IceDonut

IceDonut

25 | him/his | European

Writing since 2016 to find the fine line between the bittersweet beauty of sorrow and the feeling of deep human connection, creating worlds that provide shelter from reality, but also embrace its way of being.
I occasionally write comments/critiques that could be short stories on their own, so sorry for all the flooded comment sections ๐Ÿ˜…
Read into my current novel "Celluloid", if you are interested!

registered at: Sep 08, 2021
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    Participant - MAL x Honeyfeed Writing Contest 2022
    Participant - MAL x Honeyfeed Writing Contest 2023


    Jun 27, 2022

    Okay, that is actually funny. This whole setting gave me a big Chunibyo Vibe and they are really funny. ๐Ÿ˜‚
    Iโ€˜m interested about how it goes on, but I have to loose at least a word about your characterization: Donโ€™t show your readers that you actually put a lot of effort into building your characters, let the reader know. It is absolutely fine to tell a few relevant information and not show them, but too much from one or the other is not good as well.
    At this early point I do not have an affiliation with your characters. I donโ€™t have character sheets for each of them in my head that I just fill out with everything you throw at me. People remember things through connecting them with stuff they already know or through enough repetition. By now I did only remember Va since her name had been thrown enough at me and she is this kind of Chunibyo, which is a concept I already knew. I also remember there being a story about this guy who got bullied and then left alone after it was found out that he had been planning a shooting, there was the smart guy and the pretty boy, but donโ€™t ask me their names or how they look. And the whole reason why they met of course! ๐Ÿ˜‚
    Everything else was just too much to process. Bigger groups of people โ€žshouldโ€œ (if you know the rules you can also break them with intention) usually be introduced one by one with spacing between and referenced with unique distinguishable character traits or anatomical features that everyone has an association with. Ever wondered why anime characters have such colorful hair that ist mostly unique through the whole series? Colorcoding! Everyone understands the concept of color and hair and how to associate them with information about a character. And you can also do that in written language.
    That said it can be possible to pull off a introductory scene with that many characters. It just takes an insane amount of care.
    Without that in mind it can get hard to swallow, but it doesnโ€™t change the taste. As I said I really enjoyed the humor and will be reading onward from here. I am just a little scared to get lost in names and descriptions I wonโ€™t be able to match with the representation in my mind. But maybe I am just too bad with names, this is just my opinion and I am just seeing this more critical than it actually is. You still have the upcoming chapters to wipe off my concerns. ๐Ÿ˜œ๐Ÿ˜Š

    And sorry for the long comment ๐Ÿ˜…
    Here is a Donut for everyone who made it to the end ๐Ÿฉ

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    1
    The WTP Club
    Chapter:1






    Jun 25, 2022

    Okay, I must really say, that I abolutely love this setting. Especially such small islands far away at the sea with turqoise water a few hills, lush forrests, where everyone knows one another and so on. It is a different, more laid back kind of living focusing on different things than people in the big cities do.
    By now Yukio seems to not apprechiate all of this much, but I think his reaction to the view at the sea in this chapter also showed that deep down there is small and maybe really quite chord that got struck by the island and its inhabitants that most certainly will grow louder over time.

    The only thing that I - at least personally - could criticize is the predictability. I mean it is part of the formula of such a story to deliver exactly what it promised: Yukio will rediscover his love for the little island; both he and Hana will be clueless about their real feelings until the very end, where they first deny everything but suddenly come to realize it and find their way together. Maybe there are a few bumps on the way to spark a little variety, but the overall plot seems (at least up until now) to be a farily straight line.
    I can understand why people like this formula and I have been really content with it for a long time as well. It is the same with slice of life: It can be a sanctuary from real life to calm down from a stressful day - or to somehow get the love story that would never exist in real life. But the problem with such escapistic fantasies is that they are just fantasies in the end and povide only for a mostly crude moral compass in reality.
    So why not snap out of that straight line like you did with Yukios grandma being nice to him (Such scenes really make my heart open up)? Why not reveal that there are so much more layers to romance and friednship? Why delay the realizations of feelings to the very end and instead make Yukio realize earlier what his heart really feels? Why not elaborate on the feeling of him being unable to see Hana as a just a friend again? Why not make him confess right in the center of the story? And why not portray human interactions, friendship and ultimately love in the more realistic, jumbled up and complicated way they really are?
    Yeah, there are several good reasons: Not sparking too much drama, retaining a manageable writing schedule and of course fulfilling the expectations of readers. It is quite a stark balance to strike afterall. So don't take my rambling as a real critique or the impetus to start throwing over everything. I still like the standard romance. It is just that I can't get around it seeing all the potential for more vivid, colorful and real worlds that also incorporate a few tones of grey.
    But that is just my view on the topic. Maybe I am also doing you wrong and you planned on doing something like that. So I'll be silent now and sit back, waiting for the new chapters to unfold before me. ๐Ÿ˜Š

    And sorry for the long comment (sometimes it really slips out of hand ๐Ÿ˜…). Here is a Donut for compensation ๐Ÿฉ

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    1
    New Blue Memory Cover
    Blue Memory
    Chapter:4






    Jun 23, 2022

    To:Jio Kurenai

    Itโ€™s nice to meet you as well, who also seems to write rather long comments. I donโ€™t know why, but I myself seem to be unable to write short comments, so here we go again ๐Ÿ˜‚

    I definitely get the Problem you are facing there. It is always hard to strike a balance between literally everything. For this special case I would simply adapt the tools from a screenwriter into the toolbox of a novelist. In screenplays you can simply use a CUT TO: and then quickly change the scene or write whole montages of things that quickly happen after one another. To use them in prose you definitely have to modify that a bit to not loose the reader, but why not simply โ€œsnapโ€ between different scenes? You can even use โ€œmatch cutsโ€ to smoothen the transition. For example:

    The starting shot fell. I ran as fast as my body was able to. Lungs burning, feet aching, but I simply could only watch Allen move further and further away from me. My hand reached out for him, to close in on the distance, but I soon only reached for the airplane that disappeard in the sky to take him to a land far away. Far away from me.

    Something in the lines of that and chained with other events that led to one another. But not just that. The way of exposition you have right there ist already really good. So you could just build a few of this plot blocks in between them to also show a bit and not just tell everything. ๐Ÿ˜‰

    And I read the next chapter as well: You are definitely able to write with a great pacing. This prolog might get a bit longer, but possibly less exposition-heavy.
    But that would be just my approach. I hope it helps you somehow! ๐Ÿ˜Š

    I will definitely stay on the line with this story and am already thrilled to read more! ๐Ÿ˜

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    1
    The Parable of Shuxiang Academy [Short]
    Chapter:0