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Review Requests: OFF
272 Public Reviews Given
437 Total Reviews Given
Review Style
My reviews are thorough, honest, and balanced. I read each story/poem multiple times: once for pleasure and judging emotional impact, and at least once more to focus on the technical aspects. I like when writers have at least one specific question about their work when submitting it for review. It helps the reviewer understand the writer's intentions and thus provide more useful feedback.
I'm good at...
English grammar and spelling, suggesting improvements in word choice and sentence/paragraph construction, spotting plot issues and underdeveloped characters, offering specific suggestions for improvement, pointing out my favorite passages/characters/etc.
Favorite Genres
Literary fiction, fantasy, young adult, poetry
Least Favorite Genres
Very technical science fiction, romance, erotica, persuasive essays with poorly supported viewpoints
Favorite Item Types
I generally only review static items. Books and book entries are negotiable.
Least Favorite Item Types
Anything that isn't a static item or book.
I will not review...
1) Persuasive essays with poorly supported viewpoints. 2)Extremely rough drafts, unless the requester gives me a heads-up on what to focus on as I read.
Public Reviews
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76
76
Review of THE LEGACY  
Rated: 18+ | (4.5)
Fantastic! This is a very well-balanced story, especially for being so short. Nice and suspenseful as well. And yes, I bet almost every writer dreams of their stories having this much influence and publicity, hee hee.

Some humble suggestions:

"...land that’s just getting further away" - I've always learned to use "farther" when dealing with physical distance and "further" for qualitative distance (eg, "further education")

"“This is how it happened”. He held up my manuscript, “exactly!..." - That period should be before the quotation mark, and exactly should be capitalized.

"...notoriety and innuendo turns middle-class..." Should that be "turn"? Since you're referring to two things?

"...how to think, except on the screen..." Could that be "...how to think away from a computer screen"?

Keep writing *Bigsmile*

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77
77
Review of Nature Never Told  
Rated: E | (5.0)
This is a gorgeous poem. It's sad, and joyous, and infinitely comforting. It's like a more hope-filled counterpart to "Dora" by Thomas Edward Brown.

My favorite lines:

"I'd hoped to read you fairy tales. I'd planned to teach you rhyme;
But now your tales are fairer and your verse eclipses mine;"

I really don't know a thing about poetry, but I do appreciate the circular nature of the poem, the Spring in the last line tying back to the Spring in the first line. And the meter and rhyme are incredibly fluid and natural, not forced in the slightest.

You did a flawless job of reining in some unimaginably tough emotions and crafting them into something wonderful.

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78
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Review of Rockabee  
Rated: E | (5.0)
Title: "Rockabee" 

Author: Basilides

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"I am not cruel, only truthful." -SP
         In other words, I'm assuming you appreciate honesty. If you don't, delete this review before it's too late!!!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I'm totally speechless.

...

Ok, I'm better. What a brilliant story!!!!!!!!!!!! A remarkably crafted parable. It made me cry, and I didn't even cry when Bambi's mom and Old Yeller died. Probably wouldn't even cry if they died at the same time.

I could probably write an essay on all the things I loved about this story, but I'll just pick out some of the highlights. I enjoyed the way you set up the story, the main bulk surrounded by multiple frames, and the dash of humor. The narrator is subtly hilarious (I guess "clever" is the word for that.) The story reads completely seamlessly- I never had to stop and go back to figure out what the heck I was reading.

And I love the inventive language you use. I always get yelled at by reviewers when I try to make up words, like "breakrock" speed, hee hee.

To be perfectly honest, I usually find stories with a religious twinge to be pretentious, but this one is an outstanding exception. It's definitely a story that people will continue to think about long after they read it. (In fact, I'm thinking about it with respect to my views on evolution as I type this, hee hee.) It's going on my favorites list (incidentally, I've only put one other thing on it in the five years I've been on WDC.)



Some humble suggestions:

"... make your way to the sound of water bubbling over stones." TOWARD the sound, instead of TO?

"...will be plain for you to see." Maybe "...will be in plain sight" instead?

"But of course you will not just blindly stick your hand into a hole in a tree just because an old man.." Maybe remove the first "just"?

"I knew, for example, that long eons before there had been watery seas and real rivers and green forests." Long eons AGO instead of BEFORE? Otherwise it sounds like you're about to tell us what happened before there had been watery sea beds, etc. Or maybe just a comma after "before" would do the trick. (There's a similar situation a few lines down, "A long, long time before a king...")

"...where the rock ended, towering, over the sea of sand." Does that second comma need to be there?

"Vee’s really wasn’t interested in helping Vee,..." Missing a word in there.

"In Vee she thought she had found just the right person to spy things out." Do you intentionally use the word "person" there?

"She lost all her graphite squiggles, and as time past..." Should that be "passed"?

"...she was absorbed in brightening everyone else’s century." That made me laugh, hee hee.

"Vee’s own voice was drowned out, with her offerings of forgiveness." She's drowning her own voice with her offerings of forgiveness? Not sure I understand that sentence. (Of course, I could just not be thinking at the moment, haha.)

"...turning away from that holey place..." The revelation of the reader there, that second time they encounter "holey," is an absolutely priceless feeling.


Thanks for sharing this.


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79
79
Review of R.I.P.  
Rated: E | (3.0)
I love the quietness of this poem. It's peaceful in a disturbing, heartwrenching way.

Note that "its" is possessive, and "it's" means "it is." And also that "your" is possessive and "you're" means "you are." There are several misuses of those words in your poem- easy enough to fix :)

You repeat "rest" and "here" in the first three lines, which is fine, except that it seems like you're trying to rhyme "here" with itself at the ends of the second and third lines. (You also repeat "here" an awful lot through the rest of the poem- consider reworking it so you don't have to do that?)

I really like poems with scattered rhyme, like this one has. I like how the rhymes catch me by surprise. Good job on that.

Keep writing :)

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