INTRODUCTION

Hello BardfromYharnam ,

I came across your item "A dozen or so sentences"  in the review request thread and the premise just really stuck out, so I thought I would drop by to leave my thoughts on the piece and hopefully offer some insight into how it's being received.

So let's get into it

WHAT I LIKED:

Concept

I think the idea of telling someone's story in a dozen or so quotes that they hear in their lifetime is a really fascinating premise. The piece didn't deliver what I expected going in, but even so, it was immediately engaging, and the whole thing offered some fascinating insights into the character you introduced.


Quotes

I also have to say that I liked the quotes quite a bit. There was just enough context to add something to the story, but not enough to ruin the idea that the quotes themselves would have been sufficient to tell the story on their own. They also had a bit of diversity to them in style, which helped add the impression of different speakers.




Perspective & Notes

The quote premise was just so good, that I wish you had stuck to it just a little bit more. There was a little too much first person exposition, I felt like, and it took away a little bit. The fact that the man is choosing his own quotes makes it feel less objective, and the fact that he's given so much exposition on the book where he's writing them sort of distracted me from the core concept.

Personally, what I would have liked to see, was twelve quotes about the character (or spoken to the character - one or the other) and then have the thirteenth quote be a direct quote from him about his twelve sentence rule, serving as a sort of epitaph to close out the story and give a retrospective exposition for the concept. It wouldn't have been quite as linear (and the story would have had a darker feel) but I feel like it would have stuck true to that amazing concept.

CONCLUSION:

I hope that the review was somewhat helpful, and I just want to thank you for sharing this piece. Although there was some things that I would have liked to see done differently in the execution, I got a lot out of the concept and the introduction.Quotes are something that have always had a heavy influence on my writing, and this was a new perspective on them, and a concept that I think generally speaking is a great character building tool.

Sincerely,


-Cat
















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