Hello. I was searching for compositions to read & review, and your title interested me. So, I decided to read and review it.

I am a former newspaper journalist and studied Journalism & English Composition in college. I hope my review will be of some value to you and will help you improve your writing.

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For a lot of many "many" sounds better and it reduces three words into one people, writing is a hobby. Sometimes it's their passion. For me, it's an obligation. Of course, I'm very passionate about writing; the ability to create characters and give them life it is very precious to me, but more than anything, I must repay a debt. This might seem somewhat odd, you might think <<very awkward/ Perhaps: That begs the question, "How can a form of artistic expression be a personal debt?". To explain, I'll have to go back to my childhood and start before I had any kind of interest in writing. also very awkward Perhaps: The answer can be found in my childhood.

Your last sentence above has 21 words in it, and it is very awkward, almost a tongue twister. My suggestion is only 8 words and is much easier to read, yet, it says the same thing your 21 word sentence does.

When I was growing up, my biggest interest and my dream for the longest a long time was comedy. I don't mean to sound vague, but I loved every form of comedy. I watched cartoons, movies, stand up, read funny bookscomma and I tried my best to be the class clown. Of course, in my early years, I had no idea how crucial writing was to comedy; delete semicolon. Use period. all All I knew was that I wanted to be funny. If I'm being completely honest, IF you are being honest? Why give your reader a reason to be unsure of your honesty? Just delete that entire underlined part it's not something I've completely given up on, but that's a story for another day.

Many writers, including myself, have/had the bad habit of using "that" much too often. "that" is almost always an unnecessary word and can be deleted without any negative result. Most sentences sound better without "that". Once you break the habit of writing/speaking "that" unnecessarily, you will find your compositions are less wordy and sound better.

The obvious train of thought would be that my interest in comedy is what led me to writing write, but strangely enough, that was not the case. Comedy was something I mostly enjoyed when I was in a good mood. I grew up in extreme poverty comma and I lived in the middle of nowhere in a very old, single-wide trailer that was absolutely falling apart. The carpet had long since rotted away, there were holes in the floor, mold coveringcovered << you are changing tense: covering is present tense, but you are writing about the past the walls, and no source of heating and cooling other than a very old wood-burning stove in the middle of the living room. My parents, older sister and I all shared the only bed room bedroom.

Be sure you do not change tense, especially in the same sentence.

Around the time I started Kindergarten, my family was forced to move into section 8 housing in town because the trailer was so disgusting that it started to caused problems for my sister and me. It was We moved into a nice, clean, typical brick house. Nothing special, but a mansion for a kid used to living in a shack in the middle of nowhere. Not long after, my parents decided to get a divorcecomma and my dad moved out. It was around this time that I started getting into fantasy. << That underlined part is quite ambiguous. "I started getting into fantasy"?? Perhaps: I began writing fantasy stories.

Very early on, I would lose myself in TV shows like the Power Rangers. For a short time, I could escape the reality of my situation and find myself fighting giant monsters and the like in this world. Once I learned to read, fantasy books and video games became my next outlet for my imagination. Pokémon, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Artemis Fowl and Final Fantasy were all worlds where I could escape when things would get dark. Titles are underlined, not in italics or quotes.

It took me awhile to consciously realize how different comedy and fantasy were. All I knew was that I enjoyed both, but I never realized that they both served two different purposes. While both were extensions of happiness, comedy is an outlet for pain and frustration and a way to make light our of darkness, but fantasy is an escape from the real world that we all desperately need so we can let go of all the stress and horror of our everyday life lives. Earlier in that sentence you write "we". That is plural. So, "life" must also be plural.

It was around the time that I read Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince titles are underlined that I started to recognize the distinction. I found myself being drawn into the story more and more. The characters had become became like family and I had to know more and more<< repetitive. You already wrote "more and more". about their world, their history, their pasts and their future. I started creating my own details to go along with the story, my own characters, my own history and started theorizing the future the story was going to take. I also started applying this technique to most stories I encountered.

Thanks to this new hobby, I found myself enjoying incomplete and "shallow" stories that a lot of critics panned. It just became natural to add onto what? This sentence is awkward. I suggest an edit stories that I no longer even thought about it. I filled out these stories in my mindcomma and they were complete to me. To this day, I find myself returning to stories I read years ago and being surprised that so many events that I remembered in vivid detail never actually happened << where is the period?

Throughout all of this, something suddenly clicked. I realized the escapism that fantasy offered me and I realized the empowerment and escape that it offered other people. I realized repetitive. Perhaps: understood how important that was to the world. Suddenly, comedy no longer seemed like the obvious way to make someone happy. Sure, having a laugh is nice, but it doesn't quite sit with you the way a new adventure sits with you. How did the reader get into this? AND are you TELLING people the way they should feel? Perhaps you should tell your reader how YOU feel, not them. Sure, having a laugh is nice, but it doesn't quite sit with me the way a new advernture does. Stories are gifts directly from a writer. They're intended to try to improve our lives by allowing us to live out the adventures we need, meet new friends, feel powerful and forget about the darker parts of everyday life.


I've received and used so many of these gifts, more so than most people.<< How do you know that? I needed those gifts to get through some very dark moments in my life. Taking so much is why I feel I owe such a great debt. I was given so many gifts that I absolutely have to give something back. I want to know that I was able to offer a moment of brightness to children growing up in less than ideal circumstances. I need to be able to share my worlds with them and let them know that they aren't alone, that things can get better and that there is happiness out there. Even if I only reach one child, I will have achieved my dream. I don't owe it to myself, period end of sentence I owe it to all my heroes that who People are not "that"s. People are "who". shared their gifts with me.

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I believe I deleted 18 "that"s. You see? It is a bad habit. By deleting them you will reduce your word count by 18 words, and your composition will 1) sound much better and 2) sound smoother.

When you write about you and your experiences, do not tell the reader how he/she should feel. It's about you, not them.

Do not change from past to present tense or present tense to past tense in the same sentence. Be sure you carefully [CAREFULLY] proofread your compositions before posting for all sorts of errors like:

spelling, punctuation, same tense, repetition, unnecessary words, awkward sentences, and so much more.

I noticed you tend to repeat phrases. That is something you need to avoid, as well.

If you use this edit/review to rewrite this piece, I am quite certain you will see how much better it will be.

Many people write for many different reasons. You gave us your reasons. I write because I have a dog holding a gun to my head wanting to watch my fingers dance across the keyboard. [lmao] JUUUUUSST kidding.

This is a good article you've written, but it can be an excellent article with the suggested edits.

I hope you take this review in the spirit in which it is given: to help you be a better writer.

Good luck to you!

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