Hello, just dropping in with a review of this delightful short piece
The title caught my eye. The description intrigued me and gave me an idea of the tone. The entire story made me chuckle with glee!
From the beginning, you bring through a very clear tone from Jack, one that's slightly irritating and slightly ingratiating and entertaining in equal measure. Writing in the second person does of course have the advantage of allowing you to address the reader directly, but I think the tone you establish really augments it, making the reader actually feel what the 'you' in this story is feeling. The premise of the 'Possibilities Man' is well-explained and established in a short space of mind, and although I can think of one or two precedents in fiction (e.g. the X-Men character Domino), it feels fresh here.
My only complaint is that it isn't longer - though it's not really a complaint, because I can see how it would be difficult to maintain this tone throughout a longer piece.
Oh, and the double-twist at the end, in only a couple of sentences? Absolutely gorgeous!
I spotted you on the newbie page and I'm just dropping by to give you a review
I had great fun with this story! It's a nice little twist on the "friends doing a seance" trope, and I thought the banter between the group was believably pitched so that it was believable, e.g. when your point of view character says:
"To watch the three of you scaring yourselves and each other half to death in a cemetery at night? Hell yeah, I'm in. I'll drive."
I really liked the twist/reveal of Jeremiah's story, and I think you could build it up and do more with it - adding more description to the initial, shocking appearance of the ghoul (which works really well because the reader, and the characters are not expecting a real ghost to actually turn up!), perhaps drawing the moment out for a bit until they start chatting to him and realise he's actually just a nice gay guy like them.
A couple of technical/vocab things I bumped on:
"This was our weekly poker night with a group of LGBT hikers, bicyclists, and generally outdoorsy guys." I'm not sure I'd refer to a group of friends as "my LGBT friends". Maybe something a bit more informal here? On that sentence, the part about them being outdoorsy never really comes up again later in the story, so could be cut or repurposed.
You have a couple of instances where you have a comma followed by some speech. You should always have a full stop and then a new line for speech, e.g.
"Erik swallowed hard, suddenly unsure of himself.
"We just want to know why you wanted to kill her.""
Finally, I have to give a shout out to my favourite phrase: "...grinning like the cat that ate the canary." That really made me giggle!
You've got a great tone and fun sensibility - keep writing!
I'm dropping you by to give you a review - welcome to WDC!
I was first drawn in by the excellent tagline you have on this piece - it's short but sweet, and very intriguing. The gardening and knowledge of maps are interesting aspects of Mary's character - out of the ordinary enough to catch the reader's attention. These aspects of her character also led to one of my favourite lines in the piece, when she reflects on the plants with "…names like an obscure foreign language…" - this was a lovely piece of imagery, giving insight into how the character thinks about the world. It was also very satisfying when her knowledge of gardening and connection to the natural world was what allowed her to defeat him - I was cheering!
I also really like a lot of your descriptors and sentences after speech e.g. "A single word: sudden, raw, angry." I find it's generally much more effective to do this where you can than to say "she said angrily."
Some of your metaphors aren't quite so effective - for example, I had no cultural context for "he looks like the Persil man." This might be a bit too specific for a general audience, but it depends who you're pitching it at. On a technical point - some of the speech later on in the piece isn't correct, as a line of speech should always end with a comma, exclamation or question mark. For example, "Keep your shirt on." She snapped." should probably be "Keep your shirt on," she snapped.
Overall, this was a very effective piece - it left me feeling kind of creeped out and tense as though I was reading it, as though I was trapped in a summer afternoon - you know, one of those ones that's just a bit too warm…
I saw you were new here and thought I'd drop you a review :) Welcome to WDC!
Oh gosh. This play - I laughed, then squirmed, then laughed again, and felt like a naughty schoolgirl giggling in the back of the classroom as the scene developed. There was something very delicious and enjoyable about experiencing all those different emotions in such a short read!
The way you convey Joe's discomfort with your very sparse language is great. I also have a clear image of both Joe and Pam (smirk) in my head, which is what you want to achieve with any piece of writing but especially writing for audio.
I like the mid-play turnaround when Pam shares her secret about how she knew he would look - and how she then piles on the uncomfortableness again in the second half, just when Joe thinks he's off the hook, by offering to show him … them! I feel so sorry for Joe, it's fantastic, all the sections where she's relentlessly talking about…them and he thinks he's having a heart attack, are brilliant.
You do have a couple of stray apostrophes in there - you don't need either of them in "Lot's of guy's"! Also, "sign-up" should probably be hyphenated.
I couldn't finish this review without shouting out two of my favourite lines:
- "The sign up is not supposed to be fun."
