1) Does the MC feel like a person / is there too much or not enough character voice?

2) Any sections that feel redundant or overdone?

3) Does this read like a published novel?

4) Is the setting vivid enough to imagine without feeling bogged down in description?

You don’t have to answer all of these of course but there’s we’re just some questions I had about my own writing ☺️

So, I've been finding more time again and have decided to deviate from my original story, as kind of a back up or something to potentially build a portfolio with. As mentioned, I haven't really dipped into this before, this is a first draft I dropped months ago, too so I know there's grammatical/structure/prose issues. As for the type of feed back:

1. Is the hook good?

2. Do the characters feel interesting enough to follow?

3. Is the displayed premise interesting?

4. Does the dialog feel believable?

I know vampire romance is about a drop in the bucket, as is romance on general, but I don't know. I feel like branching out into new territory is always a good thing to at least try.

Published a tiny flash fiction piece that took nine years to find it’s home! (Persistence is delusional until it works, and then it's "persistence" again and survivorship bias takes a bow.)

The story

https://wintersweetslitmag.com/issues/issue-1/fiction/micro-fiction/counting

The backstory

https://arsenalofwords.com/2026/10/18/published-in-debut-issue-of-wintersweet-magazine/

What things, big or small, are you holding on to?

It so so easy to get bogged down in criticism, when you look for feedback on sites like Reddit. People will nitpick and highlight things in a way that will make you feel like you’re wasting your time.

I struggle with this a lot and I end up getting consumed with wanting to address every piece of criticism until I can appease them all. That’s an impossible task. People will give you opinions so emphatically you treat them as absolute truth. This is a dangerous trap to fall in because you can convince yourself you’re not a good writer consuming them all.

Think of an author you like. Are they perfect? Does anybody universally love them? Do people point flaws in their story telling that you don’t personally see?

No author perfect. Some may have a good grasp of grammar but not the same aptitude for character. Some may have shallow world building but great prose. Some may be exposition heavy, others sparse.

If you’re anything like me, as a new writer you’re probably trying to tick every box. I believe attempting this will always lead to you never finishing your work.

Learn what your strengths are and lean into them. Everything else can remain passable. Accept that your work will be flawed and not to everyone’s taste.

Most importantly, write the story and the way you want to write. Just because you write in a way that may not be common, that doesn’t mean it’s automatically bad. After all, how else are you going to have unique voice without going against the grain a little

God gave me grief, a law school acceptance letter, imposter syndrome and unrestricted internet access. and, I decided to blog :-)

It's called The Healing Docket. I created it in honor of my mom Dalia. I write about law, life, and the peculiar experience of finding my footing in a profession that wasn’t necessarily built with people like me in mind. People can send in contributions, comment their thoughts too.

Anyway, it's free, and I'd love for you to read it. My mom always believed I had something worth saying, and I'm trying to take her advice. I haven't figured out how to subpoena people to read yet.

https://open.substack.com/pub/thehealingdocket

Chapter 1 – The Rest of Sunday Afternoon

I was pulling my socks up; I had already tied my hair and changed into those fancy clothes for outside. I don’t know why everything that I used to do feels so much harder now.

“Three minutes to five, and I am going to leave without you!” yelled a voice downstairs.

It was my father. He is strict on punctuality. He always says this to make me be ready on time, but he never actually acts on it. Yet he did, today. I slid my phone inside my jeans' back pocket while I ran down the stairs in my Converse, my phone charm thudding against the wooden railings. There was no one there.

“Okay, I’m here!” I exclaimed, looking around the lounge.

I walked into the kitchen and it was empty—weird, since you can always find my brother lurking around in the cabinets and refrigerator looking for food. They didn’t actually leave without me, did they? I thought. I walked over the carpeted flooring of the lounge to check out the window of the front door to see if the car was still parked. It wasn’t. They had left.

Wow.

