRIPTION**

I’m gonna throw some line references in here so you can see some specific instances where I feel like the description could use some work.

>First he saw his university, a former beacon of youth and optimism, now abandoned and dead. Then he saw the football stadium, filled with emergency relief efforts and lines upon lines of patients in stretchers instead of cheering fans. Finally, he saw the airport coming into view, surrounded by a mob of protestors, their anger palpable even thousands of feet in the air.


What’s it mean for a university to look “dead?” It’s not your usual description, and it doesn’t really evoke that specific of an image in my head. I think there’s probably a more apt description you could use here. Or you could describe what’s dead about it. 


Then, “lines upon lines” is sort of superfluous and repetitive, and it also slows down the sentence. Read that sentence aloud, saying just “lines of patients,” instead of lines upon lines. Does the rhythm 

**CHARACTER**

I think Dr. Whitaker and Julia are both interesting characters, but they are unrealized. Whitaker is this tortured scientist/inventor who is obviously very wealthy and important. He has made several great inventions that were bastardized and used for evil. That feels like a “Fool me once, shame on you” type situation. Why does he keep inventing stuff if the government is gonna keep corrupting it? Is he super naive? Does he actually care what happens? Is he so closed off from the outside world that he never anticipates the results that his inventions may bring? 


Additionally, many of his reactions feel extreme and unearned. He jumps so quickly from one end of the spectrum to the other in his dealings with Julia. Part of why it feels unearned is because his feelings are just *told* to us. We get a bit of inner monologue of him saying, “No! I can’t help her!” and then he turns his back on her or whatever. More context might help. More explicit dialog might help too — he c

Hi u/stealthystork ! Thanks for sharing this story. I enjoyed reading it, and there was a lot of good stuff in it! In addition to this, I also left several comments in the Google doc, so be sure to check those out as well.

**GENERAL REMARKS**

There were a lot of good elements to this story! The setting is interesting, I like the characters, and overall it is pretty well-written. It flows well and doesn’t ever lag too much. To answer your questions:


The story holds my attention, yes. I have some thoughts about what could be done better that I’ll share here, but in general, the story definitely held my attention.
The backstory is not fleshed out enough. At all. You’ve set up this interesting world where there’s all this chaos, huge protests, it almost feels post-apocalyptic. Then all we get is a bit of lamenting from Dr. Whitaker about his inventions being used by the government to harm people. Then Julia shows up and she’s, like, maybe been harmed by this stuff, but we don’t get muc

GENERAL REMARKS

I like the story.  The characters and conflict were interesting and you generally executed your style well.  There were some hiccups in grammar and story-telling, but nothing that felt particularly jarring to me.

MECHANICS

I liked the hook - you didn't present the character as being a villain, but he's clearly perceived as such, and that made me interested to know more - is he a villain?  Why?  The conflict was introduced quickly but without an info dump to keep it interesting.  However, it was a little confusing that in the next section we were a year later without anything indicating that for a while.  I had to mentally readjust when I realized what was happening and that was a little jarring.

There are some quick grammar issues.  "Perhaps he was villain" needs to be "was the villain."  "Break to in the monotony" should be "break from monotony."  There are times when you use passive verbs where active would serve better - "the last time someone had showed up" shou

I'll approve this, but consider all your crits used up. Next submission we want to see fresh, high-effort critiques.

Man, I don’t know…

**Inconsistency**

I really did not like Dr. Whitaker. Initially, the setup was that public opinion was against him, which I thought could be interesting if he was actually affected by the actions of the government, or at least if he cared about the victims at all. Instead, he seems unwilling to even confront the fact that, however indirectly, he was responsible for a literal war. He is shown to be a reclusive, unsympathetic, and temperamental man, prone outbursts of anger. He’s also shown, up until the end of the story, to avoid accountability:

> The SuperSuits had helped so many people; the government corrupted them. These hands had helped Julia; she took them too far.

Not only is this a complete dismissal of his “progress”, were it even true, it’s way too bland of a conclusion to be arrived at so late in the story. You asked, “Do you find Dr. Whitaker's character development "believable"?” To me, there was no development, and it was not convincing that Dr. Whit

**GENERAL THOUGHTS.**

The lack of characterization is this piece's main flaw in my opinion. Instead of flash fiction, it reads more like a screenplay or a dull recounting of events.

Personally,  what keeps me reading past the first handful of paragraphs  is an interesting character (or a narrator with a strong voice).

Dr. Whitaker and the girl both lack distinguishing characteristics that would elevate them above the status of  "talking heads in a white room". I don't sense distinct voices in their dialogue, and the narration doesn't offer anything  that reveals character.

**PLOT**

I'm not sure what this piece is trying to communicate.

So there's this famous scientist who had developed combat technology that his government abused, so he's now despised in the city where the story takes place.

One day he meets a mysterious girl who has created a mechanical hand he finds fascinating. He learns that she reverse-engineered his technology to build her mech limb after it was severed by

I read quite a bit of sci-fi and fantasy, so I'm probably your target demographic. I liked the story quite a bit. Your prose are solid and you manage to stuff a lot of narrative into a few thousand words without making it feel like a slog. My major problem is actually with the final scene, starting here:

>“Ahh!” Her robotic arm slipped off the rock, fingers flopping around uselessly, and she swung outward. Her remaining arm strained to hold on as her feet shifted to get her into a more stable position. Bracing against the rock with only her legs, she tried fixing the arm with her good hand.

Narratively, this is a problem.

Firstly, the description is vague. I'm not entirely clear on her position during all of this. I imagined her pressed up against the cliff face in a standing position. If so, she could stay in that position for a while - long enough for the doctor to call for help. I don't buy that her legs would quiver if she's just pressed next to the cliff face in a standing posi

Lol i just read what i wrote and barely made sense out of it. Hope it helped you tho.

This is a hilarious, real-time interpretation. I love it. 

Agreed on these points, it’s a flawed piece. I rewrote it from scratch and will be posting soon.

Thanks for the feedback!

I hope you can understand i just wrote this while reading it and if not just skip and read the last part.


 (My opinion)

Immediatly we know the mc is a superhuman who can knock trains down by throwing a mask.


The timeline is messed up, he arrived to some kind of civil war and now he cant remember any shit while fixing something that wasnt explained.


too much details about a person is annoying to read and makes me skip the part.


Now i realized i have no idea where he is as there wasnt a line that just straight up said it.


Her personality changed 3 times. First a maniac of sort not sure of your intent, then a shy high schooler and a gentleman bowing and maybe the 4th time when she suddenly became too casual when she was just stuttering a minute ago. Or she was actually a maniac that does random things.


And now she is a sarcasm king and a genius. Reverse engineering a thing is a maybe in terms of logic.


Now i get he is in his lab tinerking with a toy train.


This time, Juli

I usually write flash fiction. This is my first foray into long(er) short stories. I'm planning to enter it into a competition with the theme "Inventing Beautiful Futures"

All kinds of constructive feedback are welcomed, but a few specific areas that might be good focus on are:

1. Did the story hold your attention?
2. Does the backstory seem fleshed out enough?
3. Do you find Dr. Whitaker's character development "believable"?

Thanks in advance!

[**Story link**](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Rhw4l0mPHCmmItkIzQ6COulbpl7TUlk5nQthco0z5eY/edit?usp=sharing)

[**Critique Bank**](https://www.notion.so/d556fc6f47104716beb27efaa3c8448b?v=118520cd5c014215912ca50f8a09461c)

[2955] The Invention Problem