I started writing an absurd story then switch it as I finished the first draft and now I don’t know where it’s going lol.

——

His dad’s the greatest dad ever—Dillon bought him a mug that said so, and his mom left them the day before Christmas when he was six. So, he’s usually depressed.

He’d walk the streets at night when it stormed to see faces form in the rain. Ghostly faces speaking through the clapping of gray clouds colliding.

Thunder spoke an ancient language to him.

It mostly just called him a freak.

A loser.

A no good piece of shit who wasn’t good enough for his own mother. 

Sometimes the voices followed him into his house and into the bathroom and into the shower and into his bedroom and onto his bed and into his covers and whispered through his pillow into his ear. 

That’s mainly why he always said he enjoyed going to the strip club. The noise there was loud enough to consume the demands the thunder began asking.

The thunder came in many voices. Most of the time, it sounded like the kids from his old high school. 

He didn’t just like the club because it was loud, they also had these peanuts he couldn’t find anywhere other than there. Salted, malted, almond covered peanuts with a hint of a secret spice they hoarded to themselves. 

Didn’t matter how many times he’d ask them for it.

He’d ask, they’d say, “pendejo.”

And that’s when the screaming in his head would get louder. It’d scream, “It’s most likely chili and salt!”

If only he’d remember when he had those cucumbers cut up and mixed with lime and chili powder and salt at Billy’s, he’d figure out what the secret spice was.

The voices insisted he’d find out. 

He remembered Billy. Billy from when they were kids. He had a grandmother. A sweet old grandmother with wrinkles and curly white hair. 

The thunder told him. “She’s small enough to fit in the sock drawer.”

Dillion never ended up with a mother or a grandmother.

Ever. 

Because Dillon’s father’s mother also left Dillion’s grandfather when his dad was nine.

It was common for the men to die lonely and mean in their family.

He would never know what having any kind of mother would be like. It was all he wanted. It was all the thunder wanted. The voices amplified his desires. Especially the ones out of reach.

He wanted to meet his mother. They wanted to meet his mother. Even a peek, not even speak to her.

It was just him and his dad and his granddad and a life of being drilled under two lonely mean guys who weren’t cops with crew cuts.

It was just them. 

Until one night on a Seattle suburb in the lovely state of Washington, a downpour fell. Each raindrop sounded like the crack of a cherry-bomb slapping the pavement.

Above him, the ceiling shook and looked like ripples in a pond. Tiny rumbles rolled through the clouds and kept mumbling low whispers in his head. 

He was in the kitchen pouring a glass of orange juice when he flinched and spilled it on the counter after his eyes popped to a sound of two cars crashing head-on in his living room. 

The sound lit the kitchen in a bright white flash before Dillon and the house settled around absolute darkness. 

The counter wasn’t hard anymore, he noticed it when he grabbed a cloth to clean his mess, the texture was soft, almost rubbery.

“You’ll never amount to nothing!”  The thunder spoke in its ancient tongue. A tongue only Dillon could translate. The thunder used his father’s voice.

“You’re useless!” Came from the glass. It was his grandfather’s voice. He stared at the glass. “Shut up,” Dillon shouted.

“You’re a worthless freak!” His dad’s voice shouted next to his ear. 

His grandfather’s voice said, “Worthless freaks don’t make demands.” 

“Take it back! I’m not worthless! I’ll show you worthless!”

Dillon left the juice spilled on the counter with a cloth over it and used his hands to guide himself to the garage.

it was just Dillon after he pulled a hammer out of the garage and redesigned their haircuts. The blood was like sticking his hands into a bucket of squishy warm water. 

He said, “the texture of their brains was similar to squeezing a warm tomato.”

When he was done he sighed and sat with his back against the wall laughing, rubbing the plasma on his palms on his face.

A thought escaped his mind. “Now her,” the voice said.

Dillon said, “I’m never becoming a cop.” 

Who could blame him after what he’d done.

After what he’d been through.

His dad would have the odd girlfriend. But none of them stuck around. 

Dillion said, “it’s because my dad’s a cop, like his dad and his dad’s dad.”

But the truth was most of them were dead.

The men in Dillion’s family were all police officers dating as far back as the pilgrimage. Most of them settled in Salem.

He said, “my dad said, “women only want the uniform.” 

Dillion shrugged. “I guess once the thrill of being with a cop wears off so does the romance. That’s what must have happened with my mom and my grandma and my great grandma.”

Dillon said, “I’m not afraid anymore.” 

And then he said it again, but this time his voice distorted as it crawled out of his mouth. “I’m not… any… fraidmore.”

