Alright, here we go! Rather than use a big template, I'm just going to make suggestions where I see fit.

"Everlasting nights brought to me by a never ending nightmare." - I'm not sure that this serves as a good hook. Why? Everlasting and never-ending (which should be hyphenated I believe... compound adjective) are synonyms. "To me" is also somewhat unneeded because it is implied that the nightmares belong to the narrator.

Without the filler, that leaves you with "Everlasting nights brought by a nightmare". First, this is an incomplete sentence. Fragments are fine if use sparingly, but you know... for an opening line? "Nightmares brought everlasting nights" would be much stronger. And even more so if you put a poetic, creative, unique hook in there. Say... "Nightmares stitched everlasting nights onto each quilt square". Now, this is just an example, and I am NOT suggesting that you use it. However: "stitched" is a more interesting verb than "brought" and it adds some unique figurative language-- something the reader wont forget right away and will keep them reading.

I might as well do the rest of the opening here.

"Dreams cause fear while reality brings forever pain and suffering. Implosion of my own mind."

Again, 'cause' is not a very poetic type of verb choice... and you use 'brings' as well (and you just used 'brought'). It's not memorable. And here is yet another synonym for the 'everlasting' and 'never-ending' in the sentence before... 'forever pain and suffering'? Awkward in general but also super repetitious. Remove "forever" all together... for sure. I recommend replacing the verbs with contrasting but more interesting options.

"Dreams sew fear while reality rips the seams." I'd cut the 'pain and suffering' too actually, since as a phrase, it is cliche. This is, again, just an example. A metaphor that you set up in the first sentence and continue... that is helpful. The contrast of "sew" and "rips the seams" is perfectly clear, but 'sewing fear' and 'ripping' are both negative things. Create the feeling, not the statement. Hmm?

"Implosion of my own mind" - Why would your dreams implode someone else's mind? This is another fragment too. If you make the first part a complete sentence, I don't hate the idea of a fragment here... but 'fragment sentence fragment' is not ideal.

Okay. So... I read the entire piece... and I think that you have good ideas in here. With revision, it could be a really cool piece. Right now, it's a bit... repetitive and expected. There were no surprises... no breathtaking turns of phrase... nothing really super memorable. I think this is a perfectly adequate first draft that gives you something to work with, and I also think you could revise this is a day and improve it considerably. It's a matter of focus. Word choice is one of the most important factors in prose poetry... start there. Question why every single word is in this piece. For example:

Why is it "I try to escape"? Could you shorten that? Sure. "I attempt escape". Could restructuring the sentence help me reduce some of the weaker phrasing (e.g. 'that I am', 'on to have a', repetition of 'I am')? Yes. Would it be better to break the idea down into simpler parts and try to make the meaning clearer while also tweaking the phrases and such? Probably.

Always come back to the word choice. You do have some decent word choice in here, but the verbs in particular are not great. Overuse of 'bring' and 'is' and 'am'. Watch for overuse of other words as well (such as the 5 uses of "fear", 4 uses of "this", etc). This is only 200 words long... every single word counts. And any repetition of longer words (like, say, "nightmare") should be thoughtfully placed. All things to take into consideration. So yeah... good ideas in here. It reads as a rough draft though, so you have some work to do! I'll wait until you respond to this one to begin another. Not everyone appreciates this type of feedback. Good luck, my dear!




My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .