Rate my writing

Not just you

I find it difficult to find that balance between meaningful simplicity and over complicated writing. Besides the beginning quote of course, are there any examples in my work that you thought were over written?

Yes very good point. I suppose I was trying to highlight how much deeper his voice was than the others because he was older, but I should probably re-word that.

At the end
>begun off

What is that?

Also, you seem to try and place too much in every description, as in too many words. I think you should streamline your description so that its not a bunch of tacked on sentences, it will sound smoother. Keep the sentences separate if you really want someone to understand the image you are trying to convey, but still don't over do it

Something seems weird about the profanity to me.

I'm not sure how old the kids are- I was thinking like 12, since someone's voice being pubescent was specifically mentioned, but at that age I think they'd use curse words to seem more mature. They wouldn't casually use them, they'd try to use them for effect. But the boys are spewing them pretty casually.

But maybe they're supposed to be older?

Anyway... I don't like where you started in media res. You can't create drama by killing Ellis and Lara, I don't even have a clear idea of where I am or what's going on or who these people are. Honestly I was pretty lost until I read the blurb explaining the human trafficking thing.
I'd try a draft that starts at the point of the shipwreck, or the moments before.

I agree with this guy
about the simple approachable style, and that the quote is meh. Your issue isn't purple prose I'd say, it's just the pacing of description and action is a little off. It's good you describe characters immediately to give us an idea of what they look like, but since you're starting in the middle of action, you're constricting your ability to describe because you're also trying to generate action and drama immediately.

That's why I think you should start the story earlier- lets you introduce people and set the scene in a less rushed fashion.

Let me give you an example.

You don't need much for something visually descriptive, a fee long sentences to get the mood.

But if you need to be descritpive to tell part of the story, do carefully packed sentences.

Let me pull something out of my ass to show you what I mean.

'Her arms were sprawled haphazardly on the bedroom floor. Her head had rested facing the bed. Her rings glared as I moved closer to them. The finger that it resided on, as well as the rest, were spackled with blood. It had pooled from the wound just below her right breast. She'd been cut with a large knife it appeared, and deep."

>begun off
To begin to go off in a direction away from the area.

I agree with everything you say, the problem is I will tack on sentences like that without even noticing, so I need to break out of that habit.

The boys are 13 so yes you were correct there. As a 13 year old I used swear words quite willy-nilly because I thought it was 'cool' or made me sound that way. I wrote it so that these kids thought it was cool to swear, not because they really thought about what they were saying.

In regard to where I started in the story, I can definitely see where you're coming from there. I'll take that into consideration.

Thanks both for the criticism. It's genuinely a huge help.

Just another quick thing- You clarify Maya is the bronze-skinned girl twice. It's good to be clear, but you don't need to hold the reader's hand.

Unless that was unintentional, in which case
'you need to edit the fucking thing' is really important advice. We may be just anonymous assholes, but you really want to kill redundancies like that before showing the work.

Intentional. I think that was a case of me trying to be too clear there. Thanks.

>my free advice for you, OP

I like the setting, and picking a group of children to write for an adult audience neato.

However, it reads like you're trying way too hard. Check out this bit:

>"Nobody could bring themselves to speak until the tallest boy among them, Sigmund, stood. His voice was pubescent and sonorous and this caught their attention. "They may not be coming back," he addressed his cohort."

Right there you use "pubescent", "cohort", and "sonorous." That screams of thesaurus abuse. Using big words is all well and good, but the reason these "big" words exist to to be more specific, not to provide a fancier-sounding turn of phrase. "Pubescent" in particular is really awkward. Instead of telling us that he's going through puberty, show us that he's older than the others. Reveal his character to the reader.

I can give you more notes later if you want.

Yeah thanks mate you've got good points here. Appreciated.