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Printed from https://shop.writing.com/main/profile/reviews/wafels
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55 Public Reviews Given
65 Total Reviews Given
Public Reviews
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Review of That's you  
Review by Zev
Rated: E | (3.5)
I'm not the greatest of poets but I will make a few comments. First, I applaud you for attempting the somewhat difficult rhyme scheme. However, in most stanzas all four lines rhyme. However, the repeated stanza, the third and sixth, has a different rhyme scheme, called abab, where the first and third rhyme and the second and fourth rhyme. I'd advise you to pick a consistent rhyme scheme and stick to it.

I notice that mostly your poem has no punctuation. However, there are occasional commas. I think you should either avoid commas entirely or use them every time the grammar calls for them. Finally, in the fourth line, because the mind belongs to the soul, the word should be "soul's".
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Review of The Tides Of Life  
Review by Zev
Rated: 13+ | (3.0)
The story itself is quite interesting. However, several points need work.

"I hate my father more! I really do!" More than what? Simply say that you hate him. Or say that from then on you hated him more.

"Dad, who was not satisfied with the wages he’s earning at the factory, started taking money from rich landlords." You change tense mid-sentence because he's means he is, not he was.

"Now, that had been the most deciding moment in Rupas’s life." I think you mean defining moment. And there is a typo in the name at the end of the sentence.

IN the dialogue you change the fomatting you have been using until them. Each speaker is a new paragraph and these must be normal paragraphs, with the same spacing and indentation as all others.

Additionally, the word choice, especially in the dialogue, does not sound authentic for the time period.
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Review by Zev
Rated: 13+ | (3.5)
A blue moon looks no different from any other full moon. What's the big deal? I understand all the other stuff, but why go out to see the blue moon?

Why do you say you are a nighthawk and not a nightowl? I find the latter to be the more common expression.

Happy stargazing!
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Review by Zev
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
Very funny little story. I recall once watching a State Department press conference. When questions were called for, a translator for an Arabic newspaper asked what the breifer had meant when he said "intercourse with the Arab world." It got quite the chuckle from everyone in the crowd.
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Review by Zev
Rated: 13+ | (3.0)
Spelling grammar and typographical errors abound. If you want help with these, I'm happy to offer. The story is good. In some places the text is a bit awkward as well. For example, "Captain Aiden Cassidy of the Sapphire Rose and who was at least two times older than the oldest member was part of the gang that lived in an abandoned building" might better be said 'who was at least twice as old as the eldest of the gang' or 'who was old enough to be the father of any of the gang'.

You write well, but need polishing. Don't let little errors drag down your writing, and they will if they remain unfixed.
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Review by Zev
Rated: 13+ | (3.0)
If you start off with a sentence fragment, readers will assume you either don't know grammar or don't care about it. Neither will make them want to read further. The whole first paragraph reads a bit awkwardly, but it gets better from there.

"She wrinkled her nose at the smell of his breathe". You mean to say 'breath'. 'Breathe' is a verb, not a noun.

To add a bit more of the pirate/sailor speech pattern, you might convert the time into bells. So instead of 10:30, he might say 5 bells. Of course this raises two problems: 1) The bells go through 6 four hour rotations per day. So it is 8 bells at 4, and 8 and 12 both AM & PM. This ambiguity can be fixed by saying into which watch. In reality it is almost obvious, but in a story, you can't see in order to tell. I'll get back to you on which watch is 8-midnight. 2) Understandability to the reader. i am not sure how to fix the latter.

"They knew that that had no good names..." They had no good names. In the same partagraph, "His helper would go on to have whatever fun her could find once he deposited the man at the ship." 'He', not 'her'.

“I can arrange that. In fact, I could escort you back to your kip, in the morning, or course, to talk to them.” Of course you know that this is a typo.

