Non-native english speaker needs critique

[Aviala]

Hey there! As the title suggests, I'm not a native English speaker, and I'm worried about the quality of my writing. I do my best and I don't think my writing is awful but I'd really appreciate some constructive criticism!

The following is a part of my upcoming VN. I tried give the MC/narrator a kind of... witty voice? The scene starts after the characters have lost in a multiplayer computer game. Warning: The text includes some swearing because I know from experience that gamers tend to swear a lot... Tell me if it's too much!


n “It’s GG.”
t “It’s not fucking GG! I call hacks.”
k “Come on, Tim. We have to face it.”
k “Can’t win a fight when our teamwork makes you think we’re all blind, deaf and playing on Russian potatoes.”
“Everyone laughed, even Timothy. I did, too. The joke was funny because we all knew it’s true. At this rate we’d never win the tournament and all those months of hard work – if you can call gaming work – would go to waste.”
“We’re all high-level players from around the country. We found each other in-game and the team was born. Well, I wasn’t a part of it at that time – I had only been playing with these guys for a month or so.”

“They’re all fun to play with but I can’t really say I knew them very well at that point.“
“But I do know that as individual players, they’re the best of the best. I’m pretty sure they all have over 10 000 hours of playtime on their records. That’s over 400 days, if it's hard to grasp the sheer amount of work that has went into mastering the game. Compared to them, I’m a complete newbie, even though I know for a fact that I’m still one of the best in this area.”
“These people are professional gamers.”
#sound effect here

Mom “Nigel? Nigel? Are you playing again? Come downstairs, now!”
“I sighed. That tone of her voice is awfully familiar.”
“ I made sure to mute my microphone before answering.”
n “Just a sec! I’m closing the game now!”
“I activated the microphone again.”
n “Sorry, guys. My mom needs to talk to me.”
a “Again? She’s like, the queen of pestering.”
k “Roger that. Join the call again after that though, your captain needs you in a secret meeting.”
t “Ooh, secret! Don’t miss out, N!”

“I put the computer to sleep and hurried downstairs through the carpeted hallway. I passed all the mom’s paintings and the cow was staring at me again. It always did, and for some reason it always felt menacing. The cowgirl in the painting never managed to soothe the feeling. As I child I figured she wasn’t very good at her job.“
“I know it’s stupid but ever since I was a kid I always passed the cow painting as fast as possible. I know it wasn’t gonna attack me, and it’s a freaking cow, not a… lion, for example, but I still felt my feet picking up the pace.”
“When I arrived into the kitchen I saw my mom and dad sitting there with serious expressions. They glanced at each other and I immediately forgot the silly cow. Actually, I forgot everything, because apparently it was Time To Talk and I felt like panicking.”
n “What did you wanna talk about?”
Dad “Well, your mother and I have been thinking that… Well, how do I say this…”
“My mom gave dad an annoyed tap on the back of his head.”
Mom “We need you to move out.”
Mom “You’re old enough to live on your own. You just sit there in your room, playing games and talking to people you don’t even know. And swearing like a sailor!”

Mom “This is not a hotel. Get a job and start paying your own bills. You can’t expect us to take care of you forever.”
“It hit me like a wrecking ball with a half-naked Miley Cyrus on it. And when you’re not into girls OR wrecking balls, that’s less than an ideal situation.”
“The worst thing was that I knew my parents were right. I’m a loser who plays computer games all day long. I’m also so lazy that it’s hard to believe it myself. I never helped my mom with the household chores. I already finished school, too, so I was unemployed.”
“It’s only logical that they’d want to get rid of me but the fact still made me stiff with fear. I’m supposed to be an educated, sophisticated person but the reality is that I slept through most of my classes and barely made it through college.”
n “There’s no way I can pay my own bills. I don’t even know how to cook!”
Mom “Well, better start learning soon. We want you out of here by the end of the month.”

