I enjoyed the rhythm of your poem that you have here, Bear! Although it was about animals and a little silly with some of the names, it still spoke to a level of humanity and falling in and out love, family, etc.
What I liked about this piece:
- You did a lot of showing without telling - you didn't explicitly say that the two people the cat would see every day were a couple dating and they broke up, but it was obvious with the way they interacted with each other, and then when the cat observed them separately.
- Like I mentioned in the beginning, I enjoyed the rhythm of your poem! It was a good balance of rhyming to keep things moving along, but not overly so that it felt too forced.
- I liked the theme of encouraging people to get back together and starting a family together, of the cat looking at the dog like its brother already.
One idea for you:
- I got a bit lost at the end on who the "I" was in the poem - if it was the man or the woman speaking to the cat, or the cat itself. I'd suggest rereading the poem out loud and making sure you only use the first person pronouns when it's the cat speaking - or double check that you have opening and closing quotation marks on all lines where the humans stop speaking to avoid confusion.
What I loved about this piece:
- The imagery and scene setting. It was very easy to picture myself there right next to you, wading through the crowds and seeing the full spectrum of humanity on display before Christmas shopping.
- The quick scenes with other people. You kept me guessing who or what was going to be the funny part of the story - is it that person you just saw, or someone else?
- Your metaphors - the description of the woman's zipper catching on your like a fish on a hook, or the other woman swimming into the puddle.
One idea for you:
- Consider looking at how many adverbs you use and seeing if you can reduce those, or break up some of your sentences. Your first paragraph has a lot of great description, but the entire paragraph is only one sentence so it's a bit long.
What I enjoyed about this piece:
- I had not heard about micro-writing before reading your article! I'm familiar with flash fiction, but it was great to learn about something new.
- You cited your sources and did a good job of balancing your research and your personal views, making it easy for the reader to digest the information and not feeling like it was just reading an academic article.
One idea for you:
- I love that you used footnotes in your writing. I would suggest adding section headers to make it easier for the reader to get your main points, and maybe help with attracting readers. For example, you could have a header for "What is micro-writing?", "What are micro-writing characteristics?" and ""How can I build my micro-writing skills?".
What I loved about this piece:
- You did great on the rhyming scheme with the couplets throughout this program, but more importantly - it didn't feel forced. Sometimes poems feel like the writer is pulling out words from the dictionary just to force it to rhyme, but I didn't feel that way with yours.
- More importantly (to me) than the rhyming is that your poem had a consistent rhythym when I read it. The syllables you had in each line, as well as your use of punctuation made it a coherent message for the reader without having to think too hard, as well as an enjoyable message to read with an engaging beat.
One idea for you:
- I love the title you have for this poem, and I think you could play with it more metaphorically or emotionally if you wanted to expand on the poem. What does seeing with the heart FEEL like? What does it LOOK like? How does it make you feel to feel God's love? This poem is great by itself, but it could be a fun exercise to try and describe with tangible descriptions or comparisons how the love makes you feel.
What I loved about this piece:
- You immediately got the reader imagining this scene with your imagery, which also did a great job of setting the tone -- a little spooky, a little mysterious and inducing tension wondering what's going to happen next.
- The intrigue. You end on the note of the woman falling asleep, but you've teased some questions into my mind as the reader -- was it just a dream? What was the man doing? It makes me want to read more.
One idea for you:
- Consider breaking up your paragraphs a bit more to make it easier for the reader, and to emphasize when something happens or is different in the chapter. For example, when the man appears in the second paragraph, you could break it into a new one and it would help grab the reader's attention more -- wondering who is that man? Why is he acting suspicious?
Great job, and write on! I personally don't think there's anything wrong with someone who "writes too much" - more people should be inspired by you!
I came across this story via Thrillseeker's page and your AwardIcon, but the title immediately grabbed my attention with such a vivid, emotional image of a breakup. I love the first line - it draws you in and brings a rhythym to the piece that I feel continues throughout.
You have such vivid imagery woven into this piece that makes it easy as a reader to feel the unfortunate heartbreak many of us have experienced in the past, to put us back in the moment where it feels like it's happening to us all over again.
As I reread it a few times, I feel like you have this wonderful rhythym throughout the story that's especially strong in the first half. To me, it alternates between prose reminiscent of Shakepeare ("Your letter, written yesterday, lies on the table amongst the fall of petals a week old" // "But if by magic, a strange gift, the vision of the love I imagined...") - and snaps back to the real world with language that's more grounded, more blunt ("But relationships are never solely about love" // Didn’t you know that? Did you think I could change?). It works really well, and I can feel the inner turmoil, tension and heartbreak the narrator is feeling inside.
You have a couple of different scenes throughout here that give a snapshot of the relationship - the funeral, hints of the fights and emotions, the departure to the airport. These are well done and help give the reader a sense of how long the relationship was, how powerful the breakup was. My only suggestion here is to consider expanding a bit more on the fight scenes with a show don't tell perspective if you are thinking about making this piece longer.
The last line - just as powerful as the first line. It haunts the reader and really drives home the heartbreak. Overall, one of my favorite pieces I've read here on WDC, excellent job Harry!
Hi Sparks - I love your first line! Great use of a question to draw in readers and have them thinking about what is it about Texas that intrigues them.
You have a talent with description - so many vibrant words that help paint the picture of Texas, and make the flashbacks of the main character's childhood memories visceral, tangible. Excellent for creating the scenery.
I thought the sentence, "Life had a different plan" was a great hook for transitioning, but you lost me a little bit with the Oz reference. It didn't seem to match much with the rest of your story, and I associate that more with Kansas than Texas. I actually don't know if you need that metaphor since the next section about moving with Scott and screaming about not going hungry painted that fleeting dream not yet given up.
Overall, this is a great start and setup for tales of life on the ranch! The intro has a lot of detail about the character's life growing up, which I think is good to include as long as it's relevant for the rest of the stories to come. Great start!
Congrats on your first story, Mia! And welcome to WDC - I'm new here, too.
My favorite thing about the story is how relatable it is - falling in love for the first time, or falling in love with that first strike of passion, then questioning if it was real or how deep the love actually was. I love your opening line of, "We met in the worst way possible" - it draws the reader in. You kept the language pretty straightforward and simple, but it works because it conveys an undercurrent of emotion.
One thing I would suggest is to look at your sentences and break them up a little bit. Your style here is very stream-of-consciousness and sharing the thoughts that come up immediately, but some of the sentences are a little long and shortening them would make it stronger. For example, "I “met” you while I was with him, your brown hair was different, lighter, your brown eyes were different, deeper, you were taller. >> break into two sentences "I 'met' you while I was with him. Your brown hair was different, lighter…"
Salut, Kim! Welcome to Writing.com - I also joined the website recently! I used to live in France so I enjoyed the language fused into your story here.
I think the strongest part of your story is the dialogue. You have are talented in conveying the setting and feelings of the character using only the dialogue without much description about what's happening around. Keep it up!
There are some English grammar errors and spelling throughout the story, but a Word processor or writing tool should be able to help with that. One suggestion I have for you is to add a little more detail about the setting and what's happening around the dialogue. It seems like you're writing in an episode style for tv or film. I like the quick jumps to different scenes, but sometimes it was a little hard to understand what was happening without more details.
En bref, great pilot and felicitations for writing in another language! Bon courage!
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