Definitely a good poll. It raises a question a lot of people wouldn't have even thought to ask. As of my vote, over 60% of the people polled believe the software companies COULD be involved which is a huge amount. Add in the people who think they are definitely behind the spread of viruses and that's 77% of that people polled. That's pretty huge if you ask me.
A very clever item. I was quickly getting the idea that the person he was playing was "the devil" or "death" once you started dropping clues. I liked the story a lot. It was a little heavy in description, but I quess that's your style. That was the only thing I felt I could say I noticed, but that's just your style and different people have different tastes so I guess that's not really even worth mentioning.
I must say I was certainly interested to see what comes next in your story.
It was definitely short and "sweet" (probably not the right word for this story).
The only thing I might recommend changing is the first line. Originally I was going to say it should read "The Whites, and the Asians, all know of Fifteenth Avenue". Without the "s" at the end it sounds like you're talking about a single person.
Thinking again though, I really think you should change it to "Everyone knows about Fifteenth Avenue". Why wouldn't everyone know about it? I know the boy is Asian, and the girl is white, but I would think anyone going down the road might encounter them. Also, some people might feel it's racist the original way. Best not to offend if you can avoid it, unless you can show a valid reason why only they know about it.
If you don't want to make it "everyone", do at least pluralize the words.
You could also probably make this story longer and more suspenseful. Just a thought. Perhaps have someone actually driving down the road, not daring to look in the mirror, sweat coming off his brow even though it's very mild out, etc... Or maybe have someone driving down the road with the boy already in the back, but not letting on yet that he doesn't belong until after the driver is away from the road, then the driver being grateful it wasn't the girl.
I like the story, but feel it could be fleshed out a little more to be more meaningful. It definitely shows good potential.
Cool game, it was a lot of fun. I didn't even know you could make these here. I'll have to try making some of my own! I'm disappointed to see you are inactive now, I hope you decide to come back eventually. :)
Your writing seems well thought out, but the story needs some attention to the formatting. Unfortunately I know all too well the perils of placing a story from another program to here.
My recommendations are to either put a line of space between each paragraph, or use the { indent } command (without the spaces) before each paragraph to better break them up. As they currently are, the paragraphs are a bit difficult to read.
Another idea is to put the letter in italics using the { I } and { /i } mark-up (also without the spaces). The letter being in all caps does set it off, but not in the positive way you'd like since caps tend to be considered as "yelling".
I do hope you write more, somewhere in each "chapter" though you should put a link to the other items, or folder they are stored in. Very often I see parts of stories that don't stand well by themselves with no connections to anything else and they reply stating it was part of a larger story. I'm not saying that about THIS story, but as a generality. We can only review based on what we see unless the author shows a connection to something large, only then can the story be reviewed in that context. Just a tip to keep in mind in the future.
I'm increasing the rating on the story by half a point because you did a great job of fixing the formatting of the story and it looks great. I really enjoyed it and look forward to reading more of your stories in the future.
You mentionded in your responce that you also indented the paragraphs, but unfortunately it doesn't matter how you write it in the box, you need to use the { indent } mark-ups (without the spaces).
Before I've even read the article, I have to say it looks like a mess. What you should do first is either indent the paragraphs or put some space between them.
After reading...
I liked the story. I myself would have liked hints to Shea being a Halfling a little soon, bit that's a small issue.
Grammar you might like to fix would be:
In the paragraph beginning with:
"Shea did as he was ordered and shinied up the side of the building," Should be shinnied
In the same paragraph you wrote:
"Twenty feet from the chamber, he caught caught sight of two guards walking his way."
The following isn't exactly and error, but was misleading at first:
"Holding the mace still, to possibly sell later,"
I might recommend writing "Still holding the mace, possible to sell later,"
When I first read the beginning of the sentence I thought he was "holding it still" (as in steady,) perhaps waiting to hit someone with it. The next part of the sentence made it clear that you meant he merely had it in his possession. Obviously the first part can hold a double meaning, so best to rule out the wrong meaning (if you know what I mean :P).
Those are very minor editing concerns though.
Once the paragraphs are cleaned up a little, I think the story will read a lot easier.
Good job. If this is an older piece, I should check out a newer one!
I had reviewed another of your stories, the other being the story of the robot who knew too much, and there is a night and day difference between the two.
I'm really not a religious person, so I am rating you completely on the writing rather than the subject, but it was a cute story.
I personally thought some of the paragraphs were a short and in certain areas you should have kept a few one sentence paragraphs together in a single larger paragraph.
An example is when you wrote:
Jax came at him again, faked a high side-swing, and then arched his blow low, hoping to catch Robert off guard.
With that strange speed, Robert easily moved out of the way.
The reason I recommend them together is that they're an action and reaction so are closely related.
Often authors shorten sentences and paragraphs in action scenes to increase the pacing of the story, perhaps that's what you were doing, but certain things should stay together. For an excellent article I found on tightening up sentences, check out the link in my signature.
I liked the story a lot. It was well written with excellent description and you painted very vivid images.
If there is one thing I hate about posting a story though it's that the format you wrote it in doesn't translate (meaning you lose the indentations of your paragraphs, italiced text reverts to regular text and "centered" text aligns itself to the left, etc....). I noticed a number of paragraph needed to be indented, but the majority of them already are.
Great work on the story, and I wish you luck with your writing. I myself only have one story up currently, but if you get the inclination, pop on over for a read. :)
You really had me drawn into the story, up until the end. When the police found her, I couldn't be certain if she killed her father or if it was in her head. I assume she did, but police confirmation would really help(like a comment about the other body they found).
Also, how did she die? When the officer was about to perform CPR, and spit out paint, I assume she drank paint, but can't be certain. That can probably be left as is, but was a little vague.
Lastly, what was she sniffing? I thought it was glue, but that was never revealed either.
I really liked the story and the way you wrote it, but the ending had me a little confused when I thought I was following it so well before then(like how did the walls end up all white?)
I think this story has potential to be more, but you would have to do more with it. It needs something, either more action, more reason, or a moral(any of the three would be a big help.
Also, there are a number of spelling/typo errors that should be addressed, especially the two in the story's description under the title. People can forgive an error once in a while, but when they appear common, it really brings down the level of the writing.
I think simply fixing errors would add at least half a star to people's reviews, if not a full star. At the time of this review, the story is 8 and a half months old and these errors haven't been addressed yet. I was originally going to give the story a rating of 3, but that fact alone shows how little you care about your writing. Ironically enough you had just edit the story today.
I think you have an excellent vocabulary, certainly better than mine, but your paragraphing and sentence structure need work. I thought the story was wonderful, but due to the grammar issues, was more difficult to read than it should have been.
If you can sharpen your writing skills, I think you really have the potential to be a great writer.
Excellent advice. I wished I'd found it in my first day or two. lol. Fortunately I am very computer literate and it all came pretty easily for me. I know many people aren't so lucky, so this is a great guide for them.
Thanks also for the review of my "How I rate and review" post. I went to fix the sentence or two you had recommended, but I saw I had already changed a few things already including what you had advised me of. I think it's almost "complete" to the point where I won't have to edit it again(or too much more :P ).
If you like mythology/fantasy, I'd love for you to check out "Hercules and the Sword of Ares" short story(but only if you enjoy that kind of story).
Thanks again. :D
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