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6 Public Reviews Given
7 Total Reviews Given
Public Reviews
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Review by Jolly_McJ
Rated: 18+ | (4.5)
I really liked this piece. I would say, however, that the subject is a little easy. By that I mean, you've attacked a topic that everyone can agree with. No one would say, "oh, you're wrong, segregation was awesome." Then again, you've done it from a unique angle, and I like that.
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Review by Jolly_McJ
Rated: E | (4.5)
Congratulations, you have the highest rating I've ever given. You're very clearly into TS Eliot, who happens to be my favorite poet, and you are writing vivid, sonorous, magnificent poetry here.

My only suggestion is that you step back on using words like "upon," "among," etc. Simply because they sound antiquated. Other than that, wonderful job.
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Review by Jolly_McJ
Rated: E | (3.5)
I'm unsure of this piece. There are moments that I love, which paint a magnificent image of this house for which you have such a great personal love. But there are other moments, like this:

"What wonders they would see inside at this moment! I would like to send the house to Hollywood, for no finer setting for horror movie or gothic romance could be created than the reality of the mansion."

Where you sound like Aphra Behn or something. The style is just too archaic, it sounds so unnatural in a contemporary setting. If it were done less often, I'd think it was meant to make the narrative style reflect the house itself, but, as it is, I think you let Resoration-Victorian literature influence your style much too much. You end up with a lot of sentences, as a result, that just read as overwrought and stilted. Bits like this:

"Once familiar with the Mansion, one begins to regard her as an entity, tendering her respect with the emphatic inflection of a proper name."

don't sound like they came from a person. Rather, it sounds like a person doing an imitation of something obsolete and disconnected from today's language. "One begins to regard her as an entity," for example, just puts far too many unnecessary words to a simple concept. There's no magic number of words one should use; what's more important is recognizing when you don't actually NEED some of them. "Soon enough, the Mansion becomes more than a place." or "After a time, the Mansion becomes more an identity than a place." That kind of thing.

The spirits thing, at first, made me say, WHAT!? I didn't feel the transition was even extant, let alone clear or smooth. I felt like that could have been more carefully introduced. We went from description to ghost story in a blank space between the paragraphs. I would suggest hinting around beforehand with words like "eerie," "empty," "silent," etc.

I'd also warn you to watch your diction. Words are beautiful things, but remember that you need to be able to tell the difference between when something is redoubtable or when something is fearsome. Is this person talkative or loquacious? Big words can impress, but they can also sound like they're being used just because they're the bigger version of their synonyms.

When you find yourself using a lot of adverbs, you're in trouble. When that happens, try to find a verb that functions for both the verb you want to use, and the adverb you're using to describe it. They weren't disdainfully regarding, they were mocking or something similar.

Another example snippet: "modern houses could acquire through diligent design." Again, the sentence is simply overwritten for its purpose, and it detracts from the ending, which, in my opinion, is the most important part of the piece. it's written as if it was purposed to be more advanced than necessary, and becomes stilted. Maybe "one could find in any appraisal.

All in all, an enjoyable piece that creates a more or less vivid picture of the house in question. Just work on sounding like you normally sound, and not like you think you're "supposed" to sound. Once the language stops bogging you down, you'll find that writing just feels more natural, more like you. Trust me.
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Review by Jolly_McJ
Rated: E | (3.5)
You're the first person I've read who deserved above a three, so I'm celebrating right now!

Let me say that I loved the powerful and evocative nature of the story itself, the child's innocence and ignorance of life and death. The infantile grasp on impermanence was beautifully done.

Some mechanical critiques I had, though, would be to vary the sentence structure a bit more. For the first paragraph I felt like a robot was telling the story.

Also, I didn't particularly like the last line. It felt a little forced, contextually speaking. Suddenly we've pulled WAY far away from this close-up and we're in "every year?" The transition just seemed too fast. While I understand the purpose for a sentiment like that at the end of the story, I felt it could have been done a little less abruptly. You're at a point in the story where you could turn it into anything, but you've wasted all the power on that ending. While what you have, I guess, does convey the sentiment, how much more powerful would a new, single-sentence paragraph of "Looking around the now dusty bedroom, I leave red tulips on an empty pillow, and smile." You can take the story anywhere from here, don't just say "oh hey, now tulips remind me of this," expand!
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Review of The Devil's sin  
Review by Jolly_McJ
Rated: 13+ | (2.5)
I'll be honest, I've read maybe, five good sonnets in my entire life, and four of them were by Shakespeare. I admire your commitment in trying to tackle such a difficult form to work well with, but your meter ultimately falls apart by the end of the first stanza and never quite recovers.

You've thrown several cliched tropes at us as hard as you were able, and I felt the poem was a little weakened by obviousness and puerility because of that. Lines like "Their soul, their being I will set to the flame" are terribly awkward and, even if "fixed" somehow, will still sound consciously archaic and overly Elizabethan. Sonnets written in a pseudo-Shakespearian language look very out of place today, and ultimately are weakened by that. It's good that you ventured headlong into a form that doesn't allow much in the way of good poems, and it's impressive that, even though this is a sonnet, it's not TERRIBLE. Keep on truckin.
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