Looking for critique/Feedback!

[Omega_93]

Looking for critique/feedback on the prologue of the VN I've started working on: Dancing with Demons.
Appreciate any feedback from pacing etc to grammar or sentences =] Thank you in advance, guys! =]

16/08/1989
The moon glistened in the night sky as a teenage girl walked through the forest. She often came to this lonely, quiet place when she wanted to feel alone. Listening to the wind blowing through the trees always seemed to calm her. Tonight, like any other night, she felt at peace walking through these woods. A familiar stream stretched before her, with the stepping stones to cross it in the usual place. With 3 nimble steps, she was on the other side of the water and able to continue on her usual lonely journey into the forest. Sometimes she would think to herself how wonderful it would be if this place was an enchanted forest, how if she could meet the old spirits and run with along with the forest gods. She liked to dream of such things, she’d always had those kind of thoughts and seen those kinds of things since she was a child. It was many years since she had made any friends such as those, and she often wondered if they had even existed in the first place. She had been a child after all, it wouldn’t have surprised her to learn those times were all little fantasies that played out in her head.
Unfortunately, though, this forest was entirely normal. It was “enchanting” in its own way, but not the way she would like it to be. If it just had some kind of oddity she could learn of, an old legend she could search for or even a far-fetched myth this place could truly be a paradise to which she could retreat when she wished. She enjoyed the feeling of being alone this forest gave her, though. It was the feeling that she had the whole world to her self, like she’d been cut off from all society and was the only person left on Terra. It freed her, let her mind wonder away from her life. She could walk through this forest, where nothing paranormal ever happened, from one end to the other without ever coming within a mile of another living soul. She could sit and fantasize about anything she wanted and her father wouldn’t hit her. She could come up with more fun stories about witches and demons without her mother calling her Satan’s whore.
Once she got far enough that she could no longer hear her father’s drunken shouts coming from the farmhouse, she retrieved her book from the same place it always was. “The book of designated entities”. Whenever she looked at it she felt a slight pain in her chest, thinking of her uncle and how much she missed him. Her life would be so much better if she could live with her uncle instead, her parents were horrible and she hated them both. At this point she’d long decided that she’d leave them at the earliest opportunity and never even consider looking back. She’d catch a beating for running away today, but it didn’t matter. She was alone with the forest and her uncle’s book, and she could get lost in the world he told her about.
She opened the book to where she last left off, taking her uncle’s fabric soft silk bookmark and using it to tie her hair back so that her long brown locks wouldn’t get in her way.
“The fallen Angels”
She murmured out loud.
“The angels of the heavenly host that were cast down from their perch on high due to their avarice.”
Her fascination with her book only grew with each amazing story she read. She loved to read these stories and she lived to one day meet the creatures depicted in them.
“They’re real. I know they’re real.”
She was determined. There was no way it couldn’t be so. There was not even a tiny piece of her that could possibly believe otherwise. It was not fiction,they were real. Her uncle would never lie to her like her parents do.
“Joanna! Where are you?! You get back here right this minute or you’re gonna get a beating young lady!”
“Joanna! Joanna! Come back Joanna I’m sorry!”
Her journey through the wonders of her book soon came to an end as Joanna heard her parents calling for her. Her mother: desperate, her father: Angry. She didn’t want to deal with either of them right now or ever again. She wanted to get away from this boring life in this boring farm in the middle of this boring forest where nothing supernatural ever happens. She wanted to go to the big cities and look for Entities with her uncle. She longed for that interesting life that her uncle had promised her before her parents had forced him to leave. She was angry that he had never contacted her, but she could forgive him. He must be too busy hunting entities, obviously. He didn’t have time to search out some stupid teenage girl who couldn’t even get away from her own parents.
She ran with all her might into the forest, that thought in mind.
If I can’t escape them, how will I escape an entity?!