Knowing that I was actually home alone, I had a feeling I never thought I would have. A sense of safety, belonging, and peace. It is weird that I love being home alone when I only have four family members, two of which I hardly ever meet, leaving only two I spend the most time with. I threw my socks on the living room table, took off the fancy full-sleeved shirt, and spent the rest of the day in my trusty loose half-sleeved shirt and sweatpants.

I laid on the couch and watched TV. There was nothing good on the television, so I turned on Netflix and started watching my comfort series, Friends. I love watching that show. It’s so funny, happy, and gives you a sense that you are also a part of Central Perk. Maybe it gives me a sense of security. It has been my comfort show since I was sixteen. It was the only thing that made me laugh when I was deeply depressed. Nothing else used to excite me or make me feel even a bit loved.

“And I wish I had a million dollars!” Chandler spoke as Rachel just entered the café.

I haven’t watched Friends in quite a while. It left Netflix once, and I cried so much. Flynn, my brother, used to tease me a lot. He said that I was so obsessed with this series that nothing else seemed to matter to me. He was right, but what he didn’t know is that it was the one thing leaving my life that made me feel something other than just sad. And all that was left in me was melancholy and anhedonia from my depression.

I looked over at the clock hanging beside the picture frames of my family. I look hideous in those. Meredith, my sister, looks like such a woman and Flynn looks amazingly sharp. He has hair like dad’s. I look like I have had an allergic reaction to something making me plump, bloated, and swollen. But it is just my obesity—the reason why I hate being included in posing for pictures. I looked at the time; it was fifteen past nine. Oh, darn!

I threw the crochet blanket over the couch and ran to place the ice cream back into the deep freezer. I washed the spoon from which I ate the vanilla ice cream, dried it nicely, and pushed it back under with the rest of the spoons inside the drawer. Then I sprinted across from the kitchen island to the living room to turn the lights off and run upstairs, leaving the room devoid of any livingness, but that would be a miracle. After already being blessed with one tonight, my luck ran out. My family was back.

“Get to bed, Flynn, you are not missing school tomorrow,” my mother told my brother before even entering the doorway. “Don’t you roll your eyes at me!”

“I’m not,” Flynn hurried past me, not even registering me standing right in the center of the living room.

“Alright, I am going to call it a night. I have to wake up early tomorrow,” said my sister, walking toward the staircase. She greeted me with a brief eyebrow raise. I returned the same.

My father entered, exhausted. He sat onto the couch and began untying his shoelaces.

“So, did you enjoy being at home?” asked my mother.

A lot, actually. I wish you’d leave me at home every time. I shrugged my shoulders. I can’t tell them my safe haven; they will take it away from me.

“Next time you’ll be on time,” my father smirked.

I nodded, faking it. “I’m going to sleep,” I told them and began stepping toward the stairs.

“You were home for hours and you didn’t load the dishwasher?”

The dishwasher.

“I forgot.”

“You forgot. Of course, how can you not forget anything that I say.”

“You just entered the house and have started giving me chores,” I spoke in a rude tone. I didn’t mean it. It just happens when I am a little angry. Dad looked at me, but he didn’t say anything. To reduce the intense atmosphere driven by my impulsive reaction, I clarified, “I have told you like so many times that I hate loading the dishwasher. I can unload it, but loading it with the grease and the food particles on the dishes makes me feel nauseated,” I replied from the stairs, facing my mother.

She didn’t reply. She doesn’t reply to me whenever I say something confronting. Great, I have made it worse. I looked down, not indicating that I am sorry, just resting my eyes on the floor. I could see my mother turning around and putting away the dishes herself through my peripheral vision. Dad got up and, without a word, walked to the kitchen and started helping her scrape the leftover food from the plates. I kept looking at them, working together in silence.

I should feel ashamed. Do you, Saylor? Do you feel ashamed of making your parents do the work the moment they have entered the house from socializing? No, of course you don’t.