- And of course your very strong ending - I genuinely laughed out loud sitting here at my computer at "Hey, Joe! Look!"
Do Write On - I hope to hear one of your plays on the radio or a podcast one of these days!
I really enjoyed reading this work in progress. It made me laugh out loud three or four times - and for such a short piece, that's quite an achievement!
I particularly loved the tone/voice you write with - it's strong and distinctive. The classic fantasy author who uses footnotes is of course Terry Pratchett, but I think yours are in a distinct enough voice that it doesn't feel like you're copying him.
Some other parts that I loved and thought were really strong:
- 'Stay with me on this' intrigued me and drew me in.
- I cackled at "Blearth." In my own writing, I have real difficulty naming things. I don't know how you came up with this name, but it's brilliantly funny.
- The last sentence has just enough intrigue to make me want to know more about the wizard and why he's in such a hurry.
The phrase "for all intents and purposes" in the first paragraph is a bit clunky and breaks up the flow of the writing. You could remove it without changing the meaning or feel of that sentence.
There were a couple of things in the last paragraph that I bumped on, specifically:
- "highlighting the best tourist locations…" Are people lighting their lamps specifically so that people can use them to find the best tourist destinations? It's a bit confusing, so could perhaps be rewritten.
- "the kind of air that nature intended" I think you're saying that this much purer air than we have on our polluted earth, but it's a bit unclear. Again, it could be rewritten to make the meaning a bit clearer.
I look forward to reading more of this if you do write more of it. Definitely worth continuing - please do Write On!
I enjoyed reading this - I think you fulfilled the prompt well by introducing a variety of mythical creatures in the background, giving the story and the party atmosphere and a strong sense of setting without allowing them to overwhelm the story. (Ice bears sound adorable!)
I also liked the obviously well thought-through world creation, with the different orders of wizards. They all sound intriguing, and, of course, if this wasn't a short story I would be fascinated to learn more about them.
A few criticisms:
- I was confused over the "trust bond" part - it's an ingenious idea, but did you mean to imply that one of them is lying because Dax's palm warms? Maybe make this a little clearer.
- There were some problems with the way you laid out the speech at the beginning - you should stick to the 'new line for each new speaker' rule. This can easily be rectified with some judicious editing.
- Dax's name changes! He's Dax Sealbrahn at the beginning, and Dax Provdy near the end. If you meant this to be a nickname or something, you should make it clear. Again, careful proofreading can easily pick up stuff like this.
Not a criticism, but I did wonder why the story ends with a physical fight if they are wizards? Wizard-warriors are awesome: if that's what you were going for, perhaps you could make it clearer to the reader?
The part about Dax not saying "Sir" Winston was interesting, and a nice bit of character-building for both Robert and Dax.
Finally, a few bits that made me chuckle - I'm from England where we spell it as "grey." I don't know what the debate is in America, but I liked that you alluded to it in your fantasy world" I also enjoyed that Gregore didn't fight because he didn't want to ruin his new suit.
Firstly, I really liked the concept. Aliens visiting the earth has, of course, been done thousands if not millions of times, but you most definitely put your own spin on it. I laughed out loud at the bit about 'five' being some sort of code; the part where Pam thinks that the wind is a musical , enchanting sound made me want to go outside to listen to it myself; and I admire your left-field thinking where Pam thinks assumes that the ground feels different because it is a different colour.
My only criticism is of the opening paragraph, where you tell the reader the precise situation that your character is in. This grates a bit, because you assume that Carla knows all of this information already. Perhaps you could integrate this information into the main body of the letter for the reader to infer?
I think the most interesting thing, however, was precisely how alien the earth was to Pam - this got me thinking about how different her world must be, and that was intriguing.
I liked how, although it was obviously a story for/about children, adults were still present, indulging the children but not being too patronising. This grounded the story and gave it some realism, allowing the fun, silly parts of it to fly! You also established the context quickly and well with the exposition about "Gina is my best friend" at the beginning, which is essential for a short story, and also fitted in with the narrator's overall tone.
Technically, there are a few things you could do to improve here - for example, you tend to sprinkle your text liberally with adverbs and adjectives describing speech - "anxiously," "Gina stated," "Carol declared proudly." While these are good, I think it's sometimes actually better to use simple words - "she said," or nothing at all after speech - because it makes prose flow better.
Overall, this story gave me a lovely feeling of the innocence and happiness of childhood and childhood "mysteries!"
The first part was a beautiful account of an idyllic-sounding childhood. The way you described the journey on foot to the town and the river was simple, but extremely effective in drawing me in and making me want to read the rest.
