Looking for feedback on whatever this is

[Conker 485]

So the TL/DR is that I was going to write a two-page short story to an instrumental EP my friend put out. Write for half an hour, edit for like five minutes, done. Stream of consciousness and all that shit.

That did not fucking happen!

What I'm sitting on now is...I guess the start to a kid's book. There are five installments written and two posted on my dumb blog that is mine and also dumb, and I'm wondering if I should actually do something with this. It's been really fun to write and I kinda like where it's going, though it might be cliche as fuck.

I also sort of hate children so writing a book for them is strange.

Or it's not a kid's book. I dunno. Main character is eight.

https://conkersblog.wordpress.com/2016/03/06/streams-chapter-1-were-a-long-way-from-home/

What I have at the moment is I guess more of an outline than anything, since that's really short for a chapter. I'd have to make them all bigger, flesh things out, etc. But tonally?  Yeah, I guess that's what I want. Same with the writing style. Ideally there would be a bit more descriptions going on, but I've been purposefully trying to keep these short.

I don't normally work with "cute" so I dunno if I'm hitting any of it at all. Last time I had this much fun writing though, I churned out a 430 page book, so I'm kinda tempted to follow this, but I also want to know if I'm doing it right. Whatever "IT" is.

[FlynnCoyote 808]

Quote

it was impossible to only eat just one.

A redundant word here. Only eat one or eat just one. Not both.

There are some odd structuring choices in this as well. You alternate between new stanzas and new paragraphs for a new character's speech or actions a couple times in odd places, and there doesn't seem to be any real reason why this is the case.

Storywise, it works. The hook is nice and early, subtle but intriguing and the cliffhanger at the end of the second chapter does leave me curious. All in all it's done pretty well, and stretching it out into longer chapters could do it a lot of good.

 

[Conker 485]

11 hours ago, FlynnCoyote said:

A redundant word here. Only eat one or eat just one. Not both.

There are some odd structuring choices in this as well. You alternate between new stanzas and new paragraphs for a new character's speech or actions a couple times in odd places, and there doesn't seem to be any real reason why this is the case.

Storywise, it works. The hook is nice and early, subtle but intriguing and the cliffhanger at the end of the second chapter does leave me curious. All in all it's done pretty well, and stretching it out into longer chapters could do it a lot of good.

 

You think so? Got any specific examples? I know I wrote this for the blog, so I tried to keep some paragraphs and such shorter and more choppy for internet reading, but I don't think I deviated too outside my normal writing.

Also I just realized I never updated some of these with where to finds chapter three, four, and five. Though chapter five is kind of a mess, if I'm being honest. Whole thing needs work, but I do believe I"ll come back to this at some point.

[FlynnCoyote 808]

I see what you mean on the structuring, it may just be that.
 

Quote

 

Rain did. Her map was different. The sea was still on it, and still expertly colored in crayon, but now there were other things in the way, places and landmarks she had not drawn. “I don’t understand,” Rain whispered, feeling that twinge of fear return, only now there were no adults. That was bad. An adult could fix this.

“You crossed the threshold,” the cat said. “Things have changed.”

They had. The stream now followed a zigzagging path through the countryside until it wound its way between a series of mountain peaks. Rain had never been this far from home, but she was very sure there weren’t any mountain ranges where she lived. Her teachers would have said something about that. They would have also mentioned the series of towns and cities between her and the sea, none of which Rain recognized. Most were out of the way, but one, a single house drawn in blue, was right on the stream.

“You should have listened to me,” the cat said.

 

I feel like the paragraph between the two instances of the cat speaking could all be one paragraph. It would be big but there isn't anything inherently wrong with that happening now and then.
 

Quote

 

The cat said another bad word, this one much worse than the last one, and Rain turned to leave. Her mother always told her not to make friends with people who said bad words, and her mother was right. Rain wasn’t entirely sure how that rule applied to talking cats, but it didn’t matter. She had a new destination, and when she got there, she could get the help she needed.

Maybe whoever owned the blue house had a car and could just drive her to the sea.

Rain walked for awhile, though every time she checked her watch, the time hadn’t changed. It was still only a few minutes after 11:00. She tried not to let it bother her, mostly because the cat was still following her and she didn’t want it to know she was upset. The cat was mean and would only make fun of her.

 

A single line paragraph between two others that would probably fit better as part of the one above. Just examples like this are all through the story and they seem to break up the structure of it far more than is necessary.

[Conker 485]

Ah. Alright yeah. Totally see where you're coming. that second example is a prime case of "small paragraphs because internet has shit attention spans" though I probably would have done that first bit like that regardless. Something to consider as I keep working on things.

Thanks for reading/feedback by the way! Much appreciated.