Thank you for the opportunity to read and review your work 'Why the City is Safe'.
I hope that my observations are in someway helpful, though I ask you to take into account that what I offer is only a personal opinion as an enthusiastic reader and not an attempt at a professional critique.
General Impressions.
A dark and mysterious story about two parents ultimate and unforgivable betrayal.
Favourite Elements:
I liked the way in which you tied the beginning and the end together with the same sentance "adults were such awful people sometimes".
The white hands on the steering wheel - a clever and subtle prompt that all was not as it seemed.
The wise, observing eyes of the middle child seeing through her parents deceit was well handled.
Areas to Consider:
For me (as a Mum), it is impossible to imagine what could ever cause a parent to abandon their child to some unspoken evil, rather than bundling them in the car and taking a shot (however futile) at escaping. I struggled to believe they would really do this and therefore I personally needed a stronger, broader motive for their actions.
Thank you for the opportunity to read and review your work 'A Weeping Earth'. I personally find poetry quite difficult to review there fore I tend to comment on how the piece made me feel and where it took me.
General Impression:
A short poem about a downpour of rain.
Favourite Elements:
Relating the falling of rain to the falling of tears - simple and effective.
Areas for further considersation:
I really liked this, but I think I'd like to see another verse or two telling me the fuller story of the journey those tears take. The first four lines have a natural rhythm and flow which works well - I'd like to see more of that flow if you ever did expand on this piece.
Thanks again, and I wish you a warm Welcome to WDC.
Thank you for the opportunity to read and review your work 'Still Loving You'.
I hope that my observations are in someway helpful, though I ask you to take into account that what I offer is only a personal opinion as an enthusiastic reader and not an attempt at a professional critique.
General Impressions.
This poem was a lovely way of paying tribute to the living memories of a much loved homeland.
Favourite Elements:
I was thoroughly captivated by your opening stanza. It is really quite beautifully written and incredibly evocative. It left me with both a sense of time passing seamlessly and also of time passing without consequence - what I mean is, that for all time passes, some things will never change, which is in essence what you then go on to share with your reader. Your eternal love for your homeland. I thought this one paragraph set the rest of the poem up perfectly.
Thank you for the opportunity to read and review your work 'Imperfection'.
I hope that my observations are in someway helpful, though I ask you to take into account that what I offer is only a personal opinion as an enthusiastic reader and not a professional critique.
General Impressions.
A wisely worded letter to a trusted friend, rhetoric in tone this has a nice, easy, relaxed feel which carries the reader along at a comfortable pace.
Favourite Elements:
There are some great lines in here. Among my favourite are:
"swing more violently than a monkey on the run" because it just made be smile - and describes female hormone driven mood swings to a 'T'.
I like the way you describe falling in love with the whole person, including the imperfections. I also liked how the over tone was one of not requiring perfection, but the undertone is that he does have to be perfect - perfect for Davena.
Areas to Consider:
Repetition of the 'age' related comments in the last paragraph - the point is made three times which felt unnecessary given the reference to 'teenage' moods in para 2.
Thank you for the opportunity to read and review your work 'Christmas'. I appreciate that placing your work on here for feedback takes courage and I hope in sharing my thoughts on your work you appreciate that what I offer is a personal opinion - not an expert critique.
General Impressions.
A nicely written piece which pulls you into the heightened emotion of a christmas carnival, the excitement of a young child and the pride of a loving mother. Lots of feelings were provoked in this one small piece, and the twist at the end was most unexpected.
Favourite Elements: "her rounded cheeks dimpling in delight. A snow flake floated over her face, sticking to the tip of her nose, a sparkling diamond against the pink of her skin"
Add this to the damp curls peeking out from under her hat and you have created a beautiful image of an excited child gobbling up the christmas festivities! This little girl leaps off the page, you have (for me) described her so well.
