I think this suffers from it's length. The premise is interesting but you just don't have time in this length to build a sense of wrongness or tension around the twist which robs it of some of it's power. The story also moves too quickly to become attached enough to the characters to have the bullying give the emotional touch.
This is definitely something that could be good but I just don't think it works at this length. Especially if you find or strengthen a theme that unifies the bullying and sense of being new and different from everyone else and the ultimate reveal and tragedy of the character and reveal.
This is just my opinion though and many are certainly going to disagree with me.
I did notice two things in the narrative that didn't quite make sense to me.
1.) When Angela was originally welcoming to Chris but was put off when he said he was abducted. A character that was established as wearing a foil suit and a colander. It just didn't really make sense to me for her to not scoot her chair away from the beginning. In fact I'd imagine her being really annoyed that a serious journalist was forced to sit next to a guy from a UFO magazine wearing a colander and not inclined to be kind at all.
2.) It didn't really make sense to me that the president would deny the alien stuff so vehemently when it's pretty clear that they planned that moment. Especially inviting her former abductee. If they weren't planning to kill them then why invite someone like that to a press conference? (as a side note it's not actually possible for a general to do this, the vice president can with the authorization of congress but that's an unimportant detail.)
I may just be overthinking the narrative of course because besides that I actually found it quite fun to read. I didn't notice any glaring grammar or spelling problems (though admittedly I'm terrible with both so don't take my word for it.)
This would actually make a great start to a comedic sci-fi, the tone is perfect for it.
Of course this is all just my opinion and since I'm submitting something to this contest as well I might be a bit biased! I do hope it's helpful though.
This was really good, it can be extraordinarily difficult to write such a short story and you pulled it off very well.
The only possible criticism I might have is that exclamation marks are something ive been told should be used very sparingly and that its better to get feeling across with your writing and not punctuation.
I dont really think it detracts from the story and is probably just a matter of taste, especially given the limitation of the word count for the story.
It really made me wonder what this person was doing out in the woods, and what the whole story might be.
I'm not, as a general rule, a spiritual person. I do think this piece exemplifies the very best of religion and humanity. I enjoyed reading it, thank you.
I hope you had a merry christmas and that you get what you prayed for.
This was really funny. Not much to say beyond that except that I think the ending came off a bit weird, they are a little too slow on the uptake about katrina.
I also think the line about it being a tradition of your people would work better as a family tradition.
It really was good though.
Just returning the favor for reviewing one of my stories!
This is definitely the beginning of a horror story, and it's not a terrible idea, but I have trouble really feeling the emotions from the scene. The story elements also do not tie together to make a coherent narrative. If you are going to put so much work into telling us that his step father beats his mom and that he gets bullied in school, there must be some connection to the monster made. You could make the monster represent something metaphorically about kids in these situations but that isn't very clear. The monster only shows up twice with very minimal information being given. All I know is that there is a vague monster in a box with a fetish for the number 3.
Besides the plot coherence problem I also have trouble really feeling what they story is supposed to make me feel.
For instance.
(Jimmy pushed the headphones tighter to his ears and turned up the music on his phone. Even at the highest volume he could still hear his stepfather Carl scream at his mom.
Rain began to splatter against the window outside.
He looked out and saw the trees in the garden sway in the rising wind. Streetlights blurred in the night as the deluge poured down.
When he turned around his mother was stood in the doorway of his room. Her face puffed from crying, a small red mark under her eye. )
It would be better if your first lines read more like.
(The screaming clawed at Jimmy's ears as he futile tried to drown them out with his headphones.
"You stupid bitch, you and your f***ing kid have been nothing but trouble, I don't know why I even bothered to take pity on you and marry ya." The slurred screams of his step father overcame his music.
After the screaming had died down his mother walked into the room. Shoulders slumped, eyes puffy and tired from crying, a new mark marring her face.)
Now I'm not really a particularly good writer either, but I think what I did get's the feeling of the scene across better than your straight narration. The action is actively happening, and there is a bit of dialogue that replaces the need for you to explain in narration that Carl is his drunken, abusive, step father. The way it's written is just passive and doesn't really engage the reader.
First things first, you should separate each paragraph with an extra line. It would help make it more visually appealing.
I can see your going for more of a children's book feel with the writing and that's not really my cup of tea so I can't speak to your success. Though I would consider going through the dialogue again, it seemed a tad stilted.
You should also indent your paragraphs properly, put it in a word document and use tab instead of spaces, it should copy over just fine and as it is your indents are uneven which detracts from the visual attractiveness.
