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1
1
Review of I Believe  
Review by Stumpy
Rated: E | (4.0)
Nice piece. There are some issues, but I'm in a hurry so I won't dwell.

It sounds like you grew up.

That's actually quite an achievement in a world where a lot of people never do.

I'm not so sure that mankind as a whole has always sought importance. That certainly motivates some, but I think the more common driver is to be accepted. The personal growth that you illustrate here is moving from a state where you wanted to be accepted as what others wanted to a state where you wanted to be accepted for yourself. Quality over quantity.

If only more people could grow in the same way.

Give this piece a proof-read and a bit of polish. It's good. It deserves it.


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
2
2
Review by Stumpy
Rated: 13+ | (3.0)
This popped up in a sidebar for me.

It's not a bad concept, but it's lacking in a lot of other ways, I'm afraid.

I'm not entirely clear whether this is meant to be an opening chapter of a longer story, or one work in a collection of short works. I don't know that it matters though, as most of what I'm about to raise applies either way.

> Clark, a tall, clean-cut young man with dark hair, is passing out flyers at the Student
> Environmental Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on a crowded pathway between exhibits.
> There are twenty students from universities all over the world helping him.

There is a kind of a catch-cry around here: "Show, don't tell". The paragraph above is all "tell". Rather than tell the story from the outside, it's far better to tell the story from the perspective of one character - or rather, one character at a time, as it's perfectly acceptable to switch perspectives between chapters or sections.

So here, instead of telling the reader that Clark is tall, clean-cut and at the Student Environmental Conference in Brazil with a bunch of mates, introduce all of that information along the way and from Clark's perspective.

Instead of telling us that he's handing out flyers, have him hand a flyer from the stack he's holding to a briefly-described punter and describe the interaction between them. Presumably he doesn't just jam flyers into people's hands - what does he say? What's their reaction?

Instead of telling us he's on a crowded pathway between exhibits, show us the exhibits from Clark's perspective and show us how the crowds affect what he's doing. Show us the crowd - what are they like? Show us what Clark sees, hears, smells and feels.

> Clark dialed a number on his cell phone, “Hey, Rebecca, looks like we’re going to have a
> good turnout for the presentation, five-hundred or more. You sure you’ll make it on time
> for the demonstration?”

Here there's a jump in the action. Clark has suddenly gone from handing out flyers to having his phone in his hand and dialing. In film circles that would be called a continuity error - or at least a jump-cut. It would be much better to show us Clark taking the phone out and perhaps trying to find a quiet place to make the call. Does he tell his companions what he's about to do? What does he do with the flyers?

> Rebecca, Clark’s sister, is eighteen and lying on the beach on her stomach in a bikini
> with her legs up in the air while holding a glass of wine. There’s a sexy Latino man in
> his twenties lying next to her who is kissing her cheek and ears. In the background, a
> group of musicians dressed in carnival costumes play Brazilian Jazz.

Again, this is all tell, tell, tell. We're told Rebecca is Clark's sister. We're told that she's eighteen. We're told that she's on the beach. Etc. I think it's okay to cut to Rebecca's point of view here, but again, it needs to be told from her experiential perspective, not God-on-high explaining the situation to us.

Your dialogue is pretty good here though.

> Jennifer Tatoka, a young Japanese woman, came up to Clark and said, "What-you-gonna-do-
> big-man-on-campus, show us a car that floats?"

More tell here, but there's more too...

> “Jennifer Tatoki.” as she extended her hand.

...you've changed her name.

> “You’re just what I need. If I give you fifteen minutes, can you give the same
> presentation tonight at 7:30? We’ve got about five-hundred people coming?”
> “Well . . . sure, alright.”

This doesn't ring true to me. If these two have just met, she agrees to join his presentation far too readily. Surely she would need convincing that the cause is worthy of her support?

> “Clark stood on the stage at the podium...

This is a very jarring jump cut. You need a clear scene break here - either a passage of time indicator ("An hour later, Clark was standing...") or a structural break - often indicated by a few well spaced asterisks:

* * *

> ... and wore a red and black plaid flannel shirt with his sleeves rolled up to the elbows.

"And wore" is wrong here. "And..." suggests a consecutive action. What you want here is a concurrent "action". "Clark stood... wearing..."

> A young women in blue jeans and a red and white striped T-shirt shouted from the audience,
> “Come on Clark, we’ve heard this before, what’s new?”

How does she know his name is Clark? He didn't introduce himself. You haven't indicated that his name is on display anywhere. In an international conference, it's unlikely she just happens to know him, without also knowing roughly what he's about to say. Possible, but unlikely. If you want it to be true, you need to make the link for the reader.

> Using some “Yankee ingenuity”, my sister Rebecca was able to video a secret conference
> headed by the Vice President and attended by top level executives from United States oil
> companies and an assortment of congressmen. Rebecca, roll’em.”

I already don't buy it.

> A crowded room in the basement of a government compound faded into view.

Now I really don't buy it.

> Those of you who have asked for anonymity can wear the face masks I’ve passed out.”

Now you're getting ridiculous.

> Ralph, a heavy set man sitting near the back of the room said...

How do we know his name is Ralph? Consistent perspective... none of the students know this man is called Ralph, unless you show us the name plate in front of him on the conference table, or tell us that he's recognizable as Ralph Whatsisname the Secretary of Whatever, or CEO of SuchAndSuch Corp.

> The President began, “The first lady said to me this morning, ‘Go get those
> environmentalists, Harry. I just love sunbathing on the White House lawn and if we had a
> sandy beach with the ocean waves crashing on it right here, I’d be in Seventh Heaven’,”
> laughter, then clapping.

Two years ago, I would have said this was completely unbelievable. Trump has rather redefined what's conceivable, but this still doesn't have the ring of truth to it.

> The honorable senator from Georgia...

Whom we recognize because...?