Areas to Consider:
I see some gorgeous imagery waiting to get out of that first paragraph, but I was a little confused about who you were writing about. When you say 'She arrived' do you mean Annie or Isobel? When you say "each face flushed" do you mean the crowds or the previous 'she' or the latter 'Annie and Isobel'? Sentance '3' opens 'woman' and I not sure whether you mean 'women' plural or 'The woman'. If I've mis-read something - my apologies.
Once again, thank you for sharing and I wish you a warm welcome to WDC.
Thank you for the opportunity to read and review your work 'Lost in Wonderland'. I personally find poetry quite difficult to review therefore I tend to comment on how the piece made me feel and where it took me.
General Impression:
I warmed to this piece quickly, evocative wording and imagery created a sense of sadness and loss almost immediately.
Favourite Elements:
The first two lines are undoubtedly my favourite. I think your choice of language here is clever in it's simplicity and yet it is still eloquently written. The natural rhyming only makes it all the more endearing.
I also have to comment on the following:
"Angels with scars and demons with dreams,
This dreamworld is more broken than it seems"
These two lines had me thinking about your poem long after I had stopped reading it. I think this is because I was thinking about your words both figuratively and literally - I love it when writing makes me think in a non-linear way!
Ares for further consideration:
For me the 2:2:3, 2:2:3, 2:2:3 flows really nicely. The change in structure and the loss of a rhyming pattern (which as a reader, I had come to anticipate)made the latter part of the poem feel slightly disconnected from the former.
Thanks again, and I wish you a warm Welcome to WDC.
Thank you for sharing your poem and the chance to read and review. I've actually never come across anything quite like this before, so my comments may seem a little off-key. Apologies if this is the case. I don't find poetry easy to review, so I tend to comment on how it makes me feel of where it takes me!
Firstly, let me say that I felt this was a great-fun, christmas-style roller-coaster ride, that didn't relent in offering a new twist and turn with every additional verse that came along.
The emotional tribute to a much loved wife on a pending wedding anniversary was very, very touching - and it was a honour to read something so personal and genuine.
Following on form that, my favourite part (perhaps predictably because I'm a sucker for cheesy christmassy things) was this bit:
Christmas lights shining bright
Santa hidden and out of sight.
It's just me and you on this night
Let us say to one and all Merry Christmas and to all a blessed New Year!
This for me captures that lovely excitement and anticipation that (for me) comes with having two gorgeous mini-beasts to celebrate with.
Thank you for sharing the tormet of a late night shopping fiasco! I had enormous fun reading this, cringing as the realisation hit and them empathising as your imagination careered out of control to the point that you convinced yourself you were bound for prison. I could so relate the latter having accidently walked out of a shop with an unpaid lipsalve in my bag not long after my first child was born - I barely slept that night before I drove back first thing and dutifully paid for said item!)
There were several language 'issues' that didn't translate across the waters, (e.g. Jeff Gordon, Gallon of 2%) but they didn't prevent me from getting an decent idea of what you meant. Though if you wouldn't mind telling me what 2% is I'm extremely curious!
Well done on writing a really creative, imaginative and certainly a humor filled piece of writing. You certainly chose a cracking subject to tackle - some of your comments bring back a few scarey memories.
I think you do a great job of getting in to the spirit of the piece, the anxiety of being at the hands of someone so inexperienced and completely helpless to boot comes across,well.
IF I were to make suggestions (based on my personal preferences, not necessarily any writing expertise) I would suggest keeping some of the dialogue - because this personifies the car really well, but I would be tempted to change some of your dialogue to a narrative so that as the reader we observe what the car sees and then 'bam' we feel those moments of anxiety and frustration more acutely when they are delivered as the spoken word.
I also think that you achieve a lot of emotion through your vocabulary, your sarcasm comes through quite well. So in my opinion I don't think you need so many '!' and '?' it sometimes detracts from the emotion you have already achieved with your words.
I hope you found this helpful but of course please feel free to ignore ;)
This was an interesting piece to read. I read your 'scene setter' at the start and after I'd finished the piece I tried to understand what you were looking for interms of a review for something that, as you say isn't a story or fiction but an expression of a memory or dream.
