%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 Review #4609539 |
 | Invalid Item  [] |
| (4.0)  Welcome to WdC from the "Newbie Welcome Wagon" Good morning, A Cassandra.  , and I hope it finds you well. In the immortal words of Jim Bishop, "A good writer is not per se, a good book critic any more than a good drunk is automatically a good bartender," but bear with me; I'm going to take a shot anyway (see what I did there?)  .For the record, my real name is Jack Tyler, and I am a retired mystery, steampunk, and horror writer who tries to review in a wide variety of styles and genres. While I have a few books in print, I am neither a famous author nor a renowned critic. I'm just a guy with an opinion that I'm here to share, and if you disagree with anything I say here, remember that the only opinion that matters is yours. As I said, I'm no authority, but hopefully my comments will give you some ideas to take your writing in directions you hadn't previously considered. I should tell you that poetry isn't an area I have any particular expertise with, but this deserves some notice, and anyway, you asked for it! Let me just drop a warning here, and we'll get started. THIRD-PARTY READERS TAKE NOTE: SPOILERS AHEAD PRESENTATION: This aspect deals with the first impression your story makes when a reader clicks on the title. Call it the cosmetics. I'll be looking at abstract items from text density to scene dividers in an effort to ferret out any unfortunate habits that might cause a reader to move on without actually reading anything; before you can dazzle him with your show, you have to get him into the tent! I'll first touch on a point that causes no deductions, but can be very much improved: The font. I'm told that the default font here is Arial. I only half-jokingly call it Times New Eyestrain, as I often have to stack two pairs of reading glasses to make it hold still. There are a number of ways to tweak the appearance of your item {this review is in Verdana 3.5 with a line spacing of 1.4, for example), but the simplest is to add the command {size:3.5} at the beginning. You might be amazed at what it does for the appearance. This other thing may be legit — as I said, I'm no poet — but it stood out to me as a point to improve. I think this should be broken into two or three stanzas. Two would put the break after The loss of each keystone forces us closer to the brink. "Extinct, think," and "brink" tie the stanza together with their rhyme, and As a species, we are too highly specialized seems to begin a new, more species-specific theme. In my opinion, three stanzas might look more attractive on the page, but you lose the connecting rhymes. Anyway, a small down-check for these items, but nothing too major. THEME: But those are things that can be fixed with a few mouse clicks. Now we come to the heart of the issue. This is really the basic element, isn't it? If you don't have an engaging theme, the whole thing falls flat. So let's examine the individual parts of the whole and see what works to make it successful. There are certainly no down-checks here! The theme of "no one here gets out alive" is riveting in its finality, and while many readers may avoid its disturbing tones, it remains powerful and compelling across all genres. The fact that you ground it in science rather than some supposed war or apocalypse that may or may not come to pass makes it all the more compelling. Superb choices across the board! MECHANICS: Whether you're writing fact or fiction, prose or poetry, the "holy grail" that you're striving for is immersion. This is an area that no author, myself included, ever wants to talk about: I've done all this work, and you want to argue over a comma?" But those commas are important. What you're really doing as a writer is weaving a magic spell around your reader, and your reader wants you to succeed. He wants to escape his mundane world for a period, and lose himself in your creation. Errors in spelling and grammar, typos, "there" vs. "their" issues, use of words inconsistent with their actual meanings, all yank him out of his immersion while he backtracks to re-read and puzzle out what you meant to say. This is never good, and this is the section that deals with that. I did find a few of these sorts of items which will cause another small down-check, so let's look into them. I've already talked about the need for stanzas, and I'm not deducting twice for the same item. These are new items for you to look at. In the line Eight billion of us children in ancestral eves shadow, Eve was a person, whether you believe the Bible is fact or myth, and needs to be capitalized. Also, we live in her shadow, possessive, which means it needs an apostrophe: Eve's. In the line Top species always lose, ammonites trilobite sauropod or you, I find several issues. First, I like the list of species ending with "you." That's a powerful statement. But ammonites is plural and all the others are singular. They should all match, and I think they should be singular, because that implies that "you" is singular, and makes the poem speak directly to the reader. Also, all of those species should be separated by commas. Finally, bread, as in a loaf of bread, in the line following makes no sense. I suspect you mean "breed," to procreate. Quite a bit for a piece this small, hence the slight deduction, but your message comes through loud and clear, so again, nothing that can't be fixed with a few mouse clicks. SUMMARY:  I hope that I have presented my opinions in a way that is constructive, and that you will find helpful to your endeavors going forward. It is never my intention to belittle anyone's efforts or discourage them from following the dream that I have found so fulfilling for the last six decades. In any case, if I can leave you with one thought to take with you, let it be this: Don't forget to have the fun! So many young and/or beginning writers get so caught up in the daily word count, the quest for publication, and the often conflicting advice of other writers that they forget to enjoy the journey. You may or may not become the next Big Celebrity Author, but you will always have the experience. Make sure it's a good one!Thanks for sharing. I really enjoyed your work. ** Image ID #2234711 Unavailable ** As a member with some experience here, allow me to offer you some links you may find helpful. First and foremost has to be
Second is
Finally, I don't operate a group, but I'm a member of a good one, and I recommend a visit soon.
Looking forward to seeing you around the site!  Jack "Blimprider" Tyler My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
|
|||||||||||||||
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
You responded to this review 05/09/2021 @ 2:19pm EDT