I have to say, I found your technical ability per your prose to be of an impressive quality. You are gifted in this regard. Beyond that, perhaps because I am otherwise unfamiliar with this group of stories you have here, the story did little to inspire me. I do not feel it would be appropriate for me to comment on the characters, as I feel you may have developed them far more in other stories.
This might be a manner of taste, although I do like fantasy. Your level of writing honestly beats a lot of published fantasy out there, but your pacing does not. I rarely say this, but I honestly felt like, given the amount of action happening here, that the story needed to be longer: it felt, sort of, like a summary, and the "closeness" to the action felt inconsistent; the ending rushed.
I feel some of this pacing could be serviced by better paragraph breaks. I recommend re-reading the story and see if you can tell where I'm coming from with this. A sudden action shouldn't be buried in a block of descriptive, but deftly handled, prose.
Anyhow, these are just some thoughts from some random guy who more randomly still plunged into this story. I feel, though, once a story has the ability to grab an otherwise disinterested party, it would be an indicator of several successive decisions done right.
If that makes any sense. You are clearly talented in this game, so take what I have to say with a grain of salt, as I'm sure you will. I hope this feedback was useful! I'm not sure it was.
I think your call for a far more mature, less black-and-white (pardon) approach to our differences is reflective of a nuance lost on our knee-jerk mass culture.
The conceit of the "Rush" stick to frame your story around is a clever one. I guess, if I have anything to add, is that there is room for more depth here. A depth which you are hinting at. I feel like a some research on this topic could add a much-needed element to this piece as well as pave the way for taking this line of introspection very further.
Also, the writing could use a little boost. You are not a poor writer by any means, but the prose is very generic. The piece of prose felt like summary-ish instead of immersive and sentences like:
In a way, he was right and I respect his point of view. However, it told me that I cannot express myself freely or else my life would be in danger. Is this not tantamount to the curtailment of my privilege to display a message that I like to share? Where did my freedom of speech go?"
Sound... I don't know, they just lack punch. It sounds akin to what I would define as a high-school-book-report style.
But that's just my opinion, so make of that what you will. Overall an insightful piece, but definitely not near its full-potential. As of now, it stands as a fairly good blog post, but it seems you possess an insight that would encourage a little more than that; if willing to put in the effort. Plus, this is an important topic and I like your perspective.
Also! Less Important Side-thing: Take another look at the punctuation: There were numerous errors and errors through omission. I'm not a grammar nazi - I think nitpicking about grammar is reflective of someone trying to avoid actually intellectualizing a piece's content - but it does look a tad unprofessional and you want people to listen to what you have to say instead of getting distracted by problems. Also, the formatting is highly off. That's a very shallow concern, but it might discourage potential readers.
Overall - Good job! Keep writing! Will take a look, if you want, if you ever decide to revise.
This piece was well composed and it is clear you are a competent writer.
That being said, I'm not sure this piece worked for me, personally, as much. Maybe I'm just not a fan of the rhyming scheme. The flow feels familiar, almost sing-song, in a simplistic manner. On the second line - "I have new love to gain" - doesn't quite match the flow of the previous poem and sounds awkward in my head.
You have a good vocabulary and maybe it's more of a matter of personal taste, but I feel there is a better, less generic poem, waiting to come out.
"I've closed the door on yesterday" is a perfectly decent line. Things like "those bitter years of strife" and "those bitter doors" do not inspire much feeling, partly because the words feel impersonal and recycled. I recommend tooling around with the concept and digging a bit deeper so as to make this poem feel a little less like a "diddy."
But then again, maybe I'm just not on board with the style - in which case, that would be on me. Anyhow, just thought I'd throw some comments out there and its cool you're putting these efforts out there!
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