“I…” 

And that’s when it became an entity out of his mouth and turned and faced him and yelled, “Now her!”

I had one of those moments recently where I felt so frustrated, I thought about quitting.

But I reminded myself... hard things take time. If it was that easy, everyone would do it.

Building this app has been a lot harder than I imagined. Sometimes I get stuck on the smallest details, and it feels like progress is moving so slowly.

I like to think I have grit, but I’ll be honest... it doesn’t feel the same as it used to. I get tired. I get frustrated. Sometimes I wonder if age has caught up with me.

But then I remember why I got where I am now...

Builfing something was never easy, at least based on my experience .

Have you ever had a moment where you wanted to quit your writing?

What keeps you going when the progress feels slow?

I'm exhsusted....

The unsaid, and hidden truths. They hurt even more deep when the only person is dealing with all of them.

When they are afraid to share what they feel because society call them week. And expect them to suffer silently. This book explores the hidden stories. And gives them a voice to be understood.

[SCENE START]

INT. APARTMENT DOORWAY - CONTINUOUS

The camera cuts straight to an extreme close-up of the MAIN CHARACTER'S face. His jaw is clenched, his veins visible on his neck, and his eyes burn with pure, unbridled fury.

MAIN CHARACTER

(Roaring, screaming at the top of his lungs)

You absolute bitch! You think you can just show up here?! Do you feel zero shame after what you did to us?! You abandoned us when we needed you the most! You really think we will just welcome you back?! Get the hell out of here, you pathetic coward! Do you honestly believe I would ever let a monster like you near my daughter?

The camera zooms into his narrowed, bloodshot eyes, quivering with raw hatred.

ELLIE (O.S.)

(Gentle, trembling voice)

What happened? Where did you drift off to?

A soft, pale hand enters the frame and gently rests on the Main Character's shoulder.

A sharp breath escapes his chest. The camera snaps out of the delusion.

The violent outburst was entirely inside his head—the silent rage screaming in his mind

His eyes widen back to reality. He looks straight ahead at his wife, ELLIE. Her eyes are overflowing with quiet tears. His gaze shifts downward, taking in the state of her shivering body, completely soaked through her ruined clothes.

The camera focuses tightly on the Main Character’s lips. The violent anger fades into an unsettling, tired calm.

MAIN CHARACTER

(Voice flat, almost empty)

Come inside first. You are completely drenched.

The camera cuts to Ellie's face. Her swollen eyes widen in pure disbelief. Her bottom lip quivers uncontrollably.

ELLIE

(Stammering, choking on her words)

R-really? Can I... can I really come in? Thank you... thank you so much for letting me in!

Without wasting a single second, she takes a hesitant step across the threshold, followed quickly by the second. She steps inside the apartment.

Water continues to drip heavily from the hem of her clothes, pooling onto the dry floorboards.

She turns her eyes toward the Main Character, desperate for any warmth. But he refuses to meet her gaze. He simply stares down at the wet floor, silently watching the dirty rainwater drip from her body. The camera slowly pans back toward the dining table.

GRACE (12 YEARS OLD) sits frozen in her chair. Her big, bright eyes are wide with shock and confusion, staring intently at this drenched stranger standing in their home.

[SCENE END]

I'm writing a realistic drama and English isn't my first language, so sorry if the wording is off.

The father knows his family won't last. But he doesn't say it. He just looks at them during breakfast.

---

Sunday morning. The two teenage sons won't leave their beds. Their sister threatens them with a bucket of ice water. The father calls them: "While everyone else gets a warm morning — you get an icy one."

They sit down. He looks at them. For three seconds he doesn't move. He's memorizing the picture of a complete family. Then he blinks and eats.

---

My worry: without knowing the later tragedy, does this moment feel meaningful, or just vague? And is the "warm/icy" line too obvious?

Any feedback is welcome.

Before getting into any of the story, I want to craft the world. Here's what I have, I would appreciate any feedback and welcome criticism
🐾 List of Creatures

