Hello! I am one of the judges for the November 2017 round of "Quotation Inspiration: Official Contest" ! After reading the entries, I like to offer some feedback, but please note that I am only one judge and that this is not a comparison of your work to other entries. This is for your benefit and is not an explanation of how you stacked up against the competition.

What Caught My Eye

Well, given the quote that inspired the story, the Comedy/Relationship genres seemed like a good idea to me!

Favorite Aspects

The ending was pretty cute.

Beginning & Ending
I think that the beginning and ending are super important for a story because they determine whether someone will keep reading and whether they will be satisfied with what they read. I like to focus a bit of my reviews on these two areas.

The beginning didn't necessarily act as a "hook" in this case. I was pretty confused as to who the characters were and what they were talking about. I had to read this bit many times to figure out what was going on:

"You just said, keep in mind in front of David,'Of course I talk like an idiot, how else would you understand me ?' " "Look, David laughed, so what?"

Mostly, this was because of the punctuation. I went back and forth several times on whether this was all one person speaking or two. Here:



That would clarify. The second problem was the phrasing, which was a bit unclear to me. After several reads, I finally think I have it nailed down:

"You just said, in front of David, 'Of course I talk..."
"David laughed, so what's the big deal?"

Is that right? If so, I imagine that David laughing was part of the issue... it was implied in the prior line.

I also honestly kept thinking it was supposed to say "Of course she talks like an idiot. How else would she understand you." Something insulting? I didn't really connect why calling him an idiot would lead to "Now I look like an idiot!" from one of the girls. I think I get it now. They weren't talking TO David... but to each other in his presence. Again, this could all have been made a little clearer through the phrasing and perhaps a bit more lead-in.

The confusion continues too. The mention of the test and bad grade didn't seem to connect to the first part. At this point, I would probably have stopped reading. It was just took too much effort to figure out what was going on.

Language

This is actually a bit dialogue heavy. It might have helped to have a bit of description someplace in here. Was this at school? On the walk home? In the cafeteria? Some description of the girls might have helped to differentiate between the two as well. Or some more distinctive voices for the two. As it is, I kept losing track of who was speaking when, and context only helped so much.

On a side note: Mam' = Ma'am?

Setting & Plot

There is no setting, as mentioned. The plot is a brief slice of life between two friends... a little argument. With such a short word count, it's difficult to create a fully developed plot. That said, I think this could have been quite full with a bit more clarification and some description.

Effect

Well... I can't say that I enjoyed reading the piece, given the number of times I had to reread and go back to figure out who was talking. I think you probably had a really detailed scene in your mind and a fair bit of backstory that didn't make it onto the page. Adding a bit more to it would help. This is clearly a first draft (which is reflected in my rating), but it could be a really nice YA piece with a bit of polish. Thanks so much for the entry!





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