She ran as fast as she could, using every foothold and shortcut that she had come to know so well. This forest was her terrain, this was the place she could win. The adrenaline surged through her, she felt free, she felt alive. But this level of freedom was not enough, this taste of life was not enough. She needed to get out and see the world. She needed to meet “them” for herself and make her uncle proud of her. She needed to leave her parents behind.
She surged through the forest now, dodging all the branches and jumping all the roots as she went. Her parents’ cries were now distant echoes. Her worries were now an old nightmare. Her dream now lay before her.
The moonlight hid behind the clouds as it always did, but today, for the first time ever, something out of place caught her eye. There was someone in the path ahead of her, about fifty yards ahead. Was it her father? Had he circled around ahead of her? No. That old drunk wouldn’t be able to catch her on flat ground the way she is now, let alone in this forest. On closer inspection it appeared that it was indeed not her father ahead of her, but a man wearing some strange traditional clothing.
“Ah…”
A shiver went down her spine. The reason for this was unclear, but she started to have a feeling. One of dread. Something was strange about the “person” in front of her…
In fact…
The problem was that he didn’t appear it be a person at all. Joanna couldn’t see him clearly, she could hear no sound coming from him, she could smell no odor coming from him. None of her senses could give her more information on the “person” in front of her. It was not Normal. It was not Terran. Rather, it was “Paranormal”. The thought made her heart flutter. A whisper on the air came to her:
“Ah… eh… uh”
The “entity” made strange sounds to itself, as if it’s mouth were covered by an invisible cloth. She was stunned into silence for a moment, the strange feeling on the air and the muffled mumbles of the creature before her instantly replacing her curiosity with fear.
It’s a real entity…
She thought. After a moment, she regained her courage and slowly approached the darkness-shrouded being before her. As she got closer it became ever more apparent that this was not a being she should be approaching, her every instinct screaming at her not to talk to the creature. After what felt like an eternity, just as she was about to call out to the creature, she had shouts coming from behind her again.
Her mother screaming hysterically “Joanna! DON’T LEAVE ME!”
Her father bellowing furiously “I’M GONNA FUCKIN KILL YOU, SATAN WORSHIPING LITTLE BITCH!”.
The entity slowly turned around to face her, it’s stiff movements made her realize her fear for the first time as she tensed. Watching the creature and listening for her parents, she waited as it turned. Horrific noises sounded as each movement seemingly broke one of the creatures bones.
Is it in pain?
She couldn’t help but wonder. She couldn’t see it’s expression, but it sounded like it’s bones were being broken and then reset every time it moved itself. As if it were rooted to the spot by some unknown force and it was now moving through sheer force of will.
Maybe… I should help it?
Now, this was a strange thought for a Terran to have in the face of a paranormal entity. To “Help” such a creature in a situation where one was experiencing the emotion known as fear, and the creature was the cause of that emotion, was an entirely illogical thing to do. There were few people in the world that would even be able to identify that this creature was paranormal and thereby sense the danger it presented, even less would have the thought occur to them that they should help such an entity. Entities, to Terrans, were creatures that could not be allowed to exist. Supernatural existences that posed a direct threat to the life of even one Terran being was given a “Containment designation” and would be hunted whenever their kin should appear. If they were in Joanna’s book then they had been designated, they were dangerous and they should be destroyed. Joanna knew all this, and yet…
“Uh…ah…”
The creature, as it turned, appeared to be frightened. Joanna didn’t know where this feeling she got came from, but she realized that feeling of fear that had overtaken her was not her own. She was not frightened at all, in fact she was stood less than two meters from the entity now. The one who was frightened was the creature in front of her.
A paranormal entity. A creature who has probably been hunted all it’s life…
Joanna came to the conclusion… It appeared to be afraid of her. It thought she was one of the people described in her uncle’s book…
It thinks I’m an exorcist…
The creature now turned to face her completely, and that’s where Joanna let out a small gasp. She had expected a vampire, a ghoul, an evil spirit or a Demon. But what stood before her was none of those. It was something that her brain lacked the ability to describe. It had nothing to further to describe about from the appearance of its strange clothes. It had no face to speak of.
“Ah… uh…”
The creature continued to make muffled noises despite having no mouth to speak from. Is it trying to communicate?