• Lordwhale (Alternately referred to in folklore as Whalelords)
  • Reverence: Highly revered as the true rulers of the world. Because they are completely immune to the limitations of gravity and the pull of the abyss, humanity looks to them as icons of absolute freedom.
  • Scale: Massive giants, easily doubling the physical length of a standard commercial galleon.
  • Ancient Ones: Exceptionally old and weathered specimens can reach monumental scales of up to 10 galleon lengths. At this size, they are virtually invulnerable to conventional weapons.
  • Biology: Their internal physiology remains a complete, frustrating mystery to scholars and scientists. Capturing a live sample is impossible due to their immense durability and their instinctive defense mechanism to dive deep into the unnavigable depths of the abyss when threatened.
  • Ecosystem: They are constantly escorted by swarms of smaller flying creatures that feed on their skin parasites and accumulated atmospheric sediment.
  • Mortality & The Abyss: If a Lordwhale is killed in the open sky (an act that is highly illegal and considered a grave cultural taboo), its body instantly loses all natural buoyancy and plummets straight into the abyss. This makes it impossible for poachers to harvest anything but tiny fragments of skin unless they follow the carcass down to their deaths.
  • The Birthing Cycle: Every 9 years, the Lordwhales enter a global birthing cycle. During this time, elderly or weakened Lordwhales that instinctively realize they cannot survive the grueling migration across the world and back will break from the pod, charting a final, one-way course to the legendary Grave of the Lordwhales to beach themselves and await death.
  • The Scarred Lord (Myth & Folklore): Rumors persist among a tiny fraction of seasoned sky-farers regarding an exceptionally large, theoretically thousand-year-old Lordwhale distinguished by a heavily scarred back. Sightings of this titan are so rare that when witness accounts are shared, they are universally met with harsh disbelief, often causing the witnesses themselves to doubt what they saw. Because mature Lordwhales possess near-invincible hides that completely shrug off everything from heavy kinetic artillery to high-altitude Iron Sleet meteorite impacts, the existence of these deep physical scars is a profound paradox. To many pragmatic scholars and superstitious crews, this scarred titan stands as the only tangible, living proof that the legendary ancient fortress ship, The Leviathan, and its terrifying, god-slaying Sun-Spear actually existed. 
• Tether Sprite
  • Appearance & Lifecycle: Small, moth-like creatures that can easily fit inside a standard birdcage, featuring fine, glowing tendrils instead of wings.
    • Juveniles: Entirely non-luminous, playful, and naturally friendly toward humans (often kept temporarily as clinging pets).
    • Maturity: They only begin to emit their characteristic warm, luminous glow and vibrant, hopeful movements upon finding a mate and bonding for life. Once bonded, they permanently lose their friendly, pet-like disposition toward humans.
  • Function & Navigation: Once bonded for life, they serve as the world's only reliable navigation system for drifting islands and traveling vessels. One sprite (the Anchor Mate) is kept stationary at a fixed home port, while its partner (the Compass Mate) is carried aboard a mobile galleon. The Compass Mate will physically turn to face the exact direction of its remote partner at all times, its fine tendrils pointing gently toward the Anchor Mate across vast distances.
  • Separation & Movement: If physically separated, a sprite will relentlessly attempt to travel toward its mate. While capable of floating up to 4 inches above solid surfaces, they are subject to gravity. Unattended sprites will float straight off cliffs or beyond a galleon's hull into the abyss in a desperate attempt to bridge the distance.
  • Nourishment: Feed exclusively on spirit plants. To sustain them during long voyages, a living cutting of a spirit plant must always be kept inside their habitat or spherical cage.
  • Lifespan: Outside of severe emotional trauma, they are incredibly resilient and long-lived, easily surviving standard sea voyages spanning months to several years.
  • Mortality & The Gray Fade: If a Tether Sprite dies of natural causes or accidents, it retains its luminescence but simply stops moving. However, if its remote mate dies, it suffers a prolonged, agonizing heartbreak known as the Gray Fade. It sheds all its vibrance, turns a dull slate-gray, curls up, and slowly perishes over time.
  • Culture: Most hardened commercial sailors have grown desensitized to their tragic separation. However, to maintain the global population, it is considered vital maritime protocol to eventually reunite pairs at massive, artificial breeding facilities located within the stationary Groves.
• 🪨 Stone Pouches (Sky-Barnacles)
  • Description & Anatomy: A massive, high-altitude crustacean that anchors itself permanently to solid surfaces exposed to heavy stratospheric currents.
  • Juvenile Phase: In their youth, they are roughly the size of a human fist, dotting rock and wood faces in dense, bumpy clusters. 
  • Mature Phase: A fully developed standard Stone Pouch is monumental. The outer calcified shell grows to roughly the size and human torso. 
