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151
151
Review of But Which One?  
Rated: ASR | (5.0)
A Random Read Tool find.

A lovely, quick-witted piece of poetry here, Lady Shaara. Your powers of observation are always excellent and I understand yet again why you tend to prefer peaceful aliens to the human race of pseudo-animals.

It's always an immense pleasure to happen upon one of your poems.

Keep up the creativity!
alfred
152
152
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
I'm playing with the Random Read Feature today. Thus I discovered this very personal poem.

I like the imagery, although the combination of image and abstract words might be tamed a bit further to include more images. I particularly like the strong image in the first stanza: "your presence, stars, splayed light upon a sculpture / shaped by hands and molded tenderly from birth to kiln." This is truly striking. I like the layout of the poem, the five-line stanzas each followed by a couplet.

But this first couplet could be trimmed a bit:
         "I become attuned to stunning truths, rare and raw within,
         mammal and inherent inside my very center."
Within, inherent inside and very center are redundant. I would eliminate completely "within" and use instead "mammal and inherent at my very core." Core being more poetic than center. The two adjectives mammal and inherent could be better expressed. They are rather vague. Of course that alters your line lengths which may be important to you in this particular poem. But that would also give you the opportunity to expand on the content of these lines.

Only one line reads crookedly: "for sudden on the air your scent is evening inescapable." It seems that "evening" is not at its proper place and I would turn "sudden" into an adverb. "for suddenly on the even air your scent is inescapable."

Keep up the creative writing
alfred
153
153
Review of All I have  
Rated: E | (2.5)
Firstly, I came across this using the Random Read feature.

Your "loving nature" acrostic is perfectly executed. Visually the poem is lovely to look at with its line length progression going longer and then shorter. Unfortunately, I feel that several places you chose words simply to fill up the line to the needed length. A striking example is the incorrect line "A person of whom was never unwanted", which I will deal with later.

As a reader, however, I do not easily find the tie between the secret message of the acostic, the idea conveyed in the title of "All I have" and the body of the poem which speaks about seeing what truly exists. I am certain that in your mind the three co-exist perfectly, but what you have placed on the page does not bring the three elements together, yet. Possibly with a bit of editing you can correct this, or at least leave hints that point the reader in the direction of your initial thoughts while composing this poem.

In short poetry, and indeed even within my longer pieces, I try to avoid using the same words twice in a row. Your poem does this regularly - look at the number of times see and its forms, eyes, behold and wanted are used. Is this bad? Not necessarily if the poem is a contemporary speech style story poem. This is not the case of your verse here. Why avoid repeating words? As a writer, and especially a writer of poetry, synonyms are what it's about. Finding yet another word to express, just a tad differently, the same ideas already penned, greatly improves the quality of the ideas set upon paper.

One grammatical error is glaring:" A person of whom was never unwanted." A person WHO was never unwanted. And I'm sorry to insist, but this line does not connect well with the preceding one. Once again, the idea in your head is certainly clear concerning what you meant here; this does not come across through your words. There is also a problem getting to and from the line "undoubtedly the truth I seek" which needs a phrase to complete it, as "IS renewed inside of my heart." But here, for you line length, you have eliminated the only word which will make sense of this particular line, the verb.

Also in your line "Versions of life that passes by" since there is no immediate reference to either versions or life, I would read the phrase as Versions (which ones? those of life) PASS by. This is the more correct way to write this idea. Now, had you been previously talking about the waking and dreaming states of life, there would be a case for writing the idea "these different versions of a that life passes by" but this is not what you have placed on the page. And shortening this particular idea to fit into the line-length puzzle of your poem is difficult.

It's nice to see poets with ideas. In my humble opinion, you've tried to place too many limits - an acrostic that gives the poem a hidden meaning as well as a line-length visual effect — upon a poem whose ideas need more space on the page to be properly communicated with the reader.

Keep writing,
alfred
154
154
Rated: E | (3.5)
There is hope and despair in this poem, the second stanza seems to flow better than the first, possibly because describing more positive things is easier for you.

I always appreciate bookending in a poem, although it's hard to do convincingly. Your "o daughter of my youth", while not the beginning line but the second, still ends the poem beautifully. I especially appreciate "on gossamer wings of hope." It's a shame there are not more typically "poetic" phrases like this in the poem.

"you have aged before your time[period]. Why a full stop here? If this line is meant to be independent of the following, the period is necessary, but you don't capitalize, so the punctuation jars me as a reader.

