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Printed from https://writing.com/main/profile/reviews/deidrenarga
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51 Public Reviews Given
52 Total Reviews Given
Public Reviews
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Review by Acme Spire Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (4.5)
I just loved this story. I really felt the excitement of Lisa meeting Colin and their feelings of being the only ones. And the sex felt rewarding. I kind of just skimmed over after that part though - it kind of seemed repetitive - but I won't take that away from my score today.
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Review by Acme Spire Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (4.5)
Each of your characters feel different very strongly and the plot follows an important and unique world. The transition between speaking or action or travel can be a little too fast for some people, but I read fast and kept up well.
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Review of La Scorsa Notte  Open in new Window.
Review by Acme Spire Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (5.0)
What???!!!!!! YOUDON'TLIKEQUICHE???!!!
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Review of Midnight Guest  Open in new Window.
Review by Acme Spire Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (5.0)
What magnificent prose, I say! This work is truly novel, giving the full flavor of narration of a unique light. Never did I know that description of this caliber exist, that I can not measure its quality myself. I would ask for a second appraisal for this work, for I yield not an ill word toward its apparition. From advent, that femme fatale intrigued me with her silence. Yet, I failed to ever wager that the essence of Death lay incumbent with her. I reckon you should carry yourself far into this website's competition, as you are a strong candidate for a talented author among them.

(Sorry about this horrible language! I tend to poorly emulate the voices of certain people as though they were contagious in the quality of their words.)


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" Open in new Window..
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Review by Acme Spire Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (4.0)
Knowing how it feels to be out in the cold morning on the open white snow, it makes me feel quite vulnerable when reading about a kid on his first hunt. Of course, you show the modern rustic lifestyle quite well, showing us the boy training to use a gun, then hunting in the safety of the other men. It sounds so safe that I wonder why this is a 'man' hood thing when a woman could do it just as well to become more mature; anyone would do well to embrace their place in the cycle of life. Sorry, for I have strayed off a bit.

Onto the rest of your story. Jay is a well-played character because he is so young and yet he is excited for the hunt. Nowadays, we like to believe that a child would be quite afraid to kill an animal, but Jay is real and he goes to shoot his first joyfully. With great luck, Jay kills his first with a single shot fired, but he soon feels a little remorse. However, you break expectations again when he forces himself out the next day and enjoys another kill.

My issue with the execution of this second day, however, is the brevity. In only three paragraphs, Jay begins to regret, then he has the courage to go against his gut, then he goes out and successfully completes another hunt. To make it more of a story, we need to feel the struggles of the moment and you hardly gave us enough time to feel it.

All in all, it was a solid story, but requires more careful deliberation in order for it to become a real experience.


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" Open in new Window..
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Review of Health behavior  Open in new Window.
Review by Acme Spire Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (1.5)
Consider your audience on Writing.com; are you speaking in a conference with social workers, policy makers, etc.? No. But this work is very much about making suggestions for those in certain occupations such as those. How were you planning to address them here?

As for this adress itself.... Why should I believe that your research findings indicating 4% net increase in physical activity, education opportunities and a lower amount of cardiovascular disease as a result of the physical activity in the few who do it are reasons enough to spend all the effort on a community wide program? These findings indicate rather insignificant results and simple reinforce commonly held beliefs.

As for the recommendations, they seem to be absolutely separate of the ideas in the research and could be amounted to as little as "be conscientious".

Encouraging physical activity is good in some cases, but based on your research findings, it seems that you need to search more for underlying problems like nutritional wellness; something that can influence behavior and energy greatly with the right use of knowledge. If people were to know about antinutrients and heavy metal contaminants in the majority of their foods, as well as knowing how to read ingredients and knowing how much quality of foods matter, then they could experience better life wellness.

I must also point out that your language seems to aim toward emulating other formal research reports, but there are various errors where you attempt this. You fail to have your own voice because the information you have found seems to guide all of the work.


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Review by Acme Spire Author IconMail Icon
Rated: ASR | (2.0)
Hello.