I could be completely off the mark, but I felt as though you wanted me to feel the sensation of the dream - otherwise I don't think you would have written in by trying put the reader into the position of protagonist. If I've missed the mark completely then please feel free to dismiss my comments ;)
My first observation is that it is a short statement driven narrative which certainly helps to grip the reader and adds to a feeling of suspense. For me however, it possibly hindered pulling me in emotionally as the sentances are more statements of 'fact' and not of feeling. I see and hear everything that I am meant to observe but I don't necessarily connect with it. Much as I thoroughly enjoyed the read and was very much hooked in, I never quite 'became' the boy, I was always observing the boy.
What I did appreciate is that you created a sense of surrealism, I recognised that slightly distant almost disconnected nature of 'dreaming', where you're in the dream but also deparate from it. I think your short, sharp sentances achieve this sense of 'disconnect' and it is part of what makes this piece so compelling to read.
Your description of the chessboard and the aging paintings are very, very effective.
My favourite, stand out sentance is "Only an echo reaches your ear; a sound with no beginning and no end." which I felt was extremely thought provoking.
Thank you for sharing this piece and I hope my observations have been helpful in someway.
Please take this feedback as the observations of a keen reader, nothing more!
I really, really enjoyed this piece, it flowed gently and easily. Likening the sofas to the various phases of married life worked well and I thought you were very subtle in the way you approached this.
For me, this is the ultimate piece of real-world romance. Throughout all the trials a marriage has to face, we all hope that in the end, those original ties remain solid and intact underneath everything else that has gone before.
Areas to consider:
Some of the sentances are a little long. It makes for easier reading if your reader isn't having to remember too much about where the sentance started.
E.G "I remember our long drawn out conversations, evenings on the makeshift couch that we had cobbled together from an old patio set and a multitude of mismatched cushions you had sewn together using a borrowed sewing machine."
I also received some great feedback about some of my writing which you may find useful. When crafting a tale, only retain what is absoluely essential to the plot, character and mood of the piece. Try to avoid words that are 'superfluous' as it delays the readers getting to grips with what you are trying to convey. An example where this might apply could be "amazed at the changes in life that have taken place due" the words 'in life' are unnecessary and could be seen to slow the pace down without helping.
Please just take these as general observations. There is no wise expert behind my suggestion!
This is quite lovely, very personal and emotional.
As a suggestion I'd break up the text a bit - perhaps so it reads more like a free verse poem. That way I think the reader will be able to savour each line and to pause where you need them to.
The two sentances that both start with 'And' don't flow as well as the others but that is just a personal observations.
Thank you for reviewing my work and for the opportunity to read some of your writing too. Please take these comments as thoughts from a keen reader, nothing more :)
I thought this was a very interesting idea and you tackled a subject area I am completely unfamiliar with - good job trying something new!
It did read like a tale you would listen to rather than a tale you would read - I'm unsure exactly why this is, perhaps it is your choice of words which make it sound like a narrative - either way it works!
I have to say I was pleased the mother knew her son was 'ok' at the end, this made for a satisfying (if still mysterious) conclusion :)
A piece of advice I received on one of my early pieces was to watch out for 'superfluous words'. It pushes the reader away by delaying / unnecessarily slowing the pace down. An example of this is:
"It was a warm summer’s day, and there was a young man working away in the fields of his farm". The words "there was" are possibly unnecessary. you might consider something like the following:-
"One fine summers day a young man toilied away in the family fields"
This is only a suggestion based on some feedback I had, thought I'd share it!!
Couple of other little bits I noticed:
Personally I don't think you need the second 'young man' in para 1 (2nd sentance) your reader knows who you are talking about.
" three times the height and breadth as the biggest forest trees" do you mean "of the biggest tree"?
"The young man tried to climb down, but he wasn’t quick enough, and the tree disappeared into the darkness, and all that stood on that hill was the horse that sat down and slept." A very long sentance. Perhaps try a full stop after "quick enough". If you start the next sentance with "The tree..." then you also negate the repetition of "and' in quick succession.
