First time writing a story, would love any feedback

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jkshrink75
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First time writing a story, would love any feedback

Post by jkshrink75 » Tue Aug 10, 2021 7:16 am

Hey everyone! I’m very new here. I just tried my hand at writing a story for the first time and I wanted somewhere to post it. I’d love any feedback you’d give. I have more ideas on where this could go and would love to write more. Let me know what you think! And also let me know of any other places you’d recommend for me to post it. This is the first place I found and it seems great but I’ll always look to reach more people. Hope you enjoy!

A Shrunken Singer Situation

Crescendo, the local community show choir, was ready to perform. They had been preparing for weeks for the final concert of the year, the choral banquet. This years theme was “At the Movies”, and Crescendo as well as all the other choral groups had prepared movie songs to sing.

Crescendo first sang a movie a capella medley with lots of props, small dance moves and sketches and funny one liners, a crowd pleaser. After this performance everyone goes backstage to change into their next outfit.

The next performance is an 80s movie medley and the attire is 80s workout. Everyone gets into their colorful outfits, headbands, sweatpants, joggers, suspenders and shorts. Jacob is wearing a bright yellow shirt with black athletic shorts rolled up to act as short shorts. However, as Jacob is getting dressed he senses something is wrong.

Jacob leads a double life, living as a superhero as well as a high school student. He has the power to shrink and grow himself and others at will. A small select group of people in the whole world have this power. Some don’t use it at all and ignore it, some use it for good and for fun, and some use it to terrorize others. Jacob welcomes his powers and has had many adventures with villains who try and cause chaos and terror with it. Today however, Jacob is only trying to protect his final choir performance.

Over the years, Jacob has developed some new skills and gadgets through his adventures. One of these is a watch add-on that allows him to sense any shrunk person nearby and pinpoint their location. Jacob knows that if anything is gonna go down, he will be able to sense it.

With this slight bit of comfort despite the uneasy feeling, Jacob goes to take a seat. He sits in the audience with his 80s short shorts on and watches the other groups perform. He is sitting a few seats away from a few girls: Tess, Daphne and Carly.

Jacob is watching when his watch gives him a buzz. Someone is nearby. Jacob is sitting in the rightmost section of the auditorium, with the three girls sitting by the right center aisle. The watch’s small green mini map displays the layout of the auditorium and a small green dot in the right center aisle. And the dot is moving fast. A detail near the dot says 0.5 inches. Usually it says the name of the person but this just says “Unknown Name”.

The dot is moving closer to the row Jacob is sitting in. Jacob sits and wonders what this person has planned, but doesn’t want to make a scene during the performance. Jacob could shrink down and deal with it there, but he doesn’t want to seem suspicious by disappearing. In addition, he knows that as soon as he confronts this person, whoever this is will grow back to regular size. He will bring Jacob along with him and immediately make a fool out of Jacob and the fuss Jacob was trying to avoid.

Jacob, lost in thought and in music barely even notices when Daphne Tess and Carly start start looking very anxious. They feel a weird feeling, a vibrating sensation. Daphne turns to Carly and asks her, “Do you feel that?”. “Yeah like a weird vibrating ?” Carly responds. “Maybe the speakers are too loud” Tess suggests. Not a split second later they are gone. Jacob feels three more buzzes on his watch.

Jacob looks down and sees three small dots, labeled Tess, Daphne and Carly. 0.75 millimeters. And the original dot is completely missing. "Damn it!" Jacob thinks to himself. He was too lost in thought and now the three people next to him who were supposed to perform any minute were shrunk.

Jacob doesn't know what to do, and is incredibly confused. Who is this mysterious shrinker? Why did he pick those three girls? Why did he shrink them so incredibly small? And what was Jacob going to do?

This is an entirely new situation. He has never dealt with people who have never been shrunk before. He could only imagine how confused and utterly terrified they must be.

After the girls speculate about their tingling feeling, they so much as blink and everything changes. All of a sudden they're standing, not watching the show. All they see is that they're in a huge open area and the ground is entirely red underneath them. Large objects are in the distance but are too far away to make out anything about them.

"What happened?" Tess asks. "Where the fuck are we?"

"I have no idea", Daphne replies.

"What is all that stuff in the distance?" Carly asks.

"I'm not sure but let's start walking around" Tess suggests

Jacob sees that the girls start moving. He realizes that if they are to be safe at all he needs to explain to them what's going on and make the best of this chaotic situation.

