Please Critique

Summary:

3rd times a charm! Looking for greenlights

Please Critique

LBloxo 27 Jul 2020 01:51

Seeking Greenlights: Yes

Page Type: SCP Article

Genre (Optional): Emotional/Sad

Elevator Pitch: This story is written to show that even at your darkest hour, there is always a good ending, what you are feeling is not permanent, and you are valued in more ways than you can possibly imagine. There is always someone to talk too, you just have to look.

Central Narrative: A Canadian young man named Joseph was a prodigy in most fields, especially computer science, engineering and physics, first to attend college at the age of 12, and with loving and supportive parents, he was one of the luckiest boys in the world. Until he wasn’t, when he was 13, on the way back home from college, their car was hit and was subject to a four car pile-up, he was the only survivor. With an inability to let go of his parents, and several massive scars on his body acting as burning reminders of his loss, he fled society into the vast forest where he made a home for himself, where he tried to construct a device capable of going back in time. Days became weeks, weeks became months, months became years. On the 19th of March, 2020, he conducted the 124th test of his machine, but it failed, horribly, the machine created a disruption of local space-time, causing a gravitational disturbance. The foundation quickly found the source and confiscated all of Joseph’s research, and took him into custody where he sank even deeper into depression, leading to suicidal tendencies. However, with nine months of counselling, he was able to overcome his inner demons and finally let his parents go, and then at the age of 18, he was employed by the foundation as a researcher.

Hook/Attention-Grabber: This is a story about loss, a teenager barely 17 attempting the impossible to travel back in time to stop his parents from crashing in their car. However, he is discovered by the foundation, and his research is confiscated.

Additional Notes: I’m trying an entirely new approach to SCP writing, where the SCP is merely an accessory to the narrative.

Last edited on 27 Jul 2020 04:44 by LBloxo Show more

Re: Please Critique

(account deleted) 27 Jul 2020 03:06

DISCLAIMER: I am not a certified critter. I can't give greenlights

Joseph was a prodigy in most fields, especially computer science, engineering and physics, first to attend college at the age of 12

Why is this important?

Think about it, he could be just an average scientist trying to create something extraordinary to change the past… I mean, in a good story the motivations of the main character are the key to push the narrative forward. Make the readers feel invested in your MC (in my opinion)

With an inability to let go of his parents, severe PTSD, crippling depression, and several massive scars on his body acting as burning reminders of his loss, he fled society into the vast forest where he made a home for himself, where he tried to construct a device capable of going back in time.

I'm compeletly sure ceritified critters are gonna comment on this…

You have an entire narrative just in the first part… PTSD, depression are a tale on their own.

Think about it. People sometimes never recover from PTSD or depression, to motivate a character to act on this premise is something hard to pull off. Instead of PTSD or depression you could add some traits that could explain his obsession in creating a time machine even if it's impossible for him…

In summary instead of creating a perfect and super OP character, you can tell the story of a flawed person who is trying his best to create a time machine…

Also, you might try leaving the idea of this as an SCP article, and writting a tale instead.

Sorry if I sounded mean, it wasn't my intention, but I think that a different focus on this story can actually be something interesting to read.

Hope this helps!!!

+ DARK SPOILERS

This has strong DARK vibes (Netflix) and that's not a bad thing.

Last edited on 27 Jul 2020 03:07 by (account deleted) Show more

Re: Please Critique

LBloxo 27 Jul 2020 04:53

You didn't sound mean at all, you where very helpful.

And now that I think about it, it would be very hard to do anything productive if you had PTSD AND depression, so I'll remove it.

And just to clarify about the MC, making a perfect character was not my intention at all, he is merely has gifted intelligence. Besides, if you where obsessed with building a time machine to save your dead parents for more than 5 years, I'd think your pretty crazy. Like a Tell-Tale Heart situation.

Re: Please Critique

OCuin 27 Jul 2020 02:31

[Placeholder from PM]

[+] Overall

However, with nine months of counselling, he was able to overcome his inner demons and finally let his parents go, and then at the age of 18, he was employed by the foundation as a researcher.

Alright, so before I get to anything else, I wanna talk about this briefly. I'm speaking here as someone who has an extensive history of mental health issues, including some experienced by Joseph in your narrative. This is something I don't believe. Perhaps others will find it more realistic but in my (very personal) experience, mental health issues are very rarely fixed by just 9 months of therapy. Fighting mental illness is a constant, unending battle. It's a painful and extremely long journey. This feels like a vast oversimplification of it to me. There is the argument to be made that stories don't have to be realistic in this regard, but given the overall tone and atmosphere of your idea, it feels like a disservice to portray mental illness recovery in what is, comparatively, a rather simple recovery. Like I said, perhaps others will find it more believable than me, but having it so Joseph has 9 months of therapy and then he gets over all his inner demons and the deaths of his parents feels unrealistic and unsatisfying narratively.

I'm not sure exactly what the anomaly is here, is it the attempted time travel machine or the gravitational disturbance caused by the failure of that machine? I recognise you're attempting to keep the anomaly as a MacGuffin and little else, but it's a fundamental part of the format, and it's going to be your inroads to telling the story itself, so it would be good to better know what it actually it.

I'm not hugely a fan of the narrative premise here; the child genius is a cliche so over-utilised it's essentially become its own genre, and the execution here doesn't feel like it really does a whole pile to elevate that. It subverts some of the genre tropes but ultimately feels like it adheres too much to the ideas set out by the premise. Perhaps it's just not for me, but it feels like this doesn't do anything interesting with the ideas set out by the premise, and whilst it doesn't have to break ground, it would be nice to see something new out of this trope.

The general narrative arc here isn't bad, but it's not really my thing, and it feels very reliant on tropes and ideas already set out by other writers in a way that doesn't enthuse me. Perhaps other reviewers would be more suited to critiquing this idea.

Last edited on 29 Jul 2020 16:37 by OCuin Show more

Re: Please Critique

Naveil 01 Aug 2020 21:08

[Placeholder from PM]

So my main gripe here is that you're not really explaining this in the context of this being an SCP article. The way you've laid this proposal out makes it feel more like a tale.

Don't get me wrong - I can see how this would be an SCP. But as it stands, you haven't elaborated on how you want it to be one. How do you plan to express the narrative? Interview logs? Addendums? The fact that you're only touching on the narrative and not how you want to incorporate it, once again, reinforces my point on how this feels more like a tale.

That's not to be disingenuous - the fact that you're putting narrative first is good. But as it stands, how you want to express the narrative takes just as much, if not more importance as the narrative itself, especially for narrative heavy articles such as this one.

As for the narrative itself, it's alright? I can see the potential emotional energy, but it just feels like a fairly generic "trying to save your deceased loved ones" story. Something like this relies heavily on execution, but even so, you should be thinking about how you want to differentiate yourself from the crowd.

Last edited on 02 Aug 2020 16:03 by Naveil Show more