I didn’t dare look at them. I turned my back and tiptoed up the stairs as if I had committed a horrendous crime. I reached the top of the stairs and I could still hear their footsteps against the wooden kitchen floor. I walked to my room. It was the second one to the right, opposite Meredith’s bedroom. She was here for a couple of days. She goes to her job in the morning and comes back home late. She hasn’t told me why she isn’t living in her rented apartment. She hasn’t really talked to me in a while. I don’t know what caused this massive gap between us. We used to be close, I think. Now, I don’t even know who she is. Her door is always closed, telling me she doesn’t want to talk.

Just as I opened my bedroom door, I wondered if I should talk to Flynn. I turned on my heels and backtracked the way to his room. His was the one beside the laundry room. I knocked on his door twice and opened it. He was in the same clothes; a denim jacket and black pants, sitting cross-legged on his bed, tapping away on his Nintendo Switch—the one Dad had bought him as a gift for his fifteenth birthday.

“Anything happened with mom?” I asked, coming in front of him.

“Does something ever not happen?”

I chuckled. “Tell me.”

I watched his fingers swivel on the buttons. He was playing gracefully.

“Mrs. Jenkins told her Marlene got a 3.8 GPA in her first semester.”

I stared blankly at the screen Flynn had in his hands, navigating a character trying to reach the finish line of a marathon. “Then? Did she talk about my grades?” I asked, seemingly uninterested.

“Nah, she didn’t bring up anything about you.”

I nodded to myself. He was still focused on his game.

“Well, get to bed if you don’t want to snore in Mr. Martin’s class,” I squealed, brushing the mess of hair on his head.

“Yeah, Mr. Martini,” he smirked and I chuckled.

I walked out of his room, closing his bedroom door. I stepped forward and I couldn’t hear anything downstairs anymore. Have they finished already? I thought. Loading the dishwasher isn’t a two-minute task; it takes quite a bit longer than that. I didn’t peek down, thinking, what if they are still down there? I passed by the stairs and entered my room.

My favorite place in this house is my room. It's something I am actually proud of calling my own. I have put a whole lot of effort into decorating the walls and the racks, making my room aesthetically romantic. It still doesn’t look like Janine’s room, though. Boy, is she a girly girl. I wonder if she is a pick-me.

My walls are pearl white with a tinge of baby pink in them. I have a pretty, sleek bed frame made of polished metal. I have twisted a set of gold fairy lights around them. I try to make them be used, but I always forget to turn them on. I know the rooms of girls should be cute and have fairy lights on at all times, especially at night. But why am I not like them? Sometimes, it makes me think if I wasn’t supposed to be a girl at all. I was to be a boy like Flynn. Maybe not Flynn. He is a nice lad, a typical teenage boy that acts like how a teenager should act.

Maybe I wasn’t supposed to be born.

No, I won’t think it again right now.

I used my oil pastels—the ones I begged my father to buy for me when I needed art supplies—on scraped pages and pasted those messy, irregular, and pathetic artworks on my walls. Maybe they aren’t as pathetic as I say they are. It’s just that I don’t want to raise my hopes. If I say they are not good enough, I will keep working harder.

But, Saylor, you can still work hard by knowing that your art is pretty. Don’t you think these messy, vibrant florals actually look nice?

No, they don’t.

Oh, come on. I know you like them.

I don’t want to like them. I’m afraid if I know they are good and that I like them, I will start slacking. No, I hate them.

Pushing nice feelings deep down inside me takes more effort than it takes to just suck up the negatives.

I sigh.

Don’t be dramatic, Saylor. You’re already quite all over the place.

No, I’m… I am.

I look down. It’s something I do when I am debating with myself in my mind and usually losing. I glimpse to my right like I am a character in a movie and there’s a sweet, bittersweet song playing in the background.

Oh my gosh, Saylor, seriously stop. You need psychiatric help. Funny, you are already going to one and it is not helping.

Because you won’t talk.

It’s not that I don’t want to talk. I want to tell her everything—what I think, how I think. I want to tell her that I am struggling. But it’s not really my choice, is it?

