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 Review #4802562 |
 | Fire in the snow  [13+] I wake up once again in the snowy field, clueless as ever of who I should be.  |
| (3.0)| Hello! I saw this in the review request page, so here I am to review it. I want to preface this with a little bit of information first: I take a pretty in-depth approach to the reviewing process. As such it might come across that I really pick things to pieces in a negative way. That is not my intention at all, I only wish to mark areas of the writing that I think could use some attention. Nothing I say is intended to be mean-spirited. I'd also like to mention that in some of my reviews you may see a word with a dotted underline like this. This is a spot in a sentence that I've marked for your attention. I've packed a comment within the notes that you can read simply by mousing over the word or phrase with this dotted underline. *** Opening *** It's sets a tone to an extent, but the first line doesn't really do much for me other than let me know it's light out. It's a 3 word exposition but there's nothing here to really draw me in to read more. The first line is usually the one and only shot you have at grabbing the reader's attention. Because of that, this is the one line that really takes some extra attention. It ought to be read, reread, and really examined. The best first liners have a hook that pulls on the reader's imagination. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens ▼ One Flew Over the Cukoos Nest by Ken Kesey ▼ The Crow Road by Iain Banks ▼ *** Style and Voice ***  How naive I was to think for us to be alike, but it is the only one I know, and after keeping me company for so long I couldn't but think that the two of us resembled each other a little: we're both bright and scorching shapes of fire , endlessly walking in the same direction, yet after so long I cannot but feel so very distant from it.Lordy that's a monster of a sentence! Over 60 words. That's a lot for a reader to chew in one sentence especially right in the beginning. I'd consider breaking this into smaller, bite size chunks for the reader while at the same time, giving it a bit of stylistic flair with an exclamation, this is reading forlorn and while I like forlorn, sometimes a couple motes of excitement can shock the system for reader. This creates tension in the narrative.  How naive I was to think for us to be alike! But it is the only one I know. After keeping my company for so long, I couldn't but think that the two of us resembled each other a little. We're both bright and scorching shapes of fire, endlessly walking in the same direction, yet after so long I feel so very distant from it. I do want to point out that there is, however, a lot of passive undertone to the entirety of this. Some folks will tell you that all passive voice is bad. I think this is a dogmatic, narrow-minded, and imperfect understanding of literary mechanics. I will, however, say that too much definitely isn't great. It turns a writing into a meandering droning thesis that takes 10 words what active voice can describe with more clarity in 5 words. An example using your sentences with the above adjustments: Passive Voice:How naive I was to think for us to be alike! ▼ Passive Voice:After keeping my company for so long, I couldn't but think that the two of us resembled each other a little. ▼ A little bit of flowery language is fine in writing, but too much gets to be painstaking to wade through sentences to get to the point. A long string of overly wordy sentences gets a bit boring in its delivery. Passive voice is a good contributor to this issue. I remember the first day here and he was the first and only one to greet me: birds, deer and all the other critters of the forest all ran away as soon as I stepped closer, but he didn't.There's a couple of issues here: Repetition, and a full colon (see what I did over there?  ) While I appreciate your grammatical style, I think in this case the full colon isn't quite right. Your previous one was actually fine, but this one is pretty borderline and leaning closer to the no side of it. The grammatical rule for a full colon that I think you're leaning on here suggests that the clause following the colon paraphrases the clause that precedes it. This doesn't really do that. It's sort of a list, but it's an unannounced list so unfortunately, that rule doesn't quite apply either. It's a shame, because a full colon doesn't get much love these days. I will, however, yield to the notion of a semi-colon, which I think would work just fine. I suggest a restructuring both to remove the repetition and replace the colon: I remember the first day here, and he was the only one to greet me; birds, deer and all other critters of the forest ran away as soon as I stepped closer, but he didn't. This solves the two issues above, but narratively speaking, the but he didn't. as little as it is in the sentence, carries a lot of weight to the narrative. Because of this, I think the sentence should be shortened to arrive at this resolution quicker, because it does evoke a nice emotional response, so I'd further reword this to: I remember the first day here; he was the only one to greet me. All the critters of the forest ran away as soon as I stepped closer, but he didn't. This removes some unnecessary words but still arrives at the same conclusion, only faster. It would be beneficial to the reader if you would separate points of dialogue into their own paragraphs. ...so naturally I called out to him. "You there! You're like me! Do you know me? Or do you know where are we?" I yelled out, ▼ side of the sky to the other, taking the bright sky along with him.He had left a gloomy space in its stead, but in doing so he revealed to me the thousands of beautiful and bright dots further beyond what the clear blue veil was concealing, so I naturally thought that was a gift for me, and thus the first night was serene.This is another monster of a sentence and really runs about twice as long as it should. Sadly the to be form of was lends this entire sentence a passive undertone. I'd consider rewording and restructuring: He had left a gloomy space in its stead that revealed thousands of beautiful, glimmering dots far beyond what the clear blue veil concealed. I thought it was a gift for me on that serene first night. The first steps off the cobble road and into the snow were the most painful: I would sink my feet in the snow with every step I took and a puddle of water would quickly form around me, dousing my