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Printed from https://shop.writing.com/main/profile/reviews/midnightstalka
Review Requests: ON
51 Public Reviews Given
77 Total Reviews Given
Review Style
I tend to focus on the technical aspects of a piece of writing, looking at the language, flow, style and punctuation. I tend not to spend too much time on complimenting what works well.
I'm good at...
Breaking down a piece to focus on the small technical details that can stop a story from flowing.
Favorite Genres
Erotica, Horror and Horrotica, will take the occasional foray into high fantasy.
Least Favorite Genres
Anything not mentioned in my favourite genres
Favorite Item Types
Short stories
Least Favorite Item Types
Poetry
I will not review...
Anything other than static items.
Public Reviews
1
1
Review by MidnightStalker Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (4.0)
Hi,

Had a read through and here are the notes I made as I went:

Not keen on the "WHAT AM I?" in capital letters, seems a bit shouty.

Opening paragraph shuttered -> shuddered
I don't understand the second paragraph opening, is he walking running or stopped? It sounds like he's stopped but then he crosses a field. The end would sound better with "watch the individual drops fall towards earth" saying "to earth" would imply following them down so ended looking down at the ground not up at the sky.

"The naked or else orange trees" doesn't make sense.
"Most everyone" I hate that phrase, but that's just me I guess there is nothing wrong with it.

schools principal -> school's principal
"She was surprisingly pretty, with casual but unique clothes" weird thing to say, I feel the rather trite but oft repeated phrase of "show don't tell" applies. What's surprising about her prettiness? In what way are the clothes unique?

"They had to put them in place and take them down and make sure the floating ones were secure so they wouldn't squish the little Shakespearians." Shouldn't that say "We" otherwise who is the "They"?

"and here I am a high school.... Pathetic" presumably either "in high school" or "a high school something"

"I continued throughout the day feeling elated" should be "through" not "throughout"

"I turned right on the first street hoping to find an adult or people or anything." adult or people sounds wrong, adults tend to be people, maybe "someone I knew, or any adult, or anything"

"The smile mixed with those black eyes made me shutter." shudder.

"The writing on the clipboard wasn't English, looking at it closely, it appeared to be Latin." that sounds a little strange, I'm not sure looking at the words closely would help identify it as Latin, maybe something like "The writing on the clipboard wasn't English, a couple of words seemed familiar, maybe from the Latin taster class last fall."


Hope those make sense!

In general I felt like the scenes with Jennifer were a little stereotypical and could do with something to make them seem a bit more original.

The discovery that his father was in the army seemed a bit out of place compared to the description of him as a drunk. Ex-army are often drunks, but it's hard to be in the army and a drunk.

Overall not a bad opening chapter, has enough in it to draw someone in to reading the next. I'd suggest maybe changing the description of the item, it does kind of give away the ending a little bit.

Hope that helps.

MS
2
2
Review of Book Bites  Open in new Window.
Review by MidnightStalker Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (4.0)
Hi,

I found this piece by searching the erotica and horror genres. It's a nice little piece, but I feel if I had found it whilst looking for just an erotica piece I would have been rather disappointed. It almost comes across as a prologue for a longer story which would then draw in the erotic and romantic elements hinted at by your choice of genres.

But as said it's a nice story, in general you didn't overdo the dialogue which is good, I felt the part where she gives him the false memory of the night could have done with breaking up a little. It was quite a dense block of speech.

Your writing style is good, with a nice even pace. I thought I'd take an in-depth look at the following passage:

"I'm about to touch your hand with an eraser and you won't feel anything." Then she jabbed his hand with the pin. Jimmy made no response, and Magda nodded. Then she reached for a double-edged razor blade that she had hid in a crevice of the couch. Magda took Jimmy's right wrist in her left hand and held the razor blade above it. As she did so, she felt her fangs lengthened in her eyes became opaque, revealing her a vampire. Her sharp incisors extended, and a lustful grin had replaced her warm pleasant smile. Magda's nostrils flared as she experienced hunger for the vital fluid.

I'm slightly confused about the need for a razor when she has fangs, and having it hid in a crevice in the couch just seems a little odd, maybe she should buy herself a small purse to keep pins and razor blades in.

There is the small typo when it comes to her eyes but I didn't spot any others in the piece.

I felt the "revealing her a vampire" was a little heavy handed and unneeded.

Finally, I think it would read slightly better to switch round your use of "incisors" and "fangs", it would give the impression of the incisors growing till they were long enough to be classified as fangs.

That's the end of me being ultra-picky, hope it was helpful to you. Feel free to disregard everything I've written.

MS
3
3
Review by MidnightStalker Author IconMail Icon
Rated: ASR | (3.5)
Hi,

I don't tend to read much sci-fi comedy so feel free to disregard my comments as the babblings of an outsider to the genre.

Your chapter is very speech heavy, reading like a script in places. A few more descriptions, particularly at the start might produce a more developed atmosphere. Particularly with sci-fi I feel that you need to really set the scene well. For example, is this a present day novel that will involve space travel, is it set in the near future, far into the future or a completely different galaxy that somehow resembles earth.

