Riot's (riot) Reviews

Riot

Review Requests: OFF

1,559 Public Reviews Given

2,107 Total Reviews Given

Review Style

My reviews typically cover: initial responses, technicalities and mechanics, favorite parts, areas of improvement, and overall impression.

I'm good at...

Honesty, and finding what works versus what doesn't work. I will never give you a rating I don't think your work deserves. I am also particularly good at spotting grammatical errors and typos.

Favorite Genres

Philosophy, Steampunk, Horror, Dark, Emotional, Science Fiction, Technology, and Political Science. I'm sure there are more that I'm missing.

Least Favorite Genres

Romance, Western, Religious, and anything froufrou.

I will not review...

Chapters and Novels, unless arrangements are made prior.

551

Only reviews from the past
14 days may be credited.

#3093765

Review of Beneath crippled rainbows

Review by Riot

Rated: 13+

| (5.0)

Hello, I'm Justine, known here as Riot

. This review is in response to your entry "Beneath crippled rainbows"

Please note that this is just a review and my personal opinion of what I read. It is not intended to be rude, hurtful, or in any way discouraging. Like all free advice you can take it or leave it as you please.

Title: Love it. It's what drew me in, and it's what I thought about when I left.

Style and Voice: You have a very talented and unique voice that speaks very loudly with this piece. Free-verse definitely suits you very well. And who cares if it's dark? You have me sitting over here in total awe.

Word Choice: Psh, I couldn't pick any single word choice in this entire piece that I like over the best. That's really saying something.

Structure and Form: Free-verse is definitely your style. Way to pull this one off!

Imagery: How many of us have rolled out of bed with much the same feeling, had life 'flip them off', get confronted by breakfast, and scowl at the beautiful day before them? This is just brimming with excellent imagery.

Overall: I'm in total shock from this awesome poem. Thank you so much for sharing with us your gifted talent of wording things. And, HAPPY WDC ANNIVERSARY!

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552

Only reviews from the past
14 days may be credited.

#3093752

Review of A place for just about everything

Review by Riot

Rated: E

| (5.0)

Hello, I'm Justine, known here as Riot

. This review is in response to your entry "A place for just about everything"

Please note that this is just a review and my personal opinion of what I read. It is not intended to be rude, hurtful, or in any way discouraging. Like all free advice you can take it or leave it as you please.

Title: I found this title to be fitting, especially there are the end. I cannot think of anything better to title this hilariously touching piece.

Style and Voice: With every line you progress this story with true and sweet facts. In the end, I just about fell out of my chair laughing. Amazing voice.

Word Choice: I can't just pick one thing about it, because it's an overall sort of feel that really gets to you.

Imagery: I can imagine a young child helping his granny out in the kitchen, asking all these questions. She must be a really wise-granny to produce the realistic and simple answers she provides.

Overall: Don't change a thing, this is perfect. AND HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!

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553

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14 days may be credited.

#3093746

Review of A finch in the distance

Review by Riot

Rated: E

| (3.0)

Hello, I'm Justine, known here as Riot

. This review is in response to your entry "A finch in the distance"

Please note that this is just a review and my personal opinion of what I read. It is not intended to be rude, hurtful, or in any way discouraging. Like all free advice you can take it or leave it as you please.

Title: The title seems a bit reach-y. Maybe you could shorten it a bit by putting The Distance, or A Finch.

Style and Voice: I can definitely feel the emotion in this short piece.

Word Choice: Some word choices I liked were:

long grass on my back

wondering down / darkened corners of my mind

rivers of anxiety

Structure and Form: I think I feel a rhyme/meter here, but I'm not sure. Here's where I spot possible rhyme:

mind/spine

grind/time

Both are sort of stretches, but in the way it's presented I like the flow.

Overall: I felt this piece should be longer, for some reason. In the end, it was but a moment in time though, so I see where this is centered. Overall I feel you did a decent job. Keep truckin' as they say, and welcome to WDC.

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554

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14 days may be credited.

#3093730

Review of My Demise

Review by Riot

Rated: 13+

| (3.5)

Hello, I'm Justine, known here as Riot

. This review is in response to your entry "My Demise"

Please note that this is just a review and my personal opinion of what I read. It is not intended to be rude, hurtful, or in any way discouraging. Like all free advice you can take it or leave it as you please.

Title/Plot: An appropriate title. It gets me asking what's going on, and what sort of demise the character will come to, if any.

Style & Voice: I felt the rather mono-tone stating-facts sort of attitude a lot of vampires are known to have from other stories. Blunt. Accepting fate.