Jacob decides that the best course of action in order to explain this to them is to talk to them in person. He didn't want to shrink before in order to not create a ruckus or confusion but that's clearly out of the window now. He still needs to be somewhat sneaky though, so he tries to contain the scenario as much as possible.

He first takes out his pocket size changing motorcycle and puts it on the ground. He sets up the settings on his watch to shrink himself to 0.75 millimeters and his bike proportional, and down he goes.

He hops on and starts riding over. He missed riding his motorcycle. He hasn’t been on an adventure like this in a long time, so just feeling the breeze of the tiny drive on his motorcycle gave him a brief moment of solace in an otherwise unpredictable situation.

“Hey do you see something coming towards us?” Tess asked

“Yeah I do. What the fuck could it be?” Daphne responded

“Jacob?! What the fuck are you doing here? Where are we what’s going on?”

“I know this is all crazy and what I’m about to tell you is shocking so please just listen to me, trust me, and don’t ask too many questions yet okay? I have this all under control” Jacob begins to tell them

Jacob in reality did not have this under control and did not have any idea of how to explain this, but the last thing he needed was for the girls to know that, so he tried to keep them as calm as can possibly be.

“First of all, I have superpowers. I can shrink and grow myself and others at will. Many of us are born with these powers and some use it for evil, so I spend lots of time fighting those forces. You can ask more questions about that later”

“So are we shrunk right now?” Carly asked him.

“Yes. We are standing right now at about 0.75 millimeters.”

Tess began to freak out. “Millimeters?! Less than one millimeter? So anyone can just come over and step on us, having no idea that we are here and we’d all instantly be dead!”

“Yes I understand, I will make sure you are all safe and it won’t be a problem. Let’s just try to stay calm and I’ll explain. Let me do a quick scan of your situation”

Jacob presses a few things on his watch and a green light scans over the girls.

“So here’s what this says. You guys have been shrunk and have to remain shrunk for one hour. If you change size, by me, the timer stops going down and will not go down again until you are this size again”

Daphne is confused. “Wait wait wait. Who shrunk us and why? Why us, why now?”

“I don’t know. Whoever did this is trying to inconvenience or harm me in some way, I promise it’s nothing about you in particular. You were just sitting near me at this moment. I’m gonna have to figure all that out after I get you guys safe.”

“So here’s the plan.” Jacob continued. “I’m going to go back to my seat and go back to normal size. I’m going to pick you guys up and bring you somewhere safe where I know where you are and you won’t be harmed. And hopefully I can think of somewhere that’s decent for you to hang out in a bit since it’ll be a while. When it’s time to perform I’ll bring you to normal size and when we come back I’ll bring you back down.

"What’s important is that you have to have your phones out. When I go back to normal size I won’t be able to hear you and I can’t talk aloud during the performance so I’ll be texting. And second of all, you have to trust me. I promise you will be perfectly fine in my hands. Okay?”

"What choice do we have?" Carly commented.

"We need your help so that sounds fine." Tess added.

"Great, I'll grow back and help you out. Just check your phones"

Jacob grew back to normal size quite close to the girls and appeared to be the size of a literal mountain. The girls stood at the base of his sneaker, which to them was roughly the size of the Chicago water tower. Looking up above the immense wall of plastic, was Jacobs short socks that didn't seem too short anymore, and some hairy legs. Anything above that was almost too high to even see clearly.

Jacob was cautious as he sat down, but it didn't matter as the girls were still terrified. Jacobs mountain like figure moved with such weight that the girls could hear the immense sounds of every move he made. The auditorium seat bottom falling down made an earth shattering thud, with another one coming as Jacob sat down.

Their phone binged. “I’m going to have to pick you up, please trust me that I got you and get on my finger”. Just as they heard the thud, they felt a small earthquake as Jacob’s finger hit the ground.

This wasn’t too helpful however, as the finger was almost as tall as a telephone pole, and extended as far as the eye could see. There was no way they would be able to get on top of his finger at .75 millimeters. “You’re finger is still too tall, there is no way we can get on it!” They texted him. “Then just grab onto the side. I promise I still got you.”

Up this close, the skin on Jacobs finger wasn’t so smooth, and they were able to grab on to the ridges of Jacobs finger. Jacob lifted his finger up, putting his other hand underneath just as a safety net.

