Title and Author: Safety is not outrunning your brother by Ben Langhinrichs: WIP it!
What I liked: A concise, logical argument supported by a well known analogy.
What I thought needed work: "...at the poor, the black, the women..." Maybe just 'black people' instead of 'the black' because, though I understand what you're aiming for, the sentence reads as if you're just referring to a color and not a group of people. Using the phrasing "the black" and "the women," specifically the use of the word "the," feels distancing. Could this be marked under the "educational" genre instead of "other"?
Overall impression: Insightful, well worded, and an easy read. I enjoyed it.
I haven't come across too many westerns on Writing. This was a welcome break. I'm a sucker for action, too. I enjoyed the feel of the piece, but I think the mechanics could use some tweaking. I didn't see any spelling errors. Some thoughts I have to pass on:
- Careful of using commas to create run-on sentences. Ex: "He slipped the faded photo of his murdered wife from his pocket, gazed at it, lit a cheroot, lit the fuse, casually tossed it into the saloon." Needs to be split into separate sentences.
- You don't need to use quotes when referring to a town or bar, unless the name is incorporated in a direct or indirect quote from something or someone else. Double quotes can also be used to earmark a word for irony or disdain.
- Using less adverbs (think of descriptive words ending in 'ly') means your work is more concise, makes your tale easier to read, and reads more emphatically. For instance, instead of saying, "Six other men hastily stood from the table..." consider: Six other men jumped up from their table. Or, instead of, "...there was a flurry of frantic activity." You could just say: ...there was chaos. Or: ...the room fell into chaos.
- Careful of using known phrases like, "Dropped like a wet sack of potatoes." Use your own words.
- Did the dynamite ever explode? There's a reference at the end to a fire, but it's not explained where the fire came from.
- In the beginning you capitalize "The Highwayman" and later his title/name is not capitalized.
Thanks for submitting your work! It was fun to read and I look forward to coming across it again one day after it has been revised.
Well this is an interesting little tidbit. I was pleasantly surprised by the ending. I liked the feel of the "stream of consciousness," though grew tired of the word 'she' toward the of it. The lack of formatting was distracting. Consider revising and using paragraphs.
I noticed a few issues with grammar, spelling etc, and thought I'd pass them along to you:
- Unwinding, not umwinding
- Rhythm, not rythmn
- A contraction using a word followed by 'not' is: couldn't, wasn't, etc. Remember the apostrophe separates the 'n' from the 't'
- Definitely, not definately
- Realized, not realised
Quickly running your work through a word processor will catch those errors for you.
"Morning turned to dusk," confused me. Was she paid to spend a full day with the guy?
You might consider revising the description of your work to more clearly reflect the piece. The description says, "...not everyone is lucky enough to feel its essence," but the piece leads me to believe the prostitute/call girl did feel love, or something, for the person and just didn't know how to handle her feelings.
Thank you for the boldness of your submission and for the 'zing' you stuck in the end. It made for an interesting read. Keep writing! :)
I'm not quite sure what you were going for here. It might be a good idea to clarify in the beginning if you are providing a description of a character in another person's work or asking for descriptions of characters in which you have an interest. I noted some technical issues. In the first sentence it is not necessary to have a comma preceding the closing parenthesis. In fact, if you use commas, you don't need the parenthesis at all. :) But you would need to rephrase the first sentence. For your consideration: We all know those who fill the position of guards in a football team are types apart. The second sentence doesn't make sense. Did you intend for the bit between the dashes to mean "They're simply morons" or "There are simply two morons" or "They're simply too moronic?" The last bit of the second sentence seems to be a statement of its own as it does not fit with the previous two bits. I'm going to go out on a limb and say you may not be a native English speaker. If this is the case, then I applaud you for your effort and beg you not to give up! I think you've got some work to do but have clearly already made some improvements. Chin up and do some revising. :)
I do so enjoy a poem I can bounce my head to! Not only does it make the poem fun to read, it makes the words stick longer in my mind. In my mind's eye, I perceive the referenced "distance" as being due to time and circumstance, and not necessarily just a geographic. The poem delivers a sense of longing for a past love. Because of that, you might consider changing your descriptive line on the Shameless page next time you put this one up. If memory serves, you stated "distance" could be a good or a bad thing, but your poem leads the reader to believe it's only a bad thing. Thanks for sharing!