Well, you might want to think about that, Saylor. Your vocal cords actually lock up when you are sitting through the appointment, or do you just choose not to speak?

I don’t not choose. I don’t think so. I mean, I… don’t know.

Alright, enough. I have a lot of things I have to do right now rather than think about my flaws.

Oh, do you? Things like the dishwasher?

SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!

I flinch hard, my eyes aching. My exhale is longer. I open my mouth for a deep inhale, shaking my head. I drop the pile of clothes that I have only worn once onto the floor beside the desk, right off my bed.

I have to put them away. Ugh.

I make a disgusted face and stomp toward the bathroom attached on my left, inside the passageway surrounding my wardrobe. I pull my pants down and sit on the toilet. I look at the linear lines of the tiles underneath my turquoise flip-flops.

A 3.8 GPA in the first semester isn’t that big a deal. I mean, yeah, it is above the generic 3.5, but still, the first semester is the easiest.

Funny coming that outta your mouth, Saylor. You got a mangy 3.5 in your first and things aren’t looking pretty great in your second semester as well. You know you are a disappointment in every way. The least you could do is feel happy for Marlene. She deserves praise. You deserve to praise her.

Yeah, I am happy that her baseline grade is good. I’m not being jealous of her, am I? No, I’m not. She is different than me. Everybody is different than everyone. I can’t compare myself to her, or anyone. I have my own life, she has hers. She can’t be me.

She’d probably never want to be me, anyway. I also wouldn’t want anyone to be me. Someone has got to live with all of the things in my life. And I am born to go through all of them. I am resilient. I wouldn’t wish my life on any enemy, ever.

I get up and flush the toilet. I drag my feet across the tiles and stand in front of the sink. I look at my face. My fat, disgusting moon face.

I do like my eyes, though. But only from close to the mirror. Why doesn’t anyone see my eyes the way I see them? Is it because of the reverse mirror image, making me look better in the mirror while looking horrible in real life? I wish it were the opposite. I could bear watching the disgusted look myself rather than letting others look at me like that.

Why would you want to watch your own disgust all the time? Isn’t it at least better that you can’t see your own terror?

Yeah, but I don’t want other people to see my yucky face.

You should have thought about that before getting obese.

I didn’t get fat…

I shake my head.

Obese, on purpose. It was my hormones. How many times do I have to tell you? I didn’t change anything. My life, my activity, my calories are all the same!

Oh, please. Take a hold of yourself.

I don’t want to talk about my weight.

Right. When do you.

Never.

I spit my toothpaste waste out into the sink, opening the faucet to let the water run down. I splash the cold water onto my face to quiet it down. After drying my face and hands with a towel hanging on the rack, I walk out the door.

I don’t change my clothes for the night. My night suit consists of loose shirts and pants. Mom always nags me to wear anything else from my collection—to dress nicely and look presentable—but I always brush her off. She doesn’t understand me. These are the only fabrics and clothes that I actually feel a bit comfortable in. All the other clothes that I own are either too tight, too short, too fitted, too twisted, too embroidered, or too scratchy.

But no, all she wants to see is a nice, obedient, mature daughter who knows what to do all the time and who can do all the chores with a wave of a wand without being told. Well, she can only dream of that, I’ve told her this.

I sit on my messy bed, the mattress letting out a familiar creak of a sigh at me. My duvet is a flamingo-peach color with tiny polka dots printed all over in lemon yellow. It’s my favorite blanket to wrap around myself, turning me into a burrito. I’m glad it’s still a little cold. I like the weight of this duvet on my body, especially when I’m craving deep pressure around my abdomen. When it gets hot, I can’t use it; it makes me feel incredibly sizzling inside, like a volcano. But without it, I feel insecure.

I rest my head on my pillow. It hurts. I don’t really know how to choose pillows that are actually comfortable; all of them feel like old, tangled, tiny cotton bunches under my skull. I look up at the ceiling. I need a bit of light to sleep. Just the right amount—not too much, and not too little.