> “Naw, they’ll never get me, I’ll deny every word of it. And if they question me, I’ll say,
> ‘Ah don’t recall.” Tremendous laughter and applause.

Okay, we jumped the shark a while back, this is just Looney Tunes material now.

> When the video ended and the lights came on in the auditorium in Rio, a loud standing
> ovation erupted from the students that went on for several minutes. Then the crowded
> chanted, “Rebecca . . . Rebecca . . . Rebecca.”

After that show, nobody is going to care who shot it, or about flying cars. Every last one of them will have been streaming it onto the news sites and the President would be impeached by lunchtime the next day.

> The rear doors to the auditorium opened . . . the theme from 2001 space odyssey played and
> the colors of the rainbow swirled throughout the room.

That theme is Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra.

> “Please, Please . . . this is no time to get carried away with ourselves. What I am
> proposing is not easy–nations and corporations will do everything they can to stop us.

And announcing it at a Conference like this is a sure-fire way of drawing all the wrong kinds of attention.

In short, you have an interesting idea, but the execution needs a lot of work. The characters aren't believable - especially in the "secret cabal" scene. The setting isn't well described. The situation isn't entirely coherent (although it has the bones of something usable) and the pacing is a bit all over the place.

The good? Your fundamental English skills are fine. What you lack is not in the spelling and grammar department, or at the high-concept level. It's the stuff in between - the stuff that makes story-telling story-telling as opposed to dry exposition - that doesn't work here.

My advice? Start again. Slow down. Put yourself in each of your characters' shoes and imagine how they would really react to each situation in front of them. Take the time to see, hear and feel things from their perspective and then show all of that - or at least everything that helps to paint a coherent picture - to the reader.


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
3
3
Review by Stumpy
Rated: 18+ | (4.5)
Hmm... interesting.

This popped up on the home page list of reviews requested.

It's good. I saw one missed full-stop/period that probably got mistakenly deleted in editing, but otherwise it's technically sound.

It's a worthy attempt at putting the reader in the shoes - or rather the unshod feet - of an Alzheimer sufferer, although I'm not entirely sure you've hit the mark. I guess I'm not entirely sure you haven't, either. My wife's mother had early-onset Alzheimers (dying at 57) and certainly the core symptom seemed to be confusion. I'm not sure, beyond that, whether her perspective was as consistent as you portray Jimmy's here (albeit that you portray it as an extreme day-in-the-life). It certainly put holes in her memory, but I think it was more like corrosion all over than a consistent loss of everything past a particular point - I don't know how her self-image was affected.

Still, as I said, a worthy attempt at the very least, and perhaps more accurate than my own impressions. My direct experience was rather limited and some time ago now - you may have deeper and more recent experience for all I know.

Similarly, I think it's a worthy attempt at projecting nursing into the future. I'm not entirely sure it's useful to the intent of the story though. If the intent is to explore the symptoms of age-induced dementia and decrepitude, then the sci-fi elements distract somewhat from its core. I think I spent more time examining the prognostications about the future of healthcare than about Jimmy's own experience.

Still, again, a worthy attempt and it gives the story another perspective and another dimension that perhaps it needs.

I'm glad I read it.


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
4
4
Review by Stumpy
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
Yeah, it comes through. Clever. Well done. I do wonder whether it's telegraphed a bit early, but then maybe that's just because of the way you wrote the "Please Review"  request.

A few things snagged me just a little on the way through:

> Oh, man do I know whom I'm going to write about!

Is this one really a "whom"? Probably, but only to English teachers, I think. I don't think I've ever heard "whom" in this context in real speech.

I'm guessing that there's at least a bit of "write what you know" in this, so this I may be way off base, but I was surprised that you use "Mom" instead of the more English-English "Mum" or even "Mummy", which in my largely media-driven experience seems to be more common in India than in the Motherland. If "Mom" is authentic then all well and good. If you're pandering to an American audience, then I think in this case you might be better off with the real deal.

The last thing that stopped me was this: "I wasn't even allowed to think for myself. We jump now to ninth grade..."

I think the paragraphing is wrong here. I think the "think for myself" sentence might need to be a paragraph on its own. It doesn't quite fit either with the paragraph before or the one it's currently attached to. The jump to ninth grade, as written, is clearly a change of pace that needs its own paragraph. I guess it could be rewritten to follow on from "think for myself" but as it stands it doesn't quite work, for me at least.

That's it. The narrative is solid, no issues with grammar and spelling, other than as noted above, the intent is clearly played out and the story is relatable. All good stuff.

Good luck with the contest.


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
5
5
Review of Scales  
Review by Stumpy
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
Hi Angus,

Thanks again for the review. I thought I should return the favour.

This is a nice piece too.

I guess it counts as horror - of which I'm not the greatest fan - but it's a nice soft slow boiler, so it works for me. It might need the tension ramping up a bit for the horror connoisseurs.

Being more of a sci-fi fan, I'm disappointed not to get the why and the how, but of course that would diminish the horror for the horror fans, so I get why it's left unknown.

It's grammatically solid - something I wish I didn't need to say, but so often find myself being unable to, so I think it is worth mentioning. I do have a few suggestions that might improve it though:

> I looked around at my neighbor’s trees, only to discover that they were also blue.

"Only to discover" feels a bit odd here. That turn of phrase implies to me an unfulfilled expectation. In this case the narrator is surely half-expecting to see the same thing on other trees? Simply "to find" or perhaps "and saw" might be better? Not wrong of course, just a style thing. Also, did you mean "neighbor's" or "neighbors'"?

> And now something has happened to the people.

"Is happening", perhaps? No, maybe you're right. If the narration is from the POV of Steve on the 18th, maybe it's right. I don't know.

> But no answers were found, and for some reason the stories suddenly stopped.

I think I would cut "for some reason" here. It softens the impact of the "suddenly" which I think is what you're going for?

