Malediction- a great word even though I had to look it up. If for nothing else thank you for introducing to me a a new word.
Now onto the review. Very nice look at the power of love and difficulty in truly squashing it. The journey towards love is very interesting. I like the use of a search towards the start and somewhere fresh. I enjoyed the final lines of the poem, a truly powerful and provocative description of love and trust.
The only question I would ask is why in the first section you would put () around unexpectedly? While not a major point of contention, it was a tad strange. Overall a nice piece.
This is a very good piece that should be posted for newbies that join Writing.com to read. Your message of getting a thick skin is one that we should all remember, especially when we get those 1.5 ratings from anonymous raters who don't review. Sorry had my own rant for a second there. I'd suggest making the "LEARN TO USE A SPELLCHECKER! " phrase larger if possible. Too many people skip that easy step and end up having their items not read because of it. I'm definately going to have to work on writing in other genres as you suggested. It is something more writers should do, if only to practice their craft more.
Great stuff, try to get this in the newbie newsletter.
I can't give you a five star since I can't comment on the form and technicalities of your poem, but great piece by my standards. The images of the value of all who were lost and the insult added to their deaths by politics are very powerful contradictors and bring out the strength of the subject. Even so I would usually stray from bringing out the negative aftermath of 911 in tributary poem such as this, it almost takes away from the overall message of grief and rememberance.
While the events of 911 were a national tragedy for us Americans, many including myself forget that it was broadcast worldwide and the horror was felt by many outside of our borders. Not only were US citizens killed but Brittish, Canadian, and many others. It is cathartic almost to read others account of the day and to share in the pain that wa truly shared on that day. What really struck me was the shame that you showed when describing watching the towers tumble. It is something many felt but couldn't help themselves but to bare witness to the horror.
Powerful memories, thank you for keeping them alive no matter how painful.
You touched on a subject that most people today look at as ancient history, history that they forget about after having to learn it in school. The emotions of supreme sacrifice and strife come through in the poem and hit me very hard. They are the emotions that are universally understood by those that appreciate the heros that came before us.
I only have two criticisms if you can call them that.
1. I understand it is a poem so form sometimes dictates the content, but the battles you conjure up are fairly generic. While not necessarily a bad thing, if you want to truly capture the WWI picture that you are thankful for, especially the hardships those brave men endured, it might be powerful to work in the horrible life they had to live in the trenches. Spending weeks going from trench to trench to gain less than a mile of territory. It seems like such a futile effort but the sacrifice was worth it in the eyes of the world.
2. Again I understand the need for form in poetry though I'm not a poet. But I did find the repeating phrase at the end of each stanza a tad bit jarring. It was powerful, but it might be better to only have it after the first and last stanzas. I tried reading the poem with the extra ones taken out and it just felt more powerful to me. But hey, I'm not a poet so what do I know.
This was definately a different story idea than I am used to reading. I have a couple items that I liked and a suggestion or two for you as well.
Likes:
1. The opening two sentences. There is very good imagery here that draws me as the reader into the story.
2. The final sentence. I don't know if you meant to or not but this sentence creates an animosity towards the main character that makes the story powerful.
Suggestions:
1. "as if the light waves were x-rays." It seems that there should be more to this idea. What are the x-rays showing?
2. "Living felt strangely ordinary to her in Ohio on the highway strip covered in chain restaurants and gas stations. At her home, she never felt this way and with Alex, she never use to feel this way." I guess I just don't understand the feelings that are portrayed here. What exactly is she feeling now that she didn't feel before. A little clarity might help some.
Interesting poem. There is definate potential here.
Likes:
1. The imagery of the dragon as it prepares to take flight.
2. The transfer from aweful beast to magnificent and noble creature.
Suggestions:
1. "He spreads immense extended wings to fly" Extended is a little repetetive to me. You already state his wings are spread.
2. "Sweet Valor kept more sound then falcon wings" Not really a suggestion for here, but I don't really understand this line. It reads very nice but I don't really grasp the point of this line.
The sadness of having our children leave home is a powerful emotion that you tried to convey here. Here's a list of things that I liked and a couple suggestions as well.
Like:
1. The powerfully loving moment when you see the note your son left.
2. "The door to my son’s room is now open, and seems to be beckoning to me." This is a very drawing sentence. You can feel the emotional draw that the room has and pulls the reader in as well.
3. "I closed the door to his room to safeguard all those memories against the ravages of time" Another great sentence to show the reverence shown towards Jeffrey and memories holding him in your heart.
Suggestions:
1. "No one was happier than Jeffrey, who was not quite five at the time" The second part of this sentence seems to be asking for a description of Jeffrey. While the emotions are in the story, there is not that visual I as a reader would expect. You could do it something like this, "No one was happier than Jeffrey, my little (insert hair color) headed angel. For nearly five years, he had been my strength." Something like that could really help solidify Jeffrey into a readers mind.
