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32 Public Reviews Given
50 Total Reviews Given
Public Reviews
1
1
Review of Texted  Open in new Window.
Review by Tilli <-... Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (4.5)
         Tilli's Review of "Texted" Open in new Window., 12/23/07:

First Look:
         You have a very, very accomplished story here, and youare extremely hilarious throughout it.  You have a few errors, but nothing which distracts from the reading.  Other than a few minor problems I had in your piece, your despotic and self-centered sarcasm couple with a witty and young perspective on rather insignificant topics won me over hands down.  All in all, I laughed my ass off: I LOVE it!


Techical issues:
         1.  The largest follish consistency I found in this piece orbits in paramount around your "is" contractions.  Quite often you say "thats" when you should put that's or that is; the same goes for "its": it's or it is.  This happens quite a lot, but rather sporatically: sometimes you do it correct, and others you don't.  Dring yur next revision take few careul steps in finding these problems.

         2.  Another problems with a high frequency is centered almost solely in a main character's (in this case, one of the characters in which you can hear their thoughts) conversations with secondary characters.  You have the silly habit of putting the main characters thoughts in the same paragraph as a secondary characters dialoge.  For instance...

         "What about New Balance?  Have you got any f their Tennis shoes?" How is she keeping this straight?  It's taking almost all o my concentration!"

As ou can see here, you don't change paragraphs when you should.  This happens quite a lot and is another general thing tht you will need to pay attention to during your next revision.  Start and new paragraph after the Tennis-shoe-lady stops talking, and you will be ship-shape in laws of grammar.

         3.  "Cut to a slow moion scene." -- This is an imperative that needs to be setaside from the rest of the paragraph.  I think that it flow much better if you set it aside for flow reasons, but also to spice up your syntax (Syntax: the way in which you arrange your sentences) which seems to be based entirely on medium- to long-winded paragraphs which are made up of a thousand extremely short sentences.  By adding this sigle sentence paragraph, you make your writing styl a bi more interesting.  Try it out, see if it fits.

         4.  "End the slow-mo scene." -- Same idea here as before.  Set this aside from the rest of the paragraph and I think you will be pleased with the effect.

         5.  "[...]and I'm sorry Ed Norton[!,!] but I know plenty about myself[...]" -- Here you need a comma after Norton because it's a compound sentnce separated by a conjuction.  Also: I think the allusion would be better served if you said Edward Norton instead of Ed Norton.

         6.  "Some character to help your plain, freckly face.  You douchebg." -- Here, your flow comes to a bad end at the finale of your first paragraph.  Starting a new sentence for a two word invection just doesn't really do it for me.  What would easily fx this is if you changed douchebag to an end-all address:

         Some character to help your plain, freckly face, douchebag.

Try that on for size.  I think it works a lot better than it did before.

         7.  "[...]no one in the "real world" has any idea what a degree in currency actually means[!.!]  So[...]" -- Put a period after means.

         8.  "My brother dates Aqualite Splash." -- You forgt to indent before this paragraph.

         Overall: Not many errors at all considering the length to errors ratio I usually have to deal with.  Nice job.


Offhand Comments:
         1.  "Ed[ward] Norton" -- Love the Fight Club allusion.  One of my favorite movies of all time.

         2.  "Slutty Mcf***Slut" -- Sex Kitten Sim Date RPG?????  (God, I hope you know what I'm talking about... If not, disregard my statement.)


What I liked:
         1.  I'm just going to say all the little parts you your story that were great:
a. Tennis shoes v. tennis shoes: This brings up a good blunder in society today.  This was hilaious.
b. Giganto and the pool: What a great attack on the stupidity of those who have delved to deeply in the confines of the cell phone.  I don't have one, and hopefully won't any time soon (Target dosn't pay THAT well...).
c. Hunter's nicknames.
d. Neon sign of girl's asses: this was funny at firt, but once you moved on to the point when Hunter tells the "dude"-guy that his girlfriend called it was extremel reminiscent of Catch-22.  If you haven't read this book, it's hilarious and fits in pretty well with your facetious style.
e. the "dude"-guy: I know exactly how you feel about people who say things like this.  I had a co-worker who said "huuuuney chiiiil" every 1 seconds until I wsnt to pop her eyes out and put her on the set of laberynth.
f. Amber and Hunter's first meeting.