“It’s okay, I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Ah…” the creature tilted it’s head in confusion. It seemed to her, somehow, as if the creature was sad. This could have easily been just her mind playing tricks on her as she longed to meet a creature just like this, in a setting just like this. But she felt like she could help the creature… and… maybe the creature could help her in return…
The moonlight finally shone through the trees once more, revealing the full form of the creature to her.
“JOANNAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!”
She gasped and froze for a moment…She felt like she recognized this creature but she didn’t have the presence of mind to look through the book she grasped tightly to her chest.
“Are you… an Entity?”
The creature continued to stand and face her, it’s empty white face seemingly trying to contort itself to form speech. “Ah…eh…” It continued to make incomprehensible sounds as it began to try and stagger towards her, it’s arms reaching for her.
Joanna felt no fear in this moment, instead she mustered all her courage and
“I’d like to help you… and I’d like you to help me!”
She spoke these words to the Entity before her.
The creature stopped, it’s arms still slightly raised in front of it, and stood perfectly still in front of her.
Does it understand me? Joanna thought to herself. The wind stopped for a moment and the trees seemed to listen along with her as she strained her ears for any reaction from the creature.
“JOANNAAAAAA!!!”
The silence was punctured by the obnoxious screams of her mother, Joanna felt a tear slowly roll down her cheek.
“That’s my mother shouting my name, if you can hear it.”
The creature remained completely rigid, it’s blank face looking directly at her, seemingly willing her to continue.
“YOU LITTLE WHORE!”
“The second voice you hear is my Father. He seems especially drunk tonight.”
Several aches and pains from Joanna’s body remembered their existence as Joanna recalled the image of her drunken father.
“I used to like living here, in this pretty forest. With Mama and Papa and uncle. We’d go for walks down by the stream and tell stories and catch fish. It was really really fun”
Joanna struggled to keep her voice from shaking as the tears streamed down her face. She didn’t know if it was the pain from recalling distant memories or the happiness of confirming her belief in her uncle.
“But it changed. Suddenly it wasn’t fun anymore. Nanny died and Papa started drinking, Mama started getting angry when Uncle told me stories. And then they told Uncle he wasn’t allowed to come to the farm anymore and… and…”
The Entity before her took another step as her despair heightened, the shouts from her parents getting ever closer.
“Then Papa hit me. And he would keep hitting me. Then Mama would hit me too. They said my stories weren’t real. They said uncle was a heretic and a liar.”
The Entity took yet another step as Joanna let all her emotions loose, hysteria filling her voice.
“But I didn’t believe them! I always told them they were wrong no matter how much they hit me! Uncle wouldn’t lie to me! One day he would come get me and we’d go meet all the Entities together! And it would be really fun again! And then I’d go make my own stories to tell him and he would be really proud of me and tell me how fun my stories are…”
Joanna sobbed uncontrollably…
“But Uncle hasn’t come back yet… and… I-I can’t take it anymore… I-I d-don’t want them to hit me anymore… I don’t want him to put it there anymore… I don’t want them to hurt me…”
The Entity froze once again. The aura of sadness that came from the entity was now completely gone, having been completely absorbed by Joanna.
“I just want to go away with Uncle…”
“JOANNA!!!!!!!”
“I just want to see the stories…”
“WHERE ARE YOU?! I KNOW YOU’RE OUT HERE!!!”
“And you’re real! You’re not stories!”
“I’M GONNA BREAK YOUR FUCKIN LEGS”
“So I just want to meet more of you… I just want to leave here…”
“THERE YOU FUCKIN’ ARE!!! GET OVER HERE!!”
“So could you help me… please…”
Joanna finally looked up, her vision blurred with tears, expecting to see a bloodthirsty Entity bearing down upon her, subconsciously wishing that some magical force would spring forward and end it all.
“Wh-wha-… What the fuck is that thing?!”
But there was nothing in front of her but a clearing in the forest… And behind her, her unspoken wish was being granted in a way she hadn’t been expecting.
“Get the fuck away from me you freak!!”
Joanna couldn’t process what was happening around her. There was gunshots. Her father’s gun? Why was Papa shooting?
“AHHHHH!! HELP ME! SOMEONE HELP!”
She heard a sickening sound, one that she could not describe.
“Ibrahim what’s wro-”
The sound of bones breaking at an unbelievable rate… and then… another bloodcurdling sound…
Joanna was stunned. She didn’t have the power to move, it was as if some unseen force was holding her down, as if she was under some spell to stop her from turning around.
But it was pointless… Even at her age, she knew exactly what had just happened…
She knew exactly… What she had caused…

