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Printed from https://shop.writing.com/main/profile/reviews/jeff/sort_by/r.review_creation_time DESC/page/14
Review Requests: OFF
4,259 Public Reviews Given
4,388 Total Reviews Given
Review Style
I believe in constructive criticism and honesty. I can adapt my review style to fit the kind of feedback an author is looking for (e.g., developmental suggestions, fine-tuning, proofreading, etc.), but will always try to be as encouraging and helpful as possible.
I'm good at...
Plotting, characterization, dialogue, structure/pacing, and professional considerations. I can also do serviceable technical editing/proofreading, but I'm much better with developmental/creative feedback.
Favorite Genres
I read almost everything. I particularly love genre fiction (mystery/thriller and science fiction/fantasy especially) and nonfiction of all kinds.
Public Reviews
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Review of Burnt Orange  
Review by Jeff
Rated: ASR | (3.5)
Hello ridinghhood-p.boutilier

This is an official review from one of the judges of the November 2018 "Journey Through Genres: Official Contest" . The featured genre was political poetry.

I like the diversity of subject matter in your poem, but I did feel like it tended to jump around a little as a result. The first two stanzas were great in that they were really focused on a particular thought or sentiment, but the the second two stanzas felt like they were trying to pack in too many disparate thoughts. Still, I really enjoyed the read and thought you did a good job with the prompt. *Smile*

Thank you for the opportunity to review your work and I hope to see you participate in future rounds of the WDC official contests! *Smile*

Best regards,

Jeff
Logo for Senior Moderators - small

If you're interested in checking out my work:
"New & Noteworthy Things" 
"Blogocentric Formulations" 
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327
Review by Jeff
Rated: ASR | (4.5)
Hello Sorji

This is an official review from one of the judges of the November 2018 "Journey Through Genres: Official Contest" . The featured genre was political poetry.

I really enjoyed this poem, and the way you played with the form to create something new and interesting. So many people are married to particular poetic forms and traditional styles; I always appreciate it when someone does something unexpected and fresh, which is exactly what this poem is. Nicely done!

Thank you for the opportunity to review your work and I hope to see you participate in future rounds of the WDC official contests! *Smile*

Best regards,

Jeff
Logo for Senior Moderators - small

If you're interested in checking out my work:
"New & Noteworthy Things" 
"Blogocentric Formulations" 
328
328
Review by Jeff
Rated: E | (4.5)
Hello Dave

This is an official review from one of the judges of the November 2018 "Journey Through Genres: Official Contest" . The featured genre was political poetry.

I loved the structure and the flow of this piece. It read very quickly and you did a great job of fitting a lot of imagery and content into comparatively few words. Overall, I thought this was a great, enjoyable take on the prompt. Very well done!

Thank you for the opportunity to review your work and I hope to see you participate in future rounds of the WDC official contests! *Smile*

Best regards,

Jeff
Logo for Senior Moderators - small

If you're interested in checking out my work:
"New & Noteworthy Things" 
"Blogocentric Formulations" 
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329
Review of Same Old Same Old  
Review by Jeff
Rated: 13+ | N/A (Review only item.)
Hello ♥tHiNg♥

This is an official review from one of the judges of the November 2018 "Journey Through Genres: Official Contest" . The featured genre was political poetry.

Sorry this review is a tad late... but I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed this poem and am thrilled to see that it won Second Place in the November contest round. It's well structured, has great imagery, and is everything I've come to expect from reading one of your poems. Well done!

Thank you for the opportunity to review your work and I hope to see you participate in future rounds of the WDC official contests! *Smile*

Best regards,

Jeff
Logo for Senior Moderators - small

If you're interested in checking out my work:
"New & Noteworthy Things" 
"Blogocentric Formulations" 
330
330
Review by Jeff
Rated: E | (4.5)
Hello ♫~ Kenword~♫

This is an official review from one of the judges of the November 2018 "Journey Through Genres: Official Contest" . The featured genre was political poetry.