The first half reads like a story set in a present day city, then suddenly there is an alien and it's 2054. You might want to focus slightly more on the history, for example are aliens common in 2054, why are people still talking about books, surely the books would be limited to museums by then?

The key to good sci-fi is to produce a compelling world, it needs to be rich and fully formed. The opening chapter needs to give an insight into the world and make people want to explore it.

On the whole it is well written, a couple of phrases that don't work too well, "the elitist of the elite" should be "the elite of the elite". I always think of "grandioso" as sounding slightly mocking, typically implying the person is more pompous than exceptional. You say "long oxymoronic shorts" which sounds a bit odd, I'd go with "paradoxically long shorts". You describe the spaceship as:
"black, orb shaped, with smoke coming out of various crevices.”
but orb shaped things, aren't known for their crevices.

The term "Sinetransmorgodor" doesn't make much sense, the alien comes from a place where the language has thousands of letters, so it doesn't make sense that he has transliterated their word for the device to that, so why would he call it something other than "time machine" if that is what it is. If it wasn't an alien, but a time traveler coming back from an English speaking future then it would make sense that he had a new English word for it.

As an opening chapter it doesn't draw me in, there is nothing grabbing me and making me want to continue with the story, sorry. As such I would give this 3 stars, but as I said at the start, this isn't really my genre so giving you a bonus half star for benefit of the doubt.

MS


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" Open in new Window..
4
4
Review of The Last Hope  Open in new Window.
Review by MidnightStalker Author IconMail Icon
In affiliation with Unofficial Erotica Newsletter ...  Open in new Window.
Rated: 13+ | (3.0)
The introduction says: "Scarlet's majority is to keep Ashley safe" which doesn't really make sense, presumably it should be "major concern"  

The first chapter starts with: "It's been two days since my parents went to Las Vegas for their anniversary and I was watching over my little sister Ashley," you mix tense, it should probably start with "it had been".  

The phone call doesn't make much sense, it seems unrealistic that her mum didn't seem to want to talk to her and check she and her sister were ok. It might make more sense to have it as a voice mail.  

You have grammar problems such as "an virus" "so I cant so go out" etc. You also switch tenses quite a lot.  

You dump a lot of information in a very short space, it's almost as if someone asked you to describe a zombie in 100 words. Spread the information out and intersperse with more of the story.  

The text is also a bit blocky.split it up into more paragraphs and leave a blank line between them and it will be easier to read.

as a first draft it isn't bad, but it could do with a serious edit to get rid of allthe errors. the choices seem not to stem naturally from where you stop. maybe insert a bit about them waking up or something.

hope this was helpful to you. keep writing .

MS
5
5
Review of The Bridge  Open in new Window.
Review by MidnightStalker Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (3.0)
Hi,

Slightly unusual tactic of entering an erotica contest without any sex in the entry. Here are a few comments, just my opinion so don't take anything personally:

Areollas the Amazon approaches the bridge. A man, standing in the middle of the bridge, bars her way.


Probably just me being weird but this sounds like it could be the start of an old text adventure game.

I am Maximus Erectus.


If you are intending the piece to be a farse then the name is fine, if not it's a bit over the top.

Maximus is tanned and ridiculously muscular.


The use of ridiculously doesn't seem right, if you want to mean extremly then use that. Describing someone as ridiculous who is then going to take part in something erotic just puts the wrong image in people's minds.

They pounce upon one another and the encounter commences.


Slipped back into the narrator from a text adventure game again.

Suddenly they simultaneously disarm one another, their weapons fall into the river below.


This is a bit narratory as well, maybe something more along the lines of:

She twists her staff forcing it between him and the sword, with a fierc cry she yanks the sword from him. Unable to keep hold of the sword all he could do was to force the staff from her grip. As the weapons tumbled towards the river they were left unarmed.


You are an extremely fetching lass yourself.


He seems to slip into a light scottish tone every so often, seems a little strange for the setting (in a pub or in a rainstorm on a hilly moor it would be perfect but amazons are very uncommon in those places)

Maximus, again, is thoughtful.


this seems redundant.

“We should play Scrabble some time!”


As far as I know Amazons aren't famous for their love of scrabble.

six pack of ale


A sword and staff fight between an amazon and some kind of displaced roman in the relativly modern era of six packs seems rather confused.

Overall this doesn't seem to fit into high-fantasy, the setting is wrong and the mesh of characters just doesn't work. You have the framework for a decent story, just needs some work.

Good luck in the contest
6
6
Review of Dead Not Buried  Open in new Window.
Review by MidnightStalker Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (3.0)
Hi,
Sorry about the low rating but it kind of seems as though this isn't a finished story, the plot seems sound but I just get the feeling that it needs more substance to it. It reads more like the outline of a novel than a short story.
Obviously getting the length of a short story right is difficult and finding yourself in the no-mans land of the novella is always a bit disconcerting but if you could double the length expanding on some of the sections then you'd still be on the safe side of the barbed wire.
Hope thats of use to you. I know how hard it is to get the depth of something wright (I don't think I have ever managed it) and feel free to completely ignore me :)

Midnight Stalker
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