> Three days after I checked my mail

You use this construction a couple of times. It made me do a little double-take each time. Okay, that's what you opened the story with, but surely the protagonist normally checks his mail every day or so, not just that once? It's the first time he saw the blue leaves that he would remember as a landmark - not checking his mail.

> brushing his fingers across the three inch by four inch mark on his forearm.

I think I would drop the "inch" from "three inch". "Three by four inch" conveys the same information without the repetition, which in this case doesn't really add anything. I've had the same advice given to me in cases where I've responded that the repetition was done deliberately to emphasize the repeated word or phrase, but I don't think that's the case here.

> That was the last time I saw Lenny Olson.

Nice. So many people under-estimate the value and power of the stand-alone sentence. This is great use of a short punchy impact statement.

> Springville almost became a ghost town, and if it weren’t for the bottling plant starting > up, it probably would have.

I'd perhaps consider dropping the "and" for a new sentence here, but it's really neither here nor there. It reads fine to me as it is - just an option.

> but there weren’t as many kids playing in the park across the street from my house as
> there normally was,

Should the "was" be "were"? I didn't notice this on my first reading - it's just as I go back through that I wonder. I'm not sure - it's a question for an English major, not me.

> Eight days after checking my mail...

Again...

> a young woman by the name of Claire who I’ve known for years.

"Whom"? Another one for the English major.

> That was six days ago. I haven’t left my house yet.

"Since"?

> but I only have six shells.

I would consider this for the stand-alone treatment. It would make for a good impact statement.

I don't think there's anything really wrong in all that - well... unless the reader is an English major, perhaps - just a bunch of places where I would have, or might have, made different style choices. You may of course reject them all as not sounding authentic to your way of speaking.

Overall, a very nice piece.
6
6
Review by Stumpy
Rated: E | (4.5)
Oh, now, this is interesting.

Nice bit of misdirection at the front, that uncomfortable feeling something's wrong, pivoting just about right and then a stunning reveal at the end.

Perhaps a little too stunning? The reveal when it finally comes is a bit abrupt - but I guess you do the best you can in 300 words.

Once the penny drops, the anthropomorphization feels perhaps a little over-done - a little bit of a cheat perhaps? Although a couple of elements suddenly make more sense, too.

Still, a clever piece.

You have a couple of minor missteps grammar-wise that snagged me on the way through (one missing comma and the "Loved" sentence should be a dependent clause or have a subject) but nothing awful.

Nicely done.


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
7
7
Review by Stumpy
Rated: E | (4.5)
Nice.

It's a nice portrait. The ice man is an interesting element. As a seventies kid, I've never lived in a house without an electric refrigerator. It was only recently, on reading up about the turn of the C20th that I first came across the concept of the ice man. Seeing it again here makes me realize how recent my own electrical experience is. I imagine you wrote with a fountain or dipping pen too - another development recently gone in my day - defeated by the then cheap and ubiquitous plastic Bic ballpoint.

There were a couple of things left unclear to me, which I struggled a little with. One was the directions. You're three doors down from the railroad - fine, but if I face Nana's house from the street, is it to the left or to the right? When you're talking about the neighbours, you mention left and right, but again, I'm not clear as to whether you're talking about left as facing the house from the street, or left as facing the street from the house. I also couldn't quite get a map of the nursery and the Christmas trees to sit still in my head. None of it's terribly important from a story perspective, I guess, but when you mention directions like that, my brain tries to build the picture as accurately as possible and gets tangled up in the ambiguities.

There were a couple of elements where I felt the timing was off too. One was the veranda. While I pictured a veranda on the house from the start - an image informed by the Hollywood ideal of rural America - the wrap-around caught me off-guard, because you didn't mention it until after I had already formed my mental picture. The other element was the corn fields out back. That didn't exactly break my mental picture, but it was still a surprise and had to be lightly retconned into it.

Overall though, a really nice portrait. Thank you for sharing it.


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
8
8
Review of Fighter  
Review by Stumpy
Rated: E | (2.5)
I usually avoid poetry, but you asked so nicely in the "Please Review"  list that I thought I'd take a chance. The title looked vaguely promising, although the description wasn't entirely to my taste.

It's not to my taste. But that's okay.

There are a few things though that are perhaps a bit less okay.

The rhyme seems rather forced to me and I can't get the meter to flow nicely throughout. There are bits where it's okay, but it seems to be inconsistent. Maybe I'm just missing it - like I said, I usually avoid poetry.

"Suspicioned" doesn't make sense. Even the more correct "suspected" wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to me in that context.

I'm guessing "fate and 'pure fate'" has some specific meaning to you, but it just looks odd to me.

"On her legs" seems an odd way of putting it. "On her feet" is the more common colloquialism.

I also don't see the link to the "fighter" of the title. I suspect there's a story of a friend's injury or illness here, but it really doesn't come through clearly. There are hints of a "survivor", but I don't see a "fighter".
9
9
Review by Stumpy
Rated: 18+ | (3.0)
I picked this up from the "Please Review"  page, having not read any of the previous chapters.

As such, there are a few things I can't really comment on - continuity, character development and so on.

There are plenty of things I can comment on though.

Starting with the good, your spelling and grammar are solid. There was little, if anything, that made me wince. I don't get to say that nearly as often as I feel I should on a site dedicated to writing. From there though, gets harder to find the positives.

As is often the case with developing writers, it all feels a bit rushed. It feels more like you're recounting a series of chess moves or a football game than telling a story from the participants' perspective. Sure, there's a bit of dialogue and some rudimentary set-dressing, but I don't feel like I'm there, or even that there's really much of a there to be.

It doesn't help that the setting doesn't feel consistent. The background seems to be medieval, or perhaps renaissance, low fantasy. But then the details are mentioned using anachronistic terms. "Mayor" might not be strictly anachronistic, but my feeling is that the nature of the role is far too modern an interpretation. Similarly you use the terms "toilets" and "medics" in a way that feels totally out of place, or rather, out of time. And the dialogue is positively third-millennial.

