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204 Public Reviews Given
345 Total Reviews Given
Public Reviews
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51
Review of Imprints  
Rated: 13+ | (3.5)
*Snow2* Initial impression

From the description, I was eager to read, as the subject matter is right up my alley. But it was hard to follow, being all in dialogue. A few parts I had to reread to get back on track. I like the idea of imprints, and that Dan was tuned in enough to witness them himself.

*Snow2* Grammar/Punctuation/Spelling

The only thing I noticed was places that you used "..." in conjunction with question marks and/or exclamation points. They should be removed.

*Snow2* Suggestions

I'd really like to see this story line fleshed out with details, description, "see" the action. It's an intriguing story as it is, but it could come so alive written as a standard story. Otherwise, I don't really have any suggestions, since it's so hard to write a story with just dialogue.

You did a good job, keep writing!

** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only **

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52
Review of Repossession  
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
I enjoyed this piece more than I initially thought I might. Very surreal, but emotionally telling. I especially liked that Jan went to the radio to change the station, even admist her grief. Human habits.

Some suggestions for editing:

put a gun in his mouth(,) and blew off the top of his head he left three estranged sons and one bewildered wife named Jan.

She was sat motionless as they removed

figures below a size 8.eight

when David was only 18. eighteen

The whole two paragraphs dealing with David's sister talking about their father's suicide and David's part in it came off very confusing to me. I don't know if you'd want to rework that section to make what you're trying to say more clear.

until he was 18 eighteen

Nice ending, and with some editing and tightening, you could make this story a lot better. Good luck and keep writing!
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53
Review of Last Breath  
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
Very interesting story! A nice respite from the traditional vampire story and I liked the little history lesson as well!

I only noticed a few things that distracted from the story.

Punctuation: in several places you close dialogue with a period where it should be a comma. And when using a dash, it should actually be two of them (--).

Paenor's dialect is bothersome to me. I'm assuming this story is taking place many centuries ago, and for him to say "ain't" and "ya' know" and "yep," it sounds more like something a backwoods hick would say. I think he would speak much more formally.

Some awkward sentences or phrases:

a nonchalant smile breaking his lips. how about "a nonchalant smile parting his lips"?

Now that the beautiful lands along the middle Danube had become the new battlefields of Islam and Christianity, however, I'd suggest omitting "however"

The Czars of Bulgaria and the Kings of Serbia were nothing but fading memories already I'd either omit "already" or try "were already nothing"

Perhaps, it was the heavy sword at the human’s side or the vials of holy water hanging from the ornamented belt. Perhaps, that uneasiness was caused by the number of wooden stakes fastened to the hunter’s jacket. I'd get rid of one of the "perhaps"

Farnor paused and stared at his finely decorated with rubies goblet. Farnor paused and stared at his goblet, finely decorated with rubies.

And in one place you missed a double space between paragraphs.

I liked the religious debate between the vampire and the human. The vampire had a very believalble sounding argument.

I absolutely love the idea of the vampire hunter actually being an archangel. Very original and you do a good job portraying his strength and purpose.

Overall, this is a good, original story. With a little work and tightening up, it could really stand out! Good job and keep writing!
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54
Review of Under the Bed  
Rated: E | (4.5)
Nice poem. Like others have said, I won't let my legs hang over the edge, either. When I was a kid, I'd flip off the light switch and try to make it onto my bed before the light was off.

Nowadays, the light switch is too far away from the bed, so in instances where I'm still scared, I'll just leave the light on!

Good work and keep writing!
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55
Review of ECHO  
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
This was a good poem that told a chilling tale. I loved the rhythm and the rhyming. The dialogue was great, as was the dialect.

I only noticed a couple of places where punctuation within dialogue that could be fixed:

“Open up, you mangy dog," he yelled again!
"Open up, you mangy dog!" he yelled again.

“Take my rifle.” Ned told me.
"Take my rifle," Ned told me.

Nice twist at the end, I guess he needed killin', huh?

Good job and keep writing!
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56
Review of Love  
Rated: E | (3.0)
Before you take my review too much to heart, I'll preface this by saying I don't read much poetry and have rated even less. But I will give my honest impressions.

Visually, I think this poem would read easier if you broke it up into stanzas, it would give more dramatic impact, I think. Just as a suggestion, end each stanza with the fifth line.

I noticed one mistake in the 14th line:

To think your not the one they want
should read "To think you're not the one they want"

Good insight with these three lines:

You beat yourself up
You wonder what you did wrong
You know you still want them

Overall, a decent poem about love.
57
57
Rated: 18+ | (4.5)
Very creepy, graphic story, but in a good way! You did a great job describing the slicing and cooking of the meat, it almost made me forget what he was really eating!

There were no grammatical or punctuation errors that I noticed, but I might've missed them because I was so drawn into the story! :)

The only thing that confused me was where the story was actually taking place. Up until he started cooking, I assumed he was in the van, since that is where the abduction took place. Even then, I thought maybe he had a little propane stove in the van or something.

But then, later on, it's apparent he's in a kitchen. Just a suggestion, but you might want to make a transition from the van to his home. And I could imagine him doing his wet work from the back of a stripped out van, but where would he do it in his home? Right there on the kitchen table?

Other than that, I loved this story! Very sickening idea, done in a very admirable way! Great job and keep writing!
58
58
Rated: 18+ | (4.5)
This was a goog, well written story. No grammatical or punctuation errors that I could find.

Very interesting characters, a nice constrast in Robert/Bobby. I like that Bobby is still a human with feelings, even though his line of work. But it makes one wonder what kind of person could carry out his kind of work and still have empathy for others?

I'm just confused with the ending, but that might just be me being dense. At first I thought there would be some sort of retribution from the blond girl, but what did she and her uncle do? Take all the evil from him and only leave the good?

A very unsettling ending, I'm not sure if Robert is on his way to do good or bad when he finally sees Mandy again.

A very good job, keep writing!
59
59
Review of The Nice Ones  
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
Very good for something so short. If your character was killing people with a partner, why was the other man referred to only as "the bald man"?

I'd love to see this expanded, who are they, why are they killing, how do they pick who they pick?

All in all, a very effective creepy story! Keep writing!
60
60
Rated: 18+ | (5.0)
I rarely give 5 stars, but I found nothing wrong with this story. Your characterization of your main character is great, along with the monster, and the other minor characters.

You had me wondering all along if he would end up being the monster, but you wove everything together so well, I couldn't be sure until the end.

Great job! Keep writing!
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61
Review of Before  
Rated: 18+ | (3.5)
I would've given this story a higher rating, but it needs much editing. Most of it is punctuation. Towards the end of the story, it almost seems like you got lazy, you're even missing periods at the end of sentences.

Suddenly I focus and notice the car is doing 80 miles an hour. eighty

I feel like I just returned from a total black out and in a way I have. blackout is one word, and this sentence is clumsy. Not sure how to fix it, I'd even consider omitting it completely.

I can only remember the roast dinner Mary and I had last Monday and that was a week ago. How does he know what day it is?

something is luring me out of my safe hide-out, my car. is luring me out from safety. This gives us the inference that running out of gas was somehow forced upon James by an uknown entity. Is this your intent? Or is it just bad luck to run out of gas?

A better question to wonder about is if I have enough money to pay for it. I can’t feel my wallet in my jeans pocket, and when I verify with my hand it turns out that feeling is justified. A better question is if I have enough money to pay for it. I can't feel my wallet in my jeans pocket and that feeling is justified.

My left hand touches my forehead trying to rub away the aching pain. My left hand touches my forehead to rub away the aching pain.