Scene/Setting: I can picture a bunch of men with pitch-forks dragging an iron coffin through the dark forest.

Characters: We know of him, and how he is. We don't know his name. I'm not sure if I really feel sorry for his end, but maybe I'm not supposed to. It just sort of is.

Technical: A few grammatical changes would enhance this piece. Some of them look to be mere oversights while others are there just to clutter the sentence.
For instance:

I know they will not be as generous, as I have not been so to their kind.

Overall Opinion: Pretty good. I always love reading about vampires. I don't think I've seen anything quite like this before. Keep up the good work.

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555

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14 days may be credited.

#3093709

Review of When Mama Wrote

Review by Riot

Rated: E

| (4.5)

Hello, I'm Justine, known here as Riot

. This review is in response to your entry "When Mama Wrote"

Please note that this is just a review and my personal opinion of what I read. It is not intended to be rude, hurtful, or in any way discouraging. Like all free advice you can take it or leave it as you please.

Title: When I read this title, I think of a child watching his mother write. Often times writer's get stuck in predicaments. We face family who don't understand our writing obsession. Or, if they do, realize it's part of who we are.

Style and Voice: As I've stated before, your style and voice peek through the cracks of your writing. I read it once, and I'm impressed, and read it again and find more.

Word Choice: A few things I liked about this particular poem:

Mama, on a serious roller-coaster ride,

Reality, symmetrical and compact,

she loathes to pass her verse around,

inside the hearts that hold her joy.

Funny, I hadn't intended, but if you read the pieces I picked out they even sound great like that, heh!

Imagery: Not only is there literal imagination, but there's other imagery as well. You pulled this off very nicely.

Overall: It's been a real pleasure reading you. Once again, happy anniversary on WDC. It's clear from the little I've read of your port why you've been bestowed the honor of purple case.

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556

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14 days may be credited.

#3093705

Review of The Tenor at the Opera

Review by Riot

Rated: E

| (5.0)

Hello, I'm Justine, known here as Riot

. This review is in response to your entry "The Tenor at the Opera"

Please note that this is just a review and my personal opinion of what I read. It is not intended to be rude, hurtful, or in any way discouraging. Like all free advice you can take it or leave it as you please.

Title: I love this title. It has me immediately hooked from the get-go. I love opera!

Style and Voice: You have a unique style and voice that sits beneath these words. I enjoy it very much.

Word Choice: Some things I really enjoyed here:

when music moves you / so far away,

and the song drifts / note by note / into darkness.

his momentous gaze

dusky tale

Structure and Form: I didn't notice a specific flow right off, but that's okay, because I had zero issues reading this.

Imagery: From the music drifting into the darkness, to the momentous gaze and seduction, to the ending with the applaud - This entire piece was brimming with wonderful imagery.

Overall: Don't change a thing! This was very good! HAPPY ANNIVERSARY ON WDC!

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557

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14 days may be credited.

#3093702

Review of A Pathway to Destiny

Review by Riot

Rated: E

| (4.5)

Hello, I'm Justine, known here as Riot

. This review is in response to your entry "A Pathway to Destiny"

Please note that this is just a review and my personal opinion of what I read. It is not intended to be rude, hurtful, or in any way discouraging. Like all free advice you can take it or leave it as you please.

Title: I don't really like the title. It's fitting, true, but I think something more mystical and fantasy-like would better suite this, especially with the pixie in it.

Style and Voice: There's definitely a distinct voice and style here that is unique. I like it very much.

Word Choice:
Some parts I liked in particular:

Follow the crystal blue river with haste / until you find a colorless place.

The pixie's magic seeped from her body, / covering the land quickly and softly.

Structure and Form:

Line 2 seems too lone. If there's any way to cut out just one syllable it would flow easier.

Line 9 is also too long. Read it out loud.

I liked your rhyming, you did a good job.

Imagery: Highly image filled. From the midnight dancing flames to the crystal blue river and down to the colorless world of real life.

Overall: Nearly perfect. With some minor adjustments to flow this piece would be perfect. Excellent job!

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558

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14 days may be credited.

#3093680

Review of LOVE

Review by Riot

Rated: E

| (3.0)

Hello, I'm Justine, known here as Riot

. This review is in response to your entry "LOVE"

Please note that this is just a review and my personal opinion of what I read. It is not intended to be rude, hurtful, or in any way discouraging. Like all free advice you can take it or leave it as you please.