You're never going to get medieval speech patterns right, of course - if you did, it would be unreadable by a modern audience - but there's a long tradition of "old-timey" dialogue in medieval fiction. You need to adopt the faux-medieval tropes to make it feel medieval to a reader who is familiar with those tropes.

Now, okay, if it's a fantasy setting, you can mix and match as you like and say, "that's just the way it is," but it just doesn't ring true to me.

Similarly, the battle scenes feel very thin. It's all very "video gamey" and not at all gritty. There's no mud, sweat or tears and precious little blood for melee combat. I just don't feel the life or death struggle. It's just a bit "bang, bang, you're dead" if you know what I mean. Reading your profile, I see you have military experience - perhaps even live combat. Use that. How do you feel when someone's shooting at you? You would, I guess, know better than I would. Use that to give your characters life.

It's also tactically awful. If you're inside a walled town and the bad guys come a-knocking. The last thing you do is open the gates! That's not to say that you don't ever do it - just that it should be the chronologically last thing you do - after you've got the attackers on the run and you want to pursue them to hunt down the last few. Until then, you're safer within the walls. That's what they're for! Tactics weren't born in the C20th.

I really didn't get the "raiders at the back gate" scene at all. Our POV characters (it's not entirely clear who is really meant to be our eyes and ears here) rush off toward the back gate, then we get a scene that they have nothing to do with, before they finally arrive. If we're meant to be following the heroes, how do we know what's gone on at the back gate before they get there? Sure, it might be important for you to know as the author, but for me as a reader, it's a rather unsettling change of point of view. I don't even have a named character to focus my attention - or a well painted description from one character's perspective - just a bunch of nameless guards and raiders.

The thing is, it might not be missing much to vastly improve it. An adjective here and an adverb there. A few extra sentences of description once in a while. A consistent point of view, with a bit of internal monologue, perhaps. A little bit of research to get the proper names of the bits of architecture right (e.g. your "walkway" is a drawbridge and your "ledges" might be parapet walks - Google "anatomy of a castle").

In short, slow down, both in how you're writing and in what you're writing. Take the time to smell the dung in the streets and feel the mud sucking at your boots. Notice the bitterness of the ale, the crookedness of the houses and the rottenness of the floorboards. Feel the lung-burn from running across town, the rush and the fatigue of battle. Wince at the sticky sting of a blood-soaked wound. These are supposed to be people, fighting for their lives and those of the people around them. Instead of standing above and behind them, like a kid with a game paddle sending a bunch of polygons into battle on a screen, get into the characters' heavy and worn leather boots and live the experience from their perspective.


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
10
10
Review of The Lost Pets  
Review by Stumpy
Rated: E | (3.0)
This piece is much like the other one, in that it shows you have a good grasp of written English, but need to develop as a writer.

You've got a decent handle on the structure of a script, and a consistent rudimentary narrative flow, but again it's a bit thin.

A few more technical issues in this one too, but only a few:

> Curtain opens
>
> Narrator: Welcome to The Lost Pets Play. We hope you enjoy it. Thank you.
>
> Act 1, Scene 1: Our Pets

I think given the length of the play, you could dispense with Acts and Intermission. The one act play is a legitimate art form in its own right.

I think I would reverse the order of these three elements. Scene 1 - Narrator enters and introduces (in front of the curtain) then the curtain rises. That's mostly a style choice though, so it's just a suggestion.

> Stavroula and Nikolaos come out

This would normally be written as "enter" not "come out". Often the order is switched around too, and capital letters might be used for the direction, or the characters' names, or both: ENTER STAVROULA and NIKOLAOS.

> Stavroula: Guys, please be careful.
>
> A half hour passes
>
> Stavroula: Okay, pets. It time to.....where are the pets? Are thise silly little elephants
> causing trouble again?

A few things wrong here. First, you can't say "a half hour passes" in a stage script. You can't have the audience sitting around for a half hour while the actors watch the clock. You need to find another way to show time passing. Maybe have the kids ask each the time, skip around the stage and ask again, with the answer changing ten minutes at a time. Or you could just have everyone make tick-tock noises with their tongues for a bit. Or you could have the narrator say something like, "they played for a half hour".

You have a spelling mistake in "those". I trust that you know that - proof-reading again.

Are they really elephants, or are they dogs? Are the actors dressed as dogs all along, but the pets are called elephants? Up to this point you've said elephants, but from Ashley's appearance onward they're dogs. That's okay in a play like this, if there's a point to it, but I didn't see the point.

> Random person comes on stage

Normally a script would name Ashley in stage and speech directions straight away. The audience doesn't know her name yet, but the actress playing Ashley needs to know it's her cue.

> Random person: Hey, guys. I just saw two dogs run towards the Dinosaur museum downtown.
> Are those your pets?

You should either not have a capital letter on "Dinosaur" or also have a capital letter on "Museum" and possibly "The" as well. If it's a museum with a different proper name, that Ashley is just calling "the dinosaur museum" then it doesn't need capital letters. If it's a museum whose proper name is "The Dinosaur Museum" then it does.

> Scenes switch

It's not clear to me what this means. Is this the start of another scene? Or does it mean that some of the set dressing is being moved around? Whatever you mean, it needs to be clearer.

> Ashley points to T-Rex
>
> Stavroula and Nikolaos: Yes!
>
> Stavroula: Alright, Ep and Op. You guys have some explaining to do.
>
> Ep and Op: We wanted to act like a T-Rex, so we were hiding in his jaws.

I think you need some more stage directions here. When Ashley points out Ep and Op you need to have them appear from somewhere. If they appear from off-stage then you just need an ENTER direction. If they appear from the jaws of the T-Rex, then you need to say that here, but first you need to say there's a T-Rex with huge jaws in the scene at the beginning of the scene:

ACT TWO - SCENE TWO - THE T-REX ROOM

A different room in the museum. This one has a T-Rex with huge jaws to stage right.