Your story is an entertaining fiction story, but I feel as though your efforts on following through with the title became a major flaw. One thing that really is off-setting is the use of a third person narrative when there are two perspectives and Vala's is shown in a subjective light particularly. Certainly, you can pull off two limited third person narratives, but juxtaposing them to each other every few paragraphs, repeating certain scenes and aiming for a different voice between them causes a learning curve to form in reading your story and muddles the pacing a lot. It seems like there is a better handle nearer the end of this passage, so maybe you should work on earlier areas to make them read more like it.

Otherwise, I enjoyed your writing style when I did not have trouble with the separate narratives and I feel that you could introduce the ideas, such as the guild, effectively, even while these concepts were not developed much at this point. Additionally, I enjoy some of your worldbuilding, as the nymphs have a unique appearance in being wooly and their behavior and group mentality are well illustrated. The fact that they could very well have lived in our world, sleeping in piles of leaves, is also nice.

A second issue, however, was the way you made things feel less genuine through cliches and improper nouns. Sometimes, you referred to nymphs and alfar as humans, such as the mother saying; I want you to grow up and become the brightest 'person' you can be. The use of the word "Moms" in referring to the other nymphs at all times feels weird too because 'mom' is a social word that would be used in conversation, and there is also very little we see for their roles as mothers. As for cliches (which can be hard to notice), saying something like "The pickings had been meager" shows a dependency on the cliched description 'meager pickings' and really feels ingenuine.

I feel that the last major flaw comes in the detatchment of the plot. First, Keta can sense the elements and gets an aura from Vala. Then, she is only able to say that she has 'potential' in learning so fast, but she should have been able to specify at least some kind of element. It just seems like there is very little magick showcased, when it seemed like the story would follow that path. Afterward, it feels like Keta is just living life and it is hard to see that training is taking place, making it strange when Keta decides that Vala should leave her mother for the guild. Following that, the progress of time (which you used as a joke) is very artificial, and it feels like the scene about her being naked breaks a lot of the emotion and the relationship between Keta and Vala seems superficial, but they act like they are also best friends at this point.


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" Open in new Window..
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Review by Acme Spire Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (3.5)
I see that this is the rough draft of your first book; it is not bad when the formatting is put aside. First of all, I enjoy how you start with a poem to show the main character's observance of the world acting outside of her control. Then, you introduce her glamourless life and pessimism very well by introducing her cat which has simply been left with the name "It". Lastly, you introuduce a nice setting by telling us about the six step-children, rich step-father and the mother who would marry into it, separate from the protagonist's considerations.

That being said, there is a lot you could improve on. One thing you might want to make clear is the main character's name. Is it Luna? Also, near the end of this page, you explain the influence of the father's death, god and religion that has been plaguing the girl's thoughts, but why does she break down the most when thinking about where SHE will be when she dies??? I mean, it could be interpreted as her wanting to end up with her father when she dies, but with the "nowhere?" added in there as the last straw, it just sounds like confusion over how her death will be handled. Lastly, "Dens and Cubbyholes" are really weird names that are related to objects. Are you talking about the objects? Not only that, but the next sentence should have a new paragraph to separate it because it finally tells us what she was going to do after leaving her room and that is not clear enough when shoved right next to the description of the room.

If you want some more tips on organizing the thoughts of this chapter and if you need help on the formatting, send me an email for additional help. I enjoyed reading and hope you post some more, thanks!


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" Open in new Window..
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Review by Acme Spire Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (2.5)
If you wish to write on here, I think it should be geared more toward your audience. First, your intro rating is E and this is accessible to anyone, yet you use the word "b#%#@y" in the first paragraph that anyone will see. I know it may not seem that big, but every promotion of swear words in everyday life and in places like this where children could easily read, is dangerously corrupting. Second, you keep referencing a lot of coded things casually, like mental disorders and poppy templates which not only are dead-end topics, but confuse me greatly with the thoughts that are not clarified because of these topics' introductions. For example, most people do not know what Poppies (especially being capitalized) could be because it is a specific flower and not a lot of people know the names of many flower these days. Third, you introduce the three girls from Suzy and another girl from Sam's school, and you say that you have been hanging out with them as if they were treating you well, and yet you only give evidence of mistreatment and we do not about Suzy's past or the other girl at all. You should not have introduced the other girl or brought up the beginning of the relationship if you were not ready to explain it. I know you must have been as tired as you said you were when you wrote this, but please clean up this entry now for your audience so that it has more of an outward meaning.