2. "Voices from the past seem to envelop me." I would take out "seem to" from the sentence. It would be more powerful to just let the voices envelop you and the reader.
3. "I closed the door to his room to safeguard all those memories against the ravages of time, for as long as I have these memories, my house will never be empty, not really empty. " As I said before I like the begining of this sentence, but the overall sentence could be broken up into two.
Great read and good emotions present so keep up the great work.
Interesting concept for your story, Gods battling it out with the mortals. I have a few suggestions for you though.
1. You might want to cut out a few sentences in your opening paragraph. The point you are trying to get across is made clear fairly quickly, the to do this, but not this sentences get repetitive quickly and pulled me from the story.
2. That second paragraph is just way too long. It is hard to maintain what you are reading when the paragraph is that big. If you look away for a moment it is easy to lose your place, never good for a reader.
3. You might want to describe the god just a little bit. There really is no description of them that can help you push the readers’ imagination into an area that you want them to go.
5. Finally, please make sure to check spelling and grammar when submitting an item. Small errors and misspelled words can quickly distract a reader from the story.
Overall like I said it is very interesting. I look forward to any changes you may make and the next installments to the story. Keep up writing.
Nice chapter, there is definitely a lot of good material to work off of there. Try to remember what I said in my review for your prologue about formatting, grammar and spelling. I won't go into it all again in this review.
Thoughts:
1. I can tell you put a lot of thought into your fight scenes, in any action/adventure story this is very important.
2. You show that you have a detailed view of the world in which your characters live in, shown by your detailed descriptions of the town.
3. Your view of the characters is set in your mind I think by your descriptions of their clothes and characteristics, i.e. height.
Issues:
1. If you are going to describe a character's attributes such as height and appearance, try to stay away from terms like "seems" and "about". This leads to a vagueness that does not allow a reader to truly picture the character in his or her mind. Also when describing a character, try to spread it out over a few paragraphs with well placed descriptors so that you don't end up with an information dump in the middle of a paragraph. An example of that that is in your first paragraph where you break up the action with a long description of Zaper.
2. Beware the overkill of the description! While it is good to describe your new world to a reader, keep in mind that too much description makes a piece harder to read. Such is the case when you tell us about the cafe instead of letting the character walk into it and be there. Instead of going into a long narrative where it is the author telling the reader, there is this, and that, and over on the side there is this; try something like this.
A few hours later, he enters a somewhat run down café. The bare bricks smack of the hard times facing the business. Zaper scans the booths around the room and the tables in its center for a suitable place to eat. After his battle, the old booths don't seem too inviting so he decides to head to the counter. The fireplace crackles as the slayer sits down at the last stool. Motioning to the waitress he orders a meal with what little money he has remaining after buying supplies.
While still descriptive something of this order would allow a reader to follow Zaper into the room and get a semblance of the feeling of the place at the same time.
3. When handling dialogue with action, you need to work on separating the various participants in your writing. The paragraph that starts "“Come on!” yells the man as he grabs Aqua’s arm" is a good example of this. You have the perspective of two characters intermingled within the one paragraph. You could actually break it up into three paragraphs with the words and actions of the two people separated. This will make it easier to keep track of what is happening and to whom.
4. During your fight scene with Hellfire you spent a lot of energy describing every moment of the fight, blow by blow. While it is good to know how the fight should go when writing the scene, it is not always good to spell it out to the reader. You can describe the actions somewhat but allow the reader's imagination to take over by interspersing action with internal thoughts of the combatant. Let their emotions drag the reader into the battle and imagine that they are the one trading blows with a demon.
Overall this is a good try at the story. It seems raw, which is a good thing. It means that you have tried which too many people won't even do. You can take my suggestions or not, that is up to you, but remember that practice is a writer's best friend. So don't be afraid to make changes to a story. Keep up the good work, I look forward to reading more about Zaper and Aqua.
First off since I see you're new to Writing.com, welcome aboard. If you have any questions feel free to shoot me an email or check out the Newbie forums at:
Now on to your story. This review is just for the prologue, I’m still reading the first chapter so expect a review of that separately.
Thoughts:
1. Cool idea for a story line, the possibilities are very interesting when considering what came out of the portals and the trials of humankind afterwards.
2. Mutation from the portals allows you the reader to suspend disbelief and take the powers at face value which is always a good thing.
Issues: (remember criticism is a writer’s best friend if taken the right way.)
1. A big pet peeve of mine as a reviewer is getting into a story then being ripped out of it by a spelling or blatant grammatical error. There are not many areas like that in your story but they are there. I would suggest checking for those before posting on the site or if you need help ask for members to edit or proofread the item for you.