"on a face ravaged by unnamed grief,/your eyes now blank cesspools of despair" lacks an active verb. The obvious would be "your eyes ARE now blank..." but that only tells. I would like you to show somehow.

And not to be daring, I would propose the following reorganization of these three lines so that they flow more evenly:

on a face ravaged by unnamed grief
you have aged before your time.
Your eyes now blank cesspools of despair,
like a light bulb that has been switched off,
they stare, silent and sullen..."

There are other words in this text that can easily be eliminated. And your use of the gerund "staring" was the verb I missed earlier, which is why I conjugate it and replace it in its context with the pronoun of its verb.

Although I personally would not use "cesspools" to describe, even when she's down and out, a loved one. It's the strongest word in the poem and it sticks out a bit like a sore thumb.

Keep up the creative work,
alfred
155
155
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
The story itself is good. Only one major flaw in the editing - at first you present the lifesaver at the beach as Jordan, then refer to him as Kyle.

In general, I find that the scenes need transition between them. IMHO your one scene of foreshadowing between Brandon and the hospital doctor needs be developed somehow. I got the impression from its brevity that Brandon was indeed a drug addict. But this scene, although announced earlier, is told as flashback. As it plays an important role of foreshadowing, I think it deserves a full scene, and not to be sqaushed into the story as a simple memory while Brandon is driving on the highway. You set up his hand injury as exceptional, his need to understand what happened to him as important, and then you seem to gloss over the scene with the doctor in a simple paragraph. I as a reader would have liked to discover Brandon getting to the ER, waiting with an icepack on his hand for results, discussing the incredibleness of such a situation with the doctor, and finally leaving the hospital. You often skip from one scene to another, much like a playwright would do. As a reader of a short story, I want the writer to tell me the things that you leave my imagination to conjure.

Your story is good enough that you could easily add more physical descriptions of places and people and bridges between the major sections of the story. You have the action well presented, and this is the skeleton of the piece. I firmly believe your story will not suffer with more meat on its bones.

I like the title, and how you work it into the story. But I want a clearer relationship between it and the body of the story. As it stands, the phrase "measure twice, cut once" is an anecdote to the story, as is Brandon's incapacity as a handyman. This was not a necessary detail for the story's unfolding. Your final accident scene could have taken place at any shopping center's parking lot. "Double symptoms, one accident" needs to be as fully developed as you can. Maybe a strange series of similar situations between Brandon and his father to set the reader in the sci-fi mood and complete the relationship between "measure twice, cut once" and "double symptoms, one accident." And the story will benefit from a more final ending, maybe his father, at his son's funeral, recalling similar incidents in Brandon's own childhood. You have a father sacrificing somehow his own life for his daughter's (what will happen to this addicent prone child now that he's dead?) and you give him no merit at the end of your story. The story merely stops when he dies. I think this is an error in a short story which is obviously not hampered by the necessity of a word-count restriction.

The whys and wherefores of this ending puzzle me also. You present an X-Files type of situation but offer no explanation as to how it happened. You include no fervent prayer after the initial sledding accident, no description of a man turned suddenly religious because of his desire not to lose his daughter. Such a prayer being finally answered would be one explanation of this strange situation of sacrifice. As a reader, I want something other than Mr. Duck who suddenly appears as the local E.T. who cures everybody.

Keep up the creative writing

alfred
156
156
Review of Crypt of Flesh  
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
Another interesting poem with a surprising point of view. I like the poem and admire your judicious word choice for a form with such restrictions.

I found your explanation of the form you created for this poem fairly confusing and did not follow all of its technicality. In any case, I firmly believe that for my appreciation of your poem’s form, it was unnecessary, to explain it, for it is the poet’s right to write in any form he desires, original or not.

But the inherent imbalance in the form – beginning with four quatrains and ending in two which do not follow the initial ones, is what bothers me the most.

The fourth and fifth stanzas impart much more concrete information to the poem, and the change of pace by enlarging the line lengths is welcome.

The closing quatrains are the most original part of the poem, with their pseudo-e.e.cummings aspects. However, your use of parentheses is not coherent, because the information they impart is essential to the poem and you do not impart this information in the same way each time.

Conscious bitch! How can you/lie awake while they/ rip apart/my life?

This is one solid idea, which can be read differently without the parentheses. Except the question mark after “my life?” precludes reading the stanza without the parenthetical inclusions: Conscious bitch/lie awake/rip apart/my life.

