Beautiful use of the meter, it's absolutely picture perfect grammatically. Your choice of wording is great, rhyming couplets make sense in nigh on all places and the layout is similarly good.
The only place I could possibly suggest improvement, is in the more linear aspects of the poem, such as the story you are trying to tell, and the messages that you're trying to get across. If you could combine such magical language with a more established idea, then you would be well along the way to major success.
Your dialogue is fabulous. Realistic, scene setting and totally apt for the situation. I'd kill for dialogue like that.
It's a great start, but there are points to improve. In the first paragraph, the line: "And if the law won’t do it, then by golly, we’ll do it ourselves!” - I think ought to be "by god". It's understandable to try and paint a picture of the horrid white men as bad, godless people, but its still necessary to show their motivations and beliefs. Those are just as horrific as their actions.
You can also lengthen out the introspective aspects of your main character. You tell us that she's scared, but you don't tell us how scared, you don't show us that fear. I want to know more about how she feels before she goes, how the murder of her father galvanises her, how she stands alone in the face of oppression. Feelings are the hardest things to accurately portray in short stories, but often they can be the difference between good, and great.
This story has a great plot, and has potential to be a rather good short story or novella. If you can give us more emotion, more feelings from the protagonist, more reasons to fall in love with her, then this story can be truly very good.
It's shows promise, we've all found ourselves in this situation, the heart-pounding, palms-sweating, nerve wracking moments before talking to a girl you like. It's absolutely true, and you've made good inroads into bringing those feelings out and giving them to the reader.
To improve, I would maybe look at sentence and paragraph starters. There are a lot of first person pronouns here, and they seem to affect the linear flow of the story. If you can start your sentences with a bit more variety, it entices the reader to continue onward.
I would also look at lengthening the introspective aspects of this character, maybe exploring why he's feeling all these feelings, how intense they are and to what extent he would go to satiate them. Unless of course this ties into the climax, in which case withholding information can be a powerful tool.
Apart from that, it's excellent. The plot is good, and I'd be interested to know what ends up happening. Good luck finishing this piece, we'll all be waiting with bated breath