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Okay so I am writing a bit more often now, and I just want to know what is missing, what needs to be taken out, etc... from this article. Its just a simple tale of a dating situation. I want to get better at writing, and I did this kinda spur of the moment due to the lack of ability to sleep. Its kinda long, so brace yourself for a wall of text.
This is a story of a boy who can’t but seek the needle in the haystack. This situation is usually found among those who are unable to deal with the idea of good enough and are always battling with the idea of something better. One that is dating so many people, that they can’t see when they have anything special because they are always curious on how good the next person may be. Boy dating too many girls to see if he could have the best thing out there, but won’t give it the chance it needs to blossom into its full potential. Like all great things in life, they start off small. A seed becomes a tree. A puppy becomes a man’s best friend. A blind date becomes that person by your deathbed, never leaving your side. When shopping at the grocery store, you are presented with hundreds of apples, all different colors, different sizes, different textures, but how will you ever really know that that is the apple you really want until you bring it home and take a bite out of it? Same will go with dating, if you are knee deep in the sea of fish, they may all look the same from the surface, but until you have spent the time with that right one, you won’t know what you want or what you need. Some say life is too short to find the right one, so you need to take them all in as fast as possible, but what happens when you took them all in so quickly that you figured out you had the best, and let it go for the possibility of better? Yes you may pass up the opportunity of better by spending the time with the good and decent, but if you can find one that genuinely makes you happy, is it really that bad that you missed the best? This boy was in that exact situation. He’s been consistently dating different people for the past year now, and still going strong, but always questions if he committed to this girl would he be missing out on something better. Currently dating about 2-5 girls at a time. Each time he thinks he finds a keeper, he creates a trivial reasoning behind why he can’t stay with this girl. She is a little controlling, she doesn’t like motorcycles, she cares about me too much, she may get hurt in the long run and he doesn’t want to do that to her. Every girl comes with a different excuse. His idea that there is always something better is limiting his ability to actually commit to a relationship in any form. It’s as if he is living by the ideal that there is a perfect person out there for him, when really all he should be looking for his a girl that is good for him right now. Like most of these little tales, it doesn’t have an end yet. If I were to guess, him pursuing this goal will have him settling for someone later in life, when really, he had many girls before her who were better suited for him that he let go of for the perfect one. He’ll probably stay with this girl and eventually convince himself that she is the one, and live a mediocre version of his happy life. That or be alone. If you readers can take anything away from this little blurb is that you need to live more in the moment. If you find someone that makes you happy, that you get along with, and can see yourself spending any time of your future with them, give it a shot. Don’t let her get away for some make believe fairytale that the media has convinced you exists. Things may not work out, you may not spend the rest of your life with this one, but enjoy the time you have with them, because in the end loneliness doesn’t enjoy company. Source: OMW Productions, http://omwproductions.com/?p=394
Any and all feed back would be great! I still hope to be writing more SC2 related articles, but I was requested to write something on relationship (don't ask me why). BTW would visuals help with an article like this? I know they help when writing something about an event, or anything really starcraft related, but for an article like this, I felt it would probably pretty it up, but didn;t seem relavent enough...
Much Luv
DJ Wilma
 
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I'm no great writer but this seems fine to me. I've found no glaring grammar mistakes, except a missing coma in the last paragraph (If you readers). I may be wrong on this one. Also, I think it's "same goes" not "same will go" but by this point I think I'm just nitpicking.
Good luck!
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Just some quick pointers:
1) Your text lacks clarity (both in what you refer to and how articulate your ideas are):
This situation is usually found among those who are unable to deal with the idea of good enough and are always battling with the idea of something better.
-> Singles often remain singles because they look for their ideal partner, regardless of whether it is possible or even likely to find such a partner.
or
-> Many people try to find their ideal partner, even if they are in a relationship. These people always look for potential partners who are closer to their ideal, they keep looking for 'someone better'.
In general, be very careful when to use 'it', 'this', 'that' and other vague pronouns - you might just be confusing the reader. If you use them, make sure it is clear what or who these pronouns refer to.
2) You can improve your style a lot by writing coherent sentences instead of, well, incoherent sentences:
One that is dating so many people, that they can’t see when they have anything special because they are always curious on how good the next person may be.
is simply bad style.