I really enjoyed your ballad. I thought it was an ambitious form to work with, and you really did a great job infusing a lot of imagery and detail into this piece. It was also refreshing to see a take on the prompt that wasn't so centered on national U.S. politics. All in all, well done!

Thank you for the opportunity to review your work and I hope to see you participate in future rounds of the WDC official contests! *Smile*

Best regards,

Jeff
Logo for Senior Moderators - small

If you're interested in checking out my work:
"New & Noteworthy Things" 
"Blogocentric Formulations" 
331
331
Review by Jeff
Rated: 18+ | (4.0)
Hello Jellyfish 12 years on WDC 💛

This is an official review from one of the judges of the November 2018 "Journey Through Genres: Official Contest" . The featured genre was political poetry.

I really enjoyed this poem. I thought you did a great job capturing your exasperation with what's going on with your side of the pond (not that ours is much better!), and everything was well structured and well paced. Your take on the prompt was refreshing and I appreciated hearing about some political concerns outside of national U.S. politics. *Smile*

Thank you for the opportunity to review your work and I hope to see you participate in future rounds of the WDC official contests! *Smile*

Best regards,

Jeff
Logo for Senior Moderators - small

If you're interested in checking out my work:
"New & Noteworthy Things" 
"Blogocentric Formulations" 
332
332
for entry "Maverick" 
Review by Jeff
In affiliation with I Write  
Rated: E | (4.5)
Hi Tinker -

I am reviewing your item in connection with "I Write in 2019" 

I love reviewing these 24-syllable poems. I'm always so impressed by the way you poets are able to cram so much imagery and artistry into just a handful of words! This seems like a particularly difficult challenge given that you really only have twenty syllables to work with after the four that the prompt word takes up!

Overall, I thought you did a fine job with this poem. Your imagery was excellent and I like the variance of the words you chose, some complex and others relatively simple. All in all, it was a pleasure to read and I could clearly envision the scene you set using only a handful of syllables. *Thumbsup*

Thank you for the opportunity to read and critique your material. Keep up the good work and keep writing!

Best regards,

Jeff

If you're interested in checking out my work:
"Blogocentric Formulations" 
"New & Noteworthy Things" 
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333
Review of Winter Promenade  
Review by Jeff
In affiliation with I Write  
Rated: E | (5.0)
Hi 🌕 HuntersMoon -

I am reviewing your item in connection with "I Write in 2018" 

As always, your poetry is a pleasure to read. I can't think of a better way to end the year of I Write than with one of your poems and, as per usual, I can find no areas in need of improvement. Thanks for all of your excellent writing this year; it was a real treat to see what you were able to come up with during this, er... unusual and tumultuous year. I particularly enjoyed your political poetry, but your other stuff is pretty good too! *Pthb*

Happy New Year, my friend!

Thank you for the opportunity to read and critique your material. Keep up the good work and keep writing!

Best regards,

Jeff

If you're interested in checking out my work:
"Blogocentric Formulations" 
"New & Noteworthy Things" 
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334
for entry "Christmas Colours" 
Review by Jeff
In affiliation with I Write  
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
Hi 💙 Carly - aka Joan Watson -

I am reviewing your item in connection with "I Write in 2018" 

I thought you did a fantastic job with all of the colors and vivid description in this poem. The different colorations you described made everything feel vibrant and alive, which worked well with your choice of subject matter, structure, and word choice. Overall, this was an excellent poetic work, as so many of your works usually are. *Smile*

Thank you for the opportunity to read and critique your material. Keep up the good work and keep writing!

Best regards,

Jeff

If you're interested in checking out my work:
"Blogocentric Formulations" 
"New & Noteworthy Things" 
335
335
Review of I Write In 2018  
for entry "Who Am I? " 
Review by Jeff
In affiliation with I Write  
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
Hi 💙 Carly - aka Joan Watson -

I am reviewing your item in connection with "I Write in 2018" 

I really enjoyed this item. I thought you did a great job communicating the emotion and narrative situation primarily through dialogue, which is really not easy to do. In only a few short words and brief verbal exchanges, you painted a vivid picture of a complex scenario and it was clear and easy to follow along with. Overall, I think you did a great job with the prompt. Well done! *Smile*

Thank you for the opportunity to read and critique your material. Keep up the good work and keep writing!

