Interesting story. I'm not totally sure what's going on. That's not necessarily a bad thing. I like stories that don't tell me too much, that make me use my brain a bit to figure things out.
My first inclination is that one of the two people in this story isn't real. One is an author, a muse, the TV or some other type of object.
I have a couple grammatical suggestions:
The hand they belonged to restedwas resting on her stomach.
As I was thinking this, she bent over to pick up her shoes from the floor.
If there was anything I ever knew about the woman that had invaded my life...
I watched in horror as the chair in the corner, the vase on the table...
I couldn't figure out what the same gesture referred to. I think you may need to give a little bigger clue about that.
The story is charming and flows well. It seems to have a bigger message then just hiking in the wild though. Expansive. Very nice.
I do think you need to do a general tightening up of the text. For example, take a look at this sentence: There was a point where the trail ended, and there was only one way to reach the other side.
Notice how you used the phrase, there was, twice in the same sentence? It isn't needed both times and actually diminishes the flow. Get rid of the second instance. There was a point where the trail ended, with and there was only one way to reach the other side.
Sometimes you need to wait a couple weeks to get a good edit because it's hard to do it with what you intended to type so fresh in your mind.
Welcome to WDC. I remember this post from Myspace.
It reminded me of a car I regret not having purchased.
One thing that would make this story stronger is to tie the first half, about your current car and the second half together. One more paragraph that makes a parallel between the two.
You do a good job painting pictures, but I think you need to do another edit. War-hardened gets a hyphen. Medially is medley.
If you're thinking of eventual publication, think of tightening things up a bit too. For example, your first line reads, "The music she played was beautiful, and deadly." Contrast that with, "She played beautiful and deadly music." That's a cut of two words (25%) and you lose one of the dreaded to be verbs (was).
Another advantage comes from placing your subject and verb at the beginning of the sentence. According to Roy C Clark of the Poynter Institute, the clearest sentences start with the action.
In the second paragraph you use "fowl" but the context suggests you mean "foul."
In the fourth paragraph you say, "the dead where slowly rising." I think you meant "the dead were slowly rising." But, even that can be tightened. "The dead arose slowly." Remember, it's a good thing to get rid of superfluous words.
Oh and if the dead were slowly rising, why would they be upon her soon? Was she moving even slower or not at all?
The end of the story sounds like a synopsis. You are telling us how the story unfolded instead of showing us through action. Instead of telling us about the one finger that cut off the thumb, detail that battle for us. Let us see the motivations and desires of the traitor rather than call him such.
Overall, you have a good imagination and creativity, but I think you need to work on your story-telling skills. Keep writing.
Congrats on having this published. I like your descriptions and the emotion you have portrayed. In fact I liked everything about this poem except for the last line. I'm not even sure why. It just seems a little weak for such a strong poem.
Oh, this is such a sweet story. I'd have tears in my eyes right now but I'm in a public coffee shop and I do have my male reputation of toughness to protect.
I am rating you very heavy on your story. I loved the story. I found a number of spots that didn't flow very well. I think I was able to tell what you were trying to say, but I think you could have found a clearer way to say it. The following are a couple of examples of what I'm talking about:
The day started like every day had every year before. - Clunky! Punctuation could help this a little bit, but a little rewording is what this sentence really needs. The day started like every Valentine's Day had started. - The every year is redundant and while repetition, when used skillfully, is very attractive, here it just sounds clunky. Try reading your original sentence out loud and see if you agree. I'm not saying mine is perfect, but I'm trying to help you see what I FELT wasn't working.
I hated Valentines Day. It was the bane of the life of a single woman with no man in her life. - I think this would flow better if you combined these two sentences. Perhaps like this: I hated Valentines Day - the bane of every unattached, single woman's life.
I have a number of more suggestions to make, but seeing as how you won a contest with this, I thought you might be happy with it the way it is. It may be my eye that's screwy. At any rate, if you would like to have a more extensive review of this piece, email me an I'll try to get to it before the weekend is over.