I thoroughly enjoyed "Perhaps Myself" by strlcuckoo. The poem incorporates some end rhyme and the flow is pretty good. I really liked the irony between how the world views a person verses who they are, or who they think themselves to be. I might suggest using commas instead of semi-colons in some spots. Even though some of the lines could be taken as complete thoughts by themselves, if you pull back and look at the message and scope of your poem, some of those lines may be more meaningful with just a pause in between. In my humble opinion, the ideas behind the poem were an excellent choice. They are some that so many people can either relate to or, at the very least, understand.
The poem makes me want to ask this man a few questions: Who does he see when he looks in the mirror? Does he see the same person as the world does, the person he actually is, or does he see someone completely different?
It's not too often that a poem makes me start asking a host of questions. Thanks for sharing this piece!
I thoroughly enjoyed "Perhaps Myself" by strlcuckoo. The poem incorporates some end rhyme and the flow is pretty good. I really liked the irony between how the world views a person verses who they are, or who they think themselves to be. I might suggest using commas instead of semi-colons in some spots. Even though some of the lines could be taken as complete thoughts by themselves, if you pull back and look at the message and scope of your poem, some of those lines may be more meaningful with just a pause in between. In my humble opinion, the ideas behind the poem were an excellent choice. They are some that so many people can either relate to or, at the very least, understand.
The poem makes me want to ask this man a few questions: Who does he see when he looks in the mirror? Does he see the same person as the world does, the person he actually is, or does he see someone completely different?
It's not too often that a poem makes me start asking a host of questions. Thanks for sharing this piece!
Thanks for including what "Tetractys" meant! I haven't read a poem like "God Cries Tears" before. The style alone makes it pretty unique and I imagine it couldn't have been easy to write, let alone form a cohesive thought. The words you chose are powerful and create a striking image of today's America. Consider adding a comma between "The Land of the free" and "our home of the brave." I think adding the pause would allow your words to sink in better before the reader moves along to the second portion of your piece.
I suddenly want a hot dog. And I was actually looking forward to winter until I read your poem! Now I can only see a lazy hot summer day in my head. :) So, good job on including some much loved activities one can usually only enjoy in the summer. Might want to check your spelling. For instance, I believe "popsicle" is one word instead of two. Was the phrase "What comes in July" meant as a question?
Normally I'd sit down and throw some punctuation or grammar tips out. Maybe recommend the clarification of a sentence or ask for more detail on something or other. But I don't think you're too interested in that right now. Suffice to say, I thoroughly enjoyed this. Why? Because of lines like this: "Yes, its true, I am an outdated savage, but at least I know how to mail something you greasy little shit." ..And this: "..I genuinely feel like I've written down one big, steamy, heaping pile of excrement for the world to marinate in." ..And this: "Run-on sentences? Yes please, I'll have a couple of those." LOL I just might fan you..
Interesting and fun read! It made me laugh at times. The "Dear Queen!" line is fantastic and I chuckled. I enjoyed your creativity in choosing the characters you did. At other times your words made me contemplate the nature of humanity and the consequences of chaos. For the most part my mind settled into the tale easily. There were a few points I was taken out of the story due to sentence structure. Example, the sentence: "He’d never seen the Drones divided so, usually they thought as one, but no joint birth-programming as larvae could prepare them for something like this, something so Alien. " My brain might process the thought you're trying to convey easier if that sentence was made into two. I noted some punctuation errors - missed periods or quotes, etc. I enjoyed the descriptions and details you provided. I had a clear picture in my head of the setting. Comparatively, the ending was rather sudden and anticlimactic. I was hoping you'll be adding more to the end. If you do, let me know because I'd like to read it. :)
That was a fun read! I read it several times, actually. I had a pretty clear picture of the setting in my mind and I got the feeling that somewhere, hidden behind the scenes, there may be some animosity afoot.
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