The final stanza works less well.
Forced to die, I’m being/mutilated.
“why/can’t you see?/I am alive!”

The cutting of mutilate(d) and a(live) are cute imitations of cummings style, but I have not yet found what they add to your poem, if not a visual aspect that I do not know how to appreciate. As in cummings, the parenthetical asides can often be read together, but here we have only “I’m being D)? why live!”

My proposition for a clearer stanza here would be:
Forced to die, (I’m being)
Mutilated. (Why?)
can’t you see
I am (alive)…


As to the line lengths of these last two stanzas, I had hoped to find an intelligent “catch” so that they would somehow fall into your announced format of “3-3-3-3 for the outer quatrains.” I hoped at first that the parenthetical inserts added enough syllables to complete the lacking two stanzas for the poem’s balance. This would have been an elegant and original solution to the poem’s balance, if these two stanzas had a combination of 48 syllables – there are only 34.

And by the by, the line “my life” needs a third syllable, and the poem’s final line is an incomprehensible “I am a” — only completed with the parenthetical “(live)” which adds a fourth syllable.

Other than the obvious imbalance in the last two stanzas and your use of the parentheses which could be improved, I am pleased to have discovered this poem.

Keep up the creative work,
alfred
157
157
Rated: E | (4.0)
This is a beautiful poem.

There is a contradiction in the opening line. The narrator is NOT helpless, for she prays. The proper word order should have the most important word "praying" after 'I sit, helplessly...." I personally would write "I sit praying, feeling helpless, at my little one's bedside..." The sitting is not the important part; get to the idea of praying as quickly as you can. It would be a good idea to reiterate the pronoun and add "I watch..." for the second line. Using "and" would be too common as your two verbs in the first line are not conjugated in the same manner. Later in the same stanza, the "I drift" toggles strangely with the "praying" of the first line. To correct this, all you would need to do is establish the continuity of the time line - "the answer to my summoning is a lovely multi-colored bird."

As you have a basically non-rhyming poem, be careful in the fourth stanza of the end rhyme "dreams/supreme." "Peace reigns supreme" is very cliché and stands out in this otherwise calm poem. Idem for you use of "and are bone tired." Even "tired to the bone" would flow smoother on the tongue as one reads.

There is much vivid imagery in this poem, which always pleases the poet in me.

I am content to have come across this poem on the Auto-Reward page.

Keep writing,
alfred
158
158
Review of Invincible Summer  
Rated: 13+ | (5.0)
I once wrote a poem about a scarecrow without naming him.

This is a powerful poem about one type of destruction a woman can know at a man's hand. The crime is never mentioned, and the poet here does not need to do so. The words are rough, the are staggered across the page, they are filled with emotions so raw that is it hard to read them. They might be arranged better, but that is not important.

What is important is the excellence of this poem. Poetry, good poetry, should take the reader and do something to him or her. Shake. Create joy. This poem shakes and upsets and is Real. There is nothing more satisfactory to my reading another poet's work than discovering the Real he or she has placed upon the page.

It is too bad that this item already wears an AwardIcon. I would have graced it myself, so caught up in its excellence am I.

Thank you Fyndorian, for your poetic talent.
alfred
159
159
Review of In the Night  
Rated: 18+ | (4.0)
I like the descriptions here, your use of unusual vocabulary like espy, scud slither, agape.

I wonder however at the proper use of espy here. The opening lines of this stanza, correctly written should be the following:
the first impact, a breathless wheeze,
two curved fangs, a white neck I espy...

The verb espy needs a subject. Fangs cannot see the white neck, and the word fangs is the obvious reference for this verb. In reality it is the owner of these fangs that espies the white neck. So in my humble opinion, there is a problem in this line. I personally would not be against a half rhyme, "two curved fanges, a white neck espied."

But it also seems to me that the impact and resulting wheeze come AFTER the presence of the curved fangs and the discovery of a white neck. So there's also a time-line problem in this stanza.

The end of this stanza is written awkwardly in order to maintain the rhyme "espy/I." Reversing the word order is a common practice among poets who do not spend enough time editing. And a weak ending obviously weakens the stanza. Why not consider something like: "In the night, I, a vampire, sigh." All of your information is in my line, but I end the poem with the active participation of the narrator, I, the vampire. And if you do not like this idea, consult a rhyming dictionary for a stronger verb. There are many rhymes with sigh.