Best regards,

Jeff

If you're interested in checking out my work:
"Blogocentric Formulations" 
"New & Noteworthy Things" 
336
336
Review by Jeff
Rated: ASR | (4.0)
I think you did a really good job with this entry for the Christian Writing Contest. You explained your passage of choice in detail and expanded upon it with your own thoughts, which are the two things I look for when I'm reading nonfiction. All in all, this is a really solid entry. Best of luck in the contest! *Smile*
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for entry "~ Proverbs 18:18 ~" 
Review by Jeff
Rated: 18+ | (4.5)
Looks like we picked the same book of the Bible from which to write our essays! *Delight*

I really like the fact that you really honed in on one particular verse of Proverbs 18. I tend to focus more on larger excerpts from scripture (as evidenced from my entry!) because I like the "big picture" view of things... but, man, I really admire people who can really dig into the meat of a single verse and extrapolate a ton of information from it. You did a great job of that here.

And I totally agree with you; sometimes I read a verse from the Bible and go, "What the heck? Am I just not getting this, because it doesn't really make a lot of sense!" A pastor of mine once mentioned that fully understanding the Bible requires a lot of knowledge about the people and time period around which it was written, so maybe people back in those days were more inclined to agree to a drawing of lots rather than trying to win a dispute, conflict, or contest based on merits. Our society is so geared around winning, can you imagine what it would be like to just draw lots and the winner is the winner, plain and simple? It's almost hard to believe.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed your item and your insights. This was a really fun contest and I hope you consider running other rounds of it... I could use more opportunities in my life to be introspective about the Bible. *Bigsmile*

I would wish you good luck in the contest like the other entrants I reviewed, but I don't think you're going to win. *Pthb* *Laugh*
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Review by Jeff
Rated: ASR | (4.5)
I really loved your piece. I thought it was well written, addresses the prompt effectively, and is a really great message for those out there who may be despairing their particular fertility/pregnancy situation (whatever that situation may be). My wife and I recently went through a similar challenge with fertility issues and it took a lot of prayer and introspection to get to a point where we were able to recognize that sometimes God has different plans than we do for ourselves. But it's amazing how often, if you listen to Him, you'll find that His plans are infinitely greater than yours ever were.

Good luck in the contest! *Smile*
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Review by Jeff
Rated: E | (4.5)
This is a really great piece. I love the way you broke down the Bible verses and mixed them in with your own writing, and then took the time to elaborate upon them and add in your own thoughts. For me, this is exactly what nonfiction should be... informative, educational, a little bit personal... all in all, a really solid entry. Good luck in the contest! *Smile*
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Review by Jeff
Rated: E | (4.0)
Overall, I thought this was a great item. There are so many jobs out there that people look down on, but everyone who works hard at their chosen profession deserves respect and admiration, especially when it's a thankless job that most people would never want to do.

The only suggestion for improvement I have is to reconsider the ending... when the narrator asks what else she could have done with her life and mentions possibly being a soldier, it kind of undercuts the impact of the piece, especially when earlier on in the essay it's made clear that she was encouraged to be a teacher, veterinarian, or scientist but chose to be a sanitation engineer because she was passionate about it.

If this is meant to be a persuasive piece, I think it needs to end with a reinforcement of why being a sanitation engineer is the right thing for the narrator, not simply a the default because the narrator couldn't think of anything else to do with her life.

