Enter The Shredder Forum Hey Little Buddy pt 1.

"I stretched both arms by grabbing the wrist and pulling it across my body then in a relaxing way," -had to read this part a bunch o times. I think I got messed up by the wording.
"under the shelf which elevated the candle which was lit" -the which was lit part is unnecessary. You already told us the candle was glowing.
"the light from the candle bounced and danced on the opposite wall" -really like this line, good imagery in it.
Overall, I liked it. A bit weird of a concept, but I'll read some more, as in part 2, late or now and see how i like it. I'm actually surprised at how quickly he goes from begin might afraid of the dinosaur to saying 'Hey little buddy..' to it. Good job.
S.k.

it's a pretty interesting concept. i want a dinosaur. no fair.
however, the beginning just sounded like a list to me and it got boring. so either take out stuff or make it more non-list like.
there's also not a lot of setting the scene, so that might have something to do with it, nor is there a lot of description. i just couldn't see the environment.
the dialogue seemed just a tad unnatural also. i understand you're giving it a playful tone, but i don't think it works here. i think it would be more powerful if the tone was understated, when you emphasize the incredulity, it sort of has the opposite effect.
i would suggest putting thoughts in quotations and also working on the sentence structure to make it less like constant stream of thought consciousness. i think it would be more sophisticated that way.
so yep. that's all i have for now.

This is an interesting concept and it livens up when you get into dialogue. But the beginning is not that inviting so could put your readers off , then they'll miss the surreal!!


�I needed to calm down, things were way too hectic. I needed to meditate, to bring everything to the center, to rebalance.�

This as a first sentence is OK. But not grippingly engaging. I wonder if you could tell us more (not using loads more words though) about the protagonist�s circumstances. Why did he need to calm down? What are things that had been too hectic?

So you might say;

�I really needed to calm down. Work had become very hectic that week. I needed to meditate...�

With the current first sentence I don't get an idea of whether you needed to calm down after a row, after a hard day shopping:-) due to some longer term stressful activity. It's not clear.

Then the following paragraph is a bit laboured. I get the impression you�re trying to convey the tranquillity, the ordered preparation for meditation, But the other person said it is a bit like a list and I agree with that.

"I pulled a candle off the shelf, struck a match to light the candle then set it back onto the shelf it came off of."

Could benefit from being cut. �off of �is not good and not necessary either.

But you could pare it down to; "I lit a candle and set it on the shelf".

That puts the picture in my mind more easily. The other way I get hung up on trying to visualise everything.

You could pare everything down to the minimum then go through and add stuff back in. That's usually a good exercise to tighten up on a piece of writing.

With the example above you might get the edited sentence "I lit a candle and set it on the shelf" and add to that to make "I took the matches, struck one, lit a candle and set it on the shelf"

It's just easier to see what's going on if you use the red pencil ruthlessly first.

"I then made my way over to the slider, closed the blinds and then walked a circle in the living room to find the best spot that provided the least amount of energy."

You don't need then in here twice. And 'I then made' is a split infinitive. Best to use 'then I made'.

I think the best way to tackle this is to split it into two sentences;

�I made my way over to the slider to close the blinds.�

and "walked a circle in the living room to find the best spot that provided the least amount of energy" is not that easy to follow either.

Why not use circle as a verb? 'I circled the living room looking for the best spot...' and 'that provided' is clumsy and grammatically awkward so you can avoid it by restructuring to explain to non meditators about how you would define the best spot. You could start a new sentence after 'spot' and tell us ' for a deep meditation I wanted to be in the spot with the least amount of energy' Or 'to meditate properly I needed to find the spot with the least energy'. Of course you wouldn't want to repeat 'spot' so you might have to rethink this a bit.

You could just start with ''I circled the living room' as one sentence then tell us 'To meditate properly I needed to find the spot with the least energy' as the second sentence.


'The spot which suited me best...' could become 'The most suitable place' and that would avoid repeating �spot� here


In place of �happened to be the corner that the candle was sitting in.�

You only need to say,

�happened to be the corner where the candle was sitting.�


�I extended both arms (in front of me) and rotated my wrists to help loosen up and then I shook both (of) my legs to ease any stress that had built up in them."

You don�t really need the words in parentheses.

In the next paragraph your explanation of sliding your back down the wall is easy enough to understand, but could benefit from a bit of shredder editing!!:-)


"I put my back to the wall walked my legs forward so that my back would slide down the corner of where two walls met ..."

I wonder if you could tell us more about the pressure you need to exert to do this... You might, for example, say 'I pressed my back against the wall....' and when you say 'would slide down' I think you need 'slid down' as you are describing what you did on that specific occasion. The 'would' starts to sound like you are describing what you habitually do. 'the corner of where two walls met" can be expressed more succinctly as 'the corner of the wall" (lol)
"and finally the rest of my body had come in contact with the floor." You have that odd tense again here and I think you might be better replacing it with "Finally the rest of my body came into contact with the floor."

I altered 'in' to 'into' here as well because it seems more natural with contacts (but a that could be a UK thing?) and started a new sentence with 'Finally' because I think it helps the reader to follow if you break up some of the longer sentences.

"Both legs were stretched out in front of me, spread at about a forty five degree angle with my back resting peacefully in the corner of the walls and under the shelf which elevated the candle."

This is a bit cumbersome. try "My legs were stretched out, spread at about a forty five degrees and my back was relaxed; supported by the corner as I sat under the shelf which held the candle."

imho if you use my legs instead of both the reader knows it is your legs and not another pair of legs that are stretched out!! But you don't need 'in front of me' because it's obvious once you describe your back position. Unless you are contorting:-) and you only need 'degrees', not 'degree angle' I also found that to say your back was resting peacefully sounds quirky. Like your back has gone to sleep and you are still awake!!

So relaxed and supported seemed to say it? And your 'shelf, which elevated the candle' also seemed a bit odd. So I offered ' held the candle' as a possible alternative.

As I sat there, I laid my hands on each of my legs just resting. I slowed my breathing, trying to calm everything there was about myself.

This is better but here I think it would work even better if you cut 'there was about myself' and ended that sentence with 'everything'. And you could add a coma after 'legs' and before 'just resting'.


As the blinking of my eyes became slower and slower, the light from the candle bounced and danced on the opposite wall, I felt at peace. I closed my eyes and began concentrating on my breathing.

This works well.

Though I personally don't find it necessary to have bounced and danced. You only really need one or the other.

And to make the final phrase easier to say you could swap the first present participle for an infinitive; ie' began concentrating on my breathing.' becomes' began to concentrate on my breathing.'

I will go through the rest like this if you find it helpful?

Maybe I am fiddling too much with your work? If so I am sure you will tell me in the feedback in the forum:-)

But it is a neat idea and deserves a tightly written catchy intro to get readers enthralled. It'd be a shame not get a wide audience just because they are stumbling at the first couple of paragraphs.

I love surreal ideas and fantasy set in real environments.

I really like the drama at the end too. Makes it all work so well. Without her show you'd have much less tension in your drama so hats off to your dramatic plot.
No stars tonight!! They sucked them all away. But I hear they are coming back with comets for us soon!!