         2.  "At least we can quickly decide if you can get along with me." -- This constant use ofdirect address of the reader is quite humorous and excptionally engaging.  It cuses the reader to--whether coniously or sub-consiously--identify with the speaker: Amber or Hunter, nd in turn form a relationship from audience to character to writer.

         3.  The third bst thing you do revolves around the stratigic and comic use of euphemisms.  It's very, very funny when Hunter constanty replaces words he uses to make himself sound better.  This is ironic in many ways because he will say one thing and then replace it with another which--via delivery ad diction--indirectly alludes to the first word being more correct than the second.

         Overall: I loved your work.  Keep this and you could have avery nice teen-aimed book sitting on WDC.


What I didn't like:
         1.  One problem I have lies most prominantly in the begining of the story and in the syntax of your style.  You tend to have a lot of extremely short sentences piled into one rather lengthy paragraph.  This is fine and work well as the writing prgesses and as ou fully realize your style, but in the begining it kinda fails because it's too choppy.  Look back at the begining and try to make it flow a bit better.  That will help.

         2.  ... Uhhh. For the first time since the conception of m reviewing process I can't think of a scond thing I didn't like about your writing.  Damn.

         3.  But I thought of a third one! *Bigsmile* Nope... No I didn't... *Cry*

         Overall: You had very little wrong with your piece.  Great job, onc again.


Your rating(I always round down): 4.85


Final look:
         Amazing, and HILARIOUS story you've written.  I loved it.  Thanks for the great read!

With great pleasure,

~Tilli.
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Review by Tilli <-... Author IconMail Icon
Rated: ASR | (4.5)
         First Look:
                   When I first picked this up (I always print out writing I'm supposed to be reviewing), I braced myself for another depressing, Gothic tone, another boring sad-story.  And I was very wrong to do so.  You have taken the common need to be with someone, to love, and pulled it into the uncommon realm of good writing.

         (I know this was something you wrote a while ago, but I'm still going to point out everything I can to make it better if you decide to revise it.)

         Technical Errors:
                   There were no specific grammar, punctuation, spelling, or sentence structure issues.

         What I didn't like:

1.  The first "problem" lies within your sentence arrangement, or syntax. According to Dictionary.com...

         Syntax is the study of the patterns of formation of sentences and phrases from words.

The issue: You have a very "choppy" style with this piece.  You use simple sentences like they're going out of style.  I think the piece flows well already, but maybe a few compound, complex sentences would spice it up and further produce the writing via ethos. (Ethos: the disposition, character, or fundamental values peculiar to a specific person, people, culture, or movement. Or in my own terms: the appeal to a person's credibility.)  By adding more complicated sentences to your writing--not just here, but anywhere--your audience is going to take you more seriously if it seems that you have a good control of literature and diction.

2.  "The hole I speak of, is the absence of someone to share with, cry with, and love." -- This is another example which I'm going to be a stickler about. With the initiation or the list in this excerpt, you're setting yourself up for an anaphora. (Anaphora: Repetition of a word or words at the beginning of two or more successive verses, clauses, or sentences.  This is a very powerful rhetoric device which would be very well equipped here. Try to see if you can re-arrange the list (most notably, change "love" to some that fits with the previously commenced) to fit the anaphora; I think it will improve this piece to some extent.

3.  "The sound of people laughing as a result of my natural gift is a temporary desensitization of the pain and emptiness I feel inside." -- I know this is a little shallow, but I don't truly know what this "natural gift" is. It could be that you do an amazing imitation of Daniel Craig (The dude in the latest James Bond) or that you can stand of your hands while drinking a keg of Red Stripe beer. I would assume logically that you have the native ability to be generally hilarious, but how should I know? Please elaborate.

4.  "The fact is, I find negative emotions much easier to embrace than the positive ones I so desperately need." -- There is nothing specifically wrong with this sentence, but it just seems to be a lack of creative writing when you've got phrases like "The time line of my existence has never had the inclusion of someone who would be the keeper of my key to happiness."  This particular one seems too common and unoriginal.  Maybe a good revision would be...

         The fact is, negative emotions hold a insatiable perception of need within me, while optimism seems to slip through my mind's fingers like wet sand.