Title: Normally I'd say this title is overused, and maybe even still it is. However after reading the poem I've decided it's okay. I can't think of anything off the top of my head I'd personally name it.

Structure and Form: I felt like there was a rhyme scheme here, or supposed to be. Some notes I've made:
dream/see

No rhyme, but close.
yours/pure

Close, but no rhyme.

Keep a watch on punctuation and length of your lines. Some are long and some are short, which can be okay if done carefully. Try reading it out loud.

In a few places you failed to use proper capitalization.

Overall: With some work I feel this could be an excellent poem. In all honesty I do feel it's a bit cliche, but that's not always a bad thing. Keep up the good work, and if you decide to alter this piece please let me know.

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559

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14 days may be credited.

#3093664

Review of I Hide

Review by Riot

Rated: E

| (3.0)

Hello, I'm Justine, known here as Riot

. This review is in response to your entry "I Hide"

Please note that this is just a review and my personal opinion of what I read. It is not intended to be rude, hurtful, or in any way discouraging. Like all free advice you can take it or leave it as you please.

Title: This was an okay title, but I think you should capitalize it in proper format. It should be I Hide. It could even simply be Hiding, Hide or even Hidden.

Structure and Form: The form for this is couplet. To me, it would flow better if the poem was reflecting this. An easy way to fix it would to be to put line 1 and 2 together without a double spacing between, then 3 and 4, then 5 and 6, etc.

Keep an eye on flow. You did well with rhyming, but some of your syllables were off. The following are just some examples in how you could match them up a bit more:

Lines 1 and 2 each have 8 syllables

Lines 3 has 9 syllables but Line 4 has 10

You could fix this by taking out 'only' in Line 4

Line 5 has 8 syllables but Line 6 has 10

You could expand Line 5 by adding 'always' before hide.

Line 7 has 7 syllables but Line 8 has 9

I think if you add one syllable to Line 7 and take out one from Line 8 it would work better.

Line 9 has 8 syllables but Line 11 has 11 syllables

Line 11 is definitely too long, even if you're not trying to match syllables.

Overall: I liked how you repeated Line 1 and 2 at the end. With a little work and some punctuation, this could be really great. The imagery was wonderful and I'd like to read it again later if you make adjustments to it.

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560

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#3093648

Review of Changeling

Review by Riot

Rated: 18+

| (4.5)

Hello, I'm Justine, known here as Riot

. This review is in response to your entry "Changeling"

Please note that this is just a review and my personal opinion of what I read. It is not intended to be rude, hurtful, or in any way discouraging. Like all free advice you can take it or leave it as you please.

Title: The title is simple, but to the point. It tells us what the story is about. I can think of nothing else to make it.

Style and Voice: I like your style, you don’t clutter the poem with words that are obnoxious for flare and they all fit together nicely in this really great poem.

Word Choice:
Some things I liked:

Great claws form, and grip the ground

A talle, horrid creature arises,

I bear my throat, and submit to your will.

Structure and Form: This is a good free-form poem. In some free-verse poetry people tend to rhyme on accident. I like how this didn’t.

Imagery: The imagery was wonderful.

Overall: I liked it a lot. One thing, I think you missed a comma. After “and I grip the ground” - Other than that I find nothing wrong with this beside the period missing at the end. Keep up the excellent work, and welcome to WDC!

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561

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14 days may be credited.

#3093627

Review of A Day in My Life

Review by Riot

Rated: E

| (5.0)

Hello, I'm Justine, known here as Riot

. This review is in response to your entry "A Day in My Life"

Please note that this is just a review and my personal opinion of what I read. It is not intended to be rude, hurtful, or in any way discouraging. Like all free advice you can take it or leave it as you please.

Title: An appropriate title, for a humorous poem.

Style and Voice: Your voice shows through with this poem. It's witty, and the story telling you've done throughout this piece is just spectacular. You've very much deserved the ribbon you have for it.

Word Choice: The whole thing was great, but a few lines that I liked in particular:

"Hey you snotty nosed old man," was
The one thing he had to say.

Hhhaaaaahhhhhhhha! :D

What had happened to my dream child,
And my roll of grey duct tape?

I nearly fell out of my chair laughing. I can only imagine, oh Lord! :D

Structure and Form: I really like the flow of the piece. It rhymes extremely well, I couldn't find any errors in rhyming flow at all. What I like best is the fact that it looks as though you've taken the time to count your syllables and they follow a scheme as well. I'm highly impressed.

