Very interesting story. I particularly like the way you ended it. I won't go into that in case it would spoil other reviewers; but, it was unique and one of those endings where you are not sure what happened. (I will say that much.)
Your writing fits the "climate" of the story and the people well. I liked your mix of dialogue and action.
The only thing that I see that you might improve a bit on is your discussion with the man in the asylum. For some reason, that I can't really put my fingers on, he doesn't seem realistically insane. I think maybe you made him out to be so insane at the beginning, along with the reason why, that he was a little too articulate when he started talking. This is strictly subjective and someone else may feel that it is just fine, so don't take this as a criticism. It just doesn't feel realistic to me, but the rest of the story is very realistic and the way you broke down your story when you were in the woods itself was excellent and a good tension builder. You did well and I enjoyed this good ghost story. This would be a good one for the camp fire. I wish you luck with your writing and keep up the good work. I see a lot of potential here. I would like to see your shot at a novel (doesn't have to be a Stephen King length novel), but a full length novel. If you could keep building the tension in different ways more than once in a novel you might have a best seller there. Stay in touch and let me know your plans for the future. Good job.
You have a very interesting story. I think that many of you folks that write short stories should look at adding a little more length to the story otherwise there is a lack of time to add up an emotional connection to the story teller or any other characters. I will mention one other thing that might help in your sentence construction and it appeared early in the story more than the end and that is the heavy use of "I". I realize that you are writing in the first person, but you almost run the "I" word into the ground.
Otherwise, I enjoyed your story and probably would have more if it were a little longer so I could get into the mood. Keep at it, you definitely have the potential; but as Stephen King mentions in his book "On Writing". The only way to become a good writer is to both read and write as much as possible.
I loved it. Couldn't be more accurate based on my experiences as a male and looking back at relationships with females. I wish more women would be as open as you are and rather than lead someone on would pass this message along.
Actually, About the writing: It is very good, I am not a big poem fanatic, but there are certain poems I have found here on the site, like yours, that hit the ole emotion button and that is what writing is all about isn't it?
Please don't grade me on my grammar in this critique, I am having to write fast. I don't know if I would change anything on it. I might drop the all caps in Quick. Its just not good grammar, but writing should be free style in my opinion since fiction is mostly my bag. That is the only thing I would change and I think it might actually have a little more impact without all caps. but, again, that is your poem and that's only my opinion.
I think you have a very good story. In order to help you some I would advise that you review it for grammar. I know you have that capability because you use it in certain places and then become lax at others. Of course, I do realize that this is simply a forum for writing that may not be edited, but I would at least fix a few problems that (for me) seem to hold up the reader until they are past that point.
One specific places struck me. The first you write in past tense "came" until the last sentence then you jump to present tense "come". This could be on purpose. . . Since you are writing a story that would fall into more of a freeform style you could probably get away with it. Look at how our authors who make millions butcher grammar and I am not just talking about dialogue.
Another issue is to read it over aloud and see if you really like the words you used. For example you say "What are they talking?" That may also be exactly what you wish to use and that is fine. Personally; however, I would change it to "What are they saying?"
All of these points are subjective because it is your story and if you wish to stretch issues like this that is entirely up to you.
I look forward to reading the rest of your story. I think you have a good one in the making and I am curious to know how well you carry the plot. If you wish, contact me when new chapters are released so I can continue.
I like to try to critic something that might help and today this is one issue that is so subjective that you can either use what I say or ignore it and probably do just fine.
I want to mention your dialogue. It is well written and easy to understand, but I would look at two issues. The first is that many writers don't think the use of descriptive words should be used in dialogue and action should be used. Some of the writers (Stephen King is high on this) do not like dialog with "She shouted", "She snapped", "He said quietly", etc. unless it is simple and not used often like "She whispered". Don't overdo it too much by "She insisted", then in the next paragraph "He demanded". Reading seems to be easier if you simply use "He said" or "She said" and leave it at that, but maybe adding action, whether it is a look, or slamming down a receiver of a phone, etc.
Now, I'm going to do just opposite of what I am telling you. If you have read J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series you will notice that she isn't capable of saying "Said" without some kind of descriptive word added to it. So, how can you argue with success. So, I just wanted to point out this is a big issue among some editors and you may do better by sticking to the first advice. . . . up to you. Just something to think about.
I have known people who write that try to use a different word every single time they mean: "She said" They feel that this is the way to sound professional, but if we listen to Stephen King's "On Writing" we find that he and a lot of other authors feel that action plus "He said" is adequate to let you know who is talking.
The other thing I saw on dialogue was that nearer to the end you had a lot of dialogue is that you go for quite a few paragraph's without referring who is talking and as the dialogue becomes long it does (to me with my short-term memory at least) seem to be a little confusing who is talking. It doesn't hurt to throw in a "He said," Now and then just to let the reader keep from loosing track especially if they are trying to read with other distractions in the house (like kids)
Be careful cutting off words. I noticed twice where you did it and I had to stop and think "What word was she going to say." For instance the taxi driver said something about you need a "F...". At first, I'm thinking is he going ot cuss, then I figured out it was friend (I think). The point is, if I am pleasure reading; which is the case with most fiction, then you don't wan to have to stop and think. This may explain why Rowling was successful with her descriptive terms in dialogue. I'm not an expert on this, but I do read a lot and when I have to stop and think or get confused while reading fiction it is an irritant I think the writer can improve a bit on.
That's frankly all I can say, that sounds like a lot, but I just want to explain myself so you can understand where I am coming from. Your going to make it as long as you don't do what some author's do and give up. I see talent here and want to read more and I wish you all the luck in the world. Since I am a reader first and writer second, then I am certainly not the answer to which way to go. Just keep it up because you have hooked me and I want to read more and isn't that what a writer is supposed to do?
Good luck and thank you for the start of a good story.
I think you have the makings of some very good fiction that I would enjoy reading in its entirety.
I don't like to just blow smoke during a review and I hope you will understand that these are only my opinions that I think might help the reader.
Make sure you stay away from passive sentences and keep your writing active. This is probably not a very good example but maybe you will catch my drift.
Using your sentence:
Athenais took another drink, wishing someone would start a fight.
I think it would have been smoother to say:
Wishing a fight would start she took a drink.
This keeps it in a little more active voice and makes it a little easier to read. Now, let me add a statement that this does not occur throughout your writing, only now and then, but it slows down the train of thought and I think you could make it flow just a little smoother so your reader doesn't have to work as hard.
Outside of that, I have nothing to add and I will be watching your progress because I think you have all the talent needed and will be very successful. Please don't let me discourage you because I only try to give a statement that might help a bit. Good luck and great work!
This is good writing and enjoyable to read. I do want to give you positive feedback and I think you are going a fine job.
There are two areas you might wish to work on. One is grammar (especially punctuation.) For example, in Chapter one on the first page the last sentence of paragraph five you could do without the comma.
The only other issue is that you might want to have a little more action 'up from' to hook your reader a little more. If the reader is interested in the subject matter enough you have already done a satisfactory job. Otherwise, to attract a broader spectrum of readers I would work on that area some. You do a fine job in the first paragraph when you mention the charactor who has to kill his best friend. That is a good hook, but it kind of cools off a little shortly after that point.
I hope this helps a little and wish you a great writing career
Very interesting piece of work. I think you are right in that it holds a lot of secrets--especially secrets to where she might have been during this time period. I also think that it is written with purposely to hide certain actual facts, but make them known to someone knowledgeable about the locations.
This may go far beyond just locations and may tell a story of where, why and when. I think this goes far beyond what I myself can judge based on the fact that I am not familiar with the person.
The last paragraph is just downright scary or. . . well, scary may not be the exact description that I am looking for, but it is emotionally draining if you take it all in and try your best to understand exactly. It is some of the best writing of the entire item. Even though it shook me emotionally, I enjoyed it tremendously and although this is such a different and scary matter when considered with the entire story and all of the other writings--to me it is one of the best parts although it is only four lines in length.