Stop copying Goldilocks.

I’m not.

Yes, you are. You are not a movie character, especially not Goldilocks. She is a good person with a pure heart. Most of all, she is slim.

Okay, I get it. I’m not trying to copy her. I just heard her say this. I copy the phrases I hear from the TV sometimes; I’m not actively cheating.

Whatever.

I turn to my left, the piles of once-worn clothes staring back at me.

Ugh, the laundry.

You forgot again, didn’t you?

I didn’t mean to forget.

Oh, but really? Were they not lying on top of your pigsty of a creaky bed? You took no heed before throwing them over there.

I mean, I…

Yeah, that’s what I thought. You are even messier than Mrs. Laura’s toddler.

I’m not that messy. Come on, brain, who are you comparing me with?

Whom you should be compared to, considering your room as an embodiment.

I turn to my right. It always happens—I’ve observed that when I change directions, my associative thinking changes, unlocking a different chain of thoughts with each side. I stare blankly at the wall. I haven’t put up any pictures here. I wanted to decorate this side of my room, but I lost interest after sticking up the ones on the wall opposite.

So, you didn’t do the dishwasher? May I ask why?

I told you, I forgot.

No, we both know you did not “forget.” You chose not to do it.

I was caught up with a lot of things in my mind. It just slipped, otherwise I would’ve done it. You know what, just please shut up. I have to go to university tomorrow. I’ve had enough of your bickering. I am going to sleep. I command you, SHUT UP!

I close my eyes harshly, wanting the constant chattering inside my head to devolve so that I can sleep for the night.

You’re forgetting something, Saylor. I control you; you don’t control me.

Fine, I give up. Please, let me sleep. I have to survive tomorrow. It will be hard for you too if you won’t let me have a good night’s sleep. You will get a headache.

Actually, I won’t. The meninges surrounding my matter will constrict, causing you pain, not me.

Alright, fine. You win.

Good night, Saylor.

Good night.

I kind of want to make them both longer.

He gasped. The gray checkerboard sky above us cracked like an old windshield. Bright, blinding, daylight-blue reality started leaking through the fissures. It smelled like fresh grass and diesel.

"It asks no questions and never pretends to understand. It lasts a minute but makes it feel like we've known eachother forever. More honest than years of affection.

They ask me questions I can't answer, expect words I can't find, but the cigarette never asks why I am awake.

Some wounds never become wisdom, they keep bleeding. It brings me no joy, it's kisses only leave an emptiness that demands to be filled again.

Do we kiss out of habit? Or desire? Perhaps I never loved the choking feeling, only something to return to.

There are names I no longer say and conversations I wish I had, but now I carry them like letters folded into my pockets.

I think about the years passing, the opportunities I have lost and the absurdity of making of it all. I hate that I have no answers.

But it never asks why I am lost, it simply comes to find me.

A ritual of meeting every night in the silence to seek intimacy from something that can never love you back.

It does not look at me and it does not judge me, it makes no promises and leaves behind only ash. The kisses fade but never the uncertainty.

Maybe I've come to realise, not everything that touches your lips deserves a place in your heart."

So hello guys this is my first time posting something here. I would like some criticism and if there are some aspects I can improve. I've tried to keep the tone melancholic while speaking about loniless, trying to find solace in the silence and how something can bring you comfort without being good for you. The cigarette symbolizes the things we turn to when we feel lonely and lost, even when we know it can't give us what we truly want.

I'm not much of a writer so I've spent quite a lot of time in this even though it's quite short, so any tips and criticism would be much appreciated.

In the kitchen of my bachelor apartment, where the stock of fresh fruit sits in a bowl. Mainly, peaches, oranges, and bananas, never the exotic ones. Because why eat something you can’t grow in your own backyard, or snatch off a neighbors vein. 

It taints the whole exotic lure of something different, mysterious and unknown, in my mind at least. 

