You mentioned this is a rough draft, so my rate and review reflects that. I'm going to assume you will take care of any grammar issues during your editing process. That said, you wanted to know if I was hooked with that opening enough to want to read more. My answer is yes. I think you have a good opening scene that gets right to the action. My only suggestion would be to perhaps "ground" the Place in your story a little faster. Even though I was interested in what was going on, I wasn't quite grounded in a sense of place until the end. Perhaps a bit more concrete description in the beginning as to the state of the buildings around Jake, Taze, and Brute; and maybe a little more description on what each of the characters look like as well.
At any rate, good luck with the rest of your story....
Very elegently written, I must say. My strength lies in fiction writing, but I enjoyed this piece a lot. As this piece is your opinion of the process of writing--what it does to the writer, and what it can give to the reader--I can tell you that almost all of what you wrote rings true within my heart. I particularly relate to the second to last paragraph. I do believe the process of writing, and creativity in general, needs to be worked out just like any other muscle in the human body. A marathon indeed, and "not to finish first, but to finish". That's my favorite line in your piece.
Good luck with your contest, I think you have a good shot.
Seeing the brutal world through the eyes of a cat. I tried a story in a similar style once with the subject being deer, and one was shot by a hunter in the end. So, obviously, I like this style. Something about sucking the reader in and giving them that big twist in the end, if it works, is satisfying to me.
You asked for comments on plot and storyline. I had no problems with it, but if you are worried enough to print a disclaimer in the beginning about the behavior of the Chinese Takout Owner, you can always change the way Tom meets his end. The sad fact of life is cats die in many ways each day; none of them pleasant. Being run over; being caught, sent to the pound, and put down would be particularly disturbing.
Again, I had no problems with the pacing, storyline, or plot. Thanks for letting me read it.
So, my thoughts on what it could be? It looks and smells like any one of a dozen bathrooms I've had the unfortunate luck to be in at two in the morning in San Francisco on a night of heavy drinking. But, throw the "overturned benches" and the "troop of adolescents" in the mix, and I think I'm in a high school locker room for PE. For what it's worth. My simple critique is that, if I'm right, great job! If I'm wrong, you might want to look at inserting a few more descriptive phrases. Maybe a couple with sound or one with, heaven help us, taste (yuck!); that would be an interesting detail.
I hope your teacher gave you a good grade. Good luck!
First thing, right off the bat--my vote is you send it in to Reader's Digest if that's what you want to do. The tone and subject matter is exactly what they print, so hey, it's worth a shot.
I write fiction, and that's what my ciritcal ear is tuned toward, but I can tell you I enjoyed this. You clearly have a command of the language and terminology of the trucking world, and you need that to keep the reader interested, and--fiction or non-fiction--that's what it's all about in the end.
I think about the only area you might want to take a look at improving, for what it's worth, is maybe to state at the beginning your longing to join the trucking world. We get that at the end, and we even get the warning from your Dad at the beginning of your piece, but so much of the in-between is about your Dad's life on the road, for a moment I forgot this was about you wanting that life as well, and why you wanted it.
Thanks for letting me read your piece, well done! Great job!
So, we have "Thanksgiving: The Redneck Story", huh? I really enjoyed this story, had a good chuckle over it. Even though this story is written entirely in dialogue (don't you host a contest of stories written entirely of dialogue?), you get a definite sense of these people, and where their station is in life. I think the only other detail you could've added to complete the picture is a referrence of how Jethro and Jimmy met, or what relation they were.
The only thing that I would say distracted from my reading this story is the dialect. I really think we need a flavor of that in the beginning, but as I read the rest of the story, you can write the words correctly spelled--my imagination fills in the dialect, and I can get through the story or scene faster.
This is a different type of story than those I usually read, and I enjoyed it. Overall, I thought you did a masterful job of taking us inside the mind of a guy who thinks everything and everyone is against him. Through his thoughts, we are shown, rather than told, just what his outlook on life is.
There are one or two things you might want to consider to strengthen your piece. One, we find out toward the end that the narrarator is trying to change his views, change his life, more toward the positive. But we've had 99% of the piece heavy with a negative, apathetic tone that I have trouble buying it. Even though there are sections throughout where the narrator mentions he'd do something worse in the "old days" (the couple waiting for the bus, etc.) he's still describes the scene, not as a person who wants to turn his life around, more like he's just ambivelant about it.
Second, I'm having trouble with the Mother just going along with her son being wrongly convicted. Especially when she's his alibi for this most recent crime. I suppose I would probably want to see more to lend credibility to her just accepting her son's fate besides, "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger." Or, maybe a scene with her talking to the slick laywer about an appeal.
Overall, a good piece, and thanks for letting me read it.
This is the first 5 rating I've given out, so obviously, this piece was spot on for me. You have a wonderful command of describing things is a skewed sort of poetic manner. For the narrator of this piece, that works to perfection. And as a rule, I'm not into stories with heavy descriptive passages (I'm more of a dialogue guy, only because that's my strength), but I could totally follow this one: The narrator who used to be full of ideas ("I used to carry a notebook around...") until he met someone who eroded those ideals until he felt apathetic toward everything he saw. His realization near the end, reinforced when his ex-partner walked up toward him, was perfect pacing and a fitting end.
The only thing I have for you that you might want to consider is placing the paragraph about the Narrator's notebook sooner, as I was almost beginning to wonder if I was reading a piece about a person who felt non-plussed about the world all his life--and that's a character (with few exceptions) that gets boring fast.
I rated you for your position, as I agree with it wholeheartedly. I live in California, and Education in this state is a problem that MUST be addressed. I followed your analogy with no problems.
That said, you might want to give your piece one more pass, looking at grammer issues (I noticed a couple to fix--first paragraph, "But than one day..." should be then, etc.)
Well, I can see why this piece won awards. This is probably the best written piece I've come across so far since joining Writing.Com. About the only "constructive criticism" I can offer is really just a personal preference: Your story leads us down a path, and the payoff occurs, for me, about three paragraphs too late. Up until we discover the wife had died, everything sounds perfect. So perfect that you know something bad's going to happen. As a reader you're ready for it, and, as I said--for me--I wanted it to arrive, already.
Other than that pacing issue (and once again, I'm wrestling with the fact of whether it's legitimate or just a personal preference), I thoroughly enjoyed this story. Once again, good job!
Ah, a werewolf story with a twist. I liked it! I thought the pacing fit your piece like a glove (fast, the tension grew pretty quickly). My only constructive criticism, for what it's worth, is you might want to take a look at showing us, rather than telling us some of your descriptive paragraphs (A loud crashing of glass, for example, I really want to hear that--especially since it signals the twist in the story--instead of being told it's "loud").
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU for this page! Not only is it a great place to solicit reviews, it's a wonderful "one stop shop" for giving other people reviews. This page has a "workshop" like feel to it (from the standpoint of instant feedback, and giving feedback to others), that I'm totally used to. Thanks again for this...
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