[Omega_93]

Well, uhh... Kinda awkward when your post gets no replies after a week lol is it that bad?
Still looking for feedback though sooooo bump

[Shaples]

Hi Omega! I have a couple big-picture thoughts about your prologue. First and foremost, make sure you're thinking not just about the actual words of the story, but also what's going to be appearing on screen to match the text. Quite a bit happens in this prologue before we hit dialogue, which can make an opening feel overly long or slow. As a short story, I think it would be fine, but text-heavy introductions in VNs always feel like they drag to me, because visually nothing is happening - you're just looking at a wall of text. As for the story itself, your writing is pretty clean in terms of grammar - there are a few minor mistakes here and there, but technically you're pretty sound, so I think it's stuff you'd probably catch on another pass.

The biggest issue I see is that you do a lot of telling rather than showing, especially in that opening exposition. I know that "show don't tell" is such a common piece of advice that it probably sounds trite, so I'll try to explain specifically what I mean. You say, this is the forest, this girl comes here, she wishes it were enchanted... but that doesn't make the reader feel like they're in the forest. We don't smell the trees or feel the river stones beneath our feet. Instead of telling us, "she used to have magical friends here, but she was just a kid so they were probably imaginary", show her going around a well-worn circuit, peeking in weird knots in trees looking for her friends, maybe not really expecting to find them, but hoping. Show her actually doing it instead of simply telling us what she does.

She enjoyed the feeling of being alone this forest gave her, though. It was the feeling that she had the whole world to her self, like she’d been cut off from all society and was the only person left on Terra. It freed her, let her mind wonder away from her life. She could walk through this forest, where nothing paranormal ever happened, from one end to the other without ever coming within a mile of another living soul.

This is a prime example of telling - instead of showing how Joanna relaxes and feels safer and more comfortable the deeper into the forest she goes (which is a pretty cool idea, because it's the flip of the fairy tale little girl in a dark scary forest) or seeing where her mind wanders, we're simply told that it happens, which is a missed opportunity for developing the character and her mental state.

I think the telling also slows down the pacing of the story in a lot of places, specifically:

Now, this was a strange thought for a Terran to have in the face of a paranormal entity. To “Help” such a creature in a situation where one was experiencing the emotion known as fear, and the creature was the cause of that emotion, was an entirely illogical thing to do. There were few people in the world that would even be able to identify that this creature was paranormal and thereby sense the danger it presented, even less would have the thought occur to them that they should help such an entity. Entities, to Terrans, were creatures that could not be allowed to exist. Supernatural existences that posed a direct threat to the life of even one Terran being was given a “Containment designation” and would be hunted whenever their kin should appear. If they were in Joanna’s book then they had been designated, they were dangerous and they should be destroyed. Joanna knew all this, and yet…

This bit of exposition is clearly meant to help ground the reader in the world of the game, but this is all stuff that's clear in context. Joanna is a scared, abused little girl who is obsessed with magical creatures her parents think are evil. The parents are the implied status quo, and it's clear that what Joanna is doing is more than a little weird. But instead of relying on the weirdness of a little girl going "Oh man, I should probably help this horrible nightmare monster," we get a long explanation of why it's weird that she isn't afraid, and how most people in her world would be, etc etc. The story concept and the worldbuilding are strong and interesting, and the main character is in just the right perspective to put these details front and center without a lot of exposition to prop them up. You can trust your readers to connect the dots.

Anyway, I guess my advice would be, try to add immediacy wherever possible; stay in the moment, and try to evoke the senses. Instead of "Joanna felt scared," her heart was pounding, her hands were sweating, she stops breathing for a second, etc. As she's moving through the forest, what does she smell, what does she feel underfoot, what does she hear? The more tactile and immediate your writing, the more it will draw readers in and get them invested in the story.

Hopefully this helps!

[lockpicklogic]

I don't have a great deal to add after reading Shaples post, however, this section caught my attention.

“They’re real. I know they’re real.”
She was determined. There was no way it couldn’t be so. There was not even a tiny piece of her that could possibly believe otherwise. It was not fiction,they were real. Her uncle would never lie to her like her parents do.

Although each sentence is different, the basic meaning remains the same. While repetition is useful, this is overkill.

I hope this is useful!