If you don't like this, I still think this sentence could do with some attention.

         Overall, no major mistakes, and nothing that was really appalling or unattractive to my literary mind.

         What I liked:

1.  My favorite phrase in the entire work was...

         "The sound of people laughing as a result of my natural gift is a temporary desensitization of the pain and emptiness I feel inside."

...because it is perfectly timed in the piece and is worded almost perfectly in regards to summing up the paragraph which holds it.  The use of the word "desensitization" is well-employed and makes a lot of sense.  Another big reason I liked it is because it's something that I can relate to.  I went through a depressing period of my life--surfacing just recently--and these specific idioms catch my eye quite coercively.

2.  Your tone and style stay constant and direct throughout the entirety of the monologue.  You'd be surprised--and maybe not so surprised--at how many people fluctuate on such points consistently throughout their opuses.  you show the audience that you have a well-devised idea--a concrete idea--of what you're writing about: something many of us have a problem with.

3.  You have some extremely powerful phrases in this work. They are speckled thought the piece and you don't waste any chance to get a good one in there.  Here are my favorites:

         a.  "The time line of my existence has never had the inclusion of someone who would be the keeper of my key to happiness."

         b.  "I have had few chances at reaching a level of contentment, only to spiral further down into the recesses of misery."

         c.  "Fear of rejection all too often overpowers my will to pursue happiness. My walls are very high, and not easily scaled. I need help breaking them down, and to be loved for who I am."

         d.  "I hope someday I can taste the sweet fruit of togetherness instead of biting the bitter pill of loneliness."

         All in all, You have a very well-developed piece here which stands very well by itself, even if you wrote it ten years ago. my only qualms are with you slipping into a common wording of things, like: "I need to break the chains of complacency, and strive to find that special someone that would occupy the void my heart contains." Or: "If only the pain could be replaced by the sheer warmth that only love can provide."  I've seem phrasing like this all over the literary world, and they get boring after a time.

         This is a very good piece, and will earn a seat in my hall of fame. For now.

         Overall Rating (I always round down): 4.7

Thanks for the amazing read. It made my day.

~Tilli.

(PS: This review is free of charge considering I have not put a specific cost for monologues. Please spread word of my forum if you liked this review.)
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Review of Memories  Open in new Window.
Review by Tilli <-... Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (3.0)
Good job with this one. I like the overall scheme of the rhymes, the rhythm held for the most part, and the pooem had a general tangible effect.

Overall score (I always round down): 3.2

{color:red}What I liked about it:

1. "But since this summer I’ve been blown away
By how far from reality this thought’s gone astray"
         This, in my opinion, is your strongest rhyme and phrasing in the poem. It captures exactly what the author (you) want to perceive by effectively fitting this particular stanza perfectly.

2. You used a word I didn't know: "foment" and that's always a "+" in my book!

3. "But now it’s out with the old and in with the new
Because all my best memories are of being with you"
         This is also a very strong two-line rhyme. They fit very well together and effectively convey feeling, thought, reason, and--most importantly--emotion. If you ask me, you could have ended the poem right here and it would have been just fine.

{color:green}What I didn't Like about it:
1. "They’ve always been a part of my life
They’ve always been there for me in strife
I guess they seem to define me
I guess they’ll always be by me"
         This entire stanza doesn't fit well. It can be read effectively, but you need to consider that most audiences aren't going to apprehend that tone and that rhythm (it took me a few times over to get the speed, accents, and tone going correctly in my mind). A reason for this could be because of the anaphora's used here (i.e. "they've always been..." And: "I guess they['ll]..."); they simply don't add to the poem. A good way to fix this would be to take the first stanza out. Why? Because the first stanza is inductive writing in which the "crescendo" or the "finale" of within the writing or poem comes at the end or middle of the piece. (i.e. You keep your point vague and unclear.) This is effective in other places, but it is not here because the "finale" is a bad one.

2. (the bad finale)"Yes they’ve always been a part of my life
And yes I’ll still need them during strife
But now it’s out with the old and in with the new
Because all my best memories are of being with you"
         Here is where you come out and say it: the girl left you. But you don;t say it very well because of your use of repetition, which is not a very good rhetoric device in poetry because if the first time is bad, the second time is worse, and the third time makes you click the little red box at the top-right of your window labeled: "X". I like the last part of the stanza, but the repetition seems exceedingly ineffective here.