-> Some people fail to sense when they have 'something special' with another simply because they date so many potential partners; they remain curious about what the next person may have to offer.
3) Fix your grammatical mistakes. Remember that good punctuation separates a well-written text from a garbled mess.
All of these need rephrasing or corrected punctuation:
the idea of good enough
One that is dating so many people
Boy dating too many girls
you are presented with hundreds of apples, all different colors, different sizes, different textures, but how will you ever really know that that is the apple you really want
Same will go with dating
the opportunity of better
and so on and so forth.
Finally, your text lacks clear structure. If you jump from topic to topic (needle in haystack analogy before introducing the actual topic, switching between dating topics and food analogies) you only confuse the reader. You can also prevent confusion by using coherent tempus:
This boy was in that exact situation. [...] ...and still going strong, but always questions .
Edit: two quick pointers -> some quick pointers
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While formal writing is very easy to critique, creative works are very hard for one to give criticism on because it is hard tell whether a certain point is an area to improve on, or merely a stylistic difference, so take everything I say with a healthy pinch of salt.
I find it interesting the second person perspective you used for the majority of the first stanza. Keep in mind that adopting such a tone is faintly accusatory from the writer to the reader, and think about whether that is the right tone you want to adopt.
Secondly, I find that you've repeated quite a bit of material in your second paragraph. You've already described "this situation" in your opening paragraph very thoroughly, but continue on to describe this specific example, and yet you don't provide the reader with any new information, such as names, events or such. Thus, it makes the second paragraph seem somewhat redundant in it's length.
Thirdly, and this is purely my own opinion, I feel as though your second and first stanzas should be swapped around in order. Example -> Explanation just seems like a much more intuitive way of structuring this particular story, rather than Explanation -> Example.
Fourthly, don't use the phrase "if you readers can take anything away from this little blurb is that you need to live more in the moment". Telling what readers are supposed to think in creative writing is akin to using "I think etc etc" in a formal essay. It is redundant, and it only shows your own insecurities about your own work that you worry readers might not get the point. I'm not saying that's true in this case, in fact it's certainly not, but that is the sort of vibe of immaturity readers will get if you write sentences like that. Lose it. The rest of the paragraph is fine.
I won't comment on spelling and grammar because I find that trivial and other people will pick that out for you.
I really like your use of simple sentences. Hope that helps, keep up the good work!
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Thanks for the feedback, will take note of all of what you guys said. It is meant to be a style and all. I will make the next article I write like this with your suggestions in mind. Thanks again
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Just gotta say, Dagobert gave an amazing critique.
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A few points from me. I tried to give you a general rule you can work on for your future writings and then gave an example of how you could have used that rule to improve the article you gave. At the end, I put a re-written version of your article in a spoiler tag. I re-wrote your article and tried to make it clearer and easier to understand without changing the meaning. You can compare my version with yours and see what I changed and decide if it makes more sense.
1. Watch your verb tense. Don't use two different verb tenses when talking about the same thing. You wrote:
"Some say life is too short to find the right one, so you need to take them all in as fast as possible, but what happens when you took them all in so quickly that you figured out you had the best, and let it go for the possibility of better?"
I would write it like this:
"Some say life is too short to find the right one, so you need to take them all in as fast as possible, but what happens when you take them all in so quickly that you didn’t know that you had the best, so you let it go for the possibility of better?"
In my version, I replaced "took" with "take" because you used "take" earlier in the sentence. You want to use the same verb tense later in the sentence or it doesn't make sense. Also, I replaced "you figured out" with "you didn't know that." When you use the phrase "you figured out you had the best" it makes it sound like you knew you had the best. But you were trying to say that you didn't know you had the best, which is why you let it go. So, my version makes it clear that "you didn't know that you had the best."
2. Use less words when possible. Sometimes using one word to replace a phrase of several words makes things easier to understand. Example. You wrote: "Yes you may pass up the opportunity of better . . . " Replace the phrase "the opportunity of" with the word "something" and it makes more sense and is easier to understand.