[Kuiper]

One thing that's pretty foundation to fiction writing is the idea of viewpoint. Generally, the most common viewpoints we see employed in fiction are first person, third person limited, and third person omniscient. (There are also other viewpoints, like the second-person narrative that some interactive fiction employs.) Third-person limited is very common in contemporary literature; omniscient viewpoint is much less common in contemporary literature. However, lots of older literature is narrated with an omniscient viewpoint. (The Hobbit is a pretty popular example of a book that employs the omniscient viewpoint.) If any of these are unfamiliar topics to you, I recommend looking them up.

It's hard for me to really get a grasp for what kind of viewpoint you're trying to use. Obviously this isn't a first-person narrative, but is it third-person limited, or third-person omniscient? This isn't the kind of question that's good to struggle with; the answer to the question of "What viewpoint am I viewing things from?" should be evident right off the bat.

Based on the content of the passage, it looks like you're employing third-person limited viewpoint. That is, we see things from the perspective of the teenage girl. For example, as she runs through the forest, her parents' cries become distant echos. We get information about things that happen directly to her as sensory perception, e.g. "A shiver ran down her spine," and what we learn about the "entity" she encounters is entirely limited to what Joanna herself perceives. In fact, several lines in the text are taken directly from her consciousness, like "Is it in pain?" and "Maybe… I should help it?" So, having read the entire piece, it seems pretty safe to say that we're seeing a third-person limited perspective (Joanna's). And I think that's probably the direction that you want to go with this piece.

However, there are several things that put me on tilt a bit as the passage opens. For example, the first line: "The moon glistened in the night sky as a teenage girl walked through the forest." That certainly doesn't sound like Joanna's perspective. It makes it seem like the teenage girl is something that the viewpoint character is observing (when in fact the teenage girl IS our viewpoint character). Perhaps changing the line from "a teenage girl" to "the teenage girl" would suffice. Simply using her name from the start would also solve this issue.

Also, the line that starts the second paragraph: "Unfortunately, though, this forest was entirely normal." The way that this is stated makes it seem like it's stating a fact about the forest, rather than an observation. (As we find out, it's actually an observation and not a fact at all: there's plenty unusual things afoot in this forest.) This is more a subjective thing, but my own experience as a reader caused me to interpret the passage in a way that is probably different than you intended it.


To be clear, what you've composed looks like a good, solid third-person narrative that doesn't require any major changes with regard to viewpoint. And I don't see any major viewpoint "errors," as everything inside the narrative is something that Joanna is in some way aware of, meaning that we never break from a third-limited viewpoint. So good job with that. The issues I noted aren't "errors" so much as they're distractions that made me question the use of viewpoint, and I'd recommend excising those ambiguities where possible.

As a stylistic note, I really dislike all caps. They're distracting and frequently unnecessary/redundant. It seems that you use caps to indicate that a person is yelling. But when we read the line like this:

"Ahhhh! Help me! Someone help!"

It should already be obvious to us that the character is yelling. Making things all caps just makes things annoying to read, in my opinion.

Any further remarks I might make would mostly mirror Shaples's sentiments to the effect of "show, don't tell." In general, I'd recommend that you focus on physical things that are happening. For example:

The Entity before her took another step as her despair heightened

"Despair heightening" is something awfully abstract. Consider finding a way to visually manifest her despair. Perhaps she's literally cowering in fear. Or her legs are shaking, knees weak, threatening to collapse under her weight.

[czxcjx]

The thing about Visual Novels is that since you already have a background, its extremely wise to cut down on a lot of unnecessary descriptions. Since the Art does most of the work for you then you should focus more on the interaction with the environment. Use only the words that are necessary to convey the scene, especially if you're aiming for the magical sensation, which is a highly subjective sensation.

One of the best scene setters is still, to me, the beginning of Cross Channel, which opens with a shot of the night sky

Rough translation is

My oldest memory,
On a vague date,
In a distant mist,
The aura of nobility,
A gorgeous room.
There was a canopied bed and a European chair.
Yet I liked sitting on the floor.
From the window was a curtain of starry black.
The frame sliced through the scattered twinkles, and captivated me.
The outside was demarcated from the interior by glass, where you could see your form in a reflection.
The girl of the lonely room,
Wrapped up in the tresses of a Western dress
Graceful girl
Who are you?