This is a quality story, but it needs polishing. Check for grammar, spelling and typographical errors. You do dialect very nicely most of the time. I'm interested to read on.
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Review of The Red Knight  
Review by Zev
Rated: ASR | (4.5)
Very funny tale. And the idea of such a story in rhyming couplets is clearly evocative of an age long ago when stories were told by bards and made into couplets for ease of remebering. Well done and the ending is quite the surprise. You actually play very nicely on different uses of rhyming couplets because beside the story, you also use it for the comical moral, and certainly couplets work nicely for that as well.
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Review of Just Me  
Review by Zev
Rated: E | (3.5)
This is a very-almost English sonnet. It has the requisite 14 lines, and the rhyme scheme is similar (although in sonnets the odd lines also rhyme). Also, it isn't iambic pentameter, but that is fine too. I've just been seeing lots of sonnets lately.

Since the third stanza continues the questioning from the second, it should have a question mark after its second (the tenth overall) line.

What do you mean that you lost yourself here? You talk of not knowing who they would have been in your third line. This makes sense with the initial impression you want to give, namely that someone died. One never knows what the deceased may have gone on to do. But with yourself, who clearly lived on (or at least that was my assumption), you know what he was to become, because here you are, being what that younger version of yourself has become.
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Review of Seasons  
Review by Zev
Rated: ASR | (3.5)
I applaud you for undertaking to write a sonnet. I enjoy formal poetry, but tend to not be able to do it myself. So to those who can, I say Hurrah, Write On!

The tenth and twelfth lines, which should rhyme, don't (well, except visually, but I think you wanted an auditory rhyme, no?) Closer in the sense of nearer (as opposed to one who closes, like a relief pitcher in baseball) does not rhyme with composer. This may be an issue of regional pronunciation, because apparently there are parts of America where "door" and "sewer" rhyme.

Good luck in your contest!
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Review by Zev
Rated: E | (4.0)
Very nice. Especially based on the contest into which it is being entered. It clearly has backstory but we aren't told what it is. How many of the questions that your reader is left with by the end have you answered in your mind? Is this one of those things where you mentally plotted it all out beforehand? Are you planning a sequel (perhaps for next month's contest)?
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Review by Zev
Rated: E | (3.5)
You don't need to repeat the title in the entry itself. It is interesting to characterize leaves as old as leaves come in spring and fall in autumn. Thus the lovers are much older than the leaves presumably. The Tolkienesque idea of old, wise trees is not new. However, applying it to the leaves specifically may well be. Also, their message seems rather dour to be expressed with a cackle. In both cases, interesting word choice.
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Review by Zev
Rated: 13+ | (3.0)
Your story has some spelling issues which I will address below. You excellently began in media res (in the middle of things), which provides an instant hook. However, you ended in the middle of things as well. Granted, the question of the story is answered, but your ending needs a bit of tying up. In your last paragraph you switch tenses. Leave it past tense as that seems the more natural choice.

"That's it get to work.” This ought to be two sentences. That's it. Get to work.

“To bad.” Should be Too

It would be a hard thing to keep quite," “If they are keeping it quite that means nobody's coming to clean this up.” In both cases, quiet is spelled like that.

“Which is probably the how they've been able to keep as much a secret as they have.” should be "“Which is probably how they've been able to keep as much as many secrets as they have.”

If the story is edited, I'd be happy to reread, rerate, rereview.
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Review by Zev
Rated: ASR | (2.0)
This seems a very odd story. First, the believability of a battle between an ax against two daggers strains the imagination. Also, that the second man was twice the height of the first, when you specify him to be over six feet puts our ax-wielding monster at an impossible height. Moreover, specifying the height of the first man down to the inch is unnecessary. Why is this in your first paragraph?

Battles tend not to last nearly as long as you say this one lasted. Also, the descriptions of the battle are very unclear. What famed axe are you referencing? Where on this ax is the spike, as the very bottom seems a ridiculous place to put it, given that it is a pole arm? The story needs work.

Ze'ev
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Review by Zev
Rated: E | (4.5)
This is a very nice story. However, it seems on some level pointless, unless it is in fact a true story based on an actual person. If so, that sounds like a very obsessed, and not a very deserving person. Working hard at something only to be denied it in one's moment of glory can be rough. Destroying one's self over it does not seem to be a good way to become amazing. Yes, the story is sad, but our choices define who we are even more than our abilities (yes, I stole that from JK Rowling).

