Hello again Prosperous Snow celebrating!

Since you've been so kind as to review a few of my poems recently, it's probably time I looked at something of yours.

I hope that this review proves helpful to you. Please remember that everybody has different tastes. My critique is the opinion of only one person and offered in the spirit of constructive criticism with a hope that it will be useful if you decide to further develop or edit your tale. Approaching your writing, I'm searching for specific elements that I shall address under separate headers.

When approaching your story, I'm searching for specific elements, and each will be addressed under a different header.


Hook — does your opening have something that stops this reader putting down your story?


Falling through a rip in time and space is certainly a hook for me!

Characters — are they well rounded?


Your protagonist is proactive and certainly a sympathetic character in her desire to do good work on Earth and her fear for the fate of our planet due to pollution etc. However, she's not really very well rounded. You don't give her a name, provide a rough age, tell us if she has a job or if, indeed, she's really an angel or something. Other than that she's 'I' and she's kind, we know nothing about her.

Plot — does your story contain a clear plot with a strong resolution, or hook if it's a chapter or serial?


The plot is simple but sweet. However, I did feel you could have made the conflict a bit more arduous. I mean, she could have struggled a bit more mentally over whether she would return to Earth or not. It would have made for greater emotional impact.

Pace — does your story feel like it's going somewhere?


Too fast paced, imho. I feel you could explore a lot more of your character's personality and thoughts before reaching your resolution.

Language and voice — does this reader 'feel' the story?


The narrative was generally clear, but there were a few issues. Maybe it's a deliberate tool to give your character 'voice', but I felt there were too many sentences beginning 'I'. It's a common problem with first person narrative, obviously, but in such a short piece of flash fiction, it stood out for me.

A few notes:

I descended into the dark unknown and landed in a meadow of wild rhyme - did you mean 'wild thyme'? - ah, no, you continue with the 'rhyme'. My bad.

This morning a nightingale woke me up. - once viewpoint is established, directional components are unnecessary. So, here, the 'up' is redundant at the end of the sentence.

Its song reverberating through my dreams - if you join this to the previous sentence then it would make sense in this tense. Otherwise is needs to be in pluperfect here, ie. Its song had reverberated throug my dreams, if you catch my drift.

I would listen to the nightingale sang while - either 'sing' if you mean as a verb or 'song' if you mean as a noun.

Settings — is this reader grounded in 'real' scenes?


The settings were really cool!

Themes — is this reader blown away by mind-blowing philosophy or originality?


I love the theme of the pollution and problems of Earth needing people to stop dreaming and start taking action. Great theme!

Conclusion — a summary of how this reader personally felt about your story.


My feeling is that this is a story with an important message to communicate and a really interesting premise, but that its protagonist really needs a lot of development so that the reader cares about her and wants to see her succeed. Also, I feel you need more internal conflict in the character with respect to her important decisions.

Thank you for sharing your story with me. Good luck with your writing.

Best wishes,

Bob



My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .