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26
26
Review of Trail Blazer  
Review by Sticktalker
Rated: E | (4.5)
A SOARING PACKAGE REVIEW
I'm Lyle and I will be giving you some of the reviews for your Soaring Package. This is a review for {item: 1520093}. Please remember, a review is only how I, as an individual, see your piece. Accept what you agree with, ignore that which you disagree with.

OVERVIEW: This was a funny little story, and written for a Flash Fiction contest makes it hard to write due to the amount of words allowed...300 in this particular contest I believe. However, you only used 296 by your own count, you should have used the other four!. *Bigsmile*

LEAD:
Good lead, and again you used two graphs to create the lead. I'm getting used to this style of yours. I was concerned, however, when you wrote that you had "lived in the south" for a long time before moving to Germany and so the snow trip seemed like a good idea. My question immediately was "What 'South'?" Southern Italy, Southern Nigeria, "The South" of the USA? The pause and wondering WHERE you had lived really slowed the story down.

GRAMMAR and PUNCTUATION: Excellent, I see you have the "dialogue commas" usage down pat now. As usual, the rest of your punctuation reads like it was directly out of the English textbook. I do think "the tell tale butterfly" should be hyphenated, "tell-tale"

WHAT I LIKED: The humor and your phraseology was delightful. Let me quote just a couple:
"the mountain visibly steepened"
“Where’s your spirit of adventure?” “Down by the fire,”
and,
"the tell tale butterfly indentation of her cheeks"

BOTTOM LINE:
Excellent short story, well within the bounds of the severe short word count...and that's hard to do, my hat's off to you.

Thanks for allowing me to review you.

Sticktalker
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27
27
Review of Santa's Visit  
Review by Sticktalker
Rated: E | (4.0)
A SOARING PACKAGE REVIEW
I'm Lyle and I will be giving you some of the reviews for your Soaring Package. This is a review for {item: 1508227}. Please remember, a review is only how I, as an individual, see your piece. Accept what you agree with, ignore that which you disagree with.

OVERVIEW: Ken, this was a delightly little Christmas Story, definitely one with a real twist in it. I love "twisted" stories that surprise me. It's obvious that you are a parent many times over and have an intimate feeling for the story.

LEAD: Interestingly enough, while most leads are one graph, this one of yours is really the first two graphs. I understand the reason, of course, but the two-graph intro is fresh.

I do think, however, that you would have said, "it's midnight", what sounds more natural to me would be a simple "Midnight!"

GRAMMAR and PUNCTUATION: I think the phrase in the second graph should be "sleep-deprived eyes", in the third graphs "cicadas" are plural and plurals have no apostrophe.

In dialogue, unless you have a question mark or exclamation point, the proper usage is to use a comma in these cases: ... "It's midnight," I said. ... and I murmured, “This is the real..."

WHAT I LIKED: The entire story is a good one. I did especially like the line: Did you know six-year olds have a built in “parent’s radar?”

SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS: Dang, I already went over those for you.

BOTTOM LINE: Great story, Ken. And you are the guy who says he "can't write prose." Nonsense, you are doing great!

Thanks for allowing me to review you.

Sticktalker
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28
28
Review of Chapter 1  
Review by Sticktalker
Rated: 18+ | (2.0)
A review from a member of
“The Paper Doll Newbie Project”
By Sticktalker

Remember, my review is only my personal opinion and given in an effort to suggest improvements to your writing.
Take what you agree with and leave that which you disagree with.
If you are new to WDC, ask me about the Paper Doll Gang. It is a wonderful group that helps you learn to negotiate the vast world that is WDC while making friends along the way. New Class begins June 1. (sorry, it's full, but we are accepting "standbys" in case of dropouts.

*Star*General impression: Messdawg, this was a very difficult piece to read. Firstly, WDC doesn't put in graph indents that you do in your word processor. Most of us use the "add extra return after a carriage return" feature to break up graphs.

This was an autobiography you said, so there is no "main character" just yourself.

*Star* Areas of Improvement: One of the things new writers tend to do is over-describe something to show that they know how to do a good description. Too often this results in what I call "over-flowering" a piece. Let's look at two sentences:
1. He bowed his head and said grace to himself, followed by "Amen" out loud.
2. The boy bowed his head that had chocolate-colored strands of hair that usually fell from the top of his head half-way to his chest; his chin was covered with chocolate fuzz that was in bad need of trimming. More chocolate fuzz emanated from his ears, giving him a chocolate covered halo. His dirty hands, with ragged fingernails that had black dirt jammed under his nails from digging in his garden that occupied the large corner of his backyard (where he was growing cactus, succulents, poison ivy and poison oak) were in his lap....
OK, enough. See the difference, the second went on and on and didn't really ADD to the development of the story. Readers will SEE this and feel that you have insulted their intelligence by giving them tons of words they didn't want!

*Star* In Conclusion: I had to struggle to read the entire piece, short as it was, for I found it confusing. When I finished I wasn't sure of what you were trying to convey to me in the story.

I'd suggest you give it some thought and do a complete re-write of the story.. and do think of what the point of the piece is going to be about? Is it taking the flag, discoursing on the fact that humans are animals or are you trying to tell us something about setting your hand on fire?

Sticktalker

** Image ID #1547843 Unavailable **

"The Rising Stars Tour Bus" , "Invalid Item" ,"Invalid Item" ,
"Invalid Item" ,"Invalid Item" 
29
29
Review of His Hand in Mine  
Review by Sticktalker
Rated: E | (4.5)
NAME OF ITEM:His Hand inMine

AUTHOR:Willow

DATE:May 5, 2009

Willow,

First, and I always say this, I am not much of a poet at. That being said, I can tell if I LIKE a poem, but I don't know enough about poetry to really do a good job of reviewing it.

I will say this about "His Hand In Mine"...I did like the piece.The rhyming is there and looks good to my untrained eye and you did, generally, a good job of holding the whole thing together. You wrote it from the heart I think, meaning it was a personal story, not just a fictionalized piece of poetry.

There were a couple of places where the wording looked a bit "forced" to me as if you were struggling to make it all work.

The most outstanding was the third stanza and the lines

"They thought I was lucky,
My sadness unseen."

seemed to be forced. Remember, I'm not a poet and could easily be wrong about this.

The last stanza, I felt, cut the entire piece short. I asked myself "why does she feel her life turned out fine?" There must be more reasons why she feels that. Two reasons could easily have built up the the final two lines to improve the ending of the poem

As always, take what you wish from my comments. Accept what you agree with, ignore that which you disagree with. Remember, a review is just how ONE person feels about any particular piece.

Lyle
30
30
Review by Sticktalker
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
A Peer-to-Peer Review For a Rising Star
Hello, my name is Lyle and I'm a new Rising Star, here to review your "The Day My World Darkened"  and hopefully learn from the experience myself.
These are my thoughts and observations; accept what you will, decline what you disagree with.


WHAT I LIKED: The article, for it is not technically a "story" but rather a report on a slice of life, has great impact, it's clear that this is a true story, not a piece of prose.

OVERALL FEELING: Emotional and strikes pretty close to home for anyone who has experienced the loss of a close loved one. My spouse and children are all still living, but both of my parents are deceased, my mom way too far early, so I have an approximation of how you felt.

INTRODUCTION The first sentence, "There is emptiness inside of me where you once dwelled." clearly states the thrust of the "story"...high impact and grabs the attention of the reader.

GRAMMAR & PUNCTUATION: I saw no errors.

OTHER SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS: With my background as a printer I find it difficult not to be bothered by type that is any other color than black. I honestly feel that using a different color, except for a special effect, detracts from the pleasure of reading any story.

The paragraphs tend to run a little longer than is comfortable for the reader. It's too easy to lose your place in the long graph and have to start over at the beginning of the graph.

Too many "restarts" and the reader will lose interest and move on to another story...not what you want.

IN CONCLUSION: Despite all my comments above, I liked the article. Well done and has great impact. Excellent job Mike. I hope things work out for you.

Thank you for letting me review you,
Sticktalker

P.S.: If you have suggestions for me to improve my reviews, please let me know *Smile*

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A Review for the Paper Dolls Newbie Group "Invalid Item" 
31
31
Review by Sticktalker
Rated: E | (3.0)
You have the idea here with this quiz, but I really think more than TWO questions should be in the file.. Add some of these:

1.What is the name of the highest lake in the world bigger than 3 acres? Lake Titicaca.

2. What U.S. state has the longest salt water coastline? Alaska

3. In what state are the highest and lowest points of land located? California

4. Which is further south, Hawaii or Florida? (I dunno, go look it up, but I think it's Hawaii)

5. It'd be a lot more fun if you added more questions.

You might want to try adding some graphics to the layout also...Something to spice it up.
You are on the right track, keep working on it.

Sticky

** Image ID #1518357 Unavailable **
Member of The Rising Stars, The NAI Group, The Novel Workshop and The Paper Dolls Newbie Group
32
32
Review by Sticktalker
Rated: 13+ | (5.0)
A review from a member of
“The Paper Doll Newbie Project”
By Sticktalker

Remember, my review is only my personal opinion and given in an effort to suggest improvements to your writing.
Take what you agree with and leave that which you disagree with.
If you are new to WDC, ask me about the Paper Doll Gang. It is a wonderful group that helps you learn to negotiate the vast world that is WDC while making friends along the way. New Class begins June 1.

*Star*General impression: Jack, I read your humorous piece on the Egg Hunt King and laughed my you-know-what off and said to myself, "this guy MUST work for a newspaper", then I read your bio. OK I wasn't far off. It's the kind of story I would have loved to have written when I was a young reporter, but back in those days it wasn't allowed ("those days" being when a Smith-Corona standard was what you found in newsrooms).
Well done, the sarcasm was NOT lost on the reader as "JR" went through the interview with "Leroy", last years' champ.

*Star* Character Development: Leroy, of course, wasn't at all believeable, but had he been that the whole point of the story would have headed south. The reporter was a bit MORE believeable, being dispassionate and reporting everything without interjecting any of his thoughts into the story...as reporters are taught.

*Star* Technical Suggestions (grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc.): Lordy, don't touch a thing here! Well, wait a minute. In this phrase: will bend to scoop and egg before you can. I think you had a typo, "scoop an egg", not "and." Hey, any decent editor would have caught that one.

*Star* Areas of Improvement: Nope, not a thing.

*Star* In Conclusion: Delightful little story, I hope you managed to sell it last year as a sidebar to the local newspapers'report of the "Easter Egg Hunt" stories. Well done, my friend. Now I need to hit your port again and see what other "eggspecials" you have for us to read.

 Sticky

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Member of The Rising Stars, The NAI Group, The Novel Workshop and The Paper Dolls Newbie Group
33
33
Review of November, 1518  
Review by Sticktalker
Rated: 18+ | (4.5)
A Peer-to-Peer Review For a Rising Star

Hello, my name is Lyle and I'm a new Rising Star, here to review your "November, 1518"  and hopefully learn from the experience myself. These are my thoughts and observations; accept what you will, decline what you disagree with. I'm pretty much into both SF and "Historical Fiction" myself and that's what drew me to your item. The fact that you are a "Star" was accidental but that's all to the good. Now, to the review.


WHAT I LIKED: Just about everything was well done, the scene setting, the main characters introduced and the obstacle all in the first two graphs.

OVERALL FEELING: I'm not an expert on the 1500's, but I certainly could feel that I was there with your use of the language (although in real life I'm sure neither you nor I would have understood much of the English spoken then) and the description of the scene, the mores of the era and the customs. It truly took me back to those days.

GRAMMAR & PUNCTUATION: I saw nothing to fault you on, but my grammar is not the best, so it's possible I missed something that an editor would catch.

OTHER SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS: I have one major comment. MS Word counts more than 3,600 words in the short but I found that the action slowed in the middle of the story and I would have found it more exciting for my personal reading had it been shortened. Done properly, the story would not have been damaged in the least. That being said, I have to remind you I am a retired newspaper editor and publisher and was taught that, while you can write almost any story to almost any length, every story has it's "own length", meaning too much or too little begins to damage the readers' interest in the story. Does this hold true in fiction as well as journalism? I simply don't know yet, I haven't been writing fiction long enough to know for sure.

IN CONCLUSION: The bottom line is you have a wonderful story here but the length is what caused me to cut half a star off. I do think you should attempt to sell this piece though...do so and prove me wrong about the length!

Thank you for letting me review you,
Sticktalker

P.S.: If you have suggestions for me to improve my reviews, please let me know *Smile*

** Image ID #1533820 Unavailable **
34
34
Review by Sticktalker
Rated: E | (4.0)
A Member-to-Member Rising Star Review
by Sticktalker
Hi! I'm Lyle, a new member of The Rising Stars. I have been nominated for this honor by Hannah ♫♥♫ . I'm here to learn how to review better and perhaps even give you insight into your piece. Comments on my review are welcomed. And please remember, my comments are based on my 70 years living on this planet, more than half as a newspaper reporter and editor. Accept what you agree with, discard what you disagree with.


OVERVIEW/GENERAL COMMENTS
I was impressed with this story, kind of a "reverse" of the Biblical "Good Samaritan" tale, instead of an "outsider" rendering help, his offered help wasn't wanted, but he did receive help when he was in need.

SCENE SETTING
Excellent scene setting, the rough neighborhood with the tats and the "low-rider" pants, lending to the scene of the young girl being robbed.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
At the end of the story I was surprised that the old man was offered, or even accepted the proffered "helping hand" to cross the street (although, knowing you, I understand why you would but that scene in this short story.)

TECHNICAL
There was one technical fact error I spotted. You called the smell of marijuana from the alley as being a "harsh smell". My limited experience with the smell is that it's more sickly sweet, than harsh.

There were two wrong words used: the love for you’re your{/}, fellow man....was any prove.proof

SUMMARY
I think the lead graph is way too long and should be broken into thee paragraphs. The first graph then, also needs to be rewritten. Here's a possibility:

The old man stood on the corner of the busy city street, watching in disbelief as a trio of young punks attacked a young woman, snatching her purse and shoving her to the pavement. They ran off, laughing to each other as they disappeared in the crowd at the entrance to the subway.

This took place quickly, but those around the girl looked the other way and continued walking....

I thought your second paragraph was crisp as you told WHY he thought things were worse now than in the 40's during WWII

The ending graph was well done, showing that not all people were heartless, at least some were, including younger people.

A Member-to-Member Review for The Rising Stars
Member of The Paper Doll Newbies Project
35
35
Review by Sticktalker
Rated: E | (4.5)
A Member-to-Member Rising Star Review
by Sticktalker
Hi! I'm Lyle, a new member of The Rising Stars. I have been nominated for this honor by Hannah ♫♥♫ . I'm here to learn how to review better and perhaps even give you insight into your piece. Comments on my review are welcomed. And please remember, my comments are based on my 70 years living on this planet, more than half as a newspaper reporter and editor. Accept what you agree with, discard what you disagree with.


OVERVIEW/GENERAL COMMENTS
Dear Zaborskii, you have crafted a highly interesting and strangely upsetting tale here. It's well written and comes to a masterful conclusion. I enjoyed reading it, even the third read through as I wrote this review.

SCENE SETTING
I enjoyed the way you set the scene (in the second graph, but more on that in a minute) of the old house housing the clock, and neatly inserting the challenge "what IS the secret the clock knows". You set up the reader and made him WANT to read on and discover the secret himself. Well done.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
"You" are the only character in the story, and there is virtually no "feel" for you as a person, but the you aren't the story, only the vehicle for the telling of the story.

PLOT
The "plot" as it was, isn't much of a plot..."what is the secret of the clock". Yet you manage to drop in vignette after vignette of little stories of what happened to, and around the clock.

TECHNICAL
I thought some of the paragraphs were a bit long. Long graphs tend to confuse the eye of the readers, making him lose his place and he has to start the graph over again. Too many of THOSE and he'll move on to another story, not good for you.

Considering the structure of the story, and how you used the same sentence of the clock speaking as a stand alone graph, I think the comma preceding that "quote" should have been replaced by a colon. I'm not a punctuation expert by any means, but I think it would at least look better that way.

