All Comments on 'Lost Girls Find Life Ch. 01'

At this stage I'll confine myself to a couple of points which will sound critical but are meant to be helpful. First, there are a couple of odd spots where you switched tenses between present and past. Stick to one tense throughout. Next, a lot of the dialogue sounds stiff and unnatural, particularly between Jai and Sarah and to a slightly lesser extent between Jai and '2'. Unless they are exceptionally pedantic, people don't talk to one another that way. Try reading it aloud to yourself as if talking to a friend and I think you'll see what I mean.

And is there a specific reason for Amy's odd nickname of '2'?

Was I supposed to get an incest vibe from the story?

I'm sorry Billy! I had no idea you started writing! This was an excellent first story in my opinion!

Couldn't get past the exposition overload at the start of the story.

First, the timing of events described is very confusing. Sometimes they're 19 years old, sometimes they're graduating with PhDs. It really isn't possible to dig out your intention under these circumstances.

Second, the dialog is very unnatural. It reminds me of conversation with Data on Star Trek NG. The information is there, but it's almost cringy it's so poorly delivered.

These are common hurdles to get over when you first start writing fiction; it is quite different from writing non-fiction or homework. Think through how your reader will perceive and interpret each quote and whether events that are presented together in the text actually go together in the story.

This is the first story of yours I have read, and the first you published here, so none of that is fatal, which is obviously true from your perspective since you've published many stories after this one. And I will keep reading … watching you improve.

I forgot to mention that the use of '2' as a name was a bad idea, especially since you introduced her as Amy … and gave no explanation of the pedantic use of '2'. Was it a joke, making fun of Amy? Or at the unknown mother? Or at the adoption system itself? What was the point? Unexplained, it was unnecessarily distracting. Be careful choosing things that seem cute without explanation because readers will focus too much on such idiosyncrasies, distracting them from your story.

Always make sure your choices increase the interest in the story rather than distracting from it.