Imagery: This is just filled with imagery. From a new mother vowing in the secrecy of her home that her child will not ever back talk, to the young boy mouthing off, to the visions of duct-tape floating through her mind, and later showing naked baby pictures to his girl friend.

Overall: I've been blessed with getting to read a rare piece indeed. It's not every day I give a five star rating. Wonderful piece, truly.

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562

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#3093613

Review of Scrap Metal

Review by Riot

Rated: 13+

| (4.5)

Hello, I'm Justine, known here as Riot

. This review is in response to your entry "Scrap Metal"

Please note that this is just a review and my personal opinion of what I read. It is not intended to be rude, hurtful, or in any way discouraging. Like all free advice you can take it or leave it as you please.

Title/Plot: After reading the piece, I thought honestly that I don't like the title. It doesn't do your work justice. It was a good story, and ended with a rather humorously dark sort of feel. Except, the more I thought about it, I guess the title does make sense, especially if it really was decommissioned. I can imagine a sort of metallic space craft in someone's front barn-yard with copper wires and booze floating around inside of it. Hah!

Style & Voice: Despite this being a short read, I felt your voice showing through with this piece. I liked how you told the story, and how it ended. Great job.

Scene/Setting: The barnyard, on a hillside. I could just picture this craft of sorts peaking up over the hill before descending down to the barn.

Characters: Poor Ed. Defending his property, his wife, even his faithful dog. I wonder if he felt more for her than she did him, seemingly. Duke took the cake when he ran and hid, that was very good of you to add to this story. Most people forget the reactions of non-humans.

Technical:
First sentence: The rifle dropped to the ground, now that Ed Johnson was no longer there to hold it.

Phrases like radar type thing and No more Ed make me wary. For the first, you could just say radar. For the second, you could say something like Then he was gone. or In an instant he disappeared.

When talking about the loud engine sounds, show us, don't tell us. I realize you're under some word count issues here, but you could pull this off easily with just a couple of words.

Overall Opinion: Superb idea. I really did like it. If you make any future edits to this please let me know.

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563

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14 days may be credited.

#3093596

Review of Wait- Where?

Review by Riot

Rated: E

| (4.0)

Hello, I'm Justine, known here as Riot

. This review is in response to your entry "Wait- Where?"

submission to "Invalid Item"

Please note that this is just a review and my personal opinion of what I read. It is not intended to be rude, hurtful, or in any way discouraging. Like all free advice you can take it or leave it as you please.

Title/Plot: This title is very fitting of the piece, especially because of the confusion within the story. I can't think of anything better to name it.

Style & Voice: Sometimes I feel like dialogue is just dialogue, even with a plot progression. With this piece, I felt like your voice was peaking through the cracks and shining at me. I'm very impressed.

Scene/Setting: I imagined these people talking in the dark. Maybe they were in hiding, still.

Characters: I could feel the confusion of the second person speaking, and the matter-of-fact but still ironically humorous responses from the first. I can't think of anything better to improve upon for these characters without expanding the story a bit. If you do though, my first suggestion would be to name them. If they don't know each other, introduce themselves to each other.

Technical: I could find nothing wrong with this piece.

Overall Opinion: I found this piece to be more funny than I did intense. It was a very good piece of dialogue, despite it's shortness, and I enjoyed the read very much. Thank you for the submission, I hope you decide to do this contest again.

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564

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#3093532

Review of The Visitor

Review by Riot

Rated: 13+

| (4.0)

Hello, I'm Justine, known here as Riot

. This review is in response to your entry "The Visitor"

for "Invalid Item"

Please note that this is just a review and my personal opinion of what I read. It is not intended to be rude, hurtful, or in any way discouraging. Like all free advice you can take it or leave it as you please.

Title/Plot: The title of this piece gets me wondering what the story is about. Alien abduction? Ghosts? An old relative? After reading the piece I can think of no better alternatives.

Scene/Setting: I can imagine the two sitting in the living room, doing their daily thing. Then Marianne begins freaking out at the sounds, but Henry's more interested in the television. I could see him casually check out the back door to see what's wrong.

Characters: I like Marianne's frantic sarcasm. It bodes well with Henry's laid back 'there's nothing wrong' distracted attitude.

Technical: I couldn't spot any errors in the whole piece, but one thing I disliked was all the trailing off punctuation. Triple dots are best used at the end of the sentence, if they really have to be used at all. Just my two cents.

Overall Opinion: This was a pretty good piece of dialogue. I found it more eerie than tense, though. Thank you for your submission into the contest, I look forward to more of your entries. Keep up the excellent work.

