EWWWW!! Horrible, horrible twist!! I was enjoying the story so much (esp. the bit about the guys' hair) but the ending jerked me out in a hurry. Poor Danielle!
OK, this is one twisted tale, alright. LOL
For internal monologue, you don't need quotation marks. Just use italics instead, and you can nix the dialogue tag. e.g.
"Billy, so simple, so unpretentious. I must be wishing on a star," Danielle thought.
Billy. So simple, so unpretentious. I must be wishing on a star.
This is a wonderful, polished piece; I enjoyed it very much. I absolutely LOVE the first paragraph--it's beautifully written and sparkling with metaphor. And it just keeps getting better!
A lovely tribute to childhood and to innocence. So perfect I wish I'd written it!
It's not easy to tell a story in a short-short, but you managed it really well. I'd prefer something more unusual and sinister re the monster. The only detail was the red eyes and that just doesn't seem scary enough to make someone catatonic. It's good to be mysterious, but a little more detail would have been better IMHO. But all in all, very well done!
Excellent essay on the Morning (C)Rush. I bow to all Morning Knights. I will not complain about traffic or the dratted wind any more. Your morning routine is a far, far tougher quest than mine. You should indeed be proud of yourself and others like you.
:)
This poem is very sweet and very beautiful. It flows remarkably well and the rhymes all sound natural and unforced. The words are strong enough and the sentiment comes through so well I don't think you need the bold and the underlining for emphasis.
I think you're right. I think we LIKE someone because of something, but we LOVE someone despite everything. However, that doesn't mean we have to accept any nonsense from the one we love. You're absolutely right about the co-relation between self-respect/self-esteem and the ability to stand up for oneself. And yes, parents have a duty to foster self-repect and self-esteem in their children, esp. their daughters. Until and unless we love ourselves, we cannot hope to have an equal and loving relationship with someone else. Colour, race, and creed, in comparison, are immaterial.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I hope this well-thought out essay gets more exposure, as it deserves to be widely read.
What a lovely tribute to your parents. They sound fabulous, and I'm sure you feel lucky to be their daughter. It's true that most parents are not as understanding, as intuitively 'there for you' as yours must have been. On the other hand, children who have perfectly fine parents often don't appreciate how lucky they are. So I think you should show them this piece of writing or read it to them. It could be the best present you ever gave them. :)
Stephen King papered the walls in his study with rejection slips. That says something about determination, but also about editors' inability to notice talent even when it's thrust in their faces. So write on, my friend. And keep sending those submissions out. Sooner or later, your work will find its way to an editor who knows talent when they see it. ;)
This flows really well and I like the choice of words, esp. 'swirl' and 'flickering', to describe the shadows.
The only place that may need a little tidying up:
Half-forgotten memories,
like a bad dream, reappear
Apart from the hyphenation I put in for 'half-forgotten', I used commas to separate the clause, instead of the dash before 'reappear'. Just something for you to consider.
All in all, this is well-crafted and the rhymes work well and do not sound forced at all. Well done!
I love the title--it's very apt. The transformation of boat into bird is certainly a 'deep sea change' into 'something rich and strange'. The reference to Ariel's song from The Tempest is spot on, and highlights the narrator's sense of wonder. The exclamation mark really works to convey the surprise.
Beautiful poem, and I especially like the concrete aspect of it, how you make it seem like the leaf is slow floating to the ground.
I stumbled over 'It may resemble'. I wonder if that's a tad wordy. It may flow better if the 3 words are replaced with 'Like'. Just a small suggestion, to be ignored if it doesn't sound right to you. ;)
Overall, this is a great poem. It looks good, flows well, sounds lovely, and the sentiment is beautifully-expressed. Well done!
I did not think that words could describe what happened in a way that would transcend such tragedy, but yours managed to convey the story without sentimentalizing it. This poem is poignant and beautiful in the way only sad things can be.
I keep reading the second last stanza over and over again. This poem should be more widely read. Please 'plug' it so others can share. Thanks for the read.
