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Printed from https://shop.writing.com/main/profile/reviews/yuen
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20 Public Reviews Given
35 Total Reviews Given
Public Reviews
1
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Review of Pearl, Maybe  Open in new Window.
Review by First Light Author IconMail Icon
In affiliation with Let's Publish!  Open in new Window.
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
Ohohoho. What a unique protagonist. Love love love love it. Apathy isn't usually something that creates great stories, but here it works really well! I love how you set up his characterization in the very first paragraph by having him deliberately not putting up his umbrella. It makes his later actions more believable, since our first impression of him is someone who doesn't really care that much. And you elaborate on that first impression beautifully with the rest of the piece. I love the image of him just swiping the tulips from some random window box, and the fact that he just half-heartedly mumbles the proposal, and the futile attempt to fix his hair. You make him so pathetic that he becomes almost adorable in a really strange way. Even his diction oozes pathetic-ness, as can be seen in the phrase "marriage... sounded awfully permanent", which makes him seem almost like an overgrown child who's just lost his way. And the whole bit about trying to remember Lilac's name is, quite simply, a stroke of genius. The pastel colors, Mist, Lavender and so on, even echo the apathetic feel of the entire story and the main character - faded, soft, vague, fuzzy. The title, "Pearl, Maybe", is probably the best short story title I've ever seen. It sets up the character's voice, the tone of the story, it establishes the theme, and it enhances the humor of Jeremy's searching for the girl's name, because you think back to the title and go "AHAH so that was what it meant" and you feel smug and self-satisfied for some reason. It's just really clever in a way, that echoing of the title. I loved how you chose "Pearl" to be the title, because it's more ambiguous than "Misty" or "Lilac" or "Lavender", and could have more potential interpretations, and so when we see it in context, it's somehow more satisfying to be able to get rid of all those alternate hypotheses. A sort of mild Eureka moment. I'm not making sense, probably, but suffice to say that the entire story was great. A bumbling protagonist bumbling through a bumbling story into a bumbling ending. The atmosphere you create with this piece is just so unique and comfortable. In fact, if stories were linen, this would be a warm, fluffy, perhaps a little threadbare comforter.

This story is so perfect, actually, I don't think I have suggestions or negative feedback for you. It's a delightful little story, and I'm sure that there will be many literary journals out there who will snap this up. The only "flaw", and it really isn't one, is the length, I guess? Below 800, which limits your choice to magazines publishing flash fiction. But if I recall correctly, Glimmer Train doesn't have a minimum word limit. It's still October (barely), so maybe you could try submitting this there?

Sorry for the lack of constructive criticism though. It's just that good.
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Review of Alison's Find  Open in new Window.
Review by First Light Author IconMail Icon
In affiliation with Let's Publish!  Open in new Window.
Rated: ASR | (4.0)
[Things I Liked]

I like your prose a lot. It's very clean and imagistic at the same time - I could see this story as an animated short in the style of maybe the darker Disney films. I also loved the juxtaposition of the little girl and the captain having almost exactly the same reaction at the end of the story - that was a really neat touch.

Still, my absolute favorite part of this short story is the science fiction aspect; more specifically, the idea of detecting "intelligence" through the ability to organize and categorize symbols. It felt very realistic, almost something like earth scientists might do, and gave the entire story an air of authenticity. I liked the way you integrated words like "Y27 galaxy" and "Azorni" within a context that makes their meaning obvious, and yet hinted at a broader cultural and historical background.

The way you established the crew as non-human was great as all; simple descriptions that fulfill a dual purpose, like this sentence you have here:

"Feathered ridges on both sides of his head pulsed and rippled, signaling his extreme excitement and agitation."

This sentence doesn't just let us know that the individual is not human, the description of the ridges also gives us his emotional state. In contrast, the description of the Captain's arm as "feathered" doesn't seem to have this dual-purpose quality; it seems to serve merely as a indicator of his alien status. This is perfectly fine, I think, but you might want to consider describing the feathered arms in a way that adds to the story in another way rather than just letting the reader know that they're non-human.

