I am reviewing your story for the Beginning, Middle and End contest. Thank you for your entry. Be aware that any suggestions I make are supposed to be helpful. At the end of the day, you're the writer and mine is only one opinion. Feel free to take or leave any feedback I might give.
An interesting story with a lot of imagery. I could really see the indians in my head, whether they were real or not. I especially liked the image of the veil as low lying fog. Beautiful! You used the first and last prompts well, but I felt that the middle one did not fit properly into the story. In future you might want to put characters' thoughts in itallics to make them identifiable as thoughts.
And a few more specific things you might want to look at...
light headed, usually light-headed is hyphenated mothers’ breasts you have the apostrophe in the wrong place. The way you have it implies there were many mothers, where I am sure there was only one... old mans wrinkled face and here you have no apostrophe at all... old man's wrinkled face. morphed in to into should be one word wake and sleep in this context the word should be "wakefulness" wakening state awakening state
Good luck with the contest!
I hope to have all entries red and reviewed by the end of next week and will announce the winners then.
I am reviewing your story for the Beginning, Middle and End contest. Thank you for your entry. Be aware that any suggestions I make are supposed to be helpful. At the end of the day, you're the writer and mine is only one opinion. Feel free to take or leave any feedback I might give.
Very unusual angle to take on the prompts but I like it! I wrote a story kind of like this recently too, about a vampire tired of immortality. Only my vampire didn't kill himself! I guess that would be my one problem with your story: would a vampire die from falling off a building? Surely their preternatural bodies can withstand that.
And I would have liked to have gotten a little background too. What led this vampire to want to end it all? Was it an aversion to taking human life? Or a kill gone wrong? Or just a weariness with eternal life?
This is a very promising and engaging starting point. It would be nice to see you expand on it, go into some detail with the character and really present a motivation for his/her actions.
On the plus side, I didn't find any spelling or grammar errors and that's a first from me!
Good luck with the contest!
I hope to have all the entries read and reviewed by the end of next week. I will announce the winners then.
This is great! I have been Alysia over and over again! Every time I finish anything I read it and am disappointed. It always sounds so good in my head! Good to know I am not alone in feeling sub-standard in my endeavours and in having that nagging voice in the back of my mind telling me over and over how bad everything I write actually is.
And hey! That's what we all want out of life, isn't it? Just knowing we are not alone?
This is a good piece that leaves you with a very real sense of what it is like to be afraid of a storm. The image of the sufferer as a prisoner is very evocative. I can almost see him/her sitting there surrounded by bars made from lightning.
Just one little thing you should look at.... candles light candle's light
This is a great idea for a poem and I really like the subject matter. And fantastic that you have managed to make it rhyme without the rhyme sounding forced. There are a couple of lines you may want to look at changing because the rhythm gets disrupted (always a problem when using rhyme!). I'm not perfect, I'm still low,
Follow me together we'll grow. maybe change the last line to "Follow me and we will grow" "together" makes the line too long.
And the last part: to meet with you, if only you knew,
we have the same view. maybe change to: To meet with you, if you only knew/We have the same world view."
You get your point across simply and clearly without using too many words, or dressing them up in any so-called poetic language. The rhyming is simple too, which is refreshing.
But you need to do a little bit of a polish on it. Some of the time you have "I" capitalized and other times not. You can not capitalize it, but you need to be consistent. And there are a couple of typos or grammatical errors too. See below...
I see what you are trying to do with this poem and its message is very strong. But I think some punctuation might help in the verses. I read the whole thing just itching to get out a pencil and drop commas in all over the place. But I decided not to destroy my computer screen... Giving places to pause in a piece gives the reader a moment to absorb what he/she'd read and gives it more impact.
Ahhh.... Isn't it nice to be able laugh at it? If we couldn't do that, all we'd be doing was crying!
I guess one of the greatest things about a site like this is discovering that we are not alone. It heartens me to know that other people, like yourself, have sent pieces or books out there and been cruelly rebuffed. It makes me feel in good company. I got my latest rejection for my novel on my birthday, so I totally think publishers and agents have a sadistic streak.
Glad to be a part of the big, unhappy rejected family! But still laughing and truckin' right on....
I am amassing quite a collection of rejection letters and it is encouraging to know that I'm not alone. And a translation is great, as is some idea of what kind of recourse I might have.
I am reviewing your story for the Beginning, Middle and End contest. Please remember my opinion is only one opinon and at the end of the day, you're the writer. My suggestions are only meant to be helpful.
I enjoyed this story, and you made good use of the prompts, especially the last one. I'm just not sure about how realistic it is for Betty to have decided she wanted to do a jump at such short notice. It stretched my belief a little...