[Mad Harlequin]

Suggested corrections:

n “It’s GG.”

t “It’s not fucking GG! I call hacks.”

k “Come on, Tim. We have to f Face it. We lost.”

k “Can’t win a fight when our teamwork makes you think we’re all blind, deaf and playing on Russian potatoes.” ("On Russian potatoes" is an expression I've never heard before. Does it mean the gamers appear to lack skill?)

“Everyone laugheds,. eEven Timothy. I did, too. The joke was is funny because we all knew know it’s true. At this rate we’dll never win the tournament, and all those months of hard work – if you can call gaming work – would go to waste.”

“We’re all high-level players from around the country. We found each other in-game and the team was born. Well, I wasn’t a part of it at that time – I had only been playing with these guys for a month or so.”

“They’re all fun to play with but I can’t really say I knew them very well at that point.“

“But I do know that a As individual players, they’re the best of the best. I’m pretty sure they all have over 10 000 ten thousand hours of playtime on their records. (Ten thousand hours each, or combined?) That’s over 400 four hundred days, if it's hard to grasp the sheer amount of work that has went into mastering the game. Compared to them, I’m a complete newbie, even though I know for a fact that I’m still one of the best in this area. I'm one of the best in this area, but compared to them, I'm a complete newbie.”

“These people are professional gamers.”

Mom “Nigel? Nigel? Are you playing again? Come downstairs, now!”

“I sighed. That tone of her voice is awfully familiar.”

“ I made make sure to mute my microphone before answering.”

n “Just a sec! I’m closing the game now!”

“I activated the microphone again.”

n “Sorry, guys. My mom needs to talk to me.”

a “Again? She’s, like, the queen of pestering.”

k “Roger that. Join the call again after that though, your captain needs you in a secret meeting. Rejoin the call when you're done, though. Your captain needs you in a secret meeting.”

t “Ooh, secret! Don’t miss out, N!”

“I put the computer to sleep and hurried hurry downstairs through the carpeted hallway, past all of Mom's paintings. I passed all the mom’s paintings and the cow was staring at me again. It always did, and for some reason it always felt menacing. The cowgirl in the painting never managed to soothe the feeling. As I child I figured she wasn’t very good at her job. I don't bother looking at the one of the cowgirl. The cow she's wrangling stares at me menacingly every time I walk by. For some reason, it always unsettles me.“

“I know it’s stupid, but ever since I was a kid I've always passed the cow painting as fast as possible. I know it wasn’t gonna attack me, and it’s a freaking cow, not a… lion, for example, but I still felt my feet picking up the pace. avoided that cow. I know it's not gonna attack me. It's a freaking cow, not a lion! But I still feel my feet picking up the pace.”

“When I arrived intoreached[/s] the kitchen I saw my momMom and dad Dad sitting there with serious expressions on their faces. They glanced at each other and I immediately forgot the silly cow. Actually, I forgot forget everything, because apparently it was it's Time To Talk. and I felt feel like panicking.”

n “What did you wanna talk about?”

Dad “Well, your mother and I have been thinking that … Well, h How do I say this…? ”

“My mom Mom gave gives dad Dad an annoyed tap on the back of his head.”

Mom “We need you to move out.”

Mom “You’re old enough to live on your own., butY you just sit there in your room, playing games and talking to people you don’t even know. And swearing like a sailor!”

Mom “This is not a hotel. Get a job and start paying your own bills. You can’t expect us to take care of you forever.”

“It hits me like a wrecking ball with a half-naked Miley Cyrus on it. And when you’re not into girls OR or wrecking balls, that’s a less than an ideal situation.”

“The worst thing was that I knew know my parents were are right. I’m a loser who plays computer games all day long. I’m also so lazy that it’s hard to believe it myself. I've never helped my mom with the household chores. I'm already finished school, too, so I was I'm unemployed.”

“It’s only logical that they’d want to get rid of me, but the fact I'm still made me stiff with fear. I’m supposed to be an educated, sophisticated person, but the reality is that I slept through most of my classes and barely made it through college.”

n “There’s no way I can pay my own bills. I don’t even know how to cook!”

Mom “Well, you'd better start learning soon. We want you out of here by the end of the month.”