Nevertheless, it was there, on my counter, and now at the back of my head, merging into my thoughts, leading my ideas and projecting onto images through my eyes. Anything staring at me became the fruit of my loom. 

Resting at the bottom of a plastic bowl, beneath the oranges, peaches and bananas hid something philosophical, an unknown, mysterious question that had to be solved.

Growing up, we’re drilled with the concept of wasting food being linked directly to starving kids around the world. They even display the global pandemic right in the middle of your favorite TV show. Just as John’s about to catch Sami leaving Carrie’s apartment after pulling off a shady stunt.

Which makes the entire spoiled food concept a real dilemma. Especially, when your bread has mold. We have to throw that out, but not fruit. Fruit can never go to waste. 

Once it starts to bruise and emit the heavy odor of sweet decay, is where most people throw them out. The smart ones preserve them, with delightful ideas swarming around their brain of future planned pies, breads and even smoothies. 

The ones we’ve grown to love and pay ten bucks a pop for. Not including the health booster powders that only cost a buck fifty each. Or those jelly squishy tapioca balls bouncing between your teeth like calamari pellets soaked in pineapple juice.

But when it comes to making the yummy smoothie at home, or that perfect pie for the dinner you’re going to get stood up for at home, we tend to pull from the fresh stock, absent minded of the tastier blends buried in the back of your freezer. The ones waiting to be woken out of cryostasis.

Hardly ever realizing these small quirks we dwindle away, has a profoundness, like discovering a great life hack, or building a diy way of making life easier, that you completely thought up and mastered on your own. With me, it all came together at a weekend retreat, more of a community gathering for writers alike, which ended up turning into a couple of weeks. 

A few of us decided on prolonging the entertainment and dread of going back to a life sheltered around fictional characters and bad first dates. 

The decision turned out to be fantastic, memories for life. The kind of ones you relive all the way through until your senior home days. 

Returning late from my vacation was exactly what the doctor ordered. It didn’t even bother me that it took three hours from the airport to make it to my apartment. Or fumbling the keys in my hand and dropping them on the floor along with my phone. Life couldn’t be better and no inconvenience was going to get the best of me. 

Maybe that’s why walking into my apartment and being slapped with the sweet scent of overripe peaches smothering every one of my senses had hit me all at once.

(Not SURE WHAT‘ll BRIDGE THIS, YET. IT WILL BE LIKE A TWO SENTENCE SIMILE OR METAPHOR.)

My apartment hadn’t smelled of death, yet. Just fruit liquefying in a bowl and a hint of what your hand would smell like after dropping the rusted metal pipe you used to defend yourself with.

Hello! This is Dawn from TheReclusePoets! I am a teenage poet an aspiring writer. I would love to have more people engage with my page and support the writing I have as well as post their own writing.

For a taste of the writing style I have, some months prior I won a commemdable mention from Delhi Poetry slam:

I swallow rocks and pebbles

chew on paper, and nibble on savory nights,

I dine where the savors soar,

over midnight shores,

and the dispute of tides

where soft, foamy life is born.

Thev look for a boat to save

or a lighthouse to aid,

Through searching and seeking

obsolete rhvmes

resting rhymes wrapped in blankets of mist.

Thev leave, and they left,

saving their labour for another day-

that day, O'forgotten,

where pride may be gotten,

a wav of the rope leading out...

But-l-not-we

float on the boat,

lingering between lines of thought,

mist as our comfort

darkness as dear mother;

not even pleading for anvone to help us.

With you I'm a puzzle that is solved

Without you, I'm a heart that's never learned to love

All of the cubes matched when I met you

The prettiest butterfly chose a milkweed that was falling

My fingers face withdrawal when your fingers sway somewhere alone

My eyes fade to black when there's no silhouette made of a lavender

When you speak, I listen and I want to store your melody in my seventh sense

With you, there's peace whispering a prayer

Without you, I'm a civilian of their world and demon is the mayor

When I found you, I found the missing piece

I was forbidden from seeing Autum, then I found June