Otherwise, I thought this was an excellent piece and it will be my pleasure to feature it in this week's For Authors newsletter! *Bigsmile*
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Review of Grosvenor Arch  
Review by Jeff
Rated: E | (4.0)
Nice job on this essay! I've never really considered the nuances of arches before. The only slight suggestion for improvement I have is to remove the reference to "natural arches" in the item description. The introductory paragraph of this piece talks exclusively about man-made arches (the Arc de Triomphe, St. Louis arch, McDonald's golden arches, and the architecture of the Taj Mahal), which felt a little out of place when the topic promised in the intro was a discussion of "natural arches." If the intro simply promised a discussion of arches in general, the first paragraph would fit right in... and it would arguably make natural arches all the more impressive. Nice work... it would be my pleasure to feature in this week's For Authors newsletter! *Bigsmile*
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Review of Hand in my Back  
Review by Jeff
In affiliation with I Write  
Rated: E | (4.5)
Hi Tinker -

I am reviewing your item in connection with "I Write in 2018" 

Overall, I think you did a great job with this poem. I think your word choice was excellent and it was well structured. I couldn't find any errors with the form, although you do need to fix the xlink WritingML at the bottom of the piece so it properly links to the webpage you're trying to point to. *Smile* All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed this piece. Nice work!

Thank you for the opportunity to read and critique your material. Keep up the good work and keep writing!

Best regards,

Jeff

If you're interested in checking out my work:
"Blogocentric Formulations" 
"New & Noteworthy Things" 
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Review by Jeff
Rated: 18+ | (5.0)
ruwth,

Thank you so much for pointing me to this item. It's awesome! I think I attempted at one point to have at least one of every item type in my port as well, although I never really thought to try and put them all together into an item, let alone one that's presented in the form of a freestyle poem! I am a little in awe. *Shock*

This was really fantastic and I've bookmarked the item to check out your wide variety of items in the near future.

Well done!

Jeff
Logo for Senior Moderators - small

If you're interested in checking out my work:
"New & Noteworthy Things" 
"Blogocentric Formulations" 
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Review of I Write In 2018  
for entry "Diner of Despair" 
Review by Jeff
In affiliation with I Write  
Rated: 13+ | (3.5)
Hi 💙 Carly - aka Joan Watson -

I am reviewing your item in connection with "I Write in 2018" 

I thought you did a great job with the prompt. By including an actual storm and having it be an integral part of the story, it really felt like you took the prompt serious and didn't just include it as a throwaway line. I always appreciate it when a writer takes a prompt and really runs with it. *Thumbsup*

I found the relationship between Emma and Charlie to be a bit confusing. As fellow travelers, the assumption is that they're somehow important to one another, and yet the way the story ended with Emma just watching the diner disintegrate and take Charlie with it, there didn't seem to be a lot of emotion behind it. It was almost like she was watching an objective event unfold in front of her rather than being traumatized at her significant other (or close companion) literally torn away from her. I know 300 words isn't a lot of space to work with, but I would have loved to have seen a little less back-and-forth in the diner in favor of a little more emotional resonance at the very end of the story.

Other than that, though, I thought this was a fun story and a great take on the prompt. Nice job! *Smile*

Thank you for the opportunity to read and critique your material. Keep up the good work and keep writing!

Best regards,

Jeff

If you're interested in checking out my work:
"Blogocentric Formulations" 
"New & Noteworthy Things" 
345
345
Review by Jeff
In affiliation with I Write  
Rated: E | (4.5)
Hi Tinker -

I am reviewing your item in connection with "I Write in 2018" 

I enjoyed this poem. I thought it flowed nicely and was well structured. I sometimes have a hard time with free verse because there's no meter or construction for me to evaluate it against, but even without the specific rules of a particular form, you managed to make this poem feel well paced and expertly laid out. Your imagery was also great; it was a joy to read.

Thank you for the opportunity to read and critique your material. Keep up the good work and keep writing!

Best regards,

Jeff

If you're interested in checking out my work:
"Blogocentric Formulations" 
"New & Noteworthy Things" 
346
346
Review of Kitten Sitter  
Review by Jeff
In affiliation with I Write  
Rated: E | (4.5)
Hi Prosperous Snow celebrating -

I am reviewing your item in connection with "I Write in 2018" 

I thought this was a really cute flash fiction story. I'm a sucker for an animal story, and this one was full of charming characters and a clever ending that perfectly pulled things together. I really appreciate the fact that your entry has a complete beginning, middle, and end; that is NOT easy to do in less than 300 words. Great job and good luck in the contest! *Bigsmile*

Thank you for the opportunity to read and critique your material. Keep up the good work and keep writing!