3. When you use a pronoun, such as "it," make sure it is clear what that pronoun is referring to. If it isn't clear, then you need to replace the pronoun with the actual noun that it is referring to.
You wrote:
"Boy dating too many girls to see if he could have the best thing out there, but won’t give it the chance it needs to blossom into its full potential."
In your sentence, it isn't clear what the word "it" is referring to. What it refers to is a relationship. You are trying to say that this boy won't give a relationship enough time to blossom into its full potential. So, replace the word "it" with the words "a relationship." If you make a few other more changes to that sentence to help it make more sense, I think you should write it like this:
"This boy is dating many girls to see if he could have the best thing out there, but won’t give a relationship the chance it needs to blossom into its full potential."
So, I hope that helps. I was a writing tutor in college and I think I'm pretty good at helping people with their writing. Like I said, I tried to give you some general rules that will help you out if you work on them for future writing projects. Below is my re-written version of your article.
+ Show Spoiler +This is a story of a boy who can’t stop trying to find the needle in the haystack.
Some people can’t settle for good enough because they always think they can get something better.
They are dating so many people that they can’t see when they have something special because they are always curious about how good the next person may be. This boy is dating many girls to see if he could have the best thing out there, but won’t give a relationship the chance it needs to blossom into its full potential. Like all great things in life, they start off small. A seed becomes a tree. A puppy becomes a man’s best friend. A blind date becomes that person by your deathbed, never leaving your side. When shopping at the grocery store, you are presented with hundreds of apples, all different colors, different sizes, different textures, but how will you ever really know that that is the apple you really want until you bring it home and take a bite out of it? Same goes for dating. If you are knee deep in a sea of fish, the fish may all look the same from the surface, but until you have spent the time with the right one, you won’t know what you want or what you need. Some say life is too short to find the right one, so you need to take them all in as fast as possible, but what happens when you take them all in so quickly that you didn’t know that you had the best, so you let it go for the possibility of better? Yes you may pass up something better by spending the time with the good and decent, but if you can find one that genuinely makes you happy, is it really that bad that you missed the best?
This boy is in that exact situation. He’s been consistently dating different people for the past year now, and is still going strong, but always wonders if he committed to this girl would he be missing out on something better. He is currently dating about 2-5 girls at a time. Each time he thinks he finds a keeper, he creates a trivial reason for why he can’t stay with that girl. She is a little controlling, she doesn’t like motorcycles, she cares about me too much, she may get hurt in the long run and he doesn’t want to do that to her. Every girl comes with a different excuse. His idea that there is always something better is limiting his ability to actually commit to a relationship in any form. It’s as if he is living by the idea that there is a perfect person out there for him, when really all he should be looking for is a girl that is good for him right now. Like most of these little tales, it doesn’t have an end yet. If I were to guess, him pursuing this goal will have him settling for someone later in life, when really, he had many girls before her who were better suited for him that he let go of for the perfect one. He’ll probably stay with this girl and eventually convince himself that she is the one, and live a mediocre version of his happy life. That or be alone.
If you readers take anything away from this little blurb, let it be that you need to live more in the moment. If you find someone that makes you happy, that you get along with, and can see yourself spending your future with them, give it a shot. Don’t let her get away for some make believe fairytale that the media has convinced you exists. Things may not work out, you may not spend the rest of your life with this one, but enjoy the time you have with them, because in the end loneliness doesn’t enjoy company.
Best,
Cowpieguy
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There have been some really good critiques given, so I will try and not be repetitive.
1st- You need a much more clear introductory sentence. If you want to use an analogy, use it after you have introduced the subject clearly. "Many individuals find themselves incapable of finding happiness because they are always looking beyond what they currently have. These individuals are stuck, incapable of deciding whether their current relationship is the best one possible. Now analogy... This is similar to an individual (or boy) looking for a needle in a haystack. (Then describe how the two situations are related).
2nd- Try and use more active verbs and voice in your writing. Eliminate "to be" as well as prepositional phrases "in order to".
3rd- Try to keep your voice consistent throughout the entire section. Don't start with a third person point of view, then jump to first, then to second. Try and keep all of them similar (all past tense first person, or all present tense first person, etc).
Overall, not a bad bit of writing, but it could use some polishing.
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EPT