ENTER Stavroula, Nikolaos and Ashley from stage left...

...

ENTER Ep and Op through the jaws of the T-Rex (or from behind them).

> They hid in the dinosaur's jaws so they can hide from their owners.

"...so they could..."

Another competent piece of writing, with child-like story-telling, which again marks you as a well-educated child. Keep writing. You have a lot of potential!


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
11
11
Review of The Tan House  
Review by Stumpy
Rated: E | (3.0)
Sweet.

I think overall I would characterize this as competent, but naive. With one or two exceptions, it's technically well written, but it doesn't really have a lot of depth to it, or consistency.

It's short, so I'll dive in line by line:

> I love my house. It has so many wonderful things.

Not a bad start. You need a paragraph break after these two sentences, though. I'd be tempted to change "house" to "home" since you spend as much time writing about the yard and pool as you do about the house, but it's okay as it is.

> I want to take you on a mental tour of it. I can assure you that you will like it. My
> house has lots of meanings and memories that mean so much to me, so I want to describe my
> house to you the same way I would picture something meaningful and special to you.

This is okay, although I'm not quite sure what you mean by the last part of the last sentence. You perhaps should insert "in" before "the same way" too - I think that would be more correct - but the way you have it is okay, if your aim is to give a colloquial account
in your own voice.

This part's not really necessary though. You could just take the reader on the tour, without announcing your intention first. It might save you from over-promising and under-delivering on the tour. By the end, I don't really feel I got the tour I was promised. You allude to several parts of the house, but I don't feel I got to see them at all well.

Good paragraph break here. Shame there weren't more of them.

> When I come home from school, I see many things in my home sweet home.

Cliche, but it fits the context. I think you should have another paragraph break here.

> I am greeted by the groups of purple flowers dancing in the wind. I hear the trees’ songs
> whispering in the wind. All the clouds move over to welcome the sun into the sky.

Okay, but this doesn't flow well from "I see many things in my home sweet home" for me. Oddly enough, even though you do use "home" rather than "house" here, I think the connotation (perhaps from "in") is that you'll be focusing on the house, so it's a bit jarring - or perhaps frustrating - to be told we're going to see the house, but then made to stand out in the yard. That might just be me.

Another paragraph here, I think.

> As the sun’s rays peek through the blue sky, it reveals the calming color of tan paint on
> the outside of my house and the green plants standing around it.

Again, this is okay, but the description is a little thin. I now know your house is tan, but I have no idea what it looks like. Is it one storey or two? Is there a veranda or a porch? Is there a big lawn out front? A small lawn? No lawn? Mailbox? Swing set? How close is it to the neighbours? What shape is the roof? How many windows? Is the trim a different colour? What about the roof? What kind of green plants are there? Bushes? Trees? Climbing roses, or creeping vines?

You don't have to answer all of those questions, but a good description would go further than just "it's tan and there are plants".

> After I walk inside, I go to my pool and dip my feet into the water to relax. I am greeted
> by the soothing ripples of the shallow, cool water. I also hear my bird talking to me. I
> tell her hello and go back inside.

I would have used "when I go" rather than "after I walk". Or better yet, if this is a tour, something more tour guide-y and descriptive. What does the front door look like? How do we get to the pool? What kind of bird is it? What kind of enclosure is it in? Where does it fit in the scene in relation to the pool?

Another new paragraph. Arguably you should have separate paragraphs for the pool and the bird too.

> I see that my mom is making pasta. I hear the hot water jumping up and down in terror from
> the stove.

In terror? As if in terror, perhaps? I think I would use "on" rather than "from" the stove.

> I eat my snack and go to my office to do homework.

What snack? Do tour guests get snacks too? Another new paragraph.

> There, papers are resting in their drawer beds and my computer is sleeping, begging me to
> wake it up.

It's a bit odd to talk about paper hidden away in drawers. It's also a bit odd to say a sleeping computer is begging. One or the other might be evocative; both is incoherent - by which I mean that the two don't go together, not that the sentence itself doesn't make sense.

Again, there's a lot more to be said here. How did you get here? Just something simple like, "down the hall" or "upstairs" would be an improvement. What does the office look like? Is it big, small, square, long and thin? What furniture is in the room and how is it laid out? What's on the walls? Are there windows? What do they look out on? What kind of computer is it? Laptop? Desktop? Mac? PC? Dull? Colourful? Covered in stickers?

And then another paragraph break.

> Once I finish my homework, I decided to dust the bookshelves.

This is the weakest sentence in the whole piece. The problem here is that you've messed up the tense. The rest of the piece is all in present tense, but here you've "decided" in past tense. My guess is it's an oversight, as you've got this right everywhere else. Just an indication that you need to proof-read more carefully.

And then again we're thin on description. What's the homework? How long does it take? How does it make you feel?

> Those shelves have lots of dust particles socializing with one another in one big dust
> group. I end their dust party and wipe the dusty shelves clean. I am now done with all my
> homework and chores.

That's kind of a nice image - the dust party - but it's out of keeping with most of the rest of the piece. I think I'd be tempted to make the rest more like this, than kill the party though.

That last sentence is a bit of a clanger too. I think I would instead start a new paragraph (again) with something like, "Now that I am done with my homework and chores, ..."

> Now, it’s time for me to unwind and eat the wonderful pasta dinner my mom has prepared for
> her and the rest of the Gonatos crew: my dad, my sister, and me.

...replacing the "Now" at the beginning of this sentence. You should use "for herself..." here, but otherwise I don't think I'd change the rest of the sentence. It makes for a nice closer.

Altogether, as I said, competent but naive. Your spelling is good, your sentence structure and punctuation are okay (with that one error in tense), you've got at least a rudimentary narrative flow going and you've got a few nice images in there, but you need to do a lot more paragraphing and go a lot deeper with your descriptions.

