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Printed from https://shop.writing.com/main/profile/reviews/pidgeon
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13 Public Reviews Given
20 Total Reviews Given
Public Reviews
1
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Review of peppermint tea  Open in new Window.
Review by Marcelo Laser Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (4.0)
I like it! I usually can't reach the end of stories, but your subtle mix of fantasy with normality was very enthralling. There are a few punctuation marks missing, like in the sentence "Motion in her neck..." near the end which sounds a bit weird, and you wrote "the the air brush", double the, but other than that I caught no writing mistakes. Overall, nothing that detracted from the flow of the story. Superb job on that, by the way! I am very picky with transitions between paragraphs and where certain words might break the flow of the story. With yours it was the contrary, I found myself having to run over some parts twice because the flow of it just kept me going past where my head actually was. The only thing I would recommend is expanding a little on the scene of her mother, maybe slowing the pace of the scene a little. I wanted to read more of it and am sure you can put the remaining 300 or so words to good use, if you get this review in time.
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Review of The Interview  Open in new Window.
Review by Marcelo Laser Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (4.5)
An excellent story. Not at all comedic, in my humble opinion, but very deep. I only realized what was going on when you mentioned "big floppy shoes", so nice job in keeping the tension of the story. Your critique of office work also did not go unnoticed.

Well done, a very emotional story in very few words. You may, however, you want to work on your spacing of paragraphs and start of sentences. Do not use double-spacing between words, and keep at least one line of space between paragraphs. That makes reading much easier.
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Review by Marcelo Laser Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (4.5)
Aha, the odd choice of words suited the story quite well. Perhaps it's that I'm dirty-minded, but the first thing that I thought was "why is this story rated E?" Then the ending pretty much explained it for me. The randomness of the beginning is possibly the best part of the story though.
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Review by Marcelo Laser Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (4.0)
Absolutely random, and a bit hard to understand, but hilarious nonetheless. The only part that seems a bit off in the story is the bit with the ice chest. The whole story is written with words that remind me of a forest, and an ice chest does not sound very suitable for that environment. I did laugh at the randomness, so kudos.
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Review by Marcelo Laser Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (4.5)
I must say, this was a wonderful way to start my day. The story was absolutely cute, and absolutely funny. It was also interesting to see things through the eyes of an 8 year old.

I can't really write a proper review for this, but I'll mention that it caught my eye that your daughter clearly has a good idea of you, and a hilarious view of boys. Congratulations.
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Review by Marcelo Laser Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (2.0)
I think you had a nice idea on how to develop this, but I also thought the story was very forced, and the writing style looked as if you were specifically trying to get the point across that this was about a nine foot Burmese Python.

First, the start of the story seems far too excessive. Maybe it's just me, but starting a story that is anything other than comedy with a graphical description of a man peeing all over himself does not sound very good. And this story did not seem like comedy to me. I think if you change this to be a bit less graphical, it would improve the first impression of the story.

Then, there's the excessive repetition of "Nine foot burmese python", and at one point even "Burnese python", which may have simply been a typo, but I don't think it was. Simply saying "snake" or "python" would have been enough in all cases. In one specific situation, which is the first time the protagonist realizes the situation, the way you used it was actually funny. In all other instances, it could definetely be shortened.

There's also the fact the protagonist seems to speak fondly of his daughter's wedding, and then suddenly refers to his son-in-law as a moron. Would he really change his opinion about his son-in-law all of a sudden? Maybe in proper dialogue, but in his mind, if he thought the boy was a moron, he would probably have mentioned it earlier. It seemed to be something that bothered the protagonist, not something he would not be thinking about until a life-threatening situation.

And then a man manages to outrun a python that was staring him in the face? I'm no specialist in snakes, and I may be wrong with this, but I think he would be in a lot of trouble if he attempted to do that. The ending just doesn't seem beliavable at all. And I get left with the feeling that the whole conflict wasn't resolved. The snake is still in his backyard, isn't it? Is that not a problem?

I think you need to work a bit harder on the story. The prompt of the contest is meant to be something to inspire you, not something to guide you throughout the work. When I read the story for a contest, I want to understand how it suits the prompt given, not see it literally everywhere.

Overall, I thought the concept you tried to get across could have been interesting, but you need to focus more on that, and less on the prompt. Since there's not really a plot to the story, just a description of an event, try focusing more on the feelings of the protagonist. Was he afraid? Was he angry? After he dodges the snake and goes to enter the house, his dialogue makes it sound like he never felt anything towards the situation anyway. I think if you work on that side of the story, the feelings of the protagonist as the events unfold, then this story may have a lot of potential.
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Review of Jude  Open in new Window.
Review by Marcelo Laser Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
An excellent story. A few tiny mistakes here and there, which I'd like to point out so you can edit it and improve it even further:

First, the last sentence in the second paragraph. The repetition of the word "myself" is a bit annoying. I would definetely re-write that one sentence, maybe just take out the first "myself" complete, switching it for a comma. I'm not too good on grammar, so that comma might not be necessary.

In the fourth paragraph, the sentence would be "joked that 'she' had the breasts..." You missed the one word "she" in there. Likely just a typo.

Those are the only two that I can remember. Again, excellent story, very well written. Your take on the contest proposal was very interesting, and your description of Alzheimer's was fairly accurate.
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Review by Marcelo Laser Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
I write reviews as I read, so I'll give my impressions depending on what part of the story I am.

I like the look of your editting, which is very important, and I like your first paragraph. I thought it was interesting enough to make me keep reading. However, you may want to edit the punctuation a bit, since it gets confusing at the end. It may be that I'm just tired and it's late at night, but perhaps adding a comma or two would make it more fluid.

The fifth paragraph seems like such an emotionally driven paragraph, but the punctuation doesn't show it at all. Here's how I would write it:

Not for the first time she wondered why she was sent here. Why did she have to relinquish the splendors of her apprenticeship to come to this backwater complex? She had risen so high, and for what? To travel for three months through the human kingdom of Astar, the brutal orcish lands and the sand scorched desert of Anarus, just so she could finally reach the Spire, a place she had never even heard of before this journey!

Just a few tiny changes in punctuation, but I think it conveys the annoyance of the character more strongly.

Err, I just went through the paragraph that describes the sounds of the forest, and that coupled with the paragraphs telling of the orcs make me think your protagonist is slightly sadistic. This is more a comment than a critique, something I thought I should mention.

Very interesting description of elves. I think it's not too often you see elves being big villains in a story, so congratulations for originality.

Just finished reading it, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think the plot is very interesting, and very promising. I'd definetely like to read the next chapters of it after you write them on the website, just send me a message since I'm a bit aloof and probably won't notice otherwise. You just need to work a bit on the certain paragraphs that really express the emotions of the character, since those aren't punctuated in a very intense way. Aside from that, I think the story is excellent, congratulations.
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