You have packed this FULL of emotion. Good job! I like the minimalistic approach of now capital letters and no punctuation, but I wish you would break this up into stanzas. At any rate, you did a good job describing how you feel.
One other thing I would look at if this were my poem is that you have chosen to go with a rhyming scheme, but you don't have a meter. It isn't necessary to have a meter, but meter and rhyming go so well together that it leaves a poem that sticks with you. It isn't a major issue though, I just thought I'd mention it.
QUICK OPINION: Suspenseful, interesting, and packs a wollop. Good job!
WHAT WORKS: You have a distinctive style and are very competent with long, flowing sentences.
Your dialogue is spot-on, believeable.
Your pacing and flow was mostly good throughout. I did have a couple pacing suggestions though (see below).
CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM: ...of course-was strewn... - I think you should change the hyphen to a comma.
...staring at t.v... - TV should be capitalized.
...an angry raw glow... - I believe you need a comma after raw.
...around him, and he... - I think you can lose the comma here.
...stare-his dream self-at... - When you use hyphens to separate off a clause, put a space before and after it.
But they all had a commonness about them and as they approached, and Terry knew. - I think you have one too many and's here.
Her name was Stephanie... - While I assumed that you were talking about the girl who died at the beginning of your story, It isn't as clear as it could be. I think you should start this paragraph by referencing the girl for better flow.
After his revelation about Stephanie he started to feel better. - I believe you need a comma after Stephanie.
Terry moved up to offices that held movers and shakers. - Pardon me for rewriting part of your story, but I think this would sound better something like this: Terry moved from covering the unwanted in the sticks to showcasing the movers and shakers from the city's ritziest offices. - I think you have a stong point here and should take advantage of the juxtaposition.
...lots of comraderycamaraderie...
OVERALL: I'm giving you four and a half stars. Keep up the great writing!
I ran into your little story here in the Comedy Newsletter. Directly above your story in the column is this one: "New Product review - Wisecracker™" . You really should check that out. Does the word lucrative mean anything to you? Anyway, thanks for the laugh and keep writing.
LOL!! This is hilarious. The only problem I found was that your article didn't mention where we can pick up one of these devices for ourself. It's not for me as I of course wouldn't have any need of such a contraption, but I think they would make lovely companions to the pot of Chili I give to my co-workers every Christmas.
QUICK OPINION: Oh, what a sweet, sentimental letter of love from a daughter to her father.
WHAT WORKS: The sincerity of this piece is its best quality; it is very obvious that the author loves her dad.
You have done a fine job of sentence construction, other than the shifting between present and past tense, and you have a good mix of simple and complex sentences. Good job.
CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM: That night, I wondered what you meant. Never having a chance with my siblings? - Connect these two sentences with a comma seeing as how the second one is a dependent clause of the first.
And here I amAnd there I was wondering why I only receivereceived... - You are jumping from past tenst to present. You do this a couple more times in your story. I think it would be worth your time to change this.
But then again, I often forget that you have always (and never failed) given me... - You are jumping into the present again here. You are also separating a noun from its verb with a dependent clause. I would reword this: But then again, I've often forgot that without fail, you've always given me...
Earlier today, here we arewere...
OVERALL: I am giving you four and a half stars. Being that this is a letter, the switching between tenses isn't as big of thing as if this were a story, but I did want to point out that tense sway can be distracting to your reader. On the other hand, you have a warm and wonderful testament the sincere love you have for your dad.
QUICK OPINION: OK, the only reason I looked at this was because of your description. Descriptions are so powerful. With over a million things to read or look at on this site, I know I won't see all of the stuff that I would truly enjoy. Way to go grabbing my attention right from the beginning.
WHAT WORKS: Meg huddled in the closet, pinned against the back wall. - What a way to start out! Great use of powerful verbs and great way to draw us into your story.
You maintain the tension throughout.
They were dead... - Ah, a mystery! Good job of giving us a reason to continue and good job at tying up the loose ends afterward.
CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM: She struggled to calm her breathing, sure he could... - Try exchanging sure with convinced.