You reference Tom Sawyer: this essay echoes that pastoral genre, I think, with the nostalgic tone and emphasis on the beauty and majesty of nature.
I really like your optimistic attitude: though you are obviously sad about the fate of the Lapog River, your final message is inspiring and makes the reader think about our responsibility to the environment and the future.
Thank you for opening my eyes to a community and lifestyle I would not have known about otherwise.
(This is the second thing of yours I've reviewed now, and I have to say I'm really enjoying your style, dark and creepy as it is!)
I really liked the twist - that the man was digging his own grave - at the end, although I am slightly confused by the line "No living man in town was fit for this job,": do you mean the job in the mines, or of digging the grave, or both?
The imagery and description is wonderfully evocative - I can just *see* the sad picture of the old man in my mind, and you build up to what he is actually doing really well as well.
Only quibble is grammatical, really - I don't think you need the first comma in the first line, or the ellipses in the 3rd line - the prose sets the pacing without them :)
My absolute favourite line(s) ~
And while the rich drank wine by the fire,
He was the one hacking the coal out of the ground,
Brilliant, simple way of showing the contrast and unfairness of the man's life.
The concept is - well, frankly, TERRIFYING in the best of ways - I loved how the narrator started off sounding sort-of normal, right up until "Even commit murder." That was the first "oooooh" moment for me - and the second was when I realised what was going to happen to him.
It was really fantastic how the narrator's language changed throughout the story, becoming cruder and more violent as more and more was revealed about his hideous acts.
I can only offer a few minor criticisms: firstly, you use adverbs quite frequently ("I boom passionately," "He said humbly") and you don't always need to - readers tend to skip over the verbs used to describe speech, so you can get away with simpler words and sprinkle adverbs sparingly, like salt or pepper! The other thing is that it'd probably be a good idea to put in more spacing - after anyone speaks, for example, and I think it could add to the effect in passages like this:
"Now, you may be thinking that cults are only for the ignorant and the bewildered.
Wrong.
The truth is that people with very low self esteem are actually very hard to control, this is because they lack the base confidence required to believe and follow a doctrine. The same goes for people with very high self confidence, who are often so consumed with themselves, that they find it inconceivable that another person may have the answers."
Another thing I really liked was the dark humour of the character - the way that he chooses his "sacrifices" in a sort of twisted Robin-Hood-esque manner, and is completely unapologetic about his exploitation of his congregation.
Overall - excellent, chilling concept, good use of language, and a satisfying ending!
I hope you found this review constructive and encouraging :)
I really liked the style - it felt like one of those 19th century classics: laying everything out about the characters clearly and concisely for the reader, but still maintaining intrigue.
I also liked the device of the letter that was continually being written - as well as allowing the story to be told from Tuesday's perspective, it added to the reader's picture of the character. A great example of using form to add to the story.
My only criticism is minor: I did find it quite difficult to identify all the different members of the family - perhaps if you made this longer, you could include more about them to distinguish them from the reader?
Finally - I just love your style of writing: the phrase "She had gone out of my life forever, leaving a strange hole – not a cartoon-like hole in the shape of Tuesday herself, but a gaping hole that seemed to cover my soul entirely." is just beautiful and heart-breaking, and the little touches like the top hat make this story really special.
This was really good - I love how you've thought around the original prompt to create a really cohesive, punchy short story.
A couple of suggestions: although using short sentences is good for dramatic effect, you could perhaps vary the sentence length a bit more in this piece so it doesn't get repetitive. Similarly, you could try to play around with sentence structure so you don't always have to start with "I."
Having said that, this piece has a powerful emotional impact and a character that is established really well through the first person prose.
The use of imagery connected to the key 'copper and silk' idea is excellent without being over-the-top, and the emotion behind the poem is comes through strongly and powerfully as well.
Just a small point - I don't know if you did it on purpose, but you don't always have to have punctuation (i.e. a comma) at the end of every line. It might make it flow a little better. Similarly, you might want to capitalise the words at the begininng of lines.
I read it a few times and felt like I understood it better each time. I think that's the sign of a great poem :)
That was beautiful - in both the writing style and narrative. I felt that i got involved with the characters straight away, which meant that when Gethen stepped into the fire I genuinely caught my breath and thought that the inevitability of death had won... So the ending made me very happy! Have you considered expanding this story/universe at all? I would love to know more about Gethen's past beyond the intriguing glimpes we got here!
~BlushingRose
Oh my goodness. That was fantastic, in a really-properly-freaking-me-out way. The straightforward, factual style of writing somehow made it more tragic. Towards the end, his acceptance of his 'shutting down' really got to me in the way it showed how much he'd become a machine. Amazing.
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