The writing here says only everything that is necessary. The room is described quickly while more is spent on poeticizing about the sky. Of course the translation here is rough compared to the original Japanese prose.

In Setoguchi Renya's carnival he has the same beginning of an alienated setting.

Countless small maggots well up on the face of the moon, forming the shape of a smile.
What a superficial, condescending, spiteful, rotten, disgusting smile it is.
A smile though it may be, it lacks all cheer.
A simply unpleasant smile. I've been walking as I watch the moon sneer at me.
I don't know whether it's a full moon or, if it's gibbous, whether it's waxing or waning, but at any rate it's round.
As I stare intently at it, I feel my sanity slipping away. Am I watching the moon, or is the moon watching me?
Perhaps both. If so, nothing could be more sickening.
The outlines blur. I've become dizzy. When I tear my eyes away and look at my surroundings, I can see that around me are normal nighttime fields, and that beyond them are woods, and the lights of windows in the residential area.
In the center of it all is me. My shirt is becoming heavy with sweat. Walking around in such heat isn't pleasant. But there's no justice in the world, and some things just have to be done, no matter how unpleasant they may be. Even my mood is waning.

Likewise here rather than plain description, the narrator projects his degrading mental state onto the narration. A very common type of narration in mystery and psychological thriller. Since the translation is from TLwiki, it also does not have quite the rhythm of common English prose.

When the short days of winter came dusk fell before we had well eaten our dinners. When we met in the street the houses had grown sombre. The space of sky above us was the colour of ever-changing violet and towards it the lamps of the street lifted their feeble lanterns. The cold air stung us and we played till our bodies glowed. Our shouts echoed in the silent street. The career of our play brought us through the dark muddy lanes behind the houses where we ran the gauntlet of the rough tribes from the cottages, to the back doors of the dark dripping gardens where odours arose from the ashpits, to the dark odorous stables where a coachman smoothed and combed the horse or shook music from the buckled harness. When we returned to the street light from the kitchen windows had filled the areas. If my uncle was seen turning the corner we hid in the shadow until we had seen him safely housed. Or if Mangan's sister came out on the doorstep to call her brother in to his tea we watched her from our shadow peer up and down the street. We waited to see whether she would remain or go in and, if she remained, we left our shadow and walked up to Mangan's steps resignedly. She was waiting for us, her figure defined by the light from the half-opened door. Her brother always teased her before he obeyed and I stood by the railings looking at her. Her dress swung as she moved her body and the soft rope of her hair tossed from side to side.

This paragraph from James Joyce's Dubliners also captures that sense of play as a child. Already though this is probably too much description for a Visual Novel. Yet the rhythm of "through the dark muddy lanes... to the back doors of the dark dripping gardens... to the dark odorous stables" captures the sense of running through these locations freely.

The moon glistened in the night sky as a teenage girl walked through the forest. She often came to this lonely, quiet place when she wanted to feel alone. Listening to the wind blowing through the trees always seemed to calm her. Tonight, like any other night, she felt at peace walking through these woods. A familiar stream stretched before her, with the stepping stones to cross it in the usual place. With 3 nimble steps, she was on the other side of the water and able to continue on her usual lonely journey into the forest.

The prose here is very rigid and straightforwardly descriptive. There's a quote from The Seagull by Chekhov where a writer laments about describing the moon.

This description of a moonlight night is long and stilted. Trigorin(another writer) has worked out a process of his own, and descriptions are easy for him. He writes that the neck of a broken bottle lying on the bank glittered in the moonlight, and that the shadows lay black under the mill-wheel. There you have a moonlight night before your eyes, but I speak of the shimmering light, the twinkling stars, the distant sounds of a piano melting into the still and scented air, and the result is abominable.

There's a slight kineticism in the "3 nimble steps". But whenever I think of 3 taps I always remember the very kinetic beginning of Lolita.

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, an initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.

Nabokov always has tons of examples for very vibrant and flamboyant but controlled prose.