Hope these comments are helpful, but of course, please feel free to ignore completely.
Happy Writing, I'll keep an eye on your port and see what else you are working on!
A very convincing dialogue driven story. The relationship and their past difficulties comes across well. You build tension very well and the choice to fight rather than to take 'flight' attitude of the guilty husband (and the resulting faux submissive response on the part of the wronged wife) are for me the strongest part of this writing.
The end was expected but well executed. The sarcasm comes across very well!
1Please take these comments as simply observations of an interested reader, nothing more ;)
I really liked this - the title hoooked me in really quick! A quirky, fun and tasty idea for a poem.
The first verse is my favourite - it flows nicely and cleverly stimuates the taste buds, the rhyming of lines 1 and 4 making it a very readable verse.
I like the content in the remainnig verse but I think it could be stronger if you kept with the original idea and made it a readble, rhyming verse - I know there are certain lines that do rhyme, but the pattern variies throughou which could make it more tricky to read.
If you can be consistent in your rhyming rhythm / pattern - it would be superb to read out at parties, or to put in menuss before the dessert trolley arrived - just for fun!
This is a lovely idea for a poem, it really provokes the imagination. I can imagine adults and children enjoying this. You did a really good job of taking the reader on a journey, particularly in the first half where the rhyming worked very well.
I felt as though the rhyming lost some of its momentum in the latter half, if you can revisit this and keep the momentum going this could work as a really good poem.
An interesting, thought provoking poem. You definitely got me thinking with this one. I'm not great at interpreting poetry, but I like to try!
I couldn't decide if this was about finding your tue love, or something more sinister. The latter half reads very much like meeting that someone special, but then to talk about stealing someones soul - makes me think otherwise.
I thought your use of language was very thought provoking and very emotional - I felt the anxiety behind the words.
Please take these comments only as expressions of interest from a keen and interested reader, not an expert writer!
A strongly worded, emotionally driven free verse poem.
Some of the words are highly evocative, as a reader I felt anger and bitterness coming through in the words. I didn't feel those emotions myself which is perhaps somethign to think about. Poetry is even more powerful when the reader can come along for the journey too.
My favourite lines are:
"You want everything to be perfect
when in reality it never will be."
because these words did resonate, I think it's a lesson most of us have to learn at some point!
Couple of possible typos:
"your nothing" do you mean "you're (you are) nothing)"?
"me you're you lie-" do you mean "you are the lie"?
Think you may need a full stop at the end of "misery".
Please feel free to ignore any of my comments, they are only the opinions of a reader, not an expert writer of any genre or style!
Firstly, I thought this was a good attempt at free form poetry, visually it makes interesting reading, the title hooked me in and I anticipated a humor filled read.
I can imagine this being read to young children - asking them to imagine where the pencil could be - sparking their imaginations.
I felt a little disappointed in the ending, to my (highly literal mind) it didn't tie in with the eventful searching that had preceeded it. Like I said, I am rather prone to being 'literal' when it comes to poetry, probably because I'm not sharp enough to think in a more abstract manner!
I think I might have liked a 'new' favourite to be found at the end which would almost suit the light hearted, contrary tone of the poem. This would fit in my my thoughts about appealing to a younger audience too.
Hope this is useful - and please keep writing! I love quirky and interesting topics for stories and poetry!
An emotional relloercoaster indeed. So very, very pleased your story ended well. I had a heart transplant 15 years ago and now have a wodnerful family and two beautiful children. I will forever be grateful to the person kind enough to offer me this chance at life.
I also lost a brother 4 years ago, although an organ became available, in the end it was too late and his body had just had enough. We miss him daily but we know he would be delighted to see his nephew and neice growinp up so beautifully.
I wish your and you family a lifetime of health and happiness.
This held my attention right through to the end. I loved how you set the scene, and your descriptions of how the wolf made him feel are tremendous, highly evocative and moving.
Really great idea for a story.
Thank you.
Kx
P.S - What is STAT?
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