For just a split second I close my eyes, try to look in the darkest corners of my mind, I try to find answers to my unanswered memories. omit "I try"

I pull off the highway into the dusty road of the gas station onto the dusty road

The car stops clumsily as I pushed the brake too hard. push

I reach for my wallet on the co-drivers seat and when it’s in my hand I check out how much money I still have. clumsy sentence, I'd rewrite it to say "I reach for my wallet and check to see how much money I have."

The wallet provides 120 dollars so that should get me somewhere. a hundred and twenty

The door handle feels quite cold when I pull it down to get out of my car. I'm not sure if this has to do with anything.

I feel light-headed and am suppressing my hunger. "am suprressing" is too passive. It'd sound better if you said "I feel light headed and suppress my hunger."

‘So James, you managed to come this far didn’t you?’ use double quotation marks when someone speaks. "So James, you managed to come this far, didn't you?"

The tone of the man’s voice is uncomfortable yet familiar like a friend. Omit "tone of." Why would his voice be "uncomfortable?" Maybe there's a better word you could use.

has long shiny black filthy hair. {/c] How could it be shiny and filthy at the same time?

His eyes contain the most beautiful and shiniest blue a person has ever seen. I don't like the word "contain" in this context, and you use a variation of "shiny" again.

For the conversation between James and the vampire man, you need to use double quotation marks and use periods. You jump from present tense to past tense and then back to present tense. In areas where James is thinkin to himself, you used italics, but then decided not to here during this exchange. You need to be consistent.

It gets even worse after James leaves the gas mart. Punctuation is missing, or in the wrong places, outside quotations instead of inside, you use a question mark and a comma in the same place, etc. You might need a refresher course on writing dialogue.

You write the way a person speaks, which is fine, but the mechanics still need to be right. It's hard to read and can make a reader decide to stop reading.

If James has no idea where he is, how does he get home? Nice description of his dead wife, but watch the tenses. If the rain is pounding on the roof of the police car, wouldn't it make more noise than just ticking?

The last part had me totally confused. Someone shot James? But the "vampire man" or "devil" gave him "life" to kill his wife and the neighborhood kids?

The last part of the story, you fail to double space between paragraphs which makes it harder to read.

I don't mean to sound so harsh in my review, but if you reedited the whole piece and cleared up the confusing places, you'd have a really tight, creepy story. This could be so much better. I'd be glad to review and rate this story after some major revisions.
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Review of Stalked  
Rated: E | (4.0)
Nice twist! I was waiting to see what kind of monster was stalking him--funny thing, that imagination is.

For such a short story, the pacing and writing was very tight. Only noticed a few edits.

Hurdling the slide I put two swings into motion but it wasn't much of an obstacle and the beast was able to keep up its chase. Hurdling the slide (comma) I put two swings into motion...

The beast was definately tiring but had more steam left than I did. definitely

My foot hit it and I flew over landing hard and flat on on my face. My foot hit it and I flew over it (comma) landing hard and flat on my face.

"TAG, You're it!" lowercase "you're"

Good luck with the contest!
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63
Review of The Doctor  
Rated: ASR | (4.0)
You're right, this is a very odd story! *Smile*

It took me all the way until the end to figure out why each patient was being so uncooperative. It took poor Celia the longest to catch what was going on--how were the other patients tipped off?

The only edits I noticed were some places that needed commas.

“Please don’t be difficult Mrs. Williamson. I’m just trying to help you.” Fawn Roberts says to her patient. comma needed after "difficult" and after "help you."

There's a few other places you do the same thing. Basically, there's a natural pause between the spoken dialogue and the addressee's name, so there should be a comma.

“OK, thank you Celia.” comma needed after "thank you."

Also, when a tag line is used after dialogue, you need to use a comma before the end quote, not a period.

“Fine. Have it your way.” Fawn says... needs a comma after "way" instead of a period.

All the rest of the spelling, grammar, and punctuation looks fine.

“Mommy says I can have a sucker.” This made me laugh out loud.*Bigsmile*

Nice story, keep writing.
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