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565

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#3090475

Review of Becoming Another Statistic

Review by Riot

Rated: 18+

| (3.0)

Hello, I'm Justine, known here as Riot

. This review is in response to your entry "Becoming Another Statistic"

Please note that this is just a review and my personal opinion of what I read. It is not intended to be rude, hurtful, or in any way discouraging. Like all free advice you can take it or leave it as you please.

Title: The title got me thinking. How will the main character become another statistic? Will they get murdered? Will they get rejected for a loan? What's going on!? Great job.

Style & Voice: I liked your voice. I felt like I knew the character from her point of view.

Scene/Setting: The transcending scenes were good. Starting off at home, then in the car, at the stop light, the store. While they weren't heavily described they didn't need to be because it was a short piece.

Technical: Keep an eye out on your punctuation and spacing. Your commas have a space after the words, which they shouldn't.

He came down the aisle I was on , walked all the way to the end , then turned around and left through the door he came in.

He came down the aisle I was on, walked all the way to the end, then turned around and left through the door he came in.

Overall Opinion: With some work, this could be better. Please let me know if you re-write it or edit it, as I'd love to come back and re-evaluate it. Keep trucking!

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566

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#3090469

Review of Jack of Fools

Review by Riot

Rated: E

| (4.0)

Hello, I'm Justine, known here as Riot

. This review is in response to your entry "Jack of Fools"

Please note that this is just a review and my personal opinion of what I read. It is not intended to be rude, hurtful, or in any way discouraging. Like all free advice you can take it or leave it as you please.

Title: Can't go wrong with the title. It's definitely appropriate and got my interest piked. Truth be told though it did remind me of Alice in Wonderland whether it meant to or not. I blame Disney.

Word Choice: Very unique wording and stanza. I like it a lot.

Rhyme and Rhythm: It rhymed in a few places, but then it didn't in others. For free-verse it was very catchy. The only complaint I have is in the beginning, it feels awkward. When you get to "And a Spade thrown ten," I think it picks up.

Imagery: The imagery is great. It's a bit confusing to keep track of all the characters, but in the end I thought it was beneficial to the read.

Overall: With some meter adjustment I think this could be spectacular. I think my only suggestion is to watch the flow and perhaps change the punctuation at the end of the lines. Show us better where it combines and where there are pauses. Keep up the great work, this was a delightful read.

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567

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#3090428

Review of The reply of Creation

Review by Riot

Rated: E

| (3.0)

Hello, I'm Justine, known here as Riot

. This review is in response to your entry "The reply of Creation "

Please note that this is just a review and my personal opinion of what I read. It is not intended to be rude, hurtful, or in any way discouraging. Like all free advice you can take it or leave it as you please.

Title: I liked the title. It may work good too as "Creation's Echo" or something along those lines.

Style and Voice: I thought your style was consistent through the piece. It brought up a lot of questions and keep me reading to the end. Good work!

Word Choice: Some things that stood out to me that I liked were:

blackness that reached on forever

lingered on like half forgotten words

I also liked how you did not clutter this with overly complicated long words.

Rhyme and Rhythm: I caught no rhyme scheme or patterns which leads me to believe this is free-verse. As such, I have a difficult knit-picking it because free-verse is very subjective to the author. However, the one suggestion I would make is to watch out how long some of your lines are. You don't want to lose the interest of the reader. Sometimes that happens with overly long lines. Try breaking a few of them up into multiple lines like you did near the end. Also, keep an eye out on any repeating words. You can usually get away with repeating a word here or there in free-verse but try not to have them repeat close together.

Structure and Form: What to comment on: Is the form (e.g. Sonnet, Pantoum, Haiku, Villanelle, Sestina) employed correctly? Most importantly, is the form necessary? In today's age, form is less and less important. Is the writer using terrible rhymes in order to fit the form, or is the form adding meaning to the poem that it would lose without it?

Imagery: For some reason I felt I was enveloped in darkness. I could see a little light up ahead. Instead of dying though, it was an act of creation.

Overall: With some work I feel this could be an outstanding piece. Please let me know if you decide to re-write it as I would be interested in re-reviewing it. Thank you very much for sharing this with us.

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568

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#3090418

Review of Tanya

Review by Riot

Rated: E

| (3.5)

Hello, I'm Justine, known here as Riot

. This review is in response to your entry "Tanya"

Please note that this is just a review and my personal opinion of what I read. It is not intended to be rude, hurtful, or in any way discouraging. Like all free advice you can take it or leave it as you please.

