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 Review #4767770 |
 | Summer Nights  [E] Love basking in the summer heat (this is a fictional story written for a contest)  |
| (3.0)   Hi, Ben! This was a sweet story about a young man meeting the love of his life for the first time. I assume this is your own experience, as "biographical" is one of the chosen genres. You did a good job at pulling the reader into your own world. You mostly described the day you met Cathy and the time shortly thereafter. I think this worked well for a short story, and made the ending fit well. It transitioned from a story of young lovers finding their way in the world to a beautiful ending of a long marriage and generations of family. ~~~ As far as a story structure, there seems to be a missing aspect of the plot as far as a conflict goes. While I understand this is a biographical piece, I think the story could benefit from adding a conflict. What was the main character dealing with before he met Cathy? Was he already looking for a place to live? Was he depressed, looking for love? I think the ending of your story is great and could easily be turned in a resolution for a man vs. self conflict. I enjoyed the way that you described the romanticism of the beach, you did a good job using this to foreshadow the marriage and happy life that would conclude from it. The proposal on the beach was also a nice touch, showing the reader how much the area they met in really meant to the characters. There is a bit of "telling" in this story rather than "showing." While I enjoyed reading about what the characters did and the fun they had at the arcades, eating funnel cakes, etc. I would have liked to read more about the emotions of those characters. What were they feeling as they went on their first date? Were their hearts fluttering as they wiped powdered sugar off each other's faces? Was the sun setting on the beach? All these kinds of aspects of a story invoke a deeper level of emotion to your reader and can really draw them in. I do think you know how to do this well, such as when you wrote, And this day the temperature was a record high in Wildwood, like an inferno attempting to melt human flesh. I really loved this sentence and it added so much visualization to the sunny, hot day. I think your story just needed more sentence like this to offer a balance between showing and telling. You used the "magic words" well within your story. You did state the "fervid heat of the sand" in your story, which I felt could have been utilized a little better. As "fervid" can mean "intensely hot," I felt using "heat" directly after the word was redundant. Even describing the sand as having a "fervid touch" or something similar would have been good, though the way you have it still works well. I think you did an excellent job with the other words with "full sultry figure" and "inferno attempting to melt human flesh." Well done! ~~~ I would recommend upping the rating of your item from E to 13+. This story is quite innocent in itself, but as you describe Cathy's breasts and the kissing, I think it would fall more appropriately under that category. I'm no expert on the rating system of WdC, but I'd expect this would fall under ASR at the very least. ~~~ The next two weeks a blur as we recreated our first meeting. In the above  sentence, I think there is a typo. Should it read, "were a blur?" I understood what you intended, just pointing it out in case it was missed. As autumn came Cathy got a job there cleaning the rooms, and I got hired as a busboy in the restaurant. I highlighted the above sentence to mention introductory phrases. Nine times out of ten, you want to add a comma after an introductory phrase such as the one you used ("As autumn came").The pay was fair but between the two of us, only enough to rent a one bedroom apartment, instead of two, but we made the situation work. Be wary of run-on sentences such as the sentence above This sentence could be split into two separate thoughts and read smoother. It doesn't read badly, per se, but could be less lengthy and form two individual thoughts.~~~ I think you did a great job at portraying a younger generation's struggles to work and find a place to live. You didn't go into too many details, but gave the reader enough to be aware that it wasn't an easy process. I think, if you wanted to, you could turn this into a much more detailed piece and focus on the struggles that the young couple went through before achieving their lifelong relationship. Thank you for sharing, and good luck in the contest!  A Review from: "Positive Hearts Reviews Group"   My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
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You last responded to this review 09/17/2024 @ 4:03pm EDT