Dear Amanda, my name is Vicky and this is your Showering Acts of Joy member to member review in honor of your birthday. I have chosen to comment on Starlight Murder

This was an interesting read. You wasted no words. Human nature makes ghouls of all of us. Don’t we always slow down when we pass an accident scene to get a better look. You have successfully delivered an accident scene right into my home. I liked the way to integrated the lyrics into the story. Your contrast between leaving work, with the music and the ideas of celebration and the accident, switching the music softer was excellent. It balanced the story out perfectly.

While your story was excellent some parts were not easy to read and seemed to stumble an example being:

The odd thing was that her torso was on it's stomach and yet her head faced the sky.

I would have said:

It was odd that while she lay on her stomach, she stared up at the sky.

Your description of the accident is well done and the reader I can feel what an effect this tragedy has had on you, even though you did not know the victim.

When describing something, especially something so traumatic be very careful of overdoing it. This happens because as a writer you desperately want the reader to see and experience what you had to that day and example being:

Her head was twisted around completely backwards.

I would rather suggest:

Her head had been twisted around backwards. The word completely is not necessary, it becomes “overkill”.

Be careful not to skip between past and present tense. In the first paragraph you were taking in the past tense and then in the next paragraph you changed the tense. Here is an example:

I drive through a rough part of town with a lot of homeless people and several bars.

I would have used drove instead of drive.

Also remember that writing is 40% actually writing and 60% editing and editing and editing again. Read your story out loud this helps to make sure that it flows well and helps to weed out pesky grammatical mistakes.

Please remember that this is only my opinion and in the end you as author have the final say over what you want your story to say.

I enjoyed this story very much. It was very honest and it painted a very vivid picture. Your message at the end of the story was very true and quite inspirational.

Thank you very much for posting this story. I will definitely be taking a look at more of your work.

May you have a blessed birthday and keep writing.

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