Title: I think the title could use some work. Typically I dislike titles where it's just the name of someone. Being that this is a prologue, I think it's not fitting. I think later if you decide to dedicate a chapter to her you could get away with it. But for the prologue, I'd change it.

Style & Voice: You have a unique and catchy voice. In some places I felt you were reaching a little too hard to captivate the perfect moment with pretty words. This isn't an insult though, I just think sometimes less is more. It was a good job for how little was written. I'd like to see it expanded upon.

Scene/Setting: The surroundings weren't described much, but I got the feeling she was outside because of the moon descriptions and the hanging feelings in the air. I thought they were very well described. Perhaps what you could do is mention how she's positioned. Is she sitting on a hill-top waiting for him? Hanging out in a park? Waiting somewhere else? Let us know.

Characters: Tanya seemed pretty anxious but also highly elated. I felt you described her pretty well, even if I didn't feel like I knew her that well. Perhaps you could write something in there about her personally that doesn't involve Eric.

Technical:

In the second sentence, I don't think "Moon" needs capitalization.

Tonight was the dream she had been waiting for to unfold itself.

To me this seems awkward. I think it could possibly be re-written.

Tonight was the night she had been waiting for since forever.

Again, a little awkward. You also already had stated she was waiting for this night, so it's a little redundant.

The second sentence to paragraph three is quite lengthy.

Possible rewrite: Her entire being seemed to sing with elation just by that single motion. Once again, she was caught up with each and every detail of his perfection.

The sentence that starts with Those piercing is too long for me. It's meant to be descriptive I understand, but I lose the rhythm. I had to re-read it a few times.

Overall Opinion: A pretty good story. I'd love to re-read it if you make any revisions to it. Thank you for sharing it with us. I look forward to more of your work.

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569

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#3090367

Review of The Matter of Evil

Review by Riot

Rated: E

| (3.5)

Hello, I'm Justine, known here as Riot

. This review is in response to your entry "The Matter of Evil"

Please note that this is just a review and my personal opinion of what I read. It is not intended to be rude, hurtful, or in any way discouraging. Like all free advice you can take it or leave it as you please.

Title: I like the title. It got me wondering what aspect of evil would be covered in the story. I can't think of a better title myself.

Style and Voice: To me this seemed to be in story telling mode. Which isn't bad for a poem, however the flow felt a little awkward.

Word Choice: Some words/combinations of words I liked were:

foul curtain

Sentinel of stone and steel

parasite of death

Rhyme and Rhythm: I'd say this is pretty free-verse. With this form it's always difficult to critique rhythm and flow because it has no real meter. Overall I liked it, but I would have liked it more if it were split up into stanzas and the lines were shorter.

Structure and Form: The lines are very long, that is the one thing I'd like to point out. For instance:

a foul curtain of black hanging like a thick fog in the late noon air,

You could instead do something like:
a foul curtain of black hung like thick fog,
in the late noon air,

This is just an example, but it's an idea how to break up the thoughts and flow. I think your longer lines really do need it.

Imagery: I liked the imagery, but I'm pretty callous and cynical myself. It was definitely a dark poem. I especially loved the line Weaver of the web of chaos and nightmares.

Overall: I feel with some editing to change the flow of this it could be a wonderful poem. Please don't hesitate to contact me if you ever change it. Thank you for sharing this piece with us.

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#3089340

Review of Down the well

Review by Riot

Rated: E

| (4.0)

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Hello, I'm Justine, known here as Riot

. This review is in response to your entry "Down the well"

Please note that this is just a review and my personal opinion of what I read. It is not intended to be rude, hurtful, or in any way discouraging. Like all free advice you can take it or leave it as you please.

Title: An interesting title to say the least. Another suggestions you may consider: The Chase

Plot: Fast paced and highly progressive. I suspect this is for the 100 word contest because I don't see any repeating words.

Style & Voice: I like your story-telling in this. You have a lot of very good words that stick out. This definitely has a fantasy taste to it. Some word phrases that particularly stuck out to me: rebel spirit, wild, ever-growing vines, tumbling rapidly.

Scene/Setting: Very scenic. I especially liked the description of the dark swamp and trees.

Technical: Assuming this is written for that contest where no two words can repeat:

Lillie's rebel spirit compelled adventure; never could sit still they said.

Lillie's rebel spirit compelled adventure; she could never sit still, they said.

Into jungles thick with wild, ever-growing vines chasing behind ran she.

Into jungles thick and wild,;ever-growing vines chasing behind.

This leaves with with an extra word to use, though.

Overall Opinion: This was a pretty good flash fiction story. Thank you for sharing it with us.

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#3089301

Review of The Scream

Review by Riot

Rated: ASR

| (4.5)

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Hello, I'm Justine, known here as Riot

. This review is in response to your entry "The Scream"

Please note that this is just a review and my personal opinion of what I read. It is not intended to be rude, hurtful, or in any way discouraging. Like all free advice you can take it or leave it as you please.

Title: As with most poetry, the titles are simple but satisfying. I found it fitting to the piece and it got me interested. What kind of scream would it be? Happy? Scared? (Erotic?)

Word Choice: Some word combinations that stuck out to me: squealing and chattering, bending and folding, wailing, silent word, temporal plane.

Figurative Language:

temporal plane

I think this is alright, but to me it's sort of reaching for something overly descriptive. Instead, I would probably just use 'life' or 'existence' or 'reality'

Rhyme and Rhythm: There was no real rhyming here, as it seemed more free-verse, however the rhythm was still very good. Each line began with "The sound" but described different things from one scene. I liked how this was presented.

Imagery: Despite it being all about sounds, it was very descriptive in other means. A car wreck at its worse, how sad.

Overall: I felt this was a very good piece. It was really short, but it will stick with me for awhile. You have an excellent gift for words and story-telling.

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#3089201

Review of Hanging Time

Review by Riot

Rated: ASR

| (3.5)

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Hello, I'm Justine, known here as Riot

. This review is in response to your entry "Hanging Time"

Please note that this is just a review and my personal opinion of what I read. It is not intended to be rude, hurtful, or in any way discouraging. Like all free advice you can take it or leave it as you please.

Title: The title had me interested right away. It instantly made me think of time travel, which turns out to be what it was about. I also think it's catchy.

Plot: I liked the concept of the plot.

Style & Voice: I think a lot was lost in translation somewhere because at some point I started losing track of the story. In the end, I know what the results were, but after he appeared in the past it began to get a little confusing. I think this could be fixed by stretching out more of the descriptions. It felt rushed. I felt the beginning was strong, and I liked the style and voice, but near the middle I was getting too confused.

Scene/Setting: I liked the scene and setting in the first part, describing the time machine and how it worked.

Characters: I would have liked to see more descriptions of the characters. What did they look like? How did they move? When he went back in time, how did the others look in comparison?

Technical: There were only a couple of things that I spotted, some small adjustments. The following are how I would alter things, but you don't have to by any means.

Christopher was petrified of being the test subject in any of McCoy's tests but time travel!

Did you mean - Christopher was petrified of being the test subject in any of McCoy's tests, but time travel?

“Come on inside. And to get back use the sand.”

Did you mean - Come inside, to the back, so you can get used to the sand."?

But it made no sense.

Did you mean - But it didn't make any sense.?

“Blasphemous documents. My friend. I have them and i will use use them.”

Did you mean - Blasphemous documents, my friend. I have them and I will use them."?
There are a few instances where you use 'i' when 'I' should be used.

Overall Opinion: Overall, I thought this was an okay piece with a highly interesting concept. There were a few places I thought you could 'show and not tell' but even still, I enjoyed it. It's been ages since I read of time travel. Thank you for sharing this piece.

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#3087775

Review of Escape

Review by Riot

Rated: 13+

| (4.5)

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Hello, I'm Justine, known here as demurerose. This review is in response to your entry "Escape"

for "Invalid Item"

Please note that this is just a review and my personal opinion of what I read. It is not intended to be rude, hurtful, or in any way discouraging. Like all free advice you can take it or leave it as you please.

Title: I definitely felt the title of this was deserving and fitting. My first thought was what they would escape from. A prison? A retirement home? A dungeon? It definitely got my interest peeked.

Plot: The plot was wonderful. They woke up somewhere--we're not sure where--as one finds the other and leads them to the escape. I felt it listed a few different moments where things could change. I found myself crossing my fingers.

Style & Voice: As a dialogue only piece, especially given I asked each line to consist of no more than seven lines, I felt it was spectacular. Some of the lines were shorter which is exactly what I was looking for. It was a fluid, quick motion suspense sort of dialogue that fit perfectly with this piece.

Scene/Setting: Because it was dialogue only, you were unable to really fully describe the surroundings, but you didn't have to. I could tell from the thickness of dialogue and when one of them mentioned how dark it was my imagination ran wild. It was later mentioned that it was an act of revenge rather than an accident which really gets my mind wondering what the heck happened. Superb setting and scene.