Well, for a non-native English speaker, you've done quite well! Keeping your tense consistent seems to be your biggest problem right now, so take the time to learn about and practice writing in different tenses. Based on this sample, though, you sound like you want to stick to present tense narration.

[Aviala]

Thanks for the critique!

I struggled with the tenses a lot, that's true! It was hard to decide whether to have the narration in past or present tense. I chose past tense because some of the sentences sound really stupid in present tense imo.

Especially this one but some others as well:
“It hits me like a wrecking ball with a half-naked Miley Cyrus on it."

It just doesn't sound right in present tense, but I really like the sencence in past tense. I don't think this kind of witty style of narration really works in present tense because it feels more like someone is telling a funny story. I can't imagine someone actually thinking like that. What do you think, should I really change the whole thing (plus everything else that I've written) into present tense and delete all my favourite lines of the story?

[cuttlefish]

A lot of gamers might swear, but your gamer characters don't have to, unless you want your characters to be gamers who swear.

I've seen "gg" used in chat, but I think one normally says "good game" over the mic (and it would just be clearer).

So for that part, I'd suggest

Code: Select all

n "Good game."
t "Fuck that! I call hacks!"

Or Timothy could say something like "Good fucking game my ass!" or "That was no good fucking game!" for the first bit.

I also don't quite understand the Russian potatoes joke. Is "k" saying that, by the way they played (and lost) the game, one might think they were playing the game on Russian potatoes rather than computers? There might be something better to compare their computers to (sorry, nothing good comes to mind at the moment).

As for the tense of your narration, I think past tense is fine. I see no reason why you should rewrite everything in present tense. Using past tense or present tense for narration is okay, you just have to be consistent (i.e., don't switch between past and present tense in narration willy-nilly). On a related note, I can't say Nigel's narration sounds very witty to me. He sounds pretty average, in fact, by how he reacts and what he reveals about his current situation. (Or maybe I'm not picking up on the satire or something?)

What you’ve posted has some grammatical errors, and some sentences might need rephrasing, but overall your English is quite good. You can have your writing proofread/edited later. I won't do an in-depth proofreading/edit, but one more suggestion I have is changing "And when you’re not into girls OR wrecking balls, that’s less than an ideal situation." to

Code: Select all

And when you’re not into Miley Cyrus OR wrecking balls, that’s less than an ideal situation.

Or else, replace "Miley Cyrus" with "girl" in the sentence before if you really mean Nigel has no interest in girls at all and not just Miley Cyrus.

[Aviala]

Thanks, cuttlefish! I'll find an editor once I have more writing done.

The russian potatoes thing is gamer slang and in this case kenneth means that it seems like they are playing on really bad computers. It's a phrase I hear pretty often when I play but I guess it was kinda silly to put it into a VN script because most people don't know what it means. I'll change it, thanks for the advice!

GG is something I hear very often, even in spoken language. When you watch e-sports the phrase is very commonly used by the narrators. And people I play with use it almost more often than "good game". I might change it too, though, since it might be too hard to understand. I still need to consider this one though.

Oh, and about the Miley Cyrus vs. girls thing: Nigel is actually gay so the sentence is good the way it is. : > I'm writing a BL visual novel.

[Mad Harlequin]

I've seen "gg" used in chat, but I think one normally says "good game" over the mic (and it would just be clearer).

I've heard a few people say "GG," but yeah, it's a good idea to write out the full phrase at least once just for clarity.

As for the tense of your narration, I think past tense is fine. I see no reason why you should rewrite everything in present tense. Using past tense or present tense for narration is okay, you just have to be consistent (i.e., don't switch between past and present tense in narration willy-nilly)

This is also true. But based on the introspection Nigel does later, it seems odd to write this in past tense---unless, of course, this story is being told years afterward by a more mature Nigel. "My parents were right. I was a loser" just doesn't sound right to me otherwise.

I won't do an in-depth proofreading/edit, but one more suggestion I have is changing "And when you’re not into girls OR wrecking balls, that’s less than an ideal situation." to

Code: Select all

And when you’re not into Miley Cyrus OR wrecking balls, that’s less than an ideal situation.