2. Not story related but still important if you want people to read your items and be able to enjoy them, make the item presentable. This is a very easy thing to fix of course. Your piece has no spacing when I read it. This makes it difficult to maintain your place when reading if you have to look away. I'd suggest editing the piece by adding an extra line space between paragraphs to help this out. Remember the smallest things overlooked can sometimes make a larger impact than we think they will.
3. Remember before reading further that reviews are to help a writer improve their work and are in no way meant to denigrate what they have accomplished. So with that in mind, here's the beef. I don't know how long you expect your prologue to be, so it is hard to judge the outcome appropriately. So I will analyze it based on what I have read so far. You have some very good information in your story that sets the backdrop for your overall world. The problem is that it reads like a book report instead of a book. This is not insulting in any way I hope. What I mean by this is that you go from one thing happening to the next to the next then to the next again without much depth to each event or revelation.
You have a very good start to the prologue I believe, with some minor changes to grammar and formatting along with some more depth to the events you describe I believe you are on the correct path.
Please don't get discouraged, keep writing and enjoy writing.com.
First off, wow. I don't think I could sleep for a few days after having a nightmare like that. Secondly, you did a good job of detailing the step by step of the dream. It allows the reader to feel that disconjointed sense that we all have when dreaming. It keeps the tensions high and the fear of what is going to come next.
If you plan on having this be more than a cathartic writing I would suggest reviewing the first two paragraphs. There is too much medical jargon in there that can distract a reader and keep them from reading further, which would be a shame since later in the piece is where the action is.
Not too bad, not great but not too bad. I say not great because it doesn't really draw me in. It is interesting and I wonder what exactly she was seeing, but there isn't that personal connection to the narrator.
As a rule of most prologues, a reader is not going to know what is going on. It seems you tried to keep it a mystery of what happened, which is fine, but to keep people reading you still need to create that personal connection with the character.
Something I found a little confusing. I saw the chasms between our world and theirs, the mystical border that seperated us, that kept kept them from coming thorugh and us from seeing... going.
I guess I don't understand what the highlighted portion means. You may want to clarify it a bit.
A final thing, fix that italic they. Nothing will kick somebody out of a story mindset then () out of place.
Overall, this is a nice item with a lot of potential. Keep up the good work.
I read this two times just to enjoy it again. Vampires of Twighlight was written very well. I have not read many items that take such a sympathetic view of vampires yet shows their knowledge of their personal hell.
The only suggestion that I would make is to switch the first two paragraphs. I believe that would make a better transition into the first vampire lament.
‘We are not but empty shells,
knowing full well that we are condemned to hell.
I might suggest personalizing the highlighted area more. Simply changing it to condemned to hell on earth or maybe condemned to our own walking hell could achieve this and make it more powerful.
Nice rant. The flow is very nice and builds momentum as you read down the list. This type of topic lends itself to this type of list I think. The perspectives you bring are provocative. Good stuff, not a big fan of the short lines like you use so can't give it a five, even if it fits ok with this item. Sorry.
Interesting premise. A good thing to think on surely. I just had problems getting past the many errors throughout. Also I am not sure about the friend section; it just does not seem to fit in with the rest of the writing. With some short work, I believe this can be a much more poignant piece.
Powerful emotions. The only issue that I had was that I had to read it twice to try and determine if Erik's father was the coach or not. The yells for movement seem out of place a bit. The first one especially since it seems that at that point the overtime hadn't started. Just a couple thoughts I had. Good reading for sure. Keep up the good work.
The chaos surrounding these Gods seems very symbolic to many fantasy stories and the Gods who rule them. This guiding rule makes this an enjoyable read though very cryptic. For those of us who are lovers of fantasy it is worthwhile. The problem may be for those that don't understand the Genre and are dipping there toes into it.
"The sound lasted long enough for creation to be done, undone, redone, and destroyed."
"And as one they were, deities bound with imperfect perfection, limitless limitations, and unknowing omniscience."
Sentences like those tend are powerful but seem a little overdone to me. I don't know if you wanted to remain totally abstract with this or not, but repeating phrases like that having so many untold eternities thrown in there may make the eye wander through the story without appreciating it fully.
Overall I enjoyed it very much and look forward to reading more of your writings. Keep up the good work.
A touching look at the creative mind of humanity for sure. Nearly every writer I have ever talked to has always stated that they are waiting for that great inspiration. I like how you take that longing and put it to story form. Overall this was a well written piece and I enjoyed it very much.
The only issue that I can see being a possible problem is the capitalized He, Him, His, etc in the beginning. I understand that it is necessary, but I felt it took away from the story a little. The words were almost jarring. I hate critiquing a story without being able to give strong advice, but here I am not sure the best way to resolve this. Sorry.
As I said, great story.
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If for nothing else thank you for introducing to me a a new word.
I read this two times just to enjoy it again. Vampires of Twighlight was written very well. I have not read many items that take such a sympathetic view of vampires yet shows their knowledge of their personal hell.