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" Open in new Window..
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Review by Acme Spire Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (3.0)
You might have gotten a review on this earlier written by me, but I wanted to change it since I realized I was wrong in telling you how to reformat the word search. The words here are not as challenging as they could be; especially since their lengths make the words very easy to spot with only horizontals and verticals being generated by the word search creator. I suggest you try and find words with more common combinations of letters and more words over the spectrum of sizes included. I know that you wrote this in the context of a story or some other type of item, but try and use these considerations for a more entertaining puzzle.
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Review by Acme Spire Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (1.5)
Hi. I think you should have some pointers on how to make a more challenging word search. In this word search, you used vertical (up-down) and horizontal (left-right) positions for the words and some of the horizontal ones were backwards, which is always more challenging, but you need to use diagonals (down and across/up and across). With the big words you used, many of the lines were completely taken up by the word, making it easy to spot by just lightly scanning the page. If these words had been diagonally placed, then they would not have taken so much clear space and would have meshed into the vertical and horizontal words, making it more challenging to spot them. I think the words themselves would have been very challenging, so I recommend that you try editing this word search or make a new one like it while using some of these tips to make it more challenging.
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Review of Autumn  Open in new Window.
Review by Acme Spire Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (5.0)
This is an amazing poem! I love just how much I think of autumn when there are so few casual symbols, but I am also clearly seeing Amber as a person and this a record of something that brings back bad memories. I also think it is amazing how seamless you make a juxtaposition between the hot and cold elements and submerge to and fro those elements in a potent way. Splendid work; I have nothing to suggest.
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Review by Acme Spire Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (4.0)
This is story is constructed wittingly, introducing new and unique characters with their actions and introducing a plot without making background story necessary. It is also remarkable that you have a strong level of philosophy in some of your characters, all of which reject the common interpretation of life that has been put to many histories. The show of this wisdom and experience, I think, is something that writers are aiming toward more and more these days, but few grasp it as it is here. My best criticism to this story is that it did not appeal to me as strongly as it would have if it had more strength of atmosphere. It is not that the setting conveys nothing, but I just think the details of some things need to be deeper, or there needs to be more written to create verisimilitude at a greater level.
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Review by Acme Spire Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (3.5)
This story has a reasonable and realistic background, decent atmosphere and interesting premise, but I think the biggest fault is that it seems more like an ending note to a larger story. I think adding hints to a big event just happening that involved the main character, or just writing a preceding story that ends with this would make a powerful impact.
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Review of New Love  Open in new Window.
Review by Acme Spire Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (5.0)
I understand exactly what you are going through, but my experience with the girl I loved was much sadder. I was hurt in so many ways and then we were torn apart, but I still loved her. She was somebody I would forgive no matter what she said until she stated the one thing that made it impossible to love her... And then, even though I had felt some hatred afterward, it took only a week to have me fallen in love with her again. But because it was no longer possible to love her virtuously, I kept my distance longer. She seemed to care about me more and more and I wanted to return but couldn't until I found it in my heart (this is where my story deviates the most) is decided on being her friend instead. I came to her and with all my strength and ignoring my fears, I finally confronted her and tried to apologize and told her my new feelings, but things somehow got worse. She started to completely ignore me now because I tried to do something good. That's when I left her completely, but she still has my heart, it is lost with her and the past and I can't continue being a person true to myself as I once was.

I had a much harder time than you did, though. There are so many things that I lost in search of her love. And yet, I think I have found someone once again who I feel I'm not half forcing myself to love and I hope I can hopeful build myself up from there.
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Review by Acme Spire Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (5.0)
I really hope you meet your goal with writing this story by the end of the year! When I first read this chapter, I thought it had some problems to be honest, but I think I just wasn't paying attention because this is a great chapter and it shows that you have a very good use of certain details such as describing emotionless thought with Lilian. One change that you might want to make is to describe how the house Lilian lived in looks like instead of labeling it "filthy". This change would add to the environment of the very eerie scene that the Officer walks into.