Best regards,

Jeff

If you're interested in checking out my work:
"Blogocentric Formulations" 
"New & Noteworthy Things" 
347
347
Review of In His Element  
Review by Jeff
In affiliation with I Write  
Rated: E | (4.5)
Hi Genipher -

I am reviewing your item in connection with "I Write in 2018" 

I actually entered the same contest this week, so I was very excited to see that I'd get a chance to take a look at my competition! *Bigsmile* I absolutely love limericks and think you did a fantastic job with this one. You really captured the fun and entertainment value of a limerick with your choice of language; I laughed out loud at "fat bearded guy" as your rhyme for "sky." *Laugh* Overall, I don't really have any other feedback than to say I really, thoroughly enjoyed your poem and wish you the best of luck in the Christmas in July contest! *Delight*

Thank you for the opportunity to read and critique your material. Keep up the good work and keep writing!

Best regards,

Jeff

If you're interested in checking out my work:
"Blogocentric Formulations" 
"New & Noteworthy Things" 
348
348
Review of The Swift  
Review by Jeff
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
Hi CeruleanSon -

This item was brought to my attention by Thundersbeard 30DBC JULY HOST through "Invalid Item" , and as a fellow featured author, I thought I'd stop by for a quick review. Overall, I thought this was a delightful story. Your detail and description was excellent, your characters were fascinating, and the dialogue really helped the pace move along quickly. Steampunk is still a relatively new genre for me, but this was on par with the best of the stories I've read in the genre. Well done!

I hope this review has been constructive, and thank you for the opportunity to read your work! Please also remember these comments are the opinion of one person and, as the author, it's up to you to decide which feedback to utilize. Keep up the good work and keep writing!

Best regards,

Jeff
Logo for Senior Moderators - small

If you're interested in checking out my work:
"Blogocentric Formulations" 
"New & Noteworthy Things" 
349
349
Review of I Write In 2018  
for entry "My New Home" 
Review by Jeff
In affiliation with I Write  
Rated: 13+ | (5.0)
Hi 💙 Carly - aka Joan Watson -

I am reviewing your item in connection with "I Write in 2018" 

Looks like we chose the same contest to enter this week! I always enjoy seeing that because it gives me a chance to look at someone else's take on the exact same prompt I've been mulling over! *Bigsmile* I thought you did a great job with this story and gave both the house and your protagonist a level of detail and description that made it feel incredibly authentic. I love the fact that the house feels like both a representation of your protagonist as well as a reflection of her.

I don't often give 5-star reviews, but this is an exceptional piece of flash fiction. Well done!

Thank you for the opportunity to read and critique your material. Keep up the good work and keep writing!

Best regards,

Jeff

If you're interested in checking out my work:
"Blogocentric Formulations" 
"New & Noteworthy Things" 
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350
Review of Open Mic Night  
Review by Jeff
In affiliation with I Write  
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
Hi 💙 Carly - aka Joan Watson -

I am reviewing your item in connection with "I Write in 2018" 

I thought you did a great job with the prompt in this story. You really captured the uncertainty and emotions of being in a situation where one has to perform on stage in front of a crowd. I could vividly see the scene thanks to your excellent description and use of detail.

There were just a couple of small places where some typos need to be ironed out. In the second paragraph, it should be "cold sweats" (not "cold sweets"), and in the third paragraph, it should be "bits of advice" (not "bits of advise"). Other than that, I think you did an excellent job writing a compelling story based on an interesting prompt.

Well done!

Thank you for the opportunity to read and critique your material. Keep up the good work and keep writing!

Best regards,

Jeff

If you're interested in checking out my work:
"Blogocentric Formulations" 
"New & Noteworthy Things" 
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