“Oh my goodness we’re up so high” Daphne began to panic.

“Don’t worry about it, Jacob has got us. We’re pretty solid here on his finger anyway and we’ll be here for just a second” Tess reassured

They traveled through the air, with a thick breeze whipping their hair and face as they moved through the air. They didn’t say much more as it was hard to talk over this noise.

All of a sudden they found themselves right up against seemingly solid ground. They stepped out onto a large array of more ridged skin for them to walk across. All around them were tall brown trees scattered a few feet apart from each other. The landscape and trees went on for what felt like miles and miles.

“Where are we?” Tess texted Jacob.

“I needed to put you somewhere safe. Somewhere where you were in my control, where I could see you, and so I could free up my hands. So I put you on my left thigh. Not sure if it’s better or worse that I’m wearing shorts haha. Let me know if you need anything else I’ll probably leave you here for a bit if that’s ok” Jacob replied

“This is his leg?” Carly asked in disbelief. It looked so different at this size.

“So these are all of his leg hairs?” Tess presumed, walking up to one. She put her hand on it, surprised at how solid it felt, almost like a tree trunk. She looked up at the sheer height of this single hair, as it looked like it was at least 80 feet tall.

She took a seat on a smooth patch of skin with her back up against the leg hair.

“What are you doing?” Carly asked her.

“What else do we have to do? It’s a decent back rest” Tess responded

“I guess so”, Carly replied.

All three girls sat down with their backs against a leg hair as if they were sitting around the trunk of the tree

“This is still just so surreal. I’m finally getting a second to process everything.” Carly thought aloud.

Daphne replied, “Seriously, we’re 0.75 millimeters tall, sitting on Jacob’s humongous thigh with our back against his tree like leg hair. While we’re supposed to be at our Choral Banquet”

Tess didn’t quite seem phased by all of this. “Yeah it’s pretty wack alright, but I think I’m gonna take a nap. This is actually pretty cozy. Wake me up when we’re gonna perform”

While the girls tried their best to relax, Jacob did the same. He’d need to figure out exactly who was behind all this, but for now he wanted just a minute to take a deep breath. After all, he was still at the choral banquet and wanted to enjoy the music.

Every so often he would check on the girls. He could barely make them out they were so small, but if he bent over a bit and looked close enough he could see three little specks all there safely. They were also there on the map on his watch, so all was well

At this point, Tess couldn’t sleep and they had decided to walk around. They walked down his leg through what felt like endless hairs, the whole thing seeming like a forest to them. Eventually they came across a tall black wall.

“What is that?” Tess asked

“I think we’ve reached the edge of his shorts” Carly responded

The bottom edge of his shorts was about the size of a wall, and they could see above it black fabric extending as far as the eye can see. They climbed up on top of it to continue exploring, and found the fabric hard to walk across. It moved and swayed underneath them, despite how little they weighed.

Jacob lost sight of them at this point and asked where they were.

“We’re on your shorts now” Tess texted him.

Jacob bent down to look, and found them, as they were a little easier to see clearly on the black fabric. He bent down to see them clearly, and had to get super close since they were so small. The girls watched as the immense structure that is Jacob’s face came into view for the first time in a while, as they couldn’t see that far up before.

The girls looked up and all they saw was an eyeball that appeared to them as being 120 feet tall. His eye was moving around so quickly it almost gave the girls a headache just watching it. In no time at all Jacob blinked and the wind from his giant moving eyelid blew the girls over, falling off of the shorts and back onto his leg.

“Jeez, we are so small and insignificant we got knocked over by a fucking blink” Tess said as she got stumbled back up to her feet

Jacob, who didn’t see anything since he blinked, didn’t notice and moved his head back up.

It was about time to go perform again, and Jacob got up to go regrow then in a back room. As Jacob moved, the girls on his leg felt like an earthquake was happening. Every time Jacob’s foot hit the ground his whole leg shook. Despite Jacob’s thigh now being vertical while walking instead of horizontal while sitting, the girls weren’t in any danger of falling. They were so small, that they were pulled by Jacob’s gravitational field and not the Earth’s, something Jacob checked on his watch before getting up.

The girls were having a terrible time. All three held onto the leg hair for dear life, just to avoid falling over and tumbling around.