There is also a complication of the "I" in the first stanza and the "I" of the closing line. I read the first stanza as from the victim's point of view. Since it's the only place you use the pronoun, we get to the end of the poem and wonder why the vampire needed to utter a soundless cry at the beginning. This makes no sense. And if you are indeed speaking about the victim in the first stanza, a simple substitution of pronouns she for I will immediately set up the victim relationship.

You've got an excellent beginning on this poem. I notice it has had little revision since the morning it was posted.

Of course I am a poet rarely satisfied with my work, and assume, maybe wrongly, that other poets want to improve their work as much as is humanly possible.

Keep up the creative work,
alfred
160
160
Rated: E | (4.5)
I found this poem in today's Poetry Newsletter.

You've an absolutely beautiful description. Your vocabulary is rich and your images are sure. I absolutely adore the simplicity of your line "Red dust, fine as cinnamon."

My only complaint, and this is true for many poems I review, is your reiteration of words in close context: "dust" in both of the first two lines; "gold" consecutively when describing the color of the new sun. And here, you write "the first subtle gold licks over the lands." I myself use verbs in unlikely combinations, and its use with "over the lands" doesn't bother me, although this image is hard to follow. What might be improved is the fact that "first subtle" gives a delicateness to the first part of the description, that in my mind "licks", unbalances, because lick is a more active verb.

"Sun" is repeated, but four lines later. Maybe a simple substitution: "the fiery orb/globe/ball..." Because two lines later you reuse the word with "sun-kissed" which will be difficult to change.

Elephants exist elsewhere in the world. For the time being, that is the only indication that your poem is about Africa. OK, it's in your title, I forgot. So, where am I going here? Two mentions at the end of "Africa". You've already told the reader in the title that you're talking about an African sunset, so I personally would not repeat this word in the poem, it's a repetition of previously indicated information. But if you must keep its mention to close the poem, I would try to use this all-important word only once.

The smell of a day in its youth, like fresh blood, invigorating,
As [the entire continent] Africa herself breathes it in.

That leaves the stronger image of "The magnificence of Africa's glorious sunrise fades."

And last but not least, "sunrise" and "rises" in the last three lines.

I know what you're going to say. But I'm writing about a sunrise, I've got to use that word once in a while. I agree, but you've used "sun" five times. Trying to eliminate the repetitions will only make you a better, more creative poet.

There is so much else that's great about your poem here.

Keep up the creative work. This poem has a lot of potential.

alfred
161
161
Rated: E | (5.0)
In this wonderfully romantic and philosophical piece of prose, SummerLyn describes her personal views on love and loving. Her wisdom, simply expressed, frequently takes my breath away. This lovely item is no exception.

It was an immense pleasure to read her impressions of love. A must for everyone who thinks (s)he knows all there is to know about the subject.

Thank you for sharing your talent with us, SummerLyn.
alfred
162
162
Review of Haiku  
Rated: E | (3.5)
Your images are nice. I like the artist's mixing of primary colors in the first poem, the superbly intense brooding of the second and the innocence of the third.

Technically, American Haiku must have 17 syllables, the traditional syllable arrangement is 5/7/5. There is a new wave of poets who believe that because of the difference in the way the Japanese and English languages are constructed, in English it could be a good idea to restrict the number of syllables. But to my knowledge, there is no school of haiku that expands the number of syllables.

Thus your first poem of 6/9/5 does not represent a Haiku poem. And I count four syllables in your line "gorged and ashen"

I personally would not use a gerund at the end of the second poem - although pure description is acceptable in Haiku, I would try to include an active verb in the third line:
Gorged and ashen
physically foreboding gloom
commands swift torrents


I also try, as much as is possible, to include the typical "season" word in my Haiku; otherwise these poems can quickly resemble Senryu poems. In this second poem, because of the use of the verb "commanding" and the lack of a word indicating what time of the year these torrents happened, I would tend to classify this as senryu.

Keep up the creative work,
alfred
163
163
Review of Black Rose  
Rated: E | (3.0)

There is potential in this words. You have gotten mixed up expressing secondary clauses and your ideas are not clearly expressed.

There are three lines in this piece which because they are poorly written grammatically do not make any sense for the reader.

*Bullet*My body and my heart could not be anymore granted less the life be drained from me.
Here you need to write:
"My body and heart could not be granted anymore [any more what? beauty? love?] less MY life be drained from it." This phrase will not be correct until you supply an object qualifying “any more;”

*Bullet*You were the lush green vine for which I could hold onto preventing my plunge into the abyss.
Since this line is written in the past tense, you need to keep it in the same tense. "You were the lush green vine I HELD onto, preventing my plunge...." The “for which” is incorrect, and you need a comma after held onto. The idea behind this line is beautiful, but it is awkwardly expressed.