Ze'ev
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Review of My First Kiss  
Review by Zev
Rated: E | (4.5)
I can tell you, the May Day Tradition has fallen by the wayside. The only awareness of it I have are as a Socialist occassion for a day off of work, like Labor Day. Perhaps it is a good day to give a basket to someone special, even when we are older. I'll have to consider it come May.

You very nicely describe the situation around the kiss without focusing overly on the kiss itself. Given that it is intended to be sort of romantic & mostly cutesy, I think that was an excellent choice. Well done.

Ze'ev Avraham
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Review of Into The Blizzard  
Review by Zev
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
The story is interesting. You include a lot of details, so that helps to paint a nice picture. The scene is very visible to the reader. However, some of the details seem extraneous. For example, why mention Barbara Walters? Other than that, well done.

Ze'ev Avraham
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Review of Holmes Again  
Review by Zev
Rated: 13+ | (5.0)
Excellent. I must say, I very much enjoyed yourwell-woven tale. You demonstrate an excellent knowledge of Doyle's work, and a spot-on imitation of his style. I wish you much luck in the contest through which I found this story. I am certain that you will be succesful with a story of this caliber.
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Review of BAR GENTLEMEN  
Review by Zev
Rated: 18+ | (3.5)
The rhyme scheme here is a bit, well, defunct. The last one being forced, OK, I can live with it. But the first two couplets didn't rhyme. Then I realized they rhyme with each other. The rest of the couplets rhyme. So you start out abcb, and then continue eeffgg etc. You need one consistent rhyme scheme through the whole poem.

Wafels
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Review by Zev
Rated: 18+ | (3.0)
Maybe I'm just a dumb yeshiva boy, but they teach us about honoring our parents and how important it is. The constant threats of violence against your parents are a bit disturbing. I understand they can be frustrating, but really, I'm sure it is not their fault they annoy you. If it is, well you are 24, you aren't under any legal obligation to stick around. Look at it this way. The aggravation parents cause (and trust me mine cause plenty) is almost surely less than the aggravation of working to pay for the room and board and stuff you gain as a benefit of living with the parents.
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Review of Malan Manor  
Review by Zev
Rated: 13+ | (3.0)
This looks like the beginning to a very nice story.

1)"Damien knew the games she played, they..." This comma should be a semicolon or even a period. You did here a comma splice, attaching two independent sentences with a comma.

2)"Her seduction" It is unclear whether you mean her seduction of him, or his seduction of her. The remainder of the sentence seems to clear this up, but you may want to clarify by saying something like "her methods of seduction" or "her seductive ways".

3)You then go on to use the word seductive again in the next paragraph in regard to her figure. Perhaps another word might be more appropriate, merely to avoid the repetition? In Site Tools there is an ideanary to find a number of good alternatives. Also, "petite-seductive" should not be attached with a hyphen.

4) Returning to slightly earlier in your piece, "lite" should be "lit". I know spellcheckers won't find this error, but readers will.

5) "the way her body moved gracefully in every right motion" What is a right motion? Simply "in every motion" would be better, I think.

Wafels

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Review of Be with me  
Review by Zev
Rated: 13+ | (2.5)
This poem has a few grammatical errors. Grammar is very important, even in poetry, as it demonstrates the care an author puts into his or her work.

1) "How is it that the makings of such a fine day has left you so wretched?" This should read "have left you". The subject of this verb is "makings", which is plural.

2) The line "My silent curse" should end with either a period or an ellipsis, which is three periods. Two periods is not a proper punctuation symbol. The 8th line this has the same problem.

3) The 11th line does not make sense, at least to me. How does love "cease to end"? It was in the process of ending, but then ceased doing so? Perhaps you should say "refuses to end" or something of the like.

I am very sorry if you think this was overly harsh. It is my intent to help your poem improve, not to tear it apart.
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Review by Zev
Rated: ASR | (4.0)
I enjoyed taking this quiz. I'm actually surprised at how much I knew, given that I haven't been around so long, and that I have been pretty inactive.

The quiz does nicely demonstrate how the new item type works, I may make a quiz like this myself, about Harry Potter or something.

Wafels
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