I firmly believe that prejudice is learned, usually (unfortunately) from one's parents. When we're children, as you so eloquently described, we're practically colour-blind. As we grow older, we learn to see the differences and act accordingly. That's why it's so important to teach our youngsters from a very early age not to pre-judge. Tolerance can be learned too, and it's best coming from one's own parents. Educators have the responsibility to teach and enforce it, and so does society.
If that makes me an idealist, so be it. :)
Thanks for sharing your story. I hope more people get to read it. It deserves a wider audience.
we left our comfort zones and entered each others' lives
This line really says it all, and is a fitting end to an excellent piece, because that's what it's all about. It's so easy to get stuck (in time, place, and let's face it, friends and acquaintances) that we never really move on from the trauma of high school. :)
It takes courage to extend a hand of friendship to those who are different from us (and whom we suspect do not want to be our friends--ah, we're prejudiced too!) but that's the only way to fight prejudice. A little bit of effort does go a long way, and the results are often more than worth the risks.
This is so very, very moving. I can feel the urgency as you took your wife to the hospital, and the joy when the baby was born. I can't believe you remember all those details after 26 years! That's absolutely wonderful. Your wife must still be very proud of you today as she undoubtedly was that day so many years ago.
Unusual rhyme scheme (abc,abc,adc,adc)--does it have a name? I'm hopeless at recognizing these. *shakes head*
The only things I would suggest changing is 'worry about the morrow' rather than 'worry of the morrow', and perhaps adding 'sounding' or 'its sound' before 'hollow'.
Just a couple of suggestions. Ignore them if they don't sound right to you. :)
Well, this would be a good start to an article that investigates the reasons why people work such long hours in Taiwan.
However, it does require some editing. Here we go:
Have you ever counted how many hours you spend at work? Recent research indicates that the country with the longest working hours is Taiwan. People there work over 66 hours per week. However, that's just an average. In some other cities like Hsin Chu, the working hours can reach 110 per week. How can that be? Don't these people need to sleep or rest?
There are many companies providing high salaries and bonuses to their empolyees....
After this, you may decide to delve into the social and economic implications of such long working hours.
Good luck! And let me know if you develop this article any further.
You have a great attitude and I think your job gives you perspective, unlike people outside the medical profession. More people should read this. We're all too spoiled in the 'First' world, and really don't know what it's like to be living in poverty, for instance. Material things count for so much when they're the least important part of our lives. It's sad, but when people over-indulge their children, we end up with a selfish community.
I enjoyed your take on the subject of aging. The first person account works really well here. And the end is great--it packs a punch. But you may want to make the last stanza more balanced, like this:
Escape from aging has but one door.
I choose not to exit--
I want more, I want more.
The last couple of lines in stanza 5 could be lightly edited:
Becomes larger, more lustrous, while growing to be
A pearl in the making, is my soul--it is me.
And don't forget the apostrophe in:
Like the shell of the oyster, my body is scarred and it's worn
Again, this is an excellent short story. A lot of thinking has obviously gone into its conception, and while I'm not scientifically-minded, I felt intrigued by your premise and enjoyed reading the whoe story from beginning to end.
The writing is, for the most part, fluid, but again suffers from a preponderance of typos, so you should watch out for those.
I love the little bits of humour you injected into the story, mainly through the characters' interaction with one another, esp. through dialogue. It's very understated but very effective.
e.g.
“And if you haven’t guessed, we’ll be implanting the chip inside your watch.”
“And by that,” Dr. Crainer clarified, “you mean you will be implanting the chip in his watch.”
I like that kind of humour a lot. :)
Having said that, while you do have a great story going, it's a bit like a diamond in the rough, and can do with some polishing in the way of editing to tighten things up and eliminate all those typos.
This is an excellent effort. I like how you took the standard trappings of fairy-tales (Mariella's sisters' fates) and hold out the promise of something quite contrary to that happening to your heroine.
The text read well (except for some typos) and kept me wanting to know what happens next. I was intrigued by the cat and his sarcastic bent and wanted to know why he's like that. I definitely would read on. Let me know if you post more.
All best wishes, JC
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