Characters: I felt there were two contrasting characters. The protector and the meek. The protector was the one who had found himself in deep while the other was along for the ride or as some sort of sick punishment. I felt myself waiting for the protector to speak for guidance, wondering how he would rectify the situation.

Technical: There was nothing wrong as far as grammar or spelling that I could find.

Overall Opinion: Superb dialogue that met all the requirements and more for the contest. I look forward to more of your entries!

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#3084051

Review of Words often

Review by Riot

Rated: E

| (3.0)

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Hello, I'm Justine, known here as demurerose. This review is in response to your entry "Words often"

Please note that this is just a review and my personal opinion of what I read. It is not intended to be rude, hurtful, or in any way discouraging. Like all free advice you can take it or leave it as you please.

Title: What to Comment on: In poetry, the title is often essential for establishing mood, tone, or even giving the poem a completely different meaning. Is the title catchy? Does it make you interested or intrigue you? Is it generic or bland? Does the title fit in with the rest of the story? Or do you not understand its meaning? Does it provide context? Could you suggest a better title?

Style and Voice: I feel you had a voice and that this wasn't just words on paper. There are a couple of points where the wording was awkward, but I can only spot minor changes to enhance this piece.

Word Choice:

Twice you talk about the eyes. First it's looking into yours, then it's looking into hers. I think it would be better if it was only looking into hers, since everything else seems to be about your feelings and visualization of being with her.

Visualization: I felt I could see 'her' through your words. While it wasn't highly descriptive it didn't need to be. It was about your feelings toward her.

Rhyme and Rhythm: To me, it felt like there was a rhyme scheme in the first few lines but I felt it was lost somewhere along the lines. Line 2 rhymed with line 4 and 6. Then 11 did with 12 and 13. Then I could not find anymore rhymes. If it's free-verse it probably was not intentional, but it was apparent enough for me to lose the flow.

Structure and Form:

If you were doing free-verse, I might look over those lines and possibly adjust them to purposely not rhyme so obviously.

If it was intentional, I might look over some other lines near the end and try to find more rhyme with them.

Those are the only two suggestions I can think of to help with word flow.

Overall: I thought this was okay overall. Writing love poems or that closely related to the subject is often times difficult. I feel this poem has more meaning to you than it does the reader -- which often times they do -- but to me, it was just okay. I am glad I read it though, and thank you for sharing it.

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#3084045

Review of Behold The Rapture

Review by Riot

Rated: 13+

| (3.5)

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Hello, I'm Justine, known here as demurerose. This review is in response to your entry "Behold The Rapture"

Please note that this is just a review and my personal opinion of what I read. It is not intended to be rude, hurtful, or in any way discouraging. Like all free advice you can take it or leave it as you please.

Title: I think this title is appropriate for the content in your poem. It's a bit catchy and got me interested in reading what you were going to say.

Style and Voice: I think your voice in this poem is very unique. It fits well with what you are describing. It seems to be consistent with the entire piece.

Word Choice:

The word pyretic stuck out to me. I know what you were going for, but to me it felt a little out of place. Were you going for delirious, hot?

hysterical lament in screams, I can't bear... I feel this line is awkward. I feel instead of lament, deplore may work better.

Figurative Language:

My favorite line is: In resonance, the rocks call out their creator, - I feel this is very descriptive and well worded.

I also like: Perpetual darkness bears bruel devastation - In the end of days, this is also what I envision.

The line mountains crumble as if made of sand, I can see mountains crumbling into ash. Scary.

Overall I enjoyed the visualization of this poem.

Rhyme and Rhythm: This is a free-verse poem, so I can't comment on rhyme too much. With the exceptions above with word-issues I felt this read well and flowed good. The only extra comment I'd like to make is to watch out for triple dots. I see them twice in the poem. I think the poem could do fine without them. (In other words, alternative punctuation would be more fitting, in my opinion.)

Structure and Form: The structure and form was solid. I think you could stretch it, possibly, if you wanted, but it stands alone just fine.

Imagery: My head was filled with new images each line. That is a sign of an excellent writer. This was a great image-filled poem.

Theme and Meaning: The theme of this poem was great and told appropriately in the title. I felt I was experiencing glimpses of the end of days.

Overall: I felt this was a good piece with a lot of potential. I can see how this poem could be fleshed out, but as it stands it is a great poem at the length it is. Thank you for sharing this with us.

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