u/According-Pin-773

Hello teachers! I’m a student in Year 11 (will head onto Year 12 in a few months), and I’ve been working very hard on a personal project. It involves a novella with an exploration of certain dark themes (politics, implied and sometimes explicit violence, non-gratuitous smut), which is a culmination of my worldview and opinions I hold dearly.

My English teacher is an approachable and humorous British gent, and his command over language is simply amazing. I love his classes and frankly, he’s very “chill”. I’m very tempted to send a snippet of my novella to him (around 1K), one without smut but does include implied violence as a taster.

*For emphasis (edit, but was also included in the original): I’ll be sure to include a full disclaimer regarding all the potentially dark / NSFW bits so he can opt out.

I’m not sending the entire 5K draft to him immediately, because I know teachers are very busy, and demanding their spare time to look at my project might come across as selfish.

I have some beta readers online and within closer friends, but they don’t offer much in-depth analysis of my prose, structure or characterisations, which I really crave. But some have said that my writing has “commercial” prose, a strong internal voice and vivid atmosphere.

Do you think I should go forward with sending the snippet first? As impulsive as I may be, I’m a big scaredy cat.

I’m not sure how teachers view students who send them weird stuff like this, so I’d like advice on how best to approach this issue. Many thanks!

Final verdict after reading everyone’s valid advice: rest assured, won’t be sending it anytime soon

Hello English teachers! I’m a student in Year 11 (will head onto Year 12 in a few months), and I’ve been working very hard on a personal project. It involves a novella with an exploration of certain dark themes (politics, implied and sometimes explicit violence, non-gratuitous smut), which is a culmination of my worldview and opinions I hold dearly.

My English teacher is an approachable and humorous British gent, and his command over language is simply amazing. I love his classes and frankly, he’s very “chill”. I’m very tempted to send a snippet of my novella to him (around 1K), one without smut but does include implied violence as a taster. I’ll be sure to include a full disclaimer regarding all the potentially dark / NSFW bits so he can opt out.

I’m not sending the entire 5K draft to him immediately, because I know teachers are very busy, and demanding their spare time to look at my project might come across as selfish.

I have some beta readers online and within closer friends, but they don’t offer much in-depth analysis of my prose, structure or characterisations, which I really crave. But some have said that my writing has “commercial” prose, a strong internal voice and vivid atmosphere.

Do you think I should go forward with sending the snippet first? As impulsive as I may be, I’m a big scaredy cat.

I’m not sure how teachers view students who send them weird stuff like this, so I’d like advice on how best to approach this issue. Many thanks!

Be warned: I’m pretty new at this, and I’m fairly young. Haven’t found anyone in my close circle who would read my stuff seriously—therefore, I’m trying to find one here (a mentor-ish figure, or at least someone who will tell me which parts are horrible).

P.S. I’m also an awfully slow writer, so I’ve only completed around 3 chapters, each 1K long. I’ve edited most grammatical mistakes. Hopefully this isn’t a massive trainwreck.

This should be a fairly short read. :)

What I’d like to know (Feel free to add anything you’d like!):
- Whether the voices for my characters are working
- Is the prose too ornate? Be honest with me. I love playing with prose, but sometimes I get overboard and start waffling.
- Is my foreshadowing working?
- Do any of the characters disgust you? If they do, it’s working.

More on the content, because I can’t fit it all in the heading:
- Unreliable narrator
- Political + Wartime context (which will start coming in way more heavily in later chapters)
- Mature themes, NSFW (no gratuitous smut)
- Romance, but not overwrought and important to the plot
- Metamorphosis, but metaphorically

DM if you’re interested! I have a pretty idealised fantasy for my book—shatter it if you must. I won’t cuss you out.