Starting my first actual week of college on Monday!

The only down side is that I have a paper due on my awful summer reading book on, well, Monday...

And what do I do instead of working on it? Procrastinating!

So I figured I'd update this while I still have time.

Lucky You~

"Kiddy" Writing

I know that age plays a huge role when it comes to writing and its only natural that the younger you are, the more "kiddy" your writing sounds. However, my problem with "kiddy" writing is that authors aren't usually aware of the fact that their writing may sound that way.

So what do I mean by "kiddy" writing?

Well, I guess you could say that it's your writing style, or more accurately, your total grammatical presentation.

Choppy sentences, two-dimensional main characters, a lack of essential detail, straightforward sentences, and worst of all, a pacing that does not flow, all fall under my category of "kiddy" writing.

I was inspired to write this after Frostheart D. Blaize asked me to rate her story, A lil' Bit of Problems. And with her permission, I will share with you, my dear reader, what I told her.

Since I have a hard time explaining my point, I use examples to stress what I mean. So, below, you will find part of her story original story and under that, you will find my edited and revised version of it.

Frostheart D. Blaize:

*pant* *pant*

The leaves rustled as their chase goes on.

"SKY WALK!" Sanji said as he sprint in the air.

"FROST BARRAGE!" From nowhere a gigantic wall of high condensed snow, stopping the cook from his tracks and causing him to drop his crewmates.

"WINTER SPIKES!" cried a girl as she crossed her arm releasing sharp icicles that hurled themselves en route the blonde

He was swift, but not swift enough. Sanji's speed allowed him to bypass the assault but the weight of his unconscious crewmates slacked his pace. This eventually led to him being impaled by two serrated hailstones at his left knee cap and right shoulder.

"Aaahhhh..." he howled in pain, causing him to drop his two slumbered comrades.

Sanji grasped his leg in pain when someone spoke up.

"My, my" a seductive voice called "Not looking so good now, Black Leg."

"You...!" growled the cook

From the mist, a tall, slender woman arrayed in a lab coat transpired. She had light blue hair covering her back and black-tinted goggles strapped on top her head.

My version:

"SKY WALK!" Sanji wheezed out as he sprint in the air.
"FROST BARRAGE!"
From nowhere, a wall of condensed snow rushed at the Straw Hat's chef, stopping the cook in his tracks. Sanji evaded the oncoming snow with shocking difficulty, his unconscious crewmates weighed him down.
He tried steadying himself, only to overbalance and weakly stumble in the air. He gritted his teeth in fear, realizing that his pursuers caught up to them.

"WINTER SPIKES!" cried the girl as she crossed her arm releasing sharp icicles that hurled themselves at the blond.
The normally swift chef willed himself to straighten out, but he wasn't able to make it in time. Searing pain erupted from his impaled knee cap and right shoulder.
"Aaahhhh..." he howled in pain. He and his comrades fell to the ground.
Sanji grasped his leg in pain.
He heard casual footsteps walking towards their fallen bodies.
"My, my-" the seductive voice of a lady called "-not looking so good now, Black Leg."
"You...!" growled the cook.
From the mist, that had been chasing him tirelessly, out stepped a tall, slender woman garbed in a simple lab coat. Her light blue hair swayed gently on her back, the black-tinted goggles strapped on top her head held back the long locks that threatened to fall onto her face.

So in my original review to Frostheart, I said that her:

"Characters are in character and their interactions with each other are accurate. The only reason I wouldn't give it a 4 ( I gave her a 3 out of 4) is because of your presentation.
Your sentences make sense and I can follow along just fine. But the tone of the story is "kid-ish". What I mean by that is that your sentences are simple. I feel that you could do a better job of including detail into your fic. I feel that what you originally had was more of a rough draft that didn't have a lot of details in it.
If you go back over and add in some extra details, then your fic will have a stronger presence to it.

Frostheart has a very good story in progress, but her lack of detail and straightforward sentences kind of took away from the total experience.

Other than that there is nothing wrong with the fic, it's interesting and it's original, but it just lacked a certain presence to it.

Oh and what I mean by "straightforward" sentences is, as the name implies, that they were too blunt.

For example:

"From the mist, a tall, slender woman arrayed in a lab coat transpired. She had light blue hair covering her back and black-tinted goggles strapped on top her head."

The sentence stood out too much from the story and as a result, kind of interrupted the flow. Instead of writing it like someone, who is apart of the story, was noting her appearance, it was written in a way that makes it seem the author was interrupting the story, just to add a character description to it.

What I hope you gain from this particular chapter, my dear reader, is that you are more aware of your own writing style.

Are you not including enough detail? Too much pointless detail that doesn't effect the story? Are your characters two-dimensional, when they should be three-dimensional? Do your sentences seem randomly thrown into your story when they should be apart of your story?

These are all questions you should be thinking about when you write a story.

~Done

Hmm, I don't think I like this chapter too much... I feel like my thoughts are too jumbled and I repeated my point too much. But if it gets the message across, then I guess I did a good job.

Anyway, I want to thank Frostheart for allowing me to use her as an example. I hope I didn't sound too mean~

Oh, and check her story out, too!

As always thanks for reading~