4. " I’ll be thinking of you
And our memories too
Which will no doubt
Turn my day about"
         This is probably the biggest let down in the poem: the end doesn't work. The best part of poetry--in my opinion--is usually the end. If that fails, then the poem fails. The reason this is bad lies in the third line: it has one less syllable then the other three. It sounds weird. Fix it, please.

         All in all, I think this is a good poem, I think it's got all the credentials to be accepted, understood, and acknowledged, but there are a few kinks you need to work out.

         Thanks for the read; gimme a shout if you want anything else reviewed: just EMail it to me.

~Tilli.
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Review by Tilli <-... Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (4.5)
         I loved this one!

         Here's the one phrasing error I found:

"The walk I take will serve my health
in body and in mind
with riches counted beyond wealth,
that help me to unwind."


         The 2nd A line--although it has the right number of syllables--has a rhythm problem because of the stressed and unstressed syllabic control that you've employed throughout the rest of the piece. The problem lies in a single-syllable word, double, double, double, single which--as you probably know--adds up to 8 syllables but, they are awkwardly spaced unlike the other A lines which are double, double, double double.

         Once that is fixed I feel this is perfect! I love the idea, your difference in diction throughout the poem is exceptional.

         Thanks for the wonderful read, It made me grim for a good long while.

~Tilli.

PS: Got anything else you want me to look at? Just EMail it to me.
5
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Review by Tilli <-... Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (3.5)
         Nice piece. I like the idea, but not so much where you took it; even so, the final destination was fine, just not what I was hoping *Bigsmile*.

         A few things you've done well is your diction: not over-reaching by any stretch, but not too limited that your ethical appeal is completely destroyed. Phrases like "pre-conceived false notions" "Being diverse, embracing our differences, and adapting to change is what makes America so great." These are quite effective parts of your essay.

         Here are a few technical errors that you can fix:

1. "particular beliefs, ethnic background or sexual orientation." -- Comma after "background".

2. "a diverse group of people all here for one thing . . .to get an education." -- Your ellipse (... <-- thats an ellipse), in my opinion, shouldn't be spaced. It looks yucky.

         That's all I could find for now.

         A few problems I found were, for one, the ineffectiveness of the opening: "Words can bring us happiness and they can bring us sorrow. They can unite nations and end wars. They can divide nations and begin wars. They can join two people in marriage or they can just as easily end a marriage. Words can raise a person to great heights and words can wound a person, or a group of people, to their very souls." This entire passage is stretched out a little too long, and the opposing ideas from long, drawn-out, slow paced--not necessarily purposefully--sentences are awkward and bulky as you read them.

         I like your ending--a "call to action" if you will--it's much more effective than the begining.

Thanks for the read,

~Tilli.

PS: Got anything else you want me to review? Just EMail it to me.
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Review of Misery  Open in new Window.
Review by Tilli <-... Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (3.0)
I like this very much. You had a fairly good rhyme scheme, but a few issues presented themselves:

1. "Hating the pain and the hurt, wishing I had some comfort." - Hurt (hûrt) and comfort (kŭm'fərt) do not rhyme. As you can see, hurt has a soft u sound, while comfort has a soft e sound.

2. "Hating the little box I live in, wishing I could just give in." - Here your initial phrase has more syllables that the one parallel to it the the previous line causing a jumble of words. Also, you--hopefully by accident--try to rhyme the same word.

3. "Wanting to feel free, but being trapped in this body." - The second phrase here doesn't make sense in conjunction with the first. The first you have a pentameter (a phrase in poetry consisting of 5 syllables for a quintuplet feel [da-de-da-da-dah) and the second is a strange 7-syllabled nothing-thing which throws the nice line and rhyme into a little furnace labeled "Bad poetic meter."

4. "With nothing else to do but to tell you" - this line is rather useless and doesn't effectively build-up the end, which it could do, yet isn't.

Overall, I like the ending because it's powerful, emotional, and has a near perfect "groove" which, to be perfectly honest, is lacking in other places throughout.

Keep on writing newbie!

~Tilli.
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Review of Clockwork  Open in new Window.
Review by Tilli <-... Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (3.0)
No Errors.