Clearly you're still in school, so that's not a bad place to be. Your basic literacy is strong (stronger than a lot of adults), so you have the tools to build great things, you just need more practice using them.

Best of luck.


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
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12
Review by Stumpy
Rated: E | (3.5)
I'm a little disappointed with the direction you took the prompt. I think I might have enjoyed the work more if you hadn't mentioned the prompt as the inspiration.

I feel like putting yourself in the shoes of the photographer and then mostly just talking about the photos was a missed opportunity, somehow. While the descriptions of the photos and their subjects are good enough in their way, I feel like they're a bit empty. The words don't really add anything.

Then again, without this piece, I wouldn't have gone to the Twitter feed and seen the photos myself, so thanks for that.

Technically, I didn't notice anything wrong with it, so well done there, too.


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
13
13
Review by Stumpy
Rated: E | (4.0)
I'm not seeing much of sci-fi in this so far. I'm guessing the "constructs" may be robots of some description?

I have to say it all feels a little cliched to someone who's not a great fan of medieval high fantasy, but then I suppose spaceships and alien planets might seem the same to someone who's not a fan of sci-fi.

Is the date supposed to reflect our own calendar, or a fantasy one? Using a date with a month name from our calendar suggests it's meant to be our calendar. Using a date a couple of hundred years higher than we are now suggests it's our world (or at least our galaxy) a few hundred years in the future, but I'm not seeing any links yet. I think if that's not your intention you perhaps should choose a date more different from our own, and perhaps explain the source of the date. So it's 2339, but since what?

I didn't quite buy Haroden's entry. The attack from behind being stopped by the uber-skilled princess felt a little too contrived. It might have been okay if there had been some indication that she had sensed his presence, but when you explicitly said she didn't notice earlier, it didn't ring true.

I always find it a bit odd when fantasy tales invent ordinary animals. Fantastic beasts like dragons, fine, but why the gib? If you have horses and humans, why not cows and pigs? The "tell-y" way you describe the animal doesn't help. If it's a gib and these people have been roasting gibs all their lives, just say it's a gib. Instead of telling us it's stringy and hairy, have Tanza not relish the thought of tearing at the stringy sinews or something like that. Have her think that at least the hide will make a good coat, or something.

I struggled a little with the description of the table. I couldn't quite picture what went where. It might need a couple more lines, or a bit more editing, to set out the layout of the room and the layout of the table more clearly.

Another thing that jarred was the transition from the servants gasping at the use of the king's name to that being all he's ever called. I get that these three are the ones who can do that, but if using his name is supposed to be some sort of taboo, then I feel like the narrator should refrain from using it, to reinforce the special relationship. He's "the king", but his closest friends and advisors get to call him by his name.

I also found the pivot from Tanza's point of view to the king's (I think) a bit off-putting. When Tanza was asked to retire, I was expecting to follow her to an eavesdropping position, not watch her leave and remain in the room. It's far from the worst pivot I've seen, but it still felt a bit weird.

I know you may intend to explain some of the odd things in future chapters, but as it stands I just find them a little off-putting.

All that said, it's technically competent. I didn't notice any of the usual grammatical flubs, so well done there. That also means that for the most part it reads pretty smoothly. There were a few spots where I couldn't comfortably picture what was going on the first time through a sentence (mostly in the areas noted above), but overall it's well crafted.

Good luck with the rest of it.


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
14
14
Review of Sands of Eternity  
Review by Stumpy
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
I picked this up from the bottom of the "please review" list. I'm not unhappy that I did.

The characters are well painted. I think I roughly understand the wispdragon - perhaps not so much the redwyrm, but I'm picturing a classic red dragon. The different physics of the world seem to hang together, give-or-take visibility in the lands Ferrian can't see.

The language is very stereotypical high fantasy, which can perhaps be a little overwrought at times, but it fits the genre, so I guess that's ok.

Technically, it's pretty solid too. There are a few minor niggles, but generally speaking the writing is competent.

A few points that struck me:

I'm not sure that steppe should be pluralized. Steppe is a terrain type, not steps.
I'm not sure "leprous" is the right word.
I was caught out by Morian - at first I thought Morian was the name of Syrina's brother.
There are a handful instances of rogue commas and mispunctuated dialogue. Skimming back over it I can't spot them now, but they're there. Just a few bits and pieces missed in proof-reading.

I think that's about it.


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
15
15
Review of Happy Nights Inn  
Review by Stumpy
Rated: 13+ | (2.5)
OK, I got through chapter one. That was about as much as I could take.

That probably sounds worse than it is. It's not that I found the story unreadable (and that does happen), it's just that I found it heavy going and didn't want to read any more.

The trouble I'm having with it is that it's just a bit clunky. It's not a smooth narrative, and as someone who's not a huge fan of horror, it just stopped being worth the effort.

The spelling and grammar is mostly okay. There's not a whole lot technically wrong with what you've written. It's mostly matters of style that I'm having trouble with, rather than things that are strictly wrong.

I think the story would benefit immensely if you converted it from present tense to past and wrote it more from the driver's point of view than the narrator's. At the moment it feels a bit like listening to someone tell a horror story, rather than reading one for yourself and becoming immersed in it. It's over-narrated. The other person's voice gets in the way, somehow.

Show, don't tell. It's a cliche, especially around here, but it's a cliche for a reason.

I also think it would help a lot if the driver had a name right from the start. It would make him easier to relate to. Scrolling up and down to write this, I see he is later named Bill. Why not call him that from the start?

I was caught off-guard by the snow. At the beginning of the story it's raining, but then the world is covered in snow. It's a continuity error that pulled me out of the story. Rain washes snow away and makes it less likely to settle even if the rain turns to falling snow. For the landscape to be white, it has to have snowed for quite a while and not rained. It's an internal logic thing (see a recent WDC newsletter for more on that - it might even have been today's).