[Things To Work On]

Your story is tight and well-revised. You give us the bare bones of what we need to understand the plot, and that makes for a very readable narrative. However, maybe the story is just a little too tight. I couldn't escape the feeling that Tim was a walking deus ex machina at the end. He is barely mentioned in the first part of the story, and suddenly appears at the climax of the story to save, however unwittingly, the world from destruction. It feels almost like the previous events don't build up enough to the climax and ending that you have here. It was a nice surprise, because you expect there to be a war scene where the feathered crew invades Allison's planet, and it ends up not happening, but the way you write out that part of the plot makes it feel a bit random.

You can make the climax and Tim's destruction of the box feel inevitable by giving him a bigger role in the beginning. Show him being destructive, clumsy, insensitive. Maybe show him bullying Allison a little bit. Or anything, really, as long as the reader goes "ahhhhh, that makes sense" when he shows up in the climax and kills the AS probe. Right now, my reaction to that scene is more like "Huh? That... that sorta came out of nowhere..."

But really, you have a really promising story here, it's just that you need to make the climax simultaneously surprising and inevitable. And then it'll be perfect. *Heart*
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Review by First Light Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (3.5)
When I saw you mention Occam's Razor, I winced automatically because so often people misuse and abuse it, but you actually had the right definition. But then you immediately defaulted to the "wrong" definition. The "theory that is based on the fewest assumptions" does not mean the "simplest theory". After all, what's simple is subjective after all, and just because an explanation is simple doesn't mean it's correct, like the theory that mass is constant is a simpler explanation than the theory that mass varies according to the equation E = mc^2. I don't know if you understood that or not, or if you were just using the "wrong" definition that many people believe in the context of your story. In fact, I don't think invoking Occam's Razor is even necessary in this situation. It feels like a gratuitous term and you have to do more infodumping, which you already have a ton of. You could just have the wife react emotionally to the husband without having to go through all the reasoning.

Also, I wondered why the husband's hand wasn't injured at all the first time when the girl's hand should have been crushed (since the speaker was crushed, and the side that fell on her hand should have been falling even heavier, right?). In contrast, he physically died that last time she was run over by the truck. There's an inconsistency here. Revise it so that his hand gets broken the first time through.

Also, remember the old maxim "show, don't tell". You do a lot of telling in this story, and while some of it is inevitable, there are parts where you should "show" instead.

The last moment was a little melodramatic. I wonder if it would be better without that last sentence. He dies a little too abruptly for the ending to be graceful instead of melodramatic. Try playing around a little with the ending and get others to betaread it and ask how they react to the ending.

Also, try to cut out all the little details that are unnecessary to the story. As of now, the writing feels a little too loose and sprawling. Concision and precision is what you should be aiming for.

Otherwise, good job.
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Review of Sonny Morningstar  Open in new Window.
Review by First Light Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (3.5)
This piece was good, mildly entertaining, and I loved your concept of the devil as someone who moves through words instead of magic and stuff. I know you were probably restrained by the world limit, and that the work is probably more about showcasing the evilness of the character instead of providing a more plot-based or character-driven narrative, but one thing that got me was that it was never really made clear how exactly the guy - forgot his name, which might be a sign you needed to make his characterization more memorable (though I appreciate the challenges of doing it within such a short limit), or that his character is not really important and serves more as a function to bring out Sonny's characterization - it was never revealed what exactly and how exactly he knew Sonny was the devil. It IS "quite a leap". And it's never explained how exactly that leap was made. The way it's written distracts the reader from the fact, the way the characters just accept it and move on makes the reader accept it and move on, but there was this nagging feeling all the way through. The characterization and the concept is nice and interesting, and I really would love to see this idea fleshed out some more. You have some great potential there; consider reworking this into a longer work.
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