I don't want to come off as harsh, but I firmly believe that if I give a bunch of reviews that only pointed out what I did like I might as well have not reviewed it because nobody has a chance to improve that way.
I do like the premise. It's a noble sacrifice and highlights that our existence is important to somebody no matter how humble our existence is.
From what I can see It looks like your practicing dialogue. Which is for me one of the hardest parts of writing (aside from punctuation).
I've seen far worse dialogue but I'm afraid this one isn't the best. This is just a random review from some random guy on the internet so feel free to disagree as it's only my opinion.
“NO! I WILL NOT DO THAT MOTHER! HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?” Margaret screamed at her mother.
People don't tend to talk in all caps, the exclamation point is going to be enough, if you want to really drive it home you could rewrite it so that the descriptive scream comes before the actual dialogue. I think you should also try and be more descriptive in the tags. Something like Margret stamped her foot or Margaret gave her mother a withering look instead of just saying she screamed at her mother.
Also just a nitpick but
“I guess I’ll finally wash the dishes she mumbled.”
She said that she mumbled? I think your tag is in the dialogue.
Also, while its purely a personal preference I'm not a big fan of colorful type, the creativity should be in the writing and the colors just tend to distract from the words.
Other than that, my limited grammatical abilities can't help you.
However, what's with it being illegal to fix her robot? Who built the robot if its illegal to fix them? That really left me wondering and the lack of explanation is very...unfortunate.
I really liked this, poetry isn't really my thing so I'm not sure how much real advice I can give you so instead I'll tell you that this is a really good poem and you should keep writing.
If your going for a book chapter this simply isn't long enough.
While true that it depends on the goal the first chapter needs to set the scene, flesh out the most important parts of the character, hook the reader, etc. etc.
A first chapter is generally 2000-3000 words.
I'ts a good seed but expand on it.
best wishes,
mikema63
PS feel free to review my portfolio or ask me any questions. Feel free to disregard me at your leisure as well
I'ts very short for being able to do that. since I tend towards the sci-fi fantasy genres my first instinct was that he really was going to come back and have adventures as an angel and everything would be happy and better.
What were these "Bad things" you had in mind?
I'm only sorry that I can't share his cheery view about life after death and spirituality.
We didn't all have a hurt free childhood but it's excusable. Maybe you could add more about the hate and criticism of others that contributes to your own inner pain?
Another thing to consider adding is what happens when you allow it to fester too long?
Clicking random review certainly takes me interesting places. :P
It's nice that you keep a page like this to commemorate reward worthy work. You deserve a ribbon for your kindness (you get an imaginary ribbon, I'm new and cant afford one).
Keep on encouraging people, we all need it from time to time.
How much quantum mechanics did you research before writing?
I'm afraid I might get a little pedantic about the "rules", sci-fi is kind of my thing but I don't mean to be harsh.
Space and time are not opposites, they are the same thing (time is a 4th spatial dimension). Energy and matter are the same thing as well so you might want to include that. Also all the fundamental forces (electro-magnetism, gravity, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force. All of the forces and motions of the universe is caused by them) could be important to add.
You held to the rhyme scheme, thats good, unfortunantly it comes off a bit unnaturally.
You could try reading it to yourself to make sure it flows in a natural fashion.
Poetry, especially structured poetry, is very hard to do because of this. Keeping the poetic rhythm and structure while simultaneously preserving the flow and message is an incredible challenge.
My main criticism is going to have to be the rhyme scheme, It needs to be gone over again and each line checked to make sure it holds to your pattern.
Its a good start just needs some reworking. Don't be discouraged, holding onto a rhyme scheme while still saying what you want to say is incredibly difficult and I myself don't write poetry because I cannot do it correctly.
Somebody doesn't like conservatives much. So begins my random review.
Certainly with some editing it would make a good opinion piece on a blog or comments section. I suppose how much you consider it a success depends on what you were going for here.
As venting you have certainly won the contest.
Not an objective piece though if that's what you were going for.
Its good, and a very good start. My main quibble would be the lack of stable rhyme scheme. Certainly free verse is perfectly fine but it starts off reading like a more structured type of poem.
I may be totally off on what you were trying to achieve but that seems like something you might want to go through the next rewrite thinking about.
You definitely need to do a full proofread for grammar.
Some missing things like "Spiritualist will object to such a materialist approach." just throws you out of the reading without the "a" before spiritualist.
Grammar rules can be played with when doing creative writing but there shouldn't be things that jar you and bread your connection to the reading.
My two cents. ;)
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