User blog comment:SirLinkalot96/The Greg Ryder Saga: Part 5: Chapter 9: The Rat: Part 1/@comment-4675595-20130608071700

Sorry it took so long to get around to this. To be honest I'm not sure how to approach this, because the whole premise of this story (the entire thing, not just your branch of it) has gotten so over-the-top ridiculous that I don't even know where I would start with this plotline. But hey, you guys seem to be having fun with it, so more power to you I guess.

As for the writing itself, it's easy to follow, but could use some tightening up. You have a tendency to completely spell everything out for your reader, even when it's the simplest of ideas. For example, your very last paragraph is basically "I want to cry. I want to cry. I cried. I was sad. I cried for a long time." While this is definitely the kind of scene you'd like to draw out a bit, because it shows just how hurt Greg is over losing his friends, simply repeating over and over that Greg is sad just feels redundant, and doesn't make the scene any more impactful. If anything, it makes it seem a bit like you're talking down to your readers, like they won't get it if you just say it once.

There are also things within this one line in particular, which has several different issues that appear throughout the story:

''C-Money jumped out of his chair and shouted angrily, "THAT DOESN'T MEAN YOU HAD TO TELL HIM THE TRUTH ABOUT OUR ACTIVITIES AND NOT TELL US! YOU COULD HAVE LIED TO HIM AND THEN TELL US ABOUT WHAT HE WAS DOING!" ''

1. The word "angrily" is completely unnecessary. The context tells us that he's angry. It's a tense situation to begin with, and then he jumps out of his chair and yells.

2. C-Money's first sentence is very weird. Not only does it completely spell out what's going on in the scene, but it's phrased very awkwardly. I don't know of many modern teenagers who would use a phrase like "the truth about our activities" in casual speech, especially a dude like C-Money. (I mean, the guy calls himself C-Money and sees nothing weird about that. This isn't a guy who would go out of his way to use a word like "activities" where a simple "What the fuck, man!?" would do.)

3. ...that being said, he does bring up a good point. Why DIDN'T Greg lie and spy on the principal instead? Greg's follow-up of "he would have known I was lying" is pretty weak, especially considering the Principal needed a kid to help him keep an eye on his own students.

But that third point can be taken with a grain of salt, I guess, because I'm not totally sure how realistic or logical this story is supposed to be in the first place. In any future stories you may plan to write, however, I'd suggest not skewing the characters' reasoning so far out of proportion, unless it's for a good reason.

Overall, though, I do like that you tried to stir up some trouble within the group, even making your own character the bad guy of the situation. These guys have all been besties for at least as long as I've been on this wiki, so it's interesting to see things get shaken up between them. It's a gutsy move.