"April turned the conv " fix the weird error at this part. Also, change the date to 1999 at the beginning of Detective Siskin's part. "Detective Siskin eyes instantly flared up with anger," should read "Detective Siskin's eyes instantly flared up with anger at the sight of the officer." Finally, I found the word you wanted to use, "coroner" rather than "corner" when the Detective talks to Officer Jamison.
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Review by Acme Spire Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (5.0)
Once again, this was very good. I had felt so much when she went from seeing Emily, her one hope, into meeting the end of what terrible existence she had to bear with. And, even after all that they did, I still feel really bad about the deaths.... The Child with the Broken Soul required far more than I would have imagined to make herself what she is.
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Review by Acme Spire Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
I wanted to hear the next part of the story, but I didn't know it would be so painful! I love you. You're such a good writer and you have used so much to make the pain that this little girl has faced since birth empathetic to the reader. I even felt pretty happy when she was able to go to the zoo and we saw her more childish side, but then I had ttto be hurtts weihth .................I will be sure to read the rest.
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Review by Acme Spire Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (4.5)
You have something pretty strong going on with this story! There are so many concepts I never could have imagined as to the creation of Earth and the past before humans. And, to my amazement, I feel like I match the Seer's characteristics, although I know I'm not really as good at sensing the future and past as I often imagine. I know that you based the Child With the Broken Soul on yourself as well because of your biographical story. You are quite unique and deserving of the role. What I don't understand is the meaning of the Twins. I think there should be more explanation to their role as protectors of Earth.

This is a good story for bringing out the destruction to our environment, just make sure to make another draft so that you can add some more flair.
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Review by Acme Spire Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (3.0)
There is obviously an issue with the way women are treated in the workplace, but there is perhaps an equal pressure on men, one that has not yet arisen and is likely to be repressed when it does. Men are being forced into the same expectations of high standards, but the needed environment for healthy development of the male mind is no longer present. Nature is nerdy, alien, or even dangerous as the idea of centering the mind in consumerism, video games and TV to fulfill the adventurous side inherent in man, is forced upon them as the acceptable course of action. Even then, they find opposition and alienation with their choices. They are not adapted to home life as women were forced to be and are now undergoing a tumultuous transition. Yet displays of masculinity are demonized as the media states that a man is going to be dangerous while leaving the proof that men are very cautious towards women as a subtle note. Convinced women wish to become independent of men who may only wish the best for their women and only wish they would trust them more. Violence occurs because of increasing mental instability and disparity to past roles.

As for being successful at their jobs. This may be a given now but it is soon to pass. Women are now finding underground support everywhere while that support still goes to vouching for more. Women need to endure much, but will come to power soon. A person no longer gains positive recognition for being a white male and I find that to be an equal curse.

You could criticize my generalized reasoning, but I have given a response at least equal to what you have stated as the true situation of America. And the truth of the matter is that the inequalities face everyone here except for the rich men on top.
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Review by Acme Spire Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (5.0)
This is a great start to an intriguing story. One thing you did very well was keeping in account the effects of certain details. The most impressive example of this was the statement of rain being unheard of. You surprisingly avoided any details in the town describing any natural life which could not have existed in an arid region which can not support lifeforms in nature.
However, the paragraph beginning "Today's nine riders..." contains phrases which should only be included in dialogue such as the included and the last sentence using "Said". Also, the indigo luxdisc seems overreaching in its attributes when compared with the orange luxdisc. I must say, this is a very impressive rough draft.
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Review of The Camp Out  Open in new Window.
Review by Acme Spire Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (4.5)
I could tell from the start there was an exact and dedicated manner in which this story was written. You have made numerous highly skilled depictions of images not often perfected by the common author. Your dialogue fits with the true manner of casual speaking and is not toned down to make for what some people may expect characters speak like. I say only that you may have needed a stronger event setup in earlier parts. I did not find the proceedings of the first three parts quite as exceptional as the latter five.
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