*Bullet*I shall retire into solitude.
The abyss of which you have granted me my fate.
First of all, in my opinion, these two lines should be joined into one, the abyss has become the solitude of the last line. But correctly written this last line must read:
“The abyss which has granted me my fate. Here “of which” is incorrect, once again.

And “granted” is not the proper verb. To grant a wish is something positive and something one looks forward to. Here the opposite takes place. So, taking into consideration all the hints your words drop, I would write:
I shall retire into solitude
the abyss you have created to house my fate.

As for the presentation, I was incapable of reading the font of this poem coupled with the bold characters. I imported it into Word in order to be able to read your words. I would suggest eliminating the bold characters.

Poetry needs to be as clearly expressed as any other writing means. One may use a more floral vocabulary, but the purpose of a site like WDC is to share one’s writing. Thus a writer must always strive for the most clear series of words he is capable of creating.

Write on!
alfred
164
164
Rated: E | (2.0)
There is no indication in your poem that it refers to lycanthropy, which is the precise imagining of becoming a wolf, not merely a blood-thirsty being.

The title, thus, is completely misleading. It would be easy to include the sensations of a human body turning into that of a four-legged, hairy creature. Your two lines "falling to the floor" and "I am pushed forward" are not explicit enough that your narrator has gone from a two-legged upright position to that of a beast on four legs. There is still work to be done in this poem in order to convey these necessary ideas, for a poem using lycanthropy in its title.

A very interesting beginning for a poem which might have a lot of promise, if you take the time to include more details to point the reader towards a missing link between the title and the body of your poem.

As for the presentation, either a poet uses full capitalization and punctuation, or he does not. You need periods to conclude the end of each of your sentences, the presence of capital letters is not enough. Or, choose to capitalize nothing, and then your lack of end-line punctuation is understandable and more acceptable.

Write On!
alfred
165
165
Review of World View  
Rated: E | (5.0)
I'm glad I have had the opportunity to discover this wonderful multi-media item here on WDC. Your talent for combining words and images needs to be discovered by more readers here on the site.

Your words ask pertinent questions in these times of trouble. And the acrostic element of your poem is perfect. But I didn't doubt it would be.

Thank you for sharing your talents with your fellow writers here.

Keep up the creative work,
alfred
166
166
Review of Revolution  
Rated: 13+ | (5.0)
Excellent. Unique. Well thought out. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this story, which I found in a recent Short Stories Newsletter.

I like the fact that you have taken a chance with a gay/lesbian genre, even though you didn't list is as such. We love, inexplicably. Cupid throws arrows at us, and we don't all need sex to fall in love.

The ending between Andi and The Chancellor is difficult to read because there is no spacing between the conversation's parts.

We are all Unique and Different. Your story is a hymn to that reality.

Keep up the excellent writing,
alfred
167
167
Review of May Thirteenth  
Rated: 18+ | (5.0)
There are so many little gems in this item, written in one single day, that I have to speak once more of your talent! This merits further discovery by the entire community here on WDC. So I'm going public!

Excellent work!
alfred
168
168
Review of Confusion  
Rated: E | (4.0)
The advantage of this poem, even if it's a bit hard to follow, is that you have created lots of rich, personal images. And that's the first, and most important ingredient for good poetry.

You should correct base in "I'm playing BASS with a treble clef." An excellent image.

I didn't follow everything - you warned the reader - but your words are fresh and individual. That's so important today.

Keep up the creative work,
alfred
169
169
Review of As the Sun Sets  
Rated: E | (4.0)
Simplicity is hard to make work in poetry. You seem to have succeeded in this poem.

You have one exceptional line:
"as a purple haze and sneaky shadows overcome the city."

Later in the poem, "thieving night" is good too. I would like more of the same vivid and personal images to equally decorate the second stanza, which is weaker because of your traditional use of "sparkling star" and "quick burst of hope."

Personally, I avoid repeating important images in a poem; thus the third stanza's repeat of "sparkling star" bothers me. You have replaced the original "small" with "little" in the repeat, but the phrase reads the same. This is even more important in a poem when you have deliberately used a repeat phrase used to tie the poem together, i.e. "as the sun sets." So I would really try to reformulate the repeat of "small sparkling star."