Other than that, I saw no "technical" errors of punctuation or spelling.

SUMMARY
I enjoyed the "twist" at the end of the story...even though I could have "thwacked" ya for tricking us and not giving us the secret. I felt a bit "cheated" by that trick, but it was perfect for the ending of the story. Well done.

I do think, however that the initial paragraph interfered with the story and should be moved to the end of the story and set in italics rather than the square brackets.

A Member-to-Member Review for The Rising Stars
Member of the Paper Dolls Newbie Project
36
36
Review of GARBAGE . . .  
Review by Sticktalker
Rated: 18+ | (2.0)
A Member-to-Member Rising Star Review
by Sticktalker


OVERVIEW/GENERAL COMMENTS
LOL Mira, Yes, truly a poem to forget. As I say that, I have to be upfront and tell you that I'm not a poet, I only have written ONE poem on WDC and I thought that it was AWFUL, but some folks keep telling me they liked it.
The thing is, I don't understand poetry at all!.
With yours though I think you forgot a second thing that doesn't become garbage, well, not intentionally...diamonds.
However, it's been a long day, I thank you for giving me something to do that doesn't require a whole lot of thinking... and, you know, looking back at "Garbage"...it's not as bad as I thought!


A Member-to-Member Review for The Rising Stars
37
37
Review of Homecoming  
Review by Sticktalker
Rated: E | (4.5)
A Member-to-Member Rising Star Review
by Sticktalker
Hi! I'm Lyle, a new member of The Rising Stars. I have been nominated for this honor by Hannah ♫♥♫ . I'm here to learn how to review better and perhaps even give you insight into your piece. Comments on my review are welcomed. And please remember, my comments are based on my 70 years living on this planet, more than half as a newspaper reporter and editor. Accept what you agree with, discard what you disagree with.


OVERVIEW/GENERAL COMMENTS
Excellent piece you have done here, even more so because you keep claiming that you are NOT a fiction writer but a poet. Travel and finding a perfect Earthlike World, or the original "home" of mankind has long been done in SF and this one, although a good story sits in a large field of similar stories.
There were a couple of technical details I mentioned later on in the line by line review area, but those were minor and easily fixed.

SCENE SETTING
You set the scene quickly and well done, probably because of your years of poetry writing and learning how to pack much description in few words.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT
This was a very short story, under 1000 words, for a contest and you didn't have much time to develop the character of Lyle. Still, he does remind me of a "Lyle" I know, I kept thinking of that person.

PLOT
The plot is short, again, due to the lack of length and time to devlop the plot, but it's there: Man travels billions of miles, finds the "original home of mankind...long gone"

TECHNICAL
There were a couple of items noted in the line by line, but I did not mention the lack of using of italics to denote a character thinking.

LINE-BY-LINE/SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS
The deep thrumming of the engines slowly faded, leaving an oddly empty feeling inside. The sound had become an integral part of life after months in space. Looking at the display, the brilliant swirls of light, typical of tachyon travel, dimmed (I think a comma should be here) throwing the solitary figure's visage into shadowed relief as the bridge lighting automatically adjusted.

Lyle Jensen (cool name for a future story) stood in rapt attention as sensors spewed arrival data across the screens. This was a one-man probe and his mission, the first to leave the Milky Way for the Magellanic Clouds, was to seek out other Earth-type planets. Now that the practical mysteries of space and time had been resolved, the exploration of space had begun in earnest. Perhaps, at last, the age old questions could be answered. Are we alone? Were we accidents or creations? Up to this point in time, no other life forms had been discovered. (No other life forms in the Milky Way Galaxy? NONE? Not even simple bacteria on some close to earthlike world? Hmmmm... I don’t know, but it’s your story, even if it seems unlikely to me.)

The scrolling numbers suddenly stopped and one set stood out as they began flashing. (suggest rewording here: ...suddenly stopped, began flashing quickly, standing out to his view.)

The second planet from the sun seemed to fit the parameters that had been preprogrammed. From what he could tell, it looked likely that he had found the proverbial "needle in the haystack." He chuckled to himself at the archiac (archaic) reference. Too much reading on this trip, he thought with a grin.

As he surveyed the planet, a new burst of data began moving across the screen. Damn, he thought. What he was seeing wasn't the signature of an Earth-type planet... it was Earth! Air, water, land masses all seemed identical to pre-contamination Earth. (I’m hoping you don’t mean the continents’ SHAPES are the same, but mean the “composition” of the air, water and land was the same as Earths.) As he began to study the close up images, a flash of light caught his attention.

Slowly, he moved toward it without thought or hesitation. It was as if the makers had known there'd be this day as he approached without fear (“without fear” is a repetition of the first sentence of this paragraph I think. In any event, I think you should form the two sentences into one.) to stare at the display and felt energy coalesce around his mind.

"Welcome home, my child," he heard from an inner voice and as the love surrounded him, he felt his heart rejoice for he had found the wellspring of mankind... he had found home. (ellipses are three periods followed immediately by the next letter, no space)

As a final act, they'd sent seeds to every galaxy, near and far away... and only one (ellipses) had blossomed and returned.

Through the mists of time and space,
wherever we might roam,
the one thing that we have learned:
all roads lead to home (good play on “all roads lead to Rome”)


SUMMARY


A Member-to-Member Review for The Rising Stars
A member of the Paper Dolls Newbie Group
38
38
Review of A Man of Honor  
Review by Sticktalker
Rated: E | (4.5)
A review from a member of
“The Paper Doll Newbie Project”
By Sticktalker

Remember, my review is only my personal opinion and given in an effort to suggest improvements to your writing.
Take what you agree with and leave that which you disagree with.

*Star*General impression:
Ken, you keep saying you are a poet and not a storywriter. This short proves you wrong, you are a wonderful writer. I've done my share of sailing, although not on "tall ships" and you have reached into the very essence of sail I believe. The dark, quiet, respected captain, the typical young cabin boy who learns everything from the captain who acts as a father to the lad. You told the story in a moving manner, excellent use of dialog and good visuals too.

*Star* Character Development:
"You", of course are the main character even with the part the captain plays in the story. We see you grow from a lad to an able body seaman in this short story. The conclusion, of course has a strong impact on the reader.

*Star* Technical Suggestions (grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc.):
I only saw a couple of very minor punctuation errors one typo that spell check probably caught and you missed doing the correction. However, I think the name of a ship needs to be in quotes "The Gloriana". And when you say the captain called you "Bill", the quotes marks should be there to show what word he did call you.
In this sentence: "not once did I look askance..." I don't think "askance" is the word you wanted. "Askance is to 'look with suspicion or disapproval; "he looked askance at the offer". I'm not sure what word you wanted though so I have no suggestions.

*Star* Areas of Improvement:
My earliest memories were of sitting on my father's lap, the embers of the fire casting pale shadows on the rough walls, and listening to stories of...take out the "and". I think that "and" only serves to interrupt the flow and is not needed her

I remember thinking that the gulls, which soared and... take out "that" and change "which" to "who".I think "which" would refer to inanimate objects.. "the ships which sailed the world" "the people who sail the ships"

he was a man of determination and fair with his crew. As years passed, his reputation always followed with a fair wind.
two "fairs"...different meaning but annoying, reword this to get rid of one "fair"{/b)

as we battled storm tossed seas, and fighting of pirate renegades.
I think it's "storm-tossed seas". I suggest that just "pirates" is what you mean, "pirate renegades" would mean pirates who had broken off from other pirates and I'm pretty sure that isn't what you meant. Just end it with "pirates."

he said with a finality in his voice that would book no argument.
change "would book" to "that booked no". I believe that reads a lot smoother and keeps it present tense.

Deferentially, the crew moved allowing me to take...
change "allowing me" to "to allow me"

*Star* In Conclusion:
The suggestions I've made are relatively minor but would greatly improve the flow of the story. It's well done as it stands, but I do believe my suggestions would improve it considerably.. Of course, I could be wrong, it's your story to decide what to do or not to do.
 Sticky

Signature created by our dear talented friend, Kelly1202
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Member of The Rising Stars, The NAI Group, The Novel Workshop and The Paper Dolls Newbie Group
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39
Review of Eden's Bane  
Review by Sticktalker
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
A review from a member of
“The Paper Doll Newbie Project”
By Sticktalker

Remember, my review is only my personal opinion and given in an effort to suggest improvements to your writing.
Take what you agree with and leave that which you disagree with.

*Star*General impression:
Cameron, I thought your piece was quite interesting. If you viewed it as SF it was a good twist on the shopworn "thrown back in time" stories; if you viewed it from the spiritual angle is presented a new way to look at "Eden". Either way I enjoyed it.

*Star* Character Development:
I'm not sure that you developed your character as well as you could have. You did attempt to show some of his individuality in the piece, but by the end I was not completely convinced that he was "real". Here is one reason: In paragraph three you wrote "it felt as if he had been completely exasperated". I was stumped as to what you were trying to say, the dictionary definition of "1. to irritate or provoke to a high degree; annoy extremely: He was exasperated by the senseless delays.
2. Archaic. to increase the intensity or violence of (disease, pain, feelings, etc.)." Did not fit the sentence. And the distraction broke the flow of the story for me.

You used a great deal of adjectives in describing the scene, so many that I felt you did "over-kill" what I call "over-flowering writing" which I, personally, find a terrible distraction and something that seems to be done much too often today. Again, this could be just my opinion though.

*Star* Technical Suggestions (grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc.): Outside of what is mentioned elsewhere, I saw no technical errors.

*Star* Areas of Improvement:
The lead paragraph needs to be written to "suck" the reader into the story. You have only a few words to make the story so interesting that the reader just "can't put it down until they find out what's going to happen". Your lead, I'm sorry to say, I felt needs a lot of work. I had to struggle through it to find out what the story was about, or at least to "hook" me into finding out. This it failed to do.

I felt the LEAD was really the second paragraph! Something excited happened to the character! You showed it happening and then gave a hint: "the space-time continuum" NOW you have the hook into the reader... that needs to be in the first graph.

Again, through the balance of the story I felt you were "over-flowered"

*Star* Line by Line
not applicable here.

*Star* In Conclusion:
Change the lead graph, claified the word "exasperated" and delete some of those over-flowery adjectives and you'll have a piece that I would rate higher. Do that, let me know and I'd be happy to again review this piece.
Keep on writing though, I think you'll do well.

 Sticky

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Review of a wooden box  
Review by Sticktalker
Rated: E | (3.0)
A review from a member of
“The Paper Doll Newbie Project”
By Sticktalker

Remember, my review is only my personal opinion and given in an effort to suggest improvements to your writing.
Take what you agree with and leave that which you disagree with.

*Star*General impression:
Kalyani Rao, Hi, I'm Lyle and I'm going to attempt to review your short poem. I must warn you upfront, that while my comments are honest and are meant to help you improve, I am not a poet, nor do I normally review poetry. That being said, let's see what we have here.

I've read this short piece four times now, each time I see a little more of what you are saying, or, rather, what I THINK you are saying (I always have that problem with poetry, trying to figure out WHAT the author is REALLY trying to say, not what he/she actually writes)

I think I do read a depressed person here, writing about themselves, the "box". It's not traditional poetry that rhymes so I can't draw on that, but I do see the despair in words and phrases such as "bad spells" and "lost names"

In the second stanza I see "elderly" as you invoke visions of age with the "moth balls' (are those even used any longer?), "dusty corners" and "rusty lock" (which is the best visual I read in the piece.)

The third (last) stanza I keep going over but I am lost here."The rays of the sun avoid me" goes back to the depression I think, but I don't quite understand the symbolism of the "porous arm chair", and "I sigh on it's long proud shadow" completely escapes me...unless you are again commenting on "old age"...but I'm not sure if that is really what you are trying to convey.

I guess that I expected the last stanza to wrap up the poem and give it all meaning, but, to me, it fails to do so. Perhaps a bit more work on the ending would fix that problem. Then, again, remember, I'm not an expert on poetry and I'm sure that I am probably wrong on my interpretation of the piece.

I'm sorry if this review hasn't helped you any, but, at least I warned you at the beginning.

Lyle
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Review of Beaks of Terror  
Review by Sticktalker
Rated: ASR | (4.5)
Wonderful story Ken, short, light and humorous as only you can do it.

All this talk about "I only do poetry and can't do stories"....has GOT to stop, you've just proved otherwise with this little entry.

You set the very serious scene in the opening graph with the rich texture of your description. The reader knows he has entered a serious story.

Then he reads the second graph. So much for "serious". Great re-direct. Now we have to settle back for some fun.

I have to laugh. No one ever has to suddenly interrupt the telling of a story to borrow a retail store's bathroom... usually they are posted "No Public Restrooms On Premises"... Which I always laugh at the thought of the store employees "holding it" for 8 hours (plus lunch break).

Naturally, of course, it turns out to be a key part of the story setup. Naturally. (I smile, the author did it again).
The greatest line, however, was not the ending...it was this visual: "their ancient runes of power and possession were enscribed in white streaks all over my clothes."

Paragraph 3 you put quotes around the name of the store. That isn't necessary. Quotes go around names of books and movies and song titles, not names of stores.

Graph 4 you mixed quotes from two characters. Style, for clarity, calls for each character to have his quote in a separate graph.

In the "epilogue" graph you wrote:
I was eventually diagnosed with PTSD - "Parakeet Traumatic Stress Disorder" - and with time and therapy,

Traditional style doesn't use the "hyphens", commas would have worked fine. Dashes, by the way are two hyphens and end up longer, like this: --. Use of the hyphens broke the flow of the final joke for me.. rats. It WAS a great effort though, and gets a 4.5 from me, mostly due to the punctuation mishaps... Don't give up writing (or the poetry, either.)

Sticky

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Review by Sticktalker
Rated: E | (3.5)
A review from a member of
“The Paper Doll Newbie Project”
By Sticktalker

Remember, my review is only my personal opinion and given in an effort to suggest improvements to your writing.
Take what you agree with and leave that which you disagree with.


New World Chapter 2
You have written this in the first person and have adopted a writing style that is best described by myself as “rustic”. I’ll edit the first graph to put it in more of the “modern” style of writing. It’s true that people speak the way you have the main character speaking, but in print it makes her look less than intelligent, which she is not. (my comments are all in boldface.)

Holly was restless and it made it hard to sleep. She kept getting on and off the bed and pacing around the house. Finally got to sleep around 6 and was just starting to dream when the entire house shook and all of the dogs started barking. Holly had already jumped off the bed and was at the kitchen door barking. Throwing off the blankets I could hear the fire whistle going off at the local fire hall and what sounded like a lot of wrecks on the main road nearby. Got my butt off of the bead and ran to the kitchen to let Holly out and see what was going on.

Holly was restless and that made it hard for me to sleep. She kept getting on and off the bed and pacing around the house. I finally got to sleep around 6 am and was just drifting into a dream when the entire house shook and all of the dogs started barking at once.

Holly jumped off my bed and ran to the kitchen door barking. I threw off my blankets and heard the fire whistle blowing at the local hall. From the nearby main road came what sounded like a lot of car wrecks. I got off my butt on the bed and ran to the kitchen to let Holly out and see what was going on.”

Holly burst through the door when it opened and I stepped out on the deck to check out the goats as they were bawling and running around the front of their pen. In the distance there was smoke rising from the main road. Holly was running around the big dog pen and checking out each corner. The other dogs were still barking loudly downstairs and it was chilly out so went back inside to grab a jacket and go check on the dogs downstairs. Rock and Nahya were both barking at the back door so I opened it up to let them out. They went charging out around me and headed to the gate. There was a large red oak tree down in the back that had just missed the goat fence and the house. It was blocking the back gate of the goat pen and was going to have to get someone over to start cutting it up to bring my firewood in from the front. Then while looking over the back of the property the fire whistle suddenly stopped.

Whistling for Rock and Nahya to come back in, went ahead and cleaned up the pen and put out some more food and topped off the water bucket. It was a little chilly down there so got a fire going in the woodstove and headed back up stairs to let Holly back in and feed the goats. I made sure the gate across the basement was securely latched and called Holly back inside and after locking the kitchen door, went over and unlocked the gate for the dog pen.

The goats were still bawling but had stopped running around and were at the front fence looking out toward the main road. There was even more smoke coming from that way but no sirens at all. I thought that was a little strange as I hauled hay and feed out to the goats and checked their water. Had just finished and was getting ready to go back inside when the two kids from across the street came running out of their house crying and headed straight for me. (to here you have been TELLING the reader, straight narration. This gets pretty dull when it goes on like that. I think you need to go back and insert some dialogue. I know “you” – and you haven’t been named for two more graphs – are the only human there, but you could be thinking (which is in italics) or you could write something like this: I whistled for Rock and Nahya to come back in as I cleaned up their pen and watered them.
“Come on, girls,” I said to them as they poked their heads around the barn where they had been grazing on the short winter grass (or dry summer, or whatever.. that way you’d also be setting the time.)
Now, maybe you can just cut the goats bawling, which doesn’t really add to the scene, unless you can work in some more descriptive lines.. example. The goats, who had been milling around under the branches of the fallen tree, looked out at me. “Come on kids, come on, momma’s got some hay and feed for you.” I think you get the idea…go back and do that all through the previous graphs.)

Little Cindy was being dragged along by her brother Jack and almost fell as they crossed the road. I hurried to the gate to see what was wrong. (you need to make this stronger, again, it’s just you TELLING the reader. Try something like this: Little Cindy, who was being pulled along by her brother, tripped on a stone in the road (or a branch) and fell to one knee, bawling her head off. Not so much at the hurt knee, but she was scared. She saw me and yelled out toward me, tears running down her cheeks, “Ms. Jackson, something’s wrong with mom; she won’t wake up. Daddy won’t wake up either!”

"Ms. Jackson!" Cindy cried, "Something's wrong with Mom. She won't wake up! Daddy won't wake up either!" Jack had tears running down his face. He was 12 and Cindy was only 6.



"I think they're dead Ms. Jackson," Jack said in a choking voice. "Could you please come and see?"



As I opened the gate and took their hands to go across the street the wails of other children on the road began to reach my ears. Looking up and down the dirt road I lived on there were children running out crying. As the children spied me along with Jack and Cindy they all came running toward us. The Graff kids reached us first as I waited in the road holding Cindy's hand and hugging Jack close to me by his shoulder. Tommy Graff was 12 like Charlie, but his sister Carla was 16. Carla spoke up first, "Ms Jackson something awful has happened! Mom and Dad are dead! I was getting ready to go to work at the store when they both just dropped down in the kitchen!"



By now at least 20 other kids from the houses nearby were there and they were all crying and saying the same thing. All of them had dead parents in their houses. (how did all the 20 kids get there.. they just suddenly appear in the story like magic.



Looking around, realized that I was the only adult out in the road and it was going to be my job to get things under control. (I think you missed an “I” between “around” and “realized”) Cindy was still holding tightly to my hand. (This sentence just kinda sits there like a widow…all alone and crying to be connected to the previous sentence.)



"Okay kids," speaking in a shaky voice. (this isn’t a sentence, you need “I said” there. "I'm not sure what happened this morning and (but?) I need a few things from all of you now. (delete “now”) I need to go and check all of your homes to see if your parents have really died or are just passed out from whatever happened. Also need a head count and some help if anyone here has had any first aid training in school at all."

OK, I’m going to stop with the editing here, because I think I’ve shown you what I wanted to get across… You need to work at showing the reader, not just telling him. Make the characters show action.. and feelings…and emotion more.. make them show the reader what’s going on. I think it will make a far better story.
Also, I think you need to just do one return after a paragraph, let WDC use the “second return line” to space out the graphs…you have way too much space between graphs for the reader’s eye to keep flowing, after a while it becomes a real chore to keep on reading past the big gaps.

Sticky

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Review by Sticktalker
Rated: E | (5.0)
A review from a member of
“The Paper Doll Newbie Project”
By Sticktalker

Remember, my review is only my personal opinion and given in an effort to suggest improvements to your writing.
Take what you agree with and leave that which you disagree with.

*Star*General impression:
Hannah, first, I want you to know that I'm kinda old (ok, read that "ancient", or "old fart"...both work). Now that we've cleared the deck, you go ahead and say something like "Ut oh, an old guy is going to criticize a teenager.. ugh." Don't say that because you'll have to take it back...

I'm old, yeppers, I have grandkids older 'n you, but I gotta tell ya this: I LIKED your article!

My congratulations, especially if it really was a journalism class assignment. Assuming it was, where did your school find this journalism advisor...assuming that your piece actually ran in the school paper. The reason I say this is because this was NOT your "run of mill" school newspaper article.

I know this...I'm a retired newspaper guy myself, reporter, editor and publisher even, and a formerly owner of the press in my county that still prints the majority of the high school papers.

You article was well thought out, constructed well, you used excellent grammar and you've obviously had some journalism training. Woot, woot!

After I read "Blood Clot I" I looked and saw the follow up. Before I could start reviewing "I" I read "II". More pleasant surprises.

You are very good. Are you planning a career in journalism?

If not, you should. If you are thinking about it...think carefully. I say that because journalism is in a real state of flux right now. Reporters and editors are being laid off as papers cut back due to the economy and lack of advertising as well as the impact of the internet. What is in the future for newspapers? I have no idea, for despite my advanced age, I claim no abilities to see the future any more than you can. I do suspect though, in just a few years, by the time you will be graduating from college you'll see completely different newspapers from what you see today.

However, let's get back to your article.

You have showed an insight far beyond your years (are you SURE you aren't the teacher? *Smile*. )
There were a few places where you seemed to wander from the straight and narrow of what you were writing about, but that wasn't enough to make much of a difference.

I'm giving you a "5" rating, actually for there really isn't much change that I can suggest, outside of "go back and see if you can tighten the article up just a little"...and that's really just for practice.

Well done, you keep on writin' ya hear. You done a good job here!

 Sticky

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Review by Sticktalker
Rated: 13+ | (5.0)
Nettie,
Good use of color and writingML in the challenge. You made me think (argggg... and it's only 7:17 am, the sun is still trying to get above the eastern mountains and clouds...) And, after posting my entry, I'm not sure I understand the rules yet. How did I do?
Lyle
P.S. If I'm wrong, do I get a second chance?
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Review by Sticktalker
Rated: E | (4.5)
A review from a member of
“The Paper Doll Newbie Project”
By Sticktalker


Remember, my review is only my personal opinion and given in an effort to suggest improvements to your writing. Take what you agree with and leave that which you disagree with.

*Star* General impression:Clever story to state the case for Oceanic Conservation. I can just see those whales talking as I write this.

*Star* Character Development: The characters were developed just enough so you could get the message across. (Although I didn't really much care for Luke, but I can't tell you why. He just didn't seem to be as human as he should have been. But that wasn't needed for the story)

*Star* Technical Suggestions (grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc.): There were hardly any that I could see and if I missed one, it was minor.

*Star* Areas of Improvement: Nothing of a general nature here needs improvement. There were some specific things that I've covered in the Line by line review.

*Star* Line by Line

Aboard the Fishswimmer, (The Fishswimmer, ships that are named after things use the “The” as part of the name think of “The Queen Mary”) which was situated somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean, a young women tapped her instrument panel with a frown. (How did she use her frown to “tap “ the panel? I think you meant to write, “...Atlantic Ocean, a woman frowned and tapped her instrument panel.) She was getting some strange sounds emanating from the hydrophone, which was (delete “which was”, un-needed words) the microphone they had put into the ocean. She knew that there was a pod of Blue Whales nearby but what she was picking up sounded like a group (of) people having an argument. Maybe she was somehow picking up someone’s radio signal, or maybe someone was playing a joke on her. Giving up, Susan stood up from her chair and went looking for the lead scientist.

“Hey Luke, you wanna check this out and see if I’m going crazy or if what I’m hearing is real?” An older man with graying hair nodded and walked down with her to the transmitter. Putting on the head phones his expression went from confused, to anger, to amazement.

“Susan, this is a miracle, a…a…something has happened that I though (thought, typo)could happen only in fantasy stories. It seems as if the whales are talking, or more like arguing.” She looked at him as if he’d gone crazy, putting a hand on his forehead to check for a fever. (at first glance this sentence confused me, I wasn’t sure who was putting whose hand on whose forehead. What about: “She put her hand on his forehead, checking for a fever and looked at him as if he’d gone crazy.” On the OTHER hand, why would she think this? Just a moment ago SHE was hearing the whales talk so she would have not been surprised that Luke heard it also?)

“Are you feeling okay, I thought it might have been someone playing a trick on us. Maybe we should head back, let you lay down.” He shook her hand away and stood up, pushing her back into her seat.

“Do humans complain about how the fish seem to be disappearing, hunters killing them, and how awful the water has become lately? Because that’s what I’m hearing.” Putting the headphones back on, she clearly heard a strange argument.

“I’m telling you, when are these humans going to understand that by polluting the ocean, the (they typo) are essentially killing themselves. I mean come one, the fish are getting harder to find and the ones that you do find taste strange. Yesterday I saw this old net all tangled up in a reef. What if that had happened to me, or one of you?” (Instead of “you” wouldn’t “one of the babies?” been more powerful? A female’s voice asked, a strange clicking tone to her syllables.

“I know! Why just yesterday I passed by this poor dolphin that said he was going to go beach himself to avoid the pain that (delete “that”, it’s not needed) the slow poisoning was causing him. I guess he had eaten some really bad fish.” There came a deep silence and a small hum that sounded like a mourning song echoed back and forth in the water.

“He will be missed. But you must remember sisters, not all humans are bad. There are some out there that are tying to stop the pollution and save our lives. They go through the out-most extremes to save every single one of us. Look over there, it’s a vessel that has all that funny equipment studying us. They are trying to stop those that hunt us.” Susan started, eyes wide as she understood that (delete “that”...most times people toss in “that’s” when they aren’t needed, and, in fact, the lines read much better without “that’s” they were talking about their vessel.

“They are far too few of them to make up for those that are careless. I can’t tell you how many boats have passed by and thrown their garbage into the ocean. There have been days that I wanted to use my tail to throw their garbage back up at them. I wanted to shout at them that we don’t go and throw our waste on their homes, why must they do the same for us?” (I LOVED THIS GRAPH!)

“They are a young race still, growing and learning as they age, just as we all did. Give them time my children, soon they will realize the error of their ways. As Sluuen said, some are trying with everything they have to save the ocean. They are educating their calves, whom in turn are caring more for the world they live in. We have to remember, people are just like us, some care more then others. Now come, I hear fish a few clicks from here. It promises to be a feast.” Somehow this voice conveyed more depth and understanding in its rougher tones. Their voices became more faint as the moved away from the vessels (why not use the name of the ship instead of “the vessel”?) startled occupants.

“Was that being recorded?” Luke asked Susan, who shakily nodded (Oh Dear.. did she nod “yes” or “no”? I can’t tell from the wording) and put her headphones down. That conversation had left her with many things to think about. She wondered why all of a sudden the whales could speak, or maybe they always could but choose not too. It would remain a mystery.

*Star* In Conclusion: It may look like there's a lot of bold up there, but there isn't really. It was a good piece and really only needs some minor editing and polish..Probably would be a good piece to send in to an "ecology" publication too. The question I had at the end about the "recording" not being clear is what knocked my rating down, the other stuff is really minor. GREAT JOB..
Lyle

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Review by Sticktalker
Rated: E | (5.0)
Jyo, 'Finally, a poem that I can actually understand and read so that it SOUNDS like poetry should sound!
Of course, I still don't understand what tetrameter means, but tercets means groups of three, so thee lines per verse.

Now, if I read it like a short story, it starts off and grabs my interest. The set the scene quite well and immediatly show there is a conflict; "Ignoring frantic fervent plea, They're still grinning at half-past three." We wonder how it will be resolved.

Ahhh, he puts his dentures in a glass for the night, problem solved...but wait, the end approaches and what happens?

Please give him his very own room!
Or he can fly off on his broom -
His teeth shan’t haunt me to my doom.

Now we have an even bigger problem so it seems. *Smile*

Great effort...maybe I should check out those quatrains next?

Lyle
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Review by Sticktalker
Rated: E | N/A (Unratable.)
NAME OF ITEM: She Once Was So Beautiful

AUTHOR: Harper Lily

DATE: Feb. 4, 2009

LEAD GRAPH: Good introduction to the short story, we get the name of the main character in the first word, and that there is a love of his in the room, and the crowd in the room appears to know that.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: You do begin to develop Emily and almost immediately we see there is a problem: a new Emily is appearing, but we don’t know exactly WHAT she is becoming, and I want to find out

LOGIC ERRORS: There were no logic errors that I could spot with three readings of the story.

SPELLING/GRAMMAR: We have a problem here Harper. You have quite a few un-corrected spelling errors, and a couple of typos…enough so that they adversely affect the enjoyment of the story. Assuming that you’d love to sell this to a publisher, he very well would get to about paragraph five and put it on the slush pile. I counted these spelling errors: radianent, energic, invisioned, certian, and the following wrong words or grammatical errors: split, and suppose. MS Word, and other word processing programs have excellent spelling checkers, and Word has a fairly good grammar checker.

SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS: My comments are set in bold face and are in brackets.

LINE BY LINE EDIT:

REMINDER: Remember, my comments are only my personal view of your piece. Take what you agree with or find useful and leave anything that you disagree with or do not find useful. I only do a review on pieces that I basically like, any comments I've made are intended to improve what you have created.

Mark walked into the room. He could feel all eyes on him as he slowly moved towards her. The crowd seemed to spilt as though to make a pathway. (only one space after a period, question mark or exclamation point, editors are death on authors using two spaces. This is a good lead, but I think you meant “split” not “spilt”.)

Emily never looked so radianent (radiant) as she did in that moment. (Her laugh was more energic, (energetic) more infectious to those around her. It was the Emily, (take out the comma) Mark had first fell in love with. (this would read much better like this: …fell in love with; an Emily he…) An Emily he once invisioned (envisioned) an entire lifetime with. But somewhere she had faded, (change comma to semicolon) that Emily seemed to give in to a new. (one? I don’t know, but that reads better to me) And (replace “and” with “Now”) Mark could hardly recognize her beauty any more.

Mark tried to recall the exact moment it happened, (instead of the comma, try using a space, two hypens and a space) the time in which she removed herself from him. But (delete “but” and start off with “the”) the more he tried to remember, the more lost and confused in the memories he became. (I’m not sure what you are trying to say here: “the more lost and confused in the memories he became.” I think you mean: the more lost and confused his memories of her were:) He thought it might have happened after what was suppose (supposed) to be a very pleasant visit with his family. Emily was after all perfect, at least in his eyes. He was certian (certain) his mother would instantly fall in love with her and beg her son to make Emily a part of the family. Mark even believed that Emily's charm could over power of (delete ‘of”) his father's coldness that (delete “that”) Mark had felt throughout his entire life. But even he could not envision the prejudice in which his family had long instilled with in their systems, a feeling that had lasted that family several generations but some how missed Mark completely. (I thought this sentence could be re-written and made much clearer. The phrase “had long instilled within their systems, a feeling…” made me stop are reread the sentence several times…you don’t want to make a reader do that.)

It wasn't that Emily hadn't been charming. Or even closed off to Mark's family, it was the fact that her family was not like his. Emily's family could not reach the finacial stablity (financial stability) like Mark's. They were not high in society, nor were they well known. The contrast between Emily Larson's life and Mark Wells' could not have a longer list, something Mrs. Wells was not shy at pointing out. Even the mostly non-talkative Mr. Wells interjected with (comma needed here) "She could never raise the heirs to this family to standards they need to reach". (transpose, the period goes inside the quote. Mark was stunned, not that they had said all this but that this entire conversation took place as though Emily wasn't even there.

The car ride home was unbarible. (unbearable) Emily never said one word. When they arrived at home she walked to their room and closed the door. Mark didn't want to bother her and figured that if she truely (truly) needed him, she would ask. So he waited outside their door, and as he did he heard what sound like crying. And yet he never went in. And they never really ever talked about it until the end. (she went into THEIR room…where did Mark stay until the end came? Standing at the door for two months? This needs straightened out)

BOTTOM LINE: Do not be discouraged. Despite all the bold face and my comments up there, this is NOT a bad story at all, but you do need to take care of the spelling and grammar problems. That was my main reason for the lower point score. My main concern is the ending to the story. I felt like I was left hanging. At the end you say “until the end”. Where is the end? In the beginning you have them coming together, and set the problem, but there is no resolution to it in the story…
Good luck, keep on writing… you’ll do just fine!
Sticky
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Review of Sci Fi  
Review by Sticktalker
Rated: 13+ | (3.5)
INTRODUCTION: Good intro, you got the reader right into the story, good visualization of how big the Pentagon is and introduced Anderson in the same sentence.
FLOW: The story flowed along quite well but I think the bits of humor tended to break down the drama of “Doom is Eminent”.
GRAMMAR: The author apparently is British, for he uses British spelling for words and the story takes place in the USA, with USA citizens…none of whom seem to be British yet. This detracts the reader from the story.
PLAUSABILITY: The author makes some errors in his science which will be noted by those who are “space science followers”. Examples: a black hole would crush any vehicle that got close enough to the “space junk” to capture it, the time it takes for a rocket to reach space is much less than 30 minutes, and, the worst thing is this: Inventor of the Radio-Dynamic Pulse-Rectification Capable Neutralizer. That makes no sense to anyone and would be laughed at by a serious science fiction reader; something much shorter such as “Pulse Neutralizer” would be acceptable a lot easier by such a reader.
OVERALL: This is interesting story, although the theme of “Scientists rush to save mankind from doom from the skies” has been pretty well worked to death. I think the author has talent and will do well but he needs to try again on a different story line.

Line edits: I have line edited part of the story in an effort to show the author where he could strengthen his story. My comments are set in bold face.
Remember, a review is just the way the reviewer sees a story and is his opinion, it is not my intention to belittle the author but to help him improve his story. Take what you agree with, discard what you do not agree with.

Chapter 1

The Pentagon was a very easy place to get lost in, but not for Lieutenant Anderson. He knew his way round (around) the corridors like the seasoned corridor walking veteran he was. Previously he had worked in an indoor children’s maze, before he graduated college, so the Pentagon was a very large leap up in the art of corridor walking. (“before he graduated college” interrupts the flow of the second sentence. Try this: “Before he graduated college, he had worked in….”
From the crease on his forehead, you could tell he was in a hurry. And he was. Only a terrorist with a machine gun would slow him down, and most fortunately, this was a very rare occurrence in the Pentagon.(terrorist with a machine gun….Great visual!)
The corridors had less people in them during the night time, but the lights never dimmed. All the doors, or at least most of them, had little (“little” here serves only to divert the reader. Everyone expects a small keypad, so there’s no need to say it’s “little’. Sorta of saying something like “the cow gives milky white milk” keypads next to them, key-card input machines or other technological (every lock is a “technological one, I think you meant to say “or other high-tech security…” security devices. A (simple) lock and key would not do for the secrets behind many of the doors in the nation’s security centre. (American spelling is “center”)

Anderson’s shadow chased him down the long corridors, and only stopped to salute the shadows of the guards that (who) patrolled the building, to enter numbers into the keypads beside the doors or swipe a key-card.
He looked down at his watch. 9 minutes. (Nine, spelled out. You NEVER start a sentence with a numeral, you use an “ordinal” ((spelled out)).)
He entered the small cafeteria with a large single table in the middle. From here you could see out into the courtyard in the centre of the pentagon. (I think the description of the table and seeing the courtyard is wasted verbage…unless it has a bearing on the story. Try something like this: Anderson entered a small cafeteria, quickly made himself a cup of coffee and headed back down he corridor.
Anderson quickly made a coffee and headed back down the corridor. He checked his watch once more. 5 minutes. He could make it in 5 minutes. With a minute and a half to spare too. (this is a sentence fragment. Perhaps wording it this way would solve the problem: “ in five minutes; with a minute and….”)
Anderson was a calculating man. He had always worked well with mathematics and science, which is why he had been a natural choice for the Department of Defence (American Spelling is “Defense”, you did that a number of times in the story.) to hire as a general scientific advisor. Who knew that this would also come with the bonus rank of Lieutenant and a free game of golf at the Pentagon City Gold Course every other day?

Anderson arrived at the door to the briefing room. Room 3A623 was printed above the door in a plain easily legible font. This was the room for all major scientific briefings in the Pentagon. He pulled out one of his many key-cards and swiped it in the slot next to the door. (descriptions were good, but WHY do we need to know the exact number of the room? And why do we need to know it was in a “plain legible font”? You already said the key card swipes were next to the door, so that’s redundant. I’d suggest you rewrite these four sentences to smooth the writing out)
“This door will automatically unlock in 10 seconds.” Said the door. (the door talked? Or did a speaker next to (or in) the door “talk”?)
“Security, Security.” Anderson replied to the door in a mumble. (comma after the second “security. Commas join a quote and the person speaking…unless it’s a question or exclamation point.)
‘It’s a wonder the doors don’t have eyes,’ thought Anderson as he entered the dimly lit room. (good sentence, but “thoughts are usually written in Italics, not enclosed In quotes.)

There was a long table down the centre of the room, with room for one person at each end of the table, and 3 along each side of it.
5 (Five) of the seats were taken..
Across from Watson was Dr. Harley, the top researcher for asteroids, meteors, space junk and other phenomenon of the like. ( “and other phenomon of the like?” …Funny, but you are inserting your own beliefs into the story. You aren’t SHOWING, not even telling, you are INSTRUCTING the reader..)
“Sorry I’m late everyone” he said quickly as he foxtrotted like a drunkard to his seat. (be advised, in the USA there was a dance called “the fox trot” and when you danced it, you “foxtrotted”. I think you meant, “he trotted like a drunken fox to his seat?”
Just above Earth, a very secretive bit of space-junk that had been orbiting for the past 60 years continued its controlled descent down. It was rather big as space junk goes, being a metre by a metre by a metre. (US spelling is “meter”) It was rather oddly shaped for space junk too, as the natural formation of rock is not a perfect cube. At the speed it was going, it would not be space junk for long either.

“What?” Carrit said.
“What?” Watson said, attempting to, yet failing to add the same tone of practised (practiced is the USA spelling) worry that Carrit had. Watson was just confused. He didn’t understand any of this techno-babble.
“Because this is not the normal behaviour (behavior- USA) of space rocks.” Denise pointed out, as if speaking to a child. (...of space rocks," Denise pointed out... comma needed, not a period)
“The only black hole around here is the one in this room, diverting all our time to talk about some stupid asteroid.” Watson interjected pointedly, even though his awareness of what a black hole was equalled equaled (sp) that of a piece of butter’s awareness of what toast was.
(ceased editing at this point)

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Review of Thoughts  
Review by Sticktalker
Rated: E | (4.0)
NAME OF ITEM: Thoughts
 Thoughts  (E)
My character is "almost" vagrant trying to live the life he chose.
#1518117 by Alex Liao


AUTHOR: Alex Liao

DATE: Feb. 2, 09

OVERALL IMPRESSION: This isn’t quite a story, nor an essay and I’m not quite sure what to call it. It IS an interesting dip into the mind of the character as he sees where he has come to in his life. Essentially, he is nowhere with it and it’s worn him down to the point that he is just about ready to throw in the sponge. Then, the small boy arrives and shows some interest in him, as a human being. Now I’m wondering what is going to happen next. Is there some sort of resolve here? I feel left hanging.

LEAD GRAPH: You have a quote starting the story off, but it’s not really the first graph of the story, it’s more like the “teaser line” editors put under the main headline of he story. I’m not sure if I like this type of treatment though, it’s as if the author was putting himself in the story and telling me what I should be feeling

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT: Good job of this. The reader slowly begins to understand what makes the man tick, or not tick. Well done.