flames, burning painfully until I would move my foot to another patch of snow, repeating the same process again and again.60 worder this time. These are simply too big of a sentence to convey a point to the reader, and there's a lot of wordiness that doesn't need to be in it. The first steps off the cobble road and into the snow were the most painful. Puddles of water quickly formed around me as I sank my feet into the snow with each step. It burned, and the pain would stay until I stepped to another patch of snow, over and over. This is the same point, but smaller, more understandable sentences, and done with less words. "But what about me, what do I do? What is my purpose?" I feel compelled to ask...Because you feel compelled to ask suggests you didn't actually ask it, which in this case, I'd suggest dropping the quotations and making this reflective inner dialogue with italics: But what about me, what do I do? what is my purpose?I fell compelled to ask, looking down at my hands clutched in fists... I get up and start running towards where I came from, retracing my steps , etching my footprints with each step I take, hearing the sizzling of the snow under my weight, hoping I could somehow outrun the Sun's light.Not a monster like some of them, but there's some unnecessary wordiness in this that could be dropped. I get up and start running from whence I came, etching my footprints with each step. The snow sizzles under my weight as I hope to somehow outrun the sun's light.Same conclusion to the sentence, but less words and no repetition, also in a more active voice and it removes the telling vs. showing of hearing the sizzling of snow under my weight and replaces it with the snow sizzles under my weight This may seem like an insignificant change, but this allows the reader's imagination to do the work of what's happening rather than the writing telling them what's happening. As Max Griffin 🏳️🌈  says, think of stories as a guided dream.In which case, don't tell the reader what is happening, show the reader what is happening by putting them in the perspective of the character. Avoid key words such as I hear, I see, I feel, I seem, I smell, etc. and instead give action to the sound with simple, vivid words like in the example. I will include an article on this as well as active and passive voicing at the end of the review. Even if its been but a few days since I first woke up , they now feel like a distant dream, as if only now I'm truly awake, as if every moment I had spent thus far was wasted because someone else needed do something else with it, but I am alone here. Marked a typo in this, but again this gets too wordy and drones on. Consider restructuring it like this: It's only been a few days since I first awoke. It now feels like a distant dream, as if only now I'm truly awake and every moment I spent thus far was wasted because someone needed to do something else with it. I'm alone here.Take a step back, analyze your surroundings, look at the bigger picture. I feel as if I knew that's what I had to do.I really feel like the underlined section should be separated and italicized as internal, reflective dialogue otherwise the writing is telling the reader to do these things. *** Grammar *** I've already started to sink down in the snow as I was waiting for the morning."You there! You're like me! Do you know me? Or do you know where are we?" ▼ It was only on the third day that I decided to follow him, see if it would bring me anywhere. ▼ It was not gifted with a mind of its own, it couldn't act or think the way I do. ▼ *** Typos *** Maybe because, simply put, it lives contempt with its purposeKnowledge evoked by my will to express myself, to know what I was feeling and why I felt the way I did.*** Ending *** The ending was pretty good. The language used, though a bit long winded, actually worked well here and it added building tension to the climax of the story. *** Summary *** It's a nice writing, but there's quite a few things in it that I think could use some attention, predominantly the passive voice and the gargantuan sentences. I don't mind a big one here and there, but yours are absolutely enormous. It's a common practice to try to keep sentences below 30 words. Anything longer will most certainly become boring and lose track of the reader. The benefit to shorter, concise sentences is the reader will much better understand your writing because they don't need to process 50 or 60 words to figure out what you're trying to say. You flop between present to past to present tense in the writing. During the reflection of how the character got there, this is fine, but you go back with no clear indication that it was going to happen, this is pretty distracting, a small page break would fix this. Overall, it's a nice reflective narrative but sadly the emotional effect that it could have is diminished somewhat because of how long-winded and tiresome the style of prose is. I feel like a lot of this could be trimmed out, several paragraphs at least, and none would be the wiser, and we'd arrive at what I could honestly say was a rock-solid climax and ending. The entire narrative was a very slow burning fuse, and the finale happened at warp speed. If the pacing were picked up in the narrative, kind of a rolling stone method, I think this could really be an amazing writing. As it stands right now, I think it's good idea that just needs some trimming. There's a lot of tell vs. show in the writing, in first person like this, it's pretty hard not to do it, but there's simply a bit too much to keep a reader's imagination engaged with a fantastical scene and instead it carries on more like a soliloquy. This is further exacerbated by passive voicing formats of sentences that are abstract and indefinite in the action. Below, I've included two articles to help you better understand these two mechanics of writing.
Both of these are great articles and go into easy-to-understand details of the natures of both of these topics. I imagine this may seem like I really put this one through the ringer with the comments, I hope it doesn't discourage you, because it IS a good idea, and I think it has a lot of potential. I love first person narrative, and the gloomy style of prose is right up my alley. I only offered these comments to show you areas that I think this writing could use some attention. I hope to see me of your work around writing.com and I thank you for sharing this writing.     My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
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