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Review by Joy Rivers
Rated: ASR | (4.5)
This piece is very well done. I particularly liked the prose sections, as they showed your own valuable experience with writing and editing. The long list of common errors would be available from many sources but your own unique perspective is the most outstanding aspect of this piece.

With adult writers, unfortunately, the rules don't always stick. As Stephen King points out in his book On Writing, at some point one must just get writing done and accept that an understanding of the rules may always escape you. The best way to learn to write, in other words, is to read the best material you can find and then to write a lot. This is not top say that all attempts to change one's poor habits are in vain, but sometimes mechanical issues can become daunting and people sometimes give up because they may feel they cannot do it perfect enough to show to anyone. I think you do understand this.

I actually had to read the entire Chicago Manual of Style for a professional editing course I took. I learned a great deal to help me with editing the work of others, but my own writing did not improve any with all that additional knowledge. I was required to source site the specific rule for every change I made; once I knew the book well and had it post-tabbed, that was easier to do. I still encourage most writers to free-write first, and then revise afterward. However, I do not believe there is just one way for the writing process to work, for each writer is an individual.

Here are some brilliant and essential bits that I really love about your helpful piece:

1) "Every mistake you catch is one less for your reviewers to find. If, as a set of fresh eyes, your reviewers are not distracted by obvious mistakes, they'll be able to focus on important corrections and advice. (The practice will also make you less likely to make mistakes in the future.)"

I really believe in the truth of this! Many new writers are incredibly sensitive about their content and how they express their ideas. Writers need to keep their identities and their writing as separate as possible--be distanced from their work. People who become insanely defensive in the face of a somewhat corrective review have not yet developed the thick skin required to succeed in a world wherein you must be edited to be published. If such writers learn to anticipate an editor's response in advance, it can work really well in the revision process. This paragraph is a wonderful point among many good ones you made.

2) "Here's what I look for in my own work that I apply to others: missing words, incorrect punctuation, spelling mistakes, repeated words/phrases, incorrect tenses, and typos (typos can be anything from a missing or added letter in a word, or a different word typed in altogether)."

I like this because you convey that you are not immune from mistakes and also provide the process that you use. Reading and editing the work of others is great training for looking critically at one's own writing, and although it is often MORE difficult than editing someone else's writing, it is an essential skill for professional writers. You make the process seem do-able and important. Well put!

To avoid becoming a little too much like the CMS in this article, I would suggest going back through and simplifying a bit more, and providing examples and their corrections. For some reason, students tend to remember the rules better if they can see the rules in action. It isn't so important to know the name(s) of the mistakes they make, as it is to eliminate the action. Also, I would remove the section that is found in numerous sources elsewhere--the list of commonly made errors, for example. Choose maybe three of the worst offences and elaborate more on those, instead. Deep rather than broad is a good strategy to actual help your readers improve, which is the real goal of the piece, right? If they become overwhelmed, they may just shut down and move on.

Thanks for being so kind as to create such a comprehensive guide by which other writers on the site can benefit. Work on condensing and simplifying sentences where you can and providing examples wherever possible. These are suggestions that will not steer you wrong in terms of revising your own excellent work.

Excellent effort put into this instructional piece!

My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Go Noticed" .
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Review by Joy Rivers
Rated: E | (5.0)
I was very touched by the childhood memories you invoke in this free-flowing biographical piece. It could stand alone as is, or be part of a longer memoir book. It would be a book I would love to read!

I am glad, in this case, you wrote incomplete sentences to indicate the way you would speak if you were telling the story out loud. When used from 'within' a character, and here YOU are the character-narrator, such exceptions to the official rules are just fine and add to the folksy character of the narrative voice.

I could easily relate to the aspects of your life that were included -- and particularly loved the ending, in which you refer to the universal sound of a mother's voice calling kids to dinner. Wow! And, of course, when the father's 'sharp' whistle becomes necessary, we all know he means business and we should not tarry! LOL

The nursery across the street makes for an interesting scene; I would't normally think of nursery owners as rich but your childhood perception of that was believable and engaged my interest. what about the nursery made you think the people who owned it were rich? I would like to hear more about that, if you develop this story further.

Sadly, I do not have recollections of the Ice Man, but I love hearing about him from those who recall that time.
This description is extremely interesting, as it is such a sharp contrast to our 'modern' lives today. Well done to bring that up. It could be a story all in itself, should you develop it further.

I think that if you wrote your memoirs, they would be fascinating to read. You have a natural ability to know what details belong and what details may not need to be included. This selection process is often a hard one for beginning writers but you have mastered it. The flow from beginning to end is actually very nice as it is. A few more smells, sounds, and maybe even some dialogue, are things you could add (everyone can always add a few more of these, though), but overall, I really loved your way with words and the picture you painted of your setting.

Well done!
My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Go Noticed" .
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Review by Joy Rivers
Rated: 13+ | (2.5)
I think there is a fuller story here, and that story could be interesting. I think the ending is creepy and that the end of the story has more pizzaz than the beginning does. Overall, however, I think that work needs to be done on getting the reader 'into' the story at the start, and that adding so much backstory into the early part of the story (telling and not showing) is likely to squash the interest and overwhelm the reader with details that are not active. How aboput starting the story at the point where Neel appears in the back seat? That would definitely be attention-grabbing.

Here are some more developed comments for you to consider.

The first paragraph could be made more engaging or provacative, if the sentence structure was more complex, or if ideas were combined together and more concrete description was used.
Example: "He was returning home after a business trip from the city." Could you work this into the story more naturally? For example, "After yet another dull trip to the city (give the city a name), he knew highway 14 by heart and. . ." Similarly, I would make surew that one paragraph leads naturally to the next. By putting, " Stifling another yawn, he decided to stop at the next petrol station." at the end of paragraph one, you would better lead into his excelleration toward the rest stop which begins the second paragraph.

I note that the piece focuses on the inner mind of Raven, which is backstory. I would try and keep the energy on actions, and lead the reader to conclude things about the character in a more indirect manner. I would rather be shown things than told things, especially at the start of a piece. Switching to back story before I am really engaged with the character might cause me to lose interest in reading the rest.

The pacing, because of the backstory, loses momentum. In paragraph 1, we imagine that he is barely able to stay awake and is eagerly loking for a place to stop - he would know exactly where the next rest station was because it is a road that he has obviously had to drive many times. After a lot of back story, you include a single sentence: "The lights of a petrol station loomed in the distance. Breaking out of his thoughts, he decided to stop for coffee." Did he not already decide to stop when he felt drowsy in paragraph 1? So, at first the pace is moving very slow indeed, and then suddenly skips over things once he is at the station.

"The station was deserted. The aroma of strong coffee awakened his senses. (Something is missing here - his interaction with the cashier, or purchasing of coffee. These actions could reveal things about his personality and also provide a sense of him being 'out' of his own headspace.)

"Picking up his coffee, he got back in the warm confines of his car and started driving." Going from smelling the coffee to having it (picking it up in his hand) seems too fast for the pacing you established earlier; it would be better to just have him go through a drive through, wouldn't it? Or perhaps this part of the story could be significantly shortened into a sentence or two.

How can you show character traits, or reveal backstory more naturally through actions or dialogue, rather than reporting or telling? That is somthing that would be good to work on to increase your story-telling abilities so that your great ideas don't get lost in 'telling' too much, too soon.


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Review of Clouds  
Review by Joy Rivers
Rated: E | (4.0)
This poem has a really neat twist! I love poems like that. I like the variety of seemingly unrelated objects your narrator notices while looking at the sky, and the juxtaposition of them makes me curious as to what the narrator is watching. At the end, I discover that the place is the sky, where the images are all products of the narrator's imagination. I like how this reflects the process of poetry itself, the way that poetry makes old known things new and unknown - the defamiliarization of language and concepts that is so unique in poetry and creative prose.

I terms of suggestions, I would like to see more active and colorful verbs and a little more concrete language throughout. The repetition of "I see" becomes a bit tedious by the end, and you can easily fix this by adding alternative words such as 'spy", "view', 'percieve', 'observe', 'marvel at', 'look', 'peer', etc. Seeing a few crowds - did you mean crows? Either way, it is a bit vague and lacks the energy of the rest of the poem. I would recommend going with some reference to another sense, such as smell or hearing, perhaps.

I hope these comments have been helpful. I really enjoyed the surprise in this poem and the lovely way you rhymed. : )
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