Unfortunately, though, this forest was entirely normal. It was “enchanting” in its own way, but not the way she would like it to be. If it just had some kind of oddity she could learn of, an old legend she could search for or even a far-fetched myth this place could truly be a paradise to which she could retreat when she wished. She enjoyed the feeling of being alone this forest gave her, though. It was the feeling that she had the whole world to her self, like she’d been cut off from all society and was the only person left on Terra. It freed her, let her mind wonder away from her life. She could walk through this forest, where nothing paranormal ever happened, from one end to the other without ever coming within a mile of another living soul. She could sit and fantasize about anything she wanted and her father wouldn’t hit her. She could come up with more fun stories about witches and demons without her mother calling her Satan’s whore.

Likewise very loose and exuberant prose can accentuate the feel of escapism over here, especially when dealing with the idea of a secret and magical haven. So a high contrast between dreams and reality can be created by placing "dull, boring, loathsome sickly green leaves" with the imagined forest of "a canopy stretched across the firmament blasting the air with green, as if in a frieze of leaves, or a hallowed Arthurian glade". High contrast can also be made between her abused state and the freedom of thought like "the brute-red bruises from home vanished in the cloud of dreams that wrapped her as she absconded, higher and higher, into the contours of her sky, brushing past rainbows silkier than colored ribbons".

If you're feeling experimental you can also inject horrible streams of thought to break the 3rd person narrative. Something like repeating violent loose flowing words like "She could sit and fantasize about anything she wanted and her father wouldn't tore her tore her tore her bloodred across the face and snatches of claw into her cheeks".

Her journey through the wonders of her book soon came to an end as Joanna heard her parents calling for her. Her mother: desperate, her father: Angry. She didn’t want to deal with either of them right now or ever again. She wanted to get away from this boring life in this boring farm in the middle of this boring forest where nothing supernatural ever happens. She wanted to go to the big cities and look for Entities with her uncle. She longed for that interesting life that her uncle had promised her before her parents had forced him to leave. She was angry that he had never contacted her, but she could forgive him. He must be too busy hunting entities, obviously. He didn’t have time to search out some stupid teenage girl who couldn’t even get away from her own parents.

Here is where the subjectivity starts to really get injected in, which I like. It has conversational markers like the repetition of 'boring', and the aggressive tone of 'some stupid teenage girl' and 'obviously'. I also like how it crescendos here as she runs to escape while whirling in her own thoughts. The sense of escape could probably be fortified with more distinct vocabulary and rhythm than

The adrenaline surged through her, she felt free, she felt alive. But this level of freedom was not enough, this taste of life was not enough. She needed to get out and see the world. She needed to meet “them” for herself and make her uncle proud of her. She needed to leave her parents behind.

Adequately rhythmic. I always turn to studying Beat prose when I want to know how to get that mad rush of words down

the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.

Some points about the dialogue. I always think that stretching out the words in caps has a lot less impact when a person actually reads and subvocalizes it in his head. "“JOANNAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!” or "“WHERE ARE YOU?! I KNOW YOU’RE OUT HERE!!!" doesn't sound quite as sharp in just text unless you have a voice actor to go with it. In novels it seems italics work better than capitalization to have a sense of sharpness in the tone.

I like the catharsis that the character goes through as she pours everything out to the supernatural thing. It has just the right little girl tone to get that sense of bewildered innocence that has been dragged through the mud and is just pouring out everything. I think that the bit of exposition about the act of "helping" really breaks the flow leading up to it though. It feels like the author interjecting with some encyclopedia article. Also the not describing the thing is, since the advent of Lovecraft, now an extremely common tactic in horror or mystery fiction.

If there's anything wrong with it though is that it sounds too novelistic and doesn't seem to cater to the Visual aspect of the medium. Also (this is more of a personal thing) the idea of an abused person finding solace in the supernatural sounds too much like Stephen King's Carrie and a whole load of other narratives. If I read this scene in a visual novel I could envision myself being moved slightly (because of the emotional climax halfway), but not overwhelmingly so. In terms of style its more utilitarian than outright beautiful, as an engine for the plot and to convey the buildup needed to make the moment when she meets the entity count, but other than that has no enduring quality that makes for distinct great prose.

I think though that you have a grasp of narrative flow and tension, which is what other people are lacking. Just try not to forget that your words aren't just only there to drive you to the setpiece emotional moments, and can be used in a myriad of different ways (as they have been throughout the whole of Literature) while still maintaining the flow.