LOGIC ERRORS: I saw none.

SPELLING/GRAMMAR: Generally very good, grammar is one of my weak points. However, I’ll touch on that in the line by line comments

SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS: There was one main weakness I saw. You have made your paragraphs extremely long. Long paragraphs tend to cause the reader to lose not only interest because they are visually dull, but they can easily lose their place when they are reading and are forced to start the paragraph over. A few of these re-starts and the reader will move on to something less confusing to read.
Paragraph 3 was more than 300 words long and had 16 sentences in it. I think it should be broken into perhaps three graphs, maybe four, only for ease of reading.

LINE BY LINE: My comments are in boldface
“A man’s despair is easy to fathom because they may say they hide it and may not show it but when he moves on, as he takes every step forward, all his follies and burden fall into the deep recesses of the mind only to emerge, one day, as ammunition to keep his life going on.” -Liao
(as I indicated, I’m not sure I like this preceding the first graph of a story, but it’s probably a personal preference)

He stared at himself at the mirror, looking at the face of a worthless man. He can’t even pity himself because that would be an understatement. Before, he has prided himself of being an outcast, a rebel, one who is strong enough to face the troubles of life alone. (tense change in previous sentence, paste tense “had prided” and then you went to present tense “who is strong enough” But now he knows that all just face. It’s not true. He wants it to be so though, so badly right now. He doesn’t even bother to punch the wall or break the glass in front of him. No amount of overt act (I think this should be “overt acts”) could make things better or could make it all go away. The concept of time just is irritating to him because you can’t turn it back.

He steps out of the bathroom, grabs his jacket and leaves the mess he made in room. He couldn’t bear to clean it. (tenses again in previous two sentences.. you use present tense “steps out”, “grabs” and “leaves”, then switch to past “couldn’t bear”. Probably should be “He can’t bear to clean it”) It reminds him more of what he lost, of what he did that made him lose whatever that was. He just kept walking, down the stairs, out the parking lot of the motel and into the streets, turning on every alley hoping to find a dead end so he could slump down and maybe die. Thoughts keep running in his head about everything. If thoughts had voices they would be all shouting at the same moment, at the same loud frequency and he still would keep walking. Maybe he was afraid that if he would stop he might break, show the weakness that’s been clawing out of him all these years and is now more vicious that ever to get out. Like a monster finally seeing the keys to his prison cell and is grabbing it with all its might wanting to make an appearance into his world. The more you hold down a beast the more it struggles for its life. (This graph, after “maybe die” quickly lost me in the verbage. A really good reason to break up the graph into shorter graphs. The second to last sentence, “Like a monster….” Was confusing and needs to be smoothed out and probably shortened to read better.)

At least the alley he’s walking into is dark and for sure no one will see him. He stopped and rested his back against the wall and slumped down. And he just sat there. You see, at first he didn’t want the life he was born into. Where he was and knowing where it would lead to doesn’t seem to appeal to him because he knew he was something more than that. He was something more than an actor’s or musician’s son. He was more of a person. All the fame and glory and light and money seemed all too fake to him. Not that he’s a cliché to most of the children who felt that way about their famous parents but because his parents weren’t exactly like those other actors or musicians, they were worse. They totally love the spotlight because of the attention and they totally love the attention for the fame, not because of the artistry of it all but because of the vanity of it all. All they cared about was being at the right places with the right people and usually that meant hose with money and power and whom they could use to boost their careers…or egos. And it sickened him. He left when he was old enough and quite easily since his parents weren’t really looking after him. He didn’t want to become a weapon in the furtherance of his parent’s shallow status. He didn’t even take money. All he had were the clothes on his back. It was only difficult in the beginning but once you change you’re name, cut your hair and brake (break) your own nose to be unnoticeable (unnoticed?) by the seeking public then it’s a grand life. For him at least, because his life would be his own and he would live his life to the fullest. (“live his life to the fullest…a phrase that is overused badly, I think you need a different phrase here.) He never regretted the life he chose for himself, until now, at least. (I have to say, this graph was soooo long, I tried three times to read it and finally gave up…just too much in one bite to understand)

Rats scampered across the dirty pavement and watched and listened to the sounds of more creatures of the filth and dark around him. He was used to this and he can (could) take it. At this moment he thought that he wished that he was an ignorant person. Ignorant of the civilized world, a world where people come together in a big social zest pool of intelligence, awareness, success, love, despair, broken dreams and money. What he wouldn’t give to be a complete hermit, living on a mountain top in a small little shack, keeping to himself and figuring out what and how to get food and not knowing about the big world out there. Isolation isn’t just enough for him right now. What he needs is ignorance; of not knowing what he knows now, of not knowing his past, his present of his future, and most especially of why he deserves this.

He wanted to do something, to shout, to kick, to go crazy, even just to moan. Even at this moment, when he aspired something so badly, he couldn’t do anything. He didn’t clench his fingers or grind his teeth. He just stared at the opposite wall. For other people, being alone in times of desperation is not the best way to be because it’s better to be distracted, to keep all the thoughts away. But for him it’s different. Being around people makes it worse. But not like it’s helping him. Being different entails being alone and since he never thought of himself as like the others, he suffers as he should, in silence and solitude.

He slowly lies down sideways on the dry pavement, putting his hands under his head. He tucked his legs cup and closer to his torso, waiting for sleep to come. The thoughts never stopped churning in his head though. All the things that ever came into his mind were slowly creeping up on him and he cringes in his mind at every mistake and blunder and laughs invisibly at every opposite moment. He turned his body towards the sky and watches as the stars above him sparkle. There were times that he believed that everything is in place, even those out in space, that every rock and element all in its own corner of the universe. He drifted into sleep thinking otherwise, that everything was chaos and gravity doesn’t have a pull on the things that doesn’t wanna be where they are. (again you have numerous tense shifts throughout this graph. “slowly lies”, “putting his hands”, then you shift, “tucked” then go back again to “waiting”)

It was faint at first. He thought he’s hearing someone from his dream. But he seemed completely aware. He could feel the cold, dry pavement beneath him and smell the garbage bin just a few feet away. He could even hear the cars just at the end of the alley. Morning traffic.

“hey mister,” someone nudged him by the feet. He tried to open up his eyes. When his lids parted, it was a little fuzzy then the shapes came into focus. He blinked a couple of times then looked up at the kid. “mister are you all right?” the kid with the big brown eyes asked. He looked around him then propped up on his shoulders slowly, using his elbow a wedge. “yeah kid. Thanks.” He said politely.

(dialogue is a sentence. Let me retype it grammatically correct: “Hey, mister,” someone nudged…”Mister, are you all right?” the kid ….. now the man speaks, that requires a new paragraph

“Yeah, kid; thanks,” he said politely.)

BOTTOM LINE Despite a lot of comments, I think the piece isn't as bad as it may look. There are many troublesome tense changes, but those can be cleaned up easily in a re-write. I'd like to see you do a re-write because I DID like what you did, it just needs some polish...and perhaps a few more chapters to finish out the story.

REMINDER: Remember, my comments are only my personal view of your piece. Take what you agree with or find useful and leave anything that you disagree with or do not find useful. I only do a review on pieces that I basically like; any comments I've made are intended to improve what you have created.

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Review by Sticktalker
Rated: E | (5.0)
Khat,
This was a great little article on how to do a great review...and more important, how to do a meaningful review. I loved he way you dressed the article up...it was more like a page out of a magazine than a dry "fact article". I especially liked the alternating colored balloons and asterisks at the top.

The article itself started off with a bang, stating your basic premise of "writing a good review" and then you followed that up with examples and ended up with the reminder to end up on a positive note.

I only have two suggestions, both of which are probably more personal than factual.

One. I found the green color in the headline to be too "weak" to carry it, I would like to suggest that you use a darker color...dark blue or brown I find most pleasing.

Two. I think the four "Steps" you put into Impact Bold. Impact is a very bold font by itself, to me when you make "impact" bold, it tends to fuzzy-up the edges of the font, making it much harder to read. I understand that the "steps" stick out, but I think plain Impact would do it just fine.

Still, overall it's a great article. Excellent job, worth a "5" in my book.

Lyle
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