And I absolutely adore the utter simplicity of the closing.

Keep up the creative work,
alfred
170
170
Review of Rainbows  
Rated: E | (4.5)
This is filled with strong visuals and speaks of your personal investment for your subject matter. The only thing which, in my humble opinion, needs attention is the morale contained in the last two lines. There is nothing wrong with these lines, there is a very obvious truth in these words - they just don't match the voice and lyrical quality of the rest of the poem.

I'm very glad to have discovered a second of your poems which offsets the impression I had after reviewing the first.

Keep up the creative work,
alfred
171
171
Rated: E | (2.0)
We can't all like everything we find on the Auto-Reward page. And there are many items that I simply cannot review. I have an opinion about this item, but I'm fairly certain that you're not going to like it.

You have written here a poem which reflects the premises of a personal philosophy. There is nothing wrong in this. Except that there are too many words, too many ideas spun together with an unending succession of abstract notions which need to be explained, indeed which cry out for more personal implication from the part of the author.

When I read poetry, I don't want to have to ponder each word, each phrase, each line, and spend an hour (or more) trying to figure out how each line relates to the other. There are philosophy manuals for this. And I avoid them. I am not an intellectual poet, nor do I particularly relish that kind of poetry.

MY suggestion would be to cut this up into several poems and take each of your ideas and then develop them with poetic images through metaphor so that the reader had a clear sharp image of what you are talking about.

OR: develop this much further, but as an article, clearly explaining your philosophy of life as it seems to be expressed here in a nutshell.

Keep writing. There will be others who have less trouble following your words.

alfred
172
172
Review of The Storm  
Rated: E | (5.0)
Mandy,

I first read this on MySpace, but since I knew it was here, I thought I'd do you the pleasure of a public review.

This poem, originally written from a photo prompt available on MySpace, is simply excellent. You have thoroughly understood the chained cinquain style and your descriptive powers are excellent.

In the fourth stanza "Static/seeks a release/creating a display..." might, I say might, be stronger where you to inverse the gerund and the verb. Static, because it is seeking a release, creates this wonderful display. In my mind, the most important of the verbs is create. But this is just a personal suggestion.

Welcome to Writing Dot Com. Your port already has several polished gems in it which I invite other poets to discover.

Keep up the creative work,
alfred
173
173
Rated: E | (5.0)
This brought tears to my eyes, Zack. Tender love poems are the hardest to write and you have done so with a freshness and creativity that is haunting to the romantics among us.

The utter simplicity in the line "my words became transparent" is a pure marvel of writing.

Bravo for yet another excellent love poem,
alfred
174
174
Rated: E | (5.0)
I have always suspected that beyond your façade of youthful rebellion there was a tender heart. This love poem is superb, Zack. I envy you the fresh emotional take that this poem shows the reader, that complete absorbing in the process of unrequited love. Your imagery is wonderful and you prove without a doubt that there is heart in your chest and that it has all of the failings, as well as the healings of a human being in love.

My only complaint is that this poem desperately needs is a title worthy of the emotions in it and not one penned from your rebellious nature.

More please!
Keep up the creative work,
alfred
175
175
Review of The Photograph  
Rated: 13+ | (3.0)
There is a lot of good writing in this piece. Each paragraph gives the reader a certain insight to the story as it unfolds, but I find that there is a problem in the flow from one scene to the next.

In the space of nine paragraphs, you have taken the reader through a lifetime of a single man. In my humble opinion, the piece is much too short for the amount of information to be imparted with the reader.

Your first two paragraphs set an interesting scene on a lake one cold morning. They lead the reader to believe that you will continue describing this day. You describe is as "one of the best days of my life." We get no further details. Personally, this was my first deception.

A stranger arrives in your story about five members of a family. He takes a picture. Of what? What were you doing in that picture? This is never fully explained in your story. Although that one photograph is the central unifying element of this story.

In your fifth paragraph, where you begin to share a bit of information about this photograph with the reader, the entire tone of this episode sounds like the reason it was so important is because this brother died too early. There is a tone of melancholy that is not explained to the reader nor developed further. Indeed, I was fairly confused because I thought from the tone of this paragraph that the importance would be revealed - this was the first of many memories you had of your brother who had since passed away. But that was not the case.

I am reminded of a typical type of comment judges make in piano competitions: "there were lots of lovely moments in the performance I just heard. But nothing held together."

I have the same feeling about this story. There are lots of well written scenes, but little holding them together.

Keep writing,
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