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 Review #4812640 |
Blue Crayon  [13+] Just one in a pack. (First Place, Journey Through Genres)  |
| (5.0)  HAPPY WDC ACCOUNT ANNIVERSARY FROM "Anniversary Reviews"   First Impressions: I wasn’t sure where this story was going at first. After the (very strong) opening line, I expected the budding artist to be a small child who was upset that one of her crayons broke. I got it quite wrong, as I soon realised, although the main character did seem to be quite young. There was some subtle magic in this tale which wasn’t apparent at the beginning. The first hint was when she was drawing Joshua and The crayons seemed to take a life of their own, but it was beautifully understated and could just as easily have been a moment of artistic frustration. Then she tried to draw her grandmother, only this time, the older woman had an explanation for what was happening. You had skilfully hinted at this at the beginning when you gave the crayons their own personalities, but most readers won’t have picked up on this until it was explained.  Suggestions: The story was well written and I didn’t notice any technical errors. The only tiny suggestion I have is regarding these two sentence: She took this in. She breathed the musty air of the attic and took in what the old woman whose flesh she was, was telling her. I assume that you repeated that she took this in on purpose, but I wasn’t sure if it worked as it was quite noticeable, so I would suggest changing one of the phrases to a different one, or even omit the first sentence altogether. And I had never heard a phrase quite like ‘whose flesh she was’. It struck me as unusual, maybe even a little jarring. Something like ‘whose blood ran in her veins’ might be a little more common - unless, of course, you chose this expression precisely because it was not common, in which case, ignore me!  Final Thoughts: While the ending was very emotional (without being over the top), my favourite part was actually the beginning. The crayons were almost characters themselves, and the way you described what happened when one of them broke, how it first affected the artist’s paintings and then prompted the other crayons to also break, not out of empathy but out of envy, was brilliant. I read that paragraph several times because I thought it was very well done and I wished I had written it. Overall, I thought this was an excellent story and the contest win was well deserved.   A Review from: "Invalid Item" This review is affiliated with The B.E.A.R. Fund , a community project that let's you earn exclusive merit badges just by reviewing! My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
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You responded to this review 04/23/2025 @ 10:06pm EDT