Carly was really frustrated. “Is this really the best way to travel safely with us? It feels like a massive earthquake with every step you take!” Carly texted him

“Oh my gosh I’m so sorry! I knew you weren’t in danger of falling off but I didn’t think about that happening. I’ll figure out something better for next time. We’re here now” Jacob replied

They had made it to a private back room where he was able to grow them back to regular size without anyone seeing. He put his finger to his leg for them to grab onto again. The girls were more comfortable this time with it as they had done it once before. He brought them back to the ground, a few buttons on his watch and they were regular size again.

“Wow does this feel nice again” Daphne says, feeling her regular sized body.

“Don’t get used to it” Jacob responded. “You are almost there though, it’s been 40 minutes. Only 20 more after this performance”

After they sang their next song, they all walked back to the same room they were in before. Jacob set his watch settings to 0.75 millimeters and shrunk all three girls in a flash of light. This time he shrunk down himself, with the motorcycle a bit bigger so they would all fit on it, for a much easier and more comfortable way back to their seats.

On the way back, Jacob was weaving his way through giant shoes when he saw something he didn’t expect: another motorcycle coming straight towards them. This motorcycle was bigger than them. This was clearly the mysterious person who shrunk the girls. His watch told them this was about 3 inches tall, but at their size he still looked about as tall as a giraffe, and the motorcycle being bigger could easily run them over and cause some serious damage.

Jacob needed to think fast. At this size, the cracks in the tile floor were pretty big chasms that he had been jumping over. This time, he did a wheelie and jammed the back wheel of the motorcycle into the crack sending the front end up and launching himself into the air careening ahead. He grows back to regular size, while moving forward, putting himself standing right above the mysterious figure. Jacob can see him fiddle with his watch trying to change size, but he isn’t fast enough, as Jacob bends over to pick him up, with his thumb pressed against the mans chest.

Jacob uses his other hand to flip over his hood, revealing a boy around his age, with short brown hair, super skinny and a lot of freckles. His time is short lived, however, as this guy bites down on Jacob’s finger, causing Jacob to let go. He watches as the freckled man falls, before pressing some buttons on his own watch and shrinking away and escapes, too small to be seen.

Jacob shrinks back down to be with the girls. He looks at his watch and tells them that they only have 12 minutes left of the hour. They are done performing for the night, and the show will be over in just about 12 minutes so they decide to hang back stage for the remainder of their time.

They take a joyride on the motorcycle, after they pull it out of the crack in the floor, and the girls ask some questions.

Carly asks “Did you find out who that was? Why did he shrink us?”

“I didn’t, but I was able to take off his hood and get a good look at him. Once we’re done here I’ll head back to headquarters and see if there’s any history of a guy that looks like him”

“Headquarters?” Tess asks. “There’s more of you shrinking people? And you have a base? That’s so cool! Can I come see HQ?”

“Sure!” Jacob replies. “And if you want, I can see if you can join us too!”

“Holy shit that’d be so cool! I’m in” Tess responded.

“Great. When we get over there, we’ll start your training and get you ready for initiation” Jacob concluded

Tina-Tiny
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Re: First time writing a story, would love any feedback

Post by Tina-Tiny » Fri Aug 13, 2021 5:03 pm

Hi.

You've created a delightful little work of fiction that has some good potential.

I would break down my advice to you into 3 points:
1) Maintain your tense
You switch between present tense and past tense multiple times throughout the story. I would recommend going through and changing it all to past tense. It will help with the immersion.

2) Introduce details more subtley
You tell us that Jacob is a size changing superhero with gadgets very early on. What if...instead...you just told the story. Jacob sitting, waiting for the choral show....suddenly a beep comes from his pocket. looking around to make sure others don't notice, he checks a strange watch, viewing the map-like face which shows a single dot and "O.5 Inches".
"Time to go to work," Jacob thinks. Then you can explain that he belongs to this special group of people.
If you present details slowly to your audience, their minds will be trying to put together the puzzle and it will engage them a lot more.

3) Rewrite or remove unnecessary bits
Certain parts of this seem like they add good information to your universe, but may actually just be distracting.
Example: “So here’s what this says. You guys have been shrunk and have to remain shrunk for one hour. If you change size, by me, the timer stops going down and will not go down again until you are this size again”

This is a cool bit, but it doesn't make sense. In addition, it's never brought up again. You could just casually mention that they are stuck for an hour and be done with it. It will be just as compelling.



I think if you keep the above three points in mind, it will raise your already decent writing up to another level.

Keep at it! :)

-Tina

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