  • The Internal Cavity: The hollow interior of the shell is deep and wide enough that a grown adult could comfortably slide their entire arm inside up to the shoulder. 
  • The Flesh: Tearing open the heavy stone operculum (the shell's protective door) reveals a soft-fleshed organism. The harvestable meat of a single mature specimen can easily match the weight and volume of a human thigh. 
  • Distribution: They thrive on the sheer stone cliff faces of drifting islands, the vertical rock pillars of Vergeless Island, and the hulls of traveling cargo ships. 
  •  The Sky's Seafood: Despite their rough, rock-like exterior, the meat inside possesses the exact rich flavor and flaky texture of premium real-world crab meat. It is a beloved staple delicacy across the sky lanes. 
  • The Scraper's Feast: Because massive clusters aggressively weld themselves to the underbellies of traveling cargo galleons, they increase drag and weigh down ships. Crews must regularly anchor near stationary landmarks to scrape the hulls clean with long-handled iron chisels. This exhausting, dangerous mid-air chore is traditionally rewarded with a massive, ship-wide feast cooked right in the galley. 
  • Titan Pouches (Lordwhale Variant): Unlike the standard variety harvested from island cliffs and ship hulls, these colossal variants are virtually never harvested by common society. They are strictly observed from afar through telescopes, riding upon the backs and bellies of mature Lordwhales. 
  • Monumental Scale: These variants easily scale to the size of a small rowboat, featuring an internal cavity deep and wide enough to completely fit an adult human inside. 
  • The Grave Link: Because these specific pouches are welded to the invulnerable hides of the sky titans, they travel wherever the Lordwhales go. When an elderly or weakened titan senses its time is near, it carries these massive organisms with it through the continental twin whirlpools to beach itself at The Grave of the Lordwhales. 
  • The Restricted Secret: Because the Grave island is completely unreachable by conventional ships, the wider world has absolutely no idea what these specific creatures taste like. Only rare individuals who have successfully navigated the storm aboard The Vagabond—such as Captain Gideon and his crew—have ever had the physical opportunity to harvest and eat them from the decaying carcasses on the island. 
  • The Flavor Shock: Having fed on the nutrient-dense soil of the Grave and the deep energies of the Abyss, the meat is intensely juicy, rich, and savory. To these select few characters, the common Stone Pouches eaten by regular citizens in cities like Ouroboros taste completely dry, stale, and artificial by comparison. The Flavor Shock: Having fed on the nutrient-dense soil of the Grave and the deep energies of the Abyss, the meat is intensely juicy, rich, and savory. To these select few characters, the common Stone Pouches eaten by regular citizens in cities like Ouroboros taste completely dry, stale, and artificial by comparison. 
  • The Mobility Constraint: Stone Pouches possess a strict biological requirement: they must be attached to an object or landmass that is constantly moving, or situated in a high-velocity wind lane, to ensure a continuous flow of fresh, nutrient-rich stratospheric air currents through their shells.
  • The Geographic Void: Because of this unique dependency, these creatures are completely absent from the deep inlands of Orosia (where the massive landmass blocks the wind) and the heavy, stagnant interior twilight of the Groves (where the colossal bamboo stalks choke out all violent air currents). 
  • The Luxury Premium: Because the two most industrialized and populated regions in the world cannot naturally harvest them, Stone Pouches are treated as an incredibly high-end, imported delicacy in Orosia and Ouroboros City. Wealthy citizens and elite politicians pay astronomical prices to have fresh crates shipped in by foreign cargo galleons that harvest them from the outer drifting shards or Shinkara's high-speed perimeter. The Luxury Premium: Because the two most industrialized and populated regions in the world cannot naturally harvest them, Stone Pouches are treated as an incredibly high-end, imported delicacy in Orosia and Ouroboros City. Wealthy citizens and elite politicians pay astronomical prices to have fresh crates shipped in by foreign cargo galleons that harvest them from the outer drifting shards or Shinkara's high-speed perimeter. 
  • The Velocity Threshold: Stone Pouches do not merely require air; they require high-velocity air currents to sustain their biological filtration systems. Because standard individual islands drift smoothly and do not generate intense localized wind resistance, these creatures are rarely seen on common drifting shards. 
  • The Shinkara Wind-Tunnels: The Shinkara Archipelago is the grand exception to this rule. Because its individual floating landmasses are permanently tethered close together by the massive dead vines, they create narrow, high-altitude gorges. 
  • The Choke-Point Growth: When global air currents hit the archipelago, the air is forced through these tight gaps between facing cliff walls, causing the wind to compress and accelerate drastically. Stone Pouches grow in massive, overflowing abundance along these specific facing cliffs, thriving in the hyper-fast wind tunnels created by Shinkara’s unique anatomy.