OVERALL: I'm giving this five stars. When I first run across this it had received five ratings with an average of three stars. I don't know who has looked at this before me, but for something this short, you have done an excellent job and I can't imagine what the other reviewers were thinking.
Thin paths worn into the rock-strewn field slowly wind their way downward to meet a glistening sea below. - You need to comma out the clause between starting with "worn" and ending with "field".
wide-lensed sunglasses to complete her disguise. - This is not an independent clause so separate it with a comma instead of a semi-colon.
magnificent relics of nature. - Move this dependent clause to just after the massive beams of oak it's dependent on.
This is a hard piece to comment on. On one hand, you are a genius with description. The flow and imagry of your words falls pleasingly on the ear. You are a very talented writer.
On the other hand, I couldn't find a plot arc. That's not necessarily bad as a number of Anton Chekhov's stories were just his ovservations, but I thought I'd point this out.
I should also let you know that the contest you have this entered into, "Invalid Item" , has a word count max of five hundred words and while I didn't count how many you had, it seems like you are closer to a thousand or so.
Overall, this is was a joy to read and I spent a lot of time comparing your skill with description to mine and you are definitely better than I am.
I enjoyed reading your poem and you did a good job on showing devotion and to a lesser degree gratitude. I do think you could spice this up a bit. Take a look at your verbs. Most of them are kind of week: see, know, meet, look, feel, is. What about if you observed, noticed, or spotted instead of saw? What do you think about bumping into or encountering instead of meeting? Could you see yourself glancing, gazing, staring at, or glimpsing instead of looking?
My point is that you have a poem that contains a lot of spicy, sausage-like emotions, but you are bathing it in a boring sauce of bland tomato like verbs rather than a zesty, piquant, and flavorful mix.
I didn't read this looking for typos or grammatical errors, so it may have some of those. I am giving you a five as I think this is such a worthy topic. At least two of my loved ones are diagnosed bipolar and while that can be tough for both them and me, they are still amazing people who in some ways are stronger because of their weakness.
I am looking forward to reading the bios that you are working on as well.
You have done a wonderful job describing the conditions of a third world city and its suburbs. The characters are believable and interesting. The story itself is intriguing.
The one thing that is hurting your story is your grammar. Since you are writing about a part of the world where Spanish is the dominant language, maybe that is a sign that English is not your first language. If that is the case, I can cut you some slack, but if you want to write in English, you really need to work on understanding the mechanics of the language. The problem with not paying attenion to grammar is that your writing appears sloppy, unfinished.
Bottom line is you have a good understanding of people and storytelling but you need to pay more attention to the mechanics of English.
Wow! This is an amazing story. I don't know about whether this could actually happen, due to all the legal issues with foster children and such, but the mechanics of the story are top notch. The dialog is excellent. The descriptions are vivid. The flow is very smooth and the characters are believeable.
WOW! Do you have a novel out there for sale already? If you do, please email me so I can pick it up. If not, get to work. You have an amazing story telling ability.
I'm thinking you may have heard of Wally Lamb. If not, you should check out his work. I think it would feel very familiar to you.
This is an interesting story. You leave us thinking about the pattern that will be continuing. The dialog was pretty good, but I think you could use some work on your descriptions.
For example: It’s a little flute made out of some kind of crystal. It’s a bit tricky to get used to, but once you get the hang of it it’ll sure make you some pretty music. This sounds clunky.
Maybe something like: He hands the small crystal flute to his young nephew. "Now, I ain't figured how to work this yet, but I'm a bettin' that if you take the time, you could get her to make some mighty pretty music."
This is an interesting story. You took an original idea and developed it with an inspirational message.
I especially liked the part where Amelia finds a stray seed and the description of her trying to get this precious find without alerting the other chickens. Very nice.
One thing that distracts from this story, however, is redundancy. For examply, towards the beginning you give the reason that the other chickens don't look up is because they feel it is a sign of conceit. A few paragraphs later, Amelia is frustrated by not understanding why the other chickens always look down.
I think it would be worth your time to go through this and look for instances where you are saying the same thing more than once and try to eliminate the extra references.
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