Flow Issues:

1. "But don't you wish you could flip the glass,
And look once more into your past?" - Here is the first time that your rhythm fails slightly because of you have more words, and therefore more spaces, in that sentence with disrupts the rhythm unless read about three times, and Past and Glass are "soft-rhymes" which don't work in this poem because you don't use them anywhere else.

2. "To hang out with old friends,
make wrong decisions right,
Or prevent what got you into that fight." - Ask yourself: does the first line of this stanza add to the poem as a whole? Or did you just get tired of the same old rhythm? Either way, it causes the "poetic river" to hit a boulder at full speed: I'd change it by removing it or by making it into a new stanza.

All things said: This is an adequate piece of writing, it has a pretty good idea and is mildly powerful, but this work will need quite a few revision, and maybe a few nights before its a good-amazing quality. (But it does posses the potential for it.)

Give me an EMail when you revise this and I'll take another look.

~Tilli.
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Review of Standing Tall  Open in new Window.
Review by Tilli <-... Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
Errors:

1. "That night my asked my dad about why people were always trying to provoke me and he told me that it was about dethroning the alpha-male, separating him from his “power.”" - my should be I.

Bad Flow:

1. "My earliest memory I have that involves me being raped by my height was when I was at McDonald’s at the age of three." - This doesn't flow particularly well, especially the diction "raped" which would really only be effective in a colony of WOW addicts or Myspace leeches.

LOLz0r moments:

1. "I’ve considering smashing my shins to smithereens to knock off just a few inches: maybe three, four." - So delicately insane, I love it!

2. "My mom looked up at me, looked around, then looked up at the woman who was rocking her sniveling child in her arms and said: “No.”" - Evil Mom *Dum-ta-da-dum!* to the rescue, loved this blatant yet hilarious image of disownment.

3. "That I was out of control and that I’d picked him up over my head and tossed him clear across the room, hitting him against the wall and drawing buckets of blood." - Good Visual.

No more funny parts, its distracting me from reading!

I loved the humor in this piece, something i have come to realize you do with the utmost in sarcasm and satire. I, being tall as well, can relate to all the great things it brings, but I was a "late bloomer" and wasn't "at the top of the lists" until 10th grade. Also, as atonement to the Halloween anecdote: I am a Junior and i still go trick-or-treating with my friends, but mostly just do screw with little kids. :D

Feed me more of this via Email! I Loved it!

~Tilli.
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Review of The Merciful  Open in new Window.
Review by Tilli <-... Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (2.5)
You have something here, but it is underdeveloped. The first put-off is the large, blue text which bestows a childish and frivolous appeal to sight, and then there is the seemingly random stanza syntax in which your correlations in the stanza before are completely different than the next which attests to an enharmonic jumble of lines. All said and done it's got the meat of a great poem, but you need to stay consistent throughout the piece, or if you don't want to be then you're going to need to devise a way of allowing this to flow.

Also, the end is feeble and doesn't strike the punch that it needs, considering this is a Christianic poem, it will be more powerful and more renown if its ending hits with a revelation, not just something that you have touched upon through the poem so far: It will need to be something more.

Give me a shout when this is revised!

~Tilli.
10
10
Review by Tilli <-... Author IconMail Icon
Rated: ASR | (4.5)
Errors:

For the first time in 8 days: none.

Things that don't flow well:

1. "{/i)"They shall all drown in rivers of blood, and I will decorate this barren room with the skins of their {color:red}agonized screaming faces!"" - this is an example of two words that are interchangeable and therefore, one of them is completely unnecessary because it distracts from the actual image.

2. "...a portrait of surreal nightmare." - this is good, but needs a little work to flow better, see what you can make of it.

3. "in the terrible way that only a Necromancer can!" - the exclamation makes it seem childish, and without it will seem more powerful.

Exceptional Phrases:

1. "vanished like tears in the rain" - perfect.

This was a very accomplished piece of work, you used all the right adjective of a Gothic necromancer, and the sci-fi words of a classic science fiction and combined them well. I wish that you could make a parallel story pertaining to the Titans.

All-in-all, very good job with this one, keep writing!

Give me an update if you change this around, and definitely feed me more of this! If you do, then I will add you to Preferred Authors.

~Tilli.
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