Try to avoid the "before"s and "after"s. You don't even need "then" most of the time. Just "this happens" then "that happens". The order of events is implied by the order of the narrative, so you don't need to over-stress it. e.g.:

Bill clamped a hand over the mouth of the jerry can to save as much fuel as he could. Carefully, he lifted it out of the trunk. Removing his hand, he peered inside. Empty. s***! Completely f***ing dry. He hurled the can angrily into the snow and slammed the trunk shut with his fists, bruising his hands in the process. f***! Fuuck!!

See? Quite a few "and"s in there, but no "before"s, "after"s, "then"s or things "winding up" or "ending up". Just a flow of things happening, one after another. I'm sure it could be improved, but you get the point.

Finally, there's the slightly clumsy descriptions. Not everywhere - a lot of it's fine - but often enough to make it hard going. For example, "cylinder shaped container filled with several tiny pills". That description might be fine if it was the long lost McGuffin finally discovered behind a row of dusty tomes or whatever, but in the context of a list of stuff falling out of a glove box, it's clunky. How about, "cylindrical container full of tiny pills" instead?

Things like that are mostly a matter of re-reading and editing until the narrative just flows. There's nothing much technically wrong with the way you've put it, it's just stylistically heavy. (There should be a hyphen in "cylinder-shaped", but that in itself doesn't hurt the flow much, if at all.)

Good luck!
16
16
Review of The Premonition  
Review by Stumpy
Rated: 18+ | (2.5)
I'm afraid I don't get it.

That is, I get the frustration of sitting in front of a screen full of code and not being able to see the error. I've been there. (My guess is she's missing a delimiter somewhere.)

I get that she's flashing back, but that's about where you lose me. What's a batchmate? Is that supposed to indicate that this is some kind of alternate society? Why are they boycotting the class? Wouldn't that just be hurting themselves - their own learning? And while I understand what the professor is saying, I don't see the relevance to the "present" story.

Technical stuff:

Your spelling is good, but the grammar has a few issues. It's mostly readable, but there were a couple of sentences I had to go over several times to work out what you were trying to say.

For a start the story could use a bit more paragraphing, I think. One idea per paragraph. A paragraph can be just a single sentence.

The sentence about frustration doesn't make sense to me. The sub-clause between the dashes doesn't really add to the story anyway; it's just a definition of frustration. "Undesirable events in life" doesn't really tell us why she's frustrated and besides, we already know why.

Using words like "moreover" and "indolence" just strikes me as trying too hard. You don't need to show off your vocabulary to tell a good story.

The door should open "with" a cracking noise, not "by".

The description isn't clear as to whether the instructor is by the inside or outside of the entrance. That might not matter if you hadn't just said that the lab was empty. I found it jarring to first be told that the lab was empty, only to then (apparently) be told that there was an instructor there. That's not empty. Empty of students, perhaps, but not empty. If the instructor is sitting outside the door, then that should be mentioned first. If the instructor is inside, then description of the lab as "empty" needs to change, I think.

"By the gesture of hand" doesn't sound right at all, unless "the gesture of hand" is some sort of secret code - a specific thing named as such, rather than a more generic gesture. I guess this could be reworked into something like, "With a gesture of his hand...". I would instead change the previous sentence: "When she turned around, she saw a batchmate beckoning her [from the doorway]. It was clear he wanted to talk." You could use "gesturing to her" in that sentence instead, but I think "beckoning" is better.

The batchmate's speech sounds stilted too. For a start "would" should be "will", but that alone wouldn't rescue it. I just don't know where to begin, really.

More vocabulary points-scoring in the next paragraph.

"[W]ithout much protestations" doesn't make sense. The number doesn't match. "Much" is for uncountables. Protestations are countable. "[W]ithout many protestations" or "without much protestation" would be better, grammatically speaking. Protestation (singular) is not countable - it's scalar - there can be more or less of it, but you can't count it, like water. When you add "s" you turn it into a countable - a plural - a number of individual protestation events that you can count, so it needs "many" instead of "much".

Why is it important that she greets the instructor on her way out? "While leaving" is a funny way to construct that sentence too, although it's not strictly wrong (but see "while" vs "as" below).

I think "while she was loitering" would be better than "as". I'm not quite sure why "as" is wrong, but it certainly sounds weird to me. I think it has something to do with the immediacy of the action. Loitering takes time, so things can happen "while" you're doing it. Walking through a door is more-or-less immediate, so things happen "as" you do that.

I suspect her cursor wasn't "beeping" so much as "flashing".

Finally, I think you should review the rating on this story - it doesn't need to be '18+'. I would rate it 'E' - there's nothing in it that would upset anyone.

From all this, I get the feeling that either you've not finished school, and are trying too hard, or you're not a native English speaker.

If you're a native speaker, relax, then proof-read and edit until it feels more natural. Lay off the big words and just concentrate on telling a good story. Find your own voice instead of trying to sound clever. We can't all write high art literature, but that doesn't mean we can't write well in our own way.

If you're a non-native speaker, it's a good effort. The meaning of your sentences is clear (almost always) and you've got English sentence structure more-or-less right. The issues you have here are mostly of the "English is inconsistent and weird" variety, not a fundamental problem with your understanding of the language. At the story level, perhaps the point you were trying to make got lost in translation.
17
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Review of First Date  
Review by Stumpy
Rated: 13+ | (5.0)
Nice!

I've had a few cracks at that competition in the past. I don't tend to do as well as I think I should. I think the judge(s) and I suffer creative differences.

If I was judging though, this would be pretty much guaranteed to make my shortlist on any given day. It's tight (as it has to be in 55 words) and tells a clear, coherent and relatable story. I can almost see the dress and the dorky tux. What can't be said hints at a bigger story too, as such short pieces should. Better yet, it hints at a multiverse of possible bigger stories.

Short and sweet. Well done.


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
18
18
Review by Stumpy
Rated: 13+ | (3.0)
Oops... I just noticed that this is chapter 45. That would invalidate much of my previous review.
19
19
Review by Stumpy
Rated: 13+ | (2.5)
Interesting concept, but I'm struggling with this one. I think there are a few things behind that.