Or else, replace "Miley Cyrus" with "girl" in the sentence before if you really mean Nigel has no interest in girls at all and not just Miley Cyrus.

I had no problems understanding this. The wrecking ball metaphor is a reference to the Miley Cyrus song. Nigel reacts to the wrecking ball's "presence" by saying he's interested in neither girls (Miley Cyrus is one) nor wrecking balls.

[Aviala]

I've seen "gg" used in chat, but I think one normally says "good game" over the mic (and it would just be clearer).

I've heard a few people say "GG," but yeah, it's a good idea to write out the full phrase at least once just for clarity.

As for the tense of your narration, I think past tense is fine. I see no reason why you should rewrite everything in present tense. Using past tense or present tense for narration is okay, you just have to be consistent (i.e., don't switch between past and present tense in narration willy-nilly)

This is also true. But based on the introspection Nigel does later, it seems odd to write this in past tense---unless, of course, this story is being told years afterward by a more mature Nigel. "My parents were right. I was a loser" just doesn't sound right to me otherwise.

[/quote]

If I added a storytelling element to the story, would it feel more natural? I could add in a small part in the beginning where older Nigel starts his story, and depending on the ending, he'd finish the story in a different way.

[Mad Harlequin]

Yes, I think doing a frame story could make it work. Then the older Nigel could occasionally interrupt the story with comments including "My parents were right. I was a loser," and so on.

[Applegate]

I regularly say and hear "gg" when speaking over voice chat.

I also don't quite understand the Russian potatoes joke. Is "k" saying that, by the way they played (and lost) the game, one might think they were playing the game on Russian potatoes rather than computers? There might be something better to compare their computers to (sorry, nothing good comes to mind at the moment).

I can explain the joke, I think. The narrator is either playing League of Legends or DOTA2, and in either case Russians have a terrible reputation. Whenever someone loads slow or suffers "lag" due to low computer specs, the joke is often made that you're playing on a "potato". Russians play on all servers, so Russians on a US server have terrible ping. A "Russian potato" is a computer that is both on the low-end of specs, but also in a distant country, meaning your reactions are completely delayed and you play like you're always ten seconds behind everybody else.

My own comment on the writing is to focus on the way the characters speak. This is an issue I struggle with myself as well, where characters tend to speak rather, well, politely to the English eye. K in particular has a streak of this, though they may just be polite themselves. "We have to face it" has no contractions where it'd be normal to use them which causes this effect. People who're agitated also tend to use shorter sentences.

[Applegate]

I regularly say and hear "gg" when speaking over voice chat.

I also don't quite understand the Russian potatoes joke. Is "k" saying that, by the way they played (and lost) the game, one might think they were playing the game on Russian potatoes rather than computers? There might be something better to compare their computers to (sorry, nothing good comes to mind at the moment).

I can explain the joke, I think. The narrator is either playing League of Legends or DOTA2, and in either case Russians have a terrible reputation. Whenever someone loads slow or suffers "lag" due to low computer specs, the joke is often made that you're playing on a "potato". Russians play on all servers, so Russians on a US server have terrible ping. A "Russian potato" is a computer that is both on the low-end of specs, but also in a distant country, meaning your reactions are completely delayed and you play like you're always ten seconds behind everybody else.

My own comment on the writing is to focus on the way the characters speak. This is an issue I struggle with myself as well, where characters tend to speak rather, well, politely to the English eye. K in particular has a streak of this, though they may just be polite themselves. "We have to face it" has no contractions where it'd be normal to use them which causes this effect. People who're agitated also tend to use shorter sentences.

[cuttlefish]

^ Late reply, but about all the above stuff, good to know!

I guess I had more of a problem with the "It's" being used in the sentence ("It's GG."). "GG" or "Good game" would suffice. Unless the work is meant to target gamers mostly, I'd say it'd be better to be clearer in one's writing than purely "realistic".

I suppose I'd miss a lot of references in this script. Hahahahaha...