And here are a few little copy-editing notes that you may find helpful.
Fats Dominos Fats Dominos' customers customers' nineteen-fifty’s ninteen-fifties years.” he said. if you finish a sentence inside the quotation marks, you need to capitalize the "He" after them. Otherwise use a comma. This is something that you've done all the way through the story. husbands’ husband's. If you put the apostrophe on the outside it implies she had more than one husband... “Your welcome You're welcome clearing some turbulent should be turbluence
I will announce the winners once I have read and reviewed all the entries.
I am reviewing your story for the Beginning, Middle and End Contest. Please remember my opinion is only one opinion and at the end of the day, you're the writer. My suggestions are only meant to be helpful.
This is a very clever and engaging story. You had me wondering what was going to happen right from the beginning and kep me wondering right up to the end. The only problem is that at the end, I wasn't sure who jumped! I assume it was Ellie, but as written, it sounds like it was The Reverend.
There is some beautiful description in this piece, especially the fog imagery at the beginning.
As far as copy-editing notes, the only thing I found glaringly obvious was that sometimes you capitalized The Reverend and other times you did not. It doesn't actually matter which you use, just so long as you're consistent.
I will announce the contest winners once I have read and reviewed all entries.
This is really good! I love the way you have gotten into the head and imagination of the little boy with all his insecurities and bravado. It's really true to life and you have captured the tensions well. The ending is really good too, where he is lowering his defenses just a little.
Love the image of the most wanted photo being a Myspace profile doctored with crayon!
This is a nice story, kind of a character study with a bit of a twist. I really like your descriptions of Sarah as the classic buttoned up professional, but sliding, victim of her own discontentment.
The biggest problem I found with it is that you keep changing tenses mid-stream. Writing in the present tense is always tricky because it's not something you read a lot of and it doesn't always feel natural to do so. I've always hated reading present tense narrative so I forced myself to start writing that way as a means of getting over that. And now I love it! I've marked most of the places you changed tenses below, but not all. You'll find them!
Some copy editing notes for you to take or leave as you see fit!
bull s*** bulls*** is usually one word patients lay defenseless patients lie defensive skirt has a slip shouldn't that be a "slit"? The button-up jacket she wore matched her skirt and hugged her curves tightly. In the rest of the paragraph you're in the present tense. This is in the past... heals heels She would shoot me an insincere smile and ask, “How are you, Bryan?” She always called her patients by their first name to insure a personal connection and a non-business relationship with each of them. But something was different about today. She wasn’t wearing the sexy business suit. Instead she had been wearing a pair of blue jeans and a tank top with her hair was up in a pony tail. you've changed tense again here. “Would you wanna normally you'd say "would you like" or "do you wanna" she had transformed into a beautiful, exciting woman you know what I'm gonna say here, don't you: tense plates were still on the car. and again...
{b]wear where She came to life. another tense slip... were going to are going... head; She’s you don't need a capital letter after a semi-colon I failed to notice that we were now on the highway tense...I'm going to stop pointing them out now. You can go through and find the other places where you've changed mid-stream
Just watch your tenses. It changes a lot through the story which I know is intentional in places, but sometimes it changes mid sentence! Also, you have a lot of places wher "I" isn't capitalized.
This could be the starting point for a really good longer story.
TITLE: City of Sin, Chapter 6 The Palce D’armes –you’ve changed the chapters around haven’t you? I thought I was up to 5, but realized I’d already read that as part of the De Mandevilles chapter…
AUTHOR: Summer Grace
PLOT: The sisters go to visit their new niece and get caught up in the throngs at the Place d’Armes. Deciding walking would be quicker, they abandon their coach and continue of foot, examining the wares at the various stalls. A voodoo witch offers to read Crystal’s future and predicts death and misery.
CHARACTERS:.The sisters mainly, but nice descriptions of the people on the Place and especially the voodooienne…
GRAMMAR: Well…. This really isn’t your forte is it? I have made corrections in the text. Feel free to use them or not as you see fit. Watch your tenses. I noticed a couple of places where you went from past to present.
STYLE/VOICE: Seems very consistent. But you still need to look at shortening your sentences. Some of them go on for so long, and have so many ideas in them that I have to read them several times over.
SETTING This is probably the real strong point of your novel. You describe the settings vividly and have an obvious affection and knowledge of the place and time you are writing about. You’re making me REALLY want to visit New Orleans!
OVERALL I’m enjoying the read although everything seems to be moving rather slowly. The mysterious stranger has barely been in it, yet I’m certain he is central to the overall plot… Guess I’ll just have to keep on reading!
X V14
If this is the opening of a novel, I think it needs to be a little punchier. While I like the characters to a certain degree, nothing that has happened in this little slice of story makes me feel any burning need to read on. If you want to get people to read your book, you've got to grab them right at the beginning. Otherwise all those bookshop browsers will put down your book and go onto the next one!
And some more specific notes, should you wish to use them...
it contained rich businessmen I don't think contained is the right word. A party can't contain things. Perhaps try "it was full of rich businessmen" or "it was swelling with", "It was bursting at the seams with..."
The second paragraph has the word "party" or "parties" repeated 6 times. That is a lot of repetition for such a short paragraph!
tense as the suit can a suit be tense? Maybe "stiffly starched" or something....
Oooh! Nice twist at the end. Never saw that coming. It's almost like a story within a story within a story...
I think there are too many names. In such a short piece it's too difficult to differentiate between so many different people and several times I had to read back a bit to figure out who so and so was, and whether I knew. Maybe instead of using actual names, use descriptions of the people so they are in some way differentiated from one another. Greg, Jerry, Seth only tell us they are men. The blue eyed blonde, the bearded one, etc, gives a more visual way of thinking of the characters and identifies them as being individuals.
This is really good. It is informative, well written and conveys a lot of facts without being dry and boring. You have created some nice characters to take the reader through the details of the disease. It reads like a story, but is clearly meant to pass on information about this disease.
Great work! I didn't find even one grammar or spelling error. The only thing I might look at changing is this line:
She felt frantic as she read bits about this mysterious ailment
This is a great little story and something I'd like to see you expand on. You could really milk the tension as she realises something is actually, terribly wrong. People probably wouldn't snigger in an obvious way either, but would make comments and giggle after she passed so it might take her a while to realise there was anything wrong.
This is a fantastic sketch of what could be a bust a gut laughing type comic short story!
What a strange little piece! I like the tone and the uncertainty of it.
But the first line is WAY too long. Break it up and you don't need to use two semi-colons in one sentence. There is nothing wrong with short, simple sentences that actually convey meaning.
I was also concerned by how passive the voice was. You use a lot of he had..., he was..., she had... sentences and it would be more active if he did... she did... instead. Just because you are using the past tense doesn't mean you have to use "had" and "was" a lot.
Example: It was now very early in the morning and James had given up trying to sleep.
Try: In the early morning, James gave up trying to sleep.
It may not be great writing, but it is more active.
Excellent! You deserved to win with such a powerful piece. It really paints an emotional picture that any reader can engage with. I live in fear of seeing my own sons in this situation every time we are at our beach house.
There are a couple of places I might have chosen different words, but it's your story and you have done such a good job I wouldn't change anything now.
Powerful stuff. You never really think about the many aspects of a police person's role. You just expect them to be there when you need them. I think you put it across very clearly and imaginatively.
One little grammar thing you might like to change is "hero's" shouldn't have an apostrophe.
PLOT: David, a cat, gets a new roommate in Marty, a raccoon. David is curious about what Marty does for a living, but before too long Marty’s work follows him home…
CHARACTERS: David, Marty, Ernie the lizard, and some police officers.
GRAMMAR: Oh dear. Where to begin! Lots of issues with commas: either not using them where they are needed, or using them instead of other punctuation. You consistently use full stops at the end of your dialogue and then go on with “So and so said.” (eg: "I heard you were looking for a roommate." He said.) Usually if you are using a “talking” word (said, replied, answered etc) you make it part of the sentence (eg: "I heard you were looking for a roommate," he said.)
STYLE/VOICE: I found it a little wordy, and clumsy in places. And try to keep things in the moment more - less “he had done something” more “he did something”. It’s a small difference, I know, but it makes the writing cleaner and more active.
SETTING A rather fascinating futuristic world where animals have inherited human intelligence.
OVERALL A really interesting premise and one that I am looking forward to following further. But I think some re-writing would make a world of difference!
This is kind of like those stories that get told around the campfire at summer-camp, like an urban legend. I think to give the eefect you are after, you need to go into what the legend is somewhere towards the beginning of the story so we know why they are apprehensive about going in there. Then the finale will have much, much more impact.
And here are a couple of copy editing notes. Watch your tenses. There are a couple of places you slip from past to present...
[b} Danny pulls out his torch the first part & the rest of the story is in the past tense, this should be too. "Danny pulled... into; cars, sex misuse of semi-colon. You don't need any punctuation after "into" .Whose there?" who's there
Write on!
X V14
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