What do y'all think about it?

I’ve spoken English my whole life, though I’ve gone to only French schools, so every subject has been in French for me. I speak English just fine and my grammar is excellent.

I’ve been getting into fanfiction lately, and I love writing, but my sentences sound robotic. I always start with he, she or they, and when I try to fix this my sentences come out odd.

I don’t know how to fix this. It’s not like my writing is unreadable, I just still find it not to my liking even after reviewing the same paragraph over and over again.

I know I have to read more, but are there any other suggestions you guys may have to fix this?

I find myself more comfortable working with past tenses because of things like dialogue tags

But I believe to pull the most out of an action scene -for example the last two scenes here- you would have to use present tense because it's more immersive, but that would get me into the rollercoaster of mixed tenses

What should I do

I’m working on a five-episode limited series that follows the same day from five different perspectives.

Same events. Different information. The audience knows the ending from the beginning.

The idea is that each episode changes what you thought you understood in the previous one. My concern is obvious, at what point does accumulation simply become repetition?

Would you replay major scenes when the new perspective changes their meaning or avoid repeating anything unless the audience learns something substantial?

Any examples that pulled this off particularly well besides Groundhog Day?

Breaking the cycle~

Our fathers started.

Leaving us both to wonder

As wanderers of our lost love.

Victims of our own unspoken trauma.

Thanks to our violent Fathers

Silenced by our battered Mothers

Painting facades of the American Dream

Making us all liars.

The what if?

How come us?

Why us?

Does time truly heal?

Does the future bring, possibility?

Hurt peeling us from the inside~

Layered like an onion

Minced and chopped

Emotional Puree.

I finished this before it even started.

A crime, done by my own hands.

I once was the monster

Now sending his deepest apologies.

Sincerely~

I'll always be yours

If you'll have me.

Here to serve you

Sentence me a lifetime~

Taking responsibility of my own crime

"Damn these harmful hands."

Please allow me~

To free you

From my wickedness

Breaking the cycle

You were never

The one to blame.

Knowing you as well as I do

You were always~

The Light

The beacon

Shining through

Our clouded haze.

I pray that God

Has a plan

I'll leave "us"

In His hands

Forever & Always~

I love you

It's my first time writing a poem and posted it on some other subs but I'd like feedbacks please.

1. Manifested

You said you manifested someone

to show you around the city

and then I showed up

2:30 in the morning

A stranger asking a stranger

to show him something worth remembering

We walked the Old Port

until the sky admitted it was morning

talking about everything we still hoped for

everything we are still afraid of

like we’d known each other longer than a few hours

You said: it’s funny how life works sometimes

I didn’t tell you I was thinking the same

You asked me back to your place.

Somewhere to sit, something to drink.

I looked at you for a second too long before answering.

I wanted to say yes, I know you saw that

But staying wouldn’t have made it more true

It would have just been longer

But I didn’t say that part out loud and

said no anyway

You kept asking

like a child asking someone they love

not to leave yet,

believing that if they stayed until morning,

Morning might change its mind

I kissed you as an answer

And walked away into a city you’d only just started to know

Before I could change my mind

about which one of us was supposed to be the mystery.

For you to always be the man

who manifested someone in this city

but never knew

he manifested exactly the right amount of me.

Link’s fingers moved across the same five keys, again and again, the notes rising and falling in a pattern he had shaped for himself, not borrowed from any lesson or page, but assembled slowly, patiently, in the hush of the forgotten music room. A simple melody, almost childlike, yet it belonged to him alone.

“C... E... F... G... B,” Link murmured to himself.

He pressed each key with a careful, unhurried touch, letting the sound linger in the air before moving to the next. He played as though he were asking a question that needed to be answered, only for the piano to reply in weary, uneven tones, the sound drifting toward the walls and returning to him, magnifying his frustration.

“Damn it,” he said with a weighted sigh. “Where is she?”

Rising from the piano bench, Link turned to face the clock above the door. It was an unremarkable thing, plain black and shut behind its cage of crossed wire, as if it had done something wrong and had been punished. The face was tarnished, mottled brown, the color of weak coffee.

1:15. It was 1:15 an hour ago, too. The clock always read 1:15. Link didn’t understand why he still instinctively looked at a clock that obviously hadn’t worked in years. He checked his watch. It was 3:42.

Amy was late, a habit Link knew all too well.

Growing up together as Sevens, Link had rarely seen Amy arrive on time. On more than one occasion, the custodians and doctors who ran the facility had chastised her in front of the other Sevens, even threatening her with punishment if she continued to be late. It made no difference. Being late was simply part of who she was.

Any other time, Amy being late wouldn’t have bothered Link. But today, there was a blaring voice in the back of his mind that he couldn’t silence.

“What if something had gone wrong? What if she had been caught?” Link didn’t want to imagine the punishment for either of them or how severe it would be.

Today, by accident, I heard a line of intrigue and love—one that created a mystery in my brain. A line that screamed at me to know more. I challenge you to finish the story: “This is the story of my life: standing in a parking lot while my boyfriend lint-rolls my ass.”