I get that Liz has acquired superpowers somehow, but I'm not at all clear whether she had some to start with and Mega Woman is a new set of powers, or she started out ordinary and Mega Woman is all of the powers. I'm also struggling a bit with the Mega Woman character itself. Is it a separate entity, or the divine aspect in all women (or just Liz)? And I'm struggling with why Liz is called Super Liz at all. If it's a term of worship used by Tom, or what Tom thinks of her now that she has the Mega Woman aspect, that's fine, but I think that (or whatever the reason) needs to be explained.

I think perhaps the story needs to start earlier, with the ritual that makes Liz, or Super Liz, into Mega Woman, or whatever is going on. Or perhaps even earlier, establishing the relationship between Liz and Tom before going into the ritual.

Having read your profile, I get the femdom worship thing - I thought I was getting that flavour, but it seems a bit muddled to me at the moment.

The story could use a few more touches of detail too, I think. I felt a bit rushed - like I didn't have time to take in my surroundings before things started whizzing by.

One last thing - I almost stopped reading when I hit the word "prayer" for the first time. I almost took the story for a "God makes you powerful" story, which is decidedly not my cup of tea. If you don't start at or before the ritual, you might want to reconsider the language there, so as not to potentially lose target audience and offend a different one.
20
20
Review of What Not to Write  
Review by Stumpy
Rated: 13+ | (5.0)
Great article.

As someone who does more reviewing than writing on this site, I wholeheartedly agree with pretty much everything you've written.

My greatest peeve is with writers who can't take constructive criticism with good grace. I have high standards and can perhaps be a bit picky in my reviews, but I do try to always be constructive. I don't mind not getting a response - in fact I largely prefer that - but whining, attacks and revenge reviews...

I hope this article gets the wide readership it deserves.
21
21
Review of Rabid bunnies  
Review by Stumpy
Rated: E | (5.0)
Brilliant! Love it. Put it on the stage! Can I play the bunny? I don't give out 5 stars lightly (check my record), but this deserves it. Reading this has made my day. If I was staging a collection of short plays, this would be a contender for the final piece, to go out with a bang! Well done.
22
22
Review of Picture This  
Review by Stumpy
Rated: ASR | (4.5)
I'm not a big fan of poetry, but as a photographer this one grabbed me.

I love the concept and the rhyme and meter work for me. It may be a bit unsophisticated, but that just makes it more accessible.

The one niggle I found was that the very last line didn't scan quite right for me. I can force it into the pattern, but it doesn't fall that way for me naturally.

Nice piece, thank you.
23
23
Review of Final Blow  
Review by Stumpy
Rated: E | (3.5)
This is well sketched, but has a lot of little technical errors and could use a bit more shading and colour. The core idea is good though and that's the part that's hardest to learn.

There are several places where the grammar isn't quite right:
* "...made the leaves of the trees to rustle..." You can use "made" or "caused ... to", but "made ... to" isn't right in this context.
* "poison-tipped" and "man-eater" should be hyphenated.
* Lion doesn't need a capital letter, except at the beginning of a sentence.
* "hunt down" should be two words.
* The punctuation of the one line of dialog needs tidying up in several places.
* Depending on how you punctuate that line, "spoke to himself" probably isn't quite right either in this context. Not technically wrong, I guess, but it feels stilted to a native reader. "...said/whispered/muttered to himself..." would be better.
* Minutes passed by, ..." This shouldn't be a comma. Either end the sentence and start a new one or use "and".

There are a couple of typo spelling mistakes too - proof-read it again.

And some non-grammar technical points:
* I found the name Guru a bit odd. It's definitely not wrong, but it took me a while to realise that "An overconfident Guru..." was a proper name, not "An overconfident guru..."
* Telling the reader that Guru is _over_confident at the start telegraphs the twist ending and sucks all the impact out of the story. The twist isn't a big surprise anyway, and telling the reader he's overconfindent makes his death, or at least loss, inevitable.
* Finally, I felt the lion's surprise attack was a bit under-played. You telegraph the attack twice in the sentence before the lion pounces. "...he let his senses relax..." and "...what the lion was waiting for...". A surprise attack like that should be written with more impact. Short sharp sentences. Graphic details. Mighty paws, massive claws and gaping maws. Punch! How did the lion pounce? What did Guru see, hear, smell and feel? What happened to the knife?

Just as an aside, lion roars aren't deafening. In the movies they use tiger roars for lions, because lion roars aren't impressive enough. I'm sure a lion roar would be bone-chilling if you heard one up close, but in real life, they're not deafening. Of course that doesn't mean you can't say it in a story. Most readers won't know the difference. That line is probably the best one in the whole piece - it wraps the story nicely.

Technical issues aside, I liked this. I think with a couple of layers of polish it could be a good piece. It's a good sketch and worth a bit more attention to the details.
24
24
Review of Damn Yankees  
Review by Stumpy
Rated: 13+ | (3.5)
I like this. It's a tight little slice of mind's eye.

I think I would have liked a few more words of description here and there, but it works alright as is and it would be easy to overcook it. There's perhaps something not quite spot on about the timing too. It's not bad, it just doesn't flow quite smoothly to my way of reading. Perhaps that's just because I'm not a New Yorker - my TV-inspired New Yorker's inner monologue may be mis-calibrated.

All in all, a nice little piece. Worth a bit of spit and polish.
25
25
Review by Stumpy
Rated: E | (2.5)
For prose, starts out almost poetic. The family tree thing looked like it might be going somewhere and the stuff about siblings sort of keeps it simmering, but the last paragraph just kind of fizzles out.

In the end it feels more like a grade-school "what I did on vacation" story than a grown-up memoir. It feels like the first couple of sentences of something that could be interesting, followed by the cover letter for the pitch for the rest of the story.
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