I cannot and will not critically judge grammer or punctuation--this is mainly due to the situation, the reason for writing and the stress the author was apparently under, and still maintaining the capability to write this well.
A story -- well told -- and emotion added to exceed that of many authors who should know better or
I am grading this strictly on the writing and not the content. Being in the United States Army Materiel Command I do not necessarily agree with the content--which is okay, because we are here to write and not to preach. (At least that is why I am here.)
I think the flag at the bottom of the page is a bit much. It does add to the poem, but not much. It is more like adding a peace symbol at the end of a poem or short story. It should not be considered as part of the material. At least I wouldn't think.
I think this boils down to whether or not you want artistic matter in your poem. Since you are the one writing this, then you certainly have a right to do this much.
I do not like the dollar signs which are used liberally because they are difficult to read and how would you actually even read a '$'. I understand the drift, but I think it could be presented in a better way. Not necessarily positive, but better. It can still be negative and use a different form of presentation.
Otherwise an interesting poem. It is certainly okay to use a specific subject matter, but I think you might be going a bit overboard with the subject matter here even though you may be extremely strong willed in this area it seems to take away from the poem's story. I think I would consider a good editing session where you focus on excellence in poetry and less on content. Is this too much to ask? I do NOT mean to take ANYTHING away from your content, but I would modify it so that it doesn't sound more like multiple choruses to a song singing about the same thing.
This poem certainly indicates the emotion provided by the window and what little, unblinking light that is provided. Obviously, it is the only inlet from the outside world and therefore it is the most beautiful thing in the room.
I am assuming this is a prison or other such place where there is no freedom and the only openness is the light which is allowed through the window.
To me, the emotion gained by the poem is worth the story.
I am not a poet, but my daughter is and I can recognize good poetry when I hear it and this is obviously good poetry. In fact, it is such a good rating that I am not going to try to provide any correction besides the one mispelled word which you are probably well aware of by now.
Good luck with you writing. You certainly have the talent and I know poetry is not always the easiest to sell, but with your talent you are looking at the best chance. I wish you well.
This is a good story and I am anxiously awaiting more chapters to be added.
In order to help the author, the only thing I would suggest would be to make your technology a little more realistic (possibly closer to our time frame so there isn't such a gap) and do some research to be accurate.
For instance. A gun that would fire a projectile at near light speed is unrealistic and will be for a LONG time in the future. Nearing light speed would cause the projectile to enlongate due to the time/speed relationship. The second issue is that a projectile leaving a gun at this speed would still cause an equal and opposite reaction probably killing the holder of the weapon. Today we use weapons that have methods of cancelling the recoil and I'm certain by the time this weapon is developed the same thing will happen, but I would considering using about 1/10th the speed of light as a good maximum for a projectile gun that uses something other than chemicals to move the projectiles (assuming magnetic field or rail using super-conductors).
I would also go into a little more detail on some of your other technical issues. If you need help in this area, there is NOTHING wrong with it. Tom Clancy was no a military expert; he made phone calls and talked with people in the business. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having help in the technology area. For instance--what is "psychically charged fire"? Also, most people "especially in the movies" tend to show bullets or projectiles throwing people backwards and falling out windows, etc. A bullet, and especially something moving a million miles per hour would pass through the body with essentially no effect. Most people who are shot with normal guns drop straight down with no back-throw. This is just the way bullets and projectiles work and unless hit in the chest with a wide spread of buckshot, most people drop straight down. You could also use that for accuracy for your "rail-gun" (which I assume you are referring to using the word 'gauss' as a moving magnetic field, etc.
I also feel that people who want stories like this want more technical information than included here.
Otherwise, the techniques of writing seem to be very good and appear to make this a very interesting story even if it is a bit weak with technology. For instance--what is "psychically charged fire"?
I do intend to watch this author. I think there is a LOT of potential here and fixing a few of these items will be much easier than fixing problems with wording, grammar and punctuation.
This is a very excellent story. There is not much I could add that would help here because your grammar, structure, character development, story development and ending all seem to be in real good shape.
I wish you a lot of luck in your writing career, you certainly have the talent to make it.
Your story is interesting, but I think it is lacking in several areas. Please do not consider these as complaints, I simply want to point out areas to work on if you want to sell any of your writing.
First, I would include a plot, beginning-middle-end. Your story was a basically simple discription of what life was like during your first days on duty.
I think you should also watch your spelling and especially grammar and punctuation. You obviously have the capability, but I get the feeling that you are not using your abilities to the fullest extent.
Outside of that, I think you should continue to practice. In Stephen King's book on writing his advice to practice-practice-practice can do more to polish a writer than just about anything --- (Except maybe for reading-reading and more reading--where you absorb the work of others.)
I hope this is somewhat helpful to you or I wouldn't be bothering to review. I try to review people who have potential.
I think this a very interesting piece of work. It is difficult for me to ignore the subject itself and try to add to it, but keep the review on the strength of your argument and technical issues.
You make a great argument for your side and in doing so write a fine piece of work.
I have a little difficulty staying with you when you start your description and theory. I would work on this to make it just a little more open and easier to recognize just when you jump from the issues of your athiest friend to your arguments showing their is a God. That is the only thing that I can see that I think I would spend a little work on. Otherwise, it is a nice piece of work.
I like true stories like this and I think you have reached to the bottom of your heart because you accept responsibility yourself and don't cover the truth.
The one major change that I would make would be to put the sentence about your nephew at the very beginning. You have written a short story so you need to hook your reader as quickly as possible and although there is a hook in sentence two I think the story might catch more eyes if they were hooked from the beginning.
You might even try something like: "My nephew was gunned down.....and I feel partially responsible." This would show your readers your intent to correct bad situations that occur rather than showing your involvement in the last portion of the story. You might also consider breaking it up into shorter paragraphs just to make it easier to read. Otherwise, great story from the heart.
Might I add a point here. I work for the US Army's Defense Ammunition Center. We train most of the ammunition specialists at a school located where I work and have many specialists in the field (all over the world since ammunition is everything from a .22 round used for target practice to a --- well, we won't get into that.)
When sending items to the soldiers to eat, it would be highly advisable that it be store wrapped and not just sealed. In other words, our soldiers are trained not to eat items that could have been tampered with because our enemy would just soon use poison as any other method to attack us.
Also, please remember that there are a lot of civilian workers in the war-zone. Ammunition cannot be unloaded unless there are ammunition specialists or managers at the off-load point. This is but one very small example of people who often don't get recognition, but are just as much in harms way as an enlisted soldier. Please, remember the civilian who volunteers his or her time to go and use their expertise in the warzone instead of sitting in a nice comfy office every day.
This is very interesting. I honestly find it fairly good, but I would take the time to capitalize the "i" and watch the punctuation. Luckily, however, your subject and view of it and the world overpower any ailments such as a missed comma.
This is a very interesting story. It reminds me of a cross between Stephen King and a poet who's name slips me at this time.
It has always been my opinion that to be successful in generating emotion whether through poetry, a short story or novel the author must touch the readers memories in such a way that awakens these repressed emotions. This work does just that; at least with me and I would imagine a lot of other people because these are common feelings that children have as they grow up and it is unlikely that many people did not, at one time or another, experience emotions in a similar way.
The downside is that you can't please everybody, but I rated it fairly high because it successfully uses writing that most people can respond to and it is broad enough that multiple childhoods will result in the same emotional feelings.
I know I certainly enjoyed this piece of work and with just a little polish (which is probably beyond my capabilities) this would gain that extra point of being a perfect piece. Keep up the good work. Hitting the old heart-strings is a great way to bring emotion to your work.
Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/profile/reviews/writingmaniac
All Writing.Com images are copyrighted and may not be copied / modified in any way. All other brand names & trademarks are owned by their respective companies.
Generated in 0.23 seconds at 10:43am on Jun 01, 2024 via server web1.
| (4.5)
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
