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 Review #4804714 |
 | Daddy's Little Bird  [18+] A psychologically traumatised girl or demonic possession?  |
| (3.5)| Hello, I found this writing while browsing the read and review section of writing.com and would like to take a few minutes to offer you my thoughts on the work. I'd like to preface this by saying that I tend to take a pretty in-depth approach to reviewing. It may come across as negative or mean-spirited, but I do not intend it to be that way. I only wish to bring attention to areas in the writing you may wish to have a look at. I'd 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 *** Sadly, there's no hook here. It's also passive which isn't exactly a great way to get going, I'll go more in depth with that in the next section. The more important issue here is the lack of a hook. The first line is your one shot at grabbing a reader's attention and keeping them locked into a story. Most do this by pulling on the reader's emotions. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury ▼ One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey ▼ You've got emotional substance in the writing that does pull on me, that you might allude to in your opening line. Your third sentence has potential with this, it would need a restructuring, because as its written, its honestly a bit confusing, but it gives me a sinking feeling reading the metaphorical imprisonment. This is the emotional draw that I mentioned. *** Style and Voice *** There's some issues in the story here and there. Though most of it is delivered through dialogue exchanges, where there are small bits of action the action is diminished from the due to the reasons and examples I've listed below. Cryptic and Abstract  Locked and hidden away, head tilted, she too, much like that bird above me, had been peering up through her veil of thinning blonde hair at that same hawk, four years previously.The writing is fine with this sentence, if a bit lengthy, but it's very cryptic. I have no idea what you're trying to say here. In the opening paragraph, I don't know if it's such a good idea to be this abstract. I don't know if you're talking about a bird, a person, a doll, or anything for that matter. I can assume it's a person based on the description in your title, but this should be more concrete in the writing. There's a substantial amount of passive voice in the writing that really takes away from the story, and makes everything sort of flat and unremarkable. There's many ways that passive voice occurs in a writing, your opening line for example is putting more emphasis on the fact that the gate is behind you, than it is on the sliding shut. Passive Voice:Behind me the security gate slid shut. ▼ Action to Subject Sentence Structure There's many instances of action acting on the subject in the writing as well. Generally this is the most common form of passive voice and it makes everything feel abstract. I'm scratching my head, waiting to see what the action is going to land on while I read the sentence. In a deliver like this, it makes the sentences foggy and stifles vivid imagery for scene setting. An example: As the expected knock on the door came, I closed the file, but let it remain on the desk. The rewrite this in an active voice the subject should perform the action rather than the action acting on the subject: Passive Voice:As the expected knock on the door came, I closed the file, but let it remain on the desk. ▼ This removes a fair amount of unneeded context, such as leaving it on your desk, which rather than saying you allowed it to remain on the desk, it would be more vivid to say that you put it away (if you WERE putting it away) otherwise there's no need to mention it, as the reader already knows this. Sometimes the human ability for horror can't be excused by religion and faith and blamed on demons. Passive Voice:Sometimes the human ability for horror can't be excused by religion and faith and blamed on demons. ▼ When she saw the pictures, her head tilted and twitched bird-like as she stared silently at the photographs. Passive Voice:When she saw the pictures, her head tilted and twitched bird-like as she stared silently at the photographs. ▼ As you can see with these suggestions, Active Voice tends to remove a lot of the wordiness that is required for passive voicing to make the same point. This allows for more distinctive sentences that all paint a clearer picture in the mind of the reader. Gerunds Gerund phrases ('ing' verbs) have a tendency to diminish imagery. In this example, it would be more distinct to separate this into two sentences to firmly plant the context of this character's physical attributes. I waited as he settled, the chair creaking under his weight, despite how thin and gaunt he appeared.Telling vs. Showing  I waited as he settled. The chair creaked under his weight despite how gaunt he appeared.He shifted a little uncomfortably in his chair as I held his gaze until he gave the slightest shrug of acceptance.The this and the previous sentence show examples of telling rather than showing. I want to experience this writing through the eyes of your PoV character rather than the narration telling me he was uncomfortable and about slight shrugs, and gauntness, there are more vivid ways to describe these things that would paint a clearer image. Give your scene a bit of life through descriptive verbiage. An example: The Father's face sunk and twisted as he fidgeted irritably at my rebuke. The chair groaned a disapproving creak as he shifted his weight and settled himself once more. A slight shrug ended his mild irritation, seemingly accepting the validity of my response. This is just a suggestion, but all of this gives more life to the scene, even to the inanimate chair, painting a clearer picture of the small joust between these two people. Stylistic Suggestion Eventually, she would use these to produce her art, painting every day.This is up to you, but considering what the reader has just learned, I think it would drive home a bit harder if 'art' were italicized stressing that it is her interpretation of art, but still keeping a feeling of disdain from the PoV character. *** Ending *** The ending was as cryptic as the beginning. I'm confused. I don't know who she killed as it's only left to assumption. I think, sadly, this kind of happened a bit too abruptly for the reader to gain enough information to paint the picture. It is a good tie in to the beginning, however. Still, I do believe both instances should be more concrete in their delivery otherwise they're simply too confusing. *** Summary *** It's a pretty dark tale, as such I think you may consider also listing it under the dark genre. Overall it has very good qualities. The substance of the story is there, and it is solid, but the passive voicing really pulls away the overall hit it could have on the reader. I did, however, enjoy it. I think with some polishing this would be a truly grim story. I've included articles from two terrific writers on writing.com elaborating on Showing vs. Telling and Passive Voice, I hope these help you further understand the effects that they have on storytelling.
I thank you for sharing this and wish you all the best in your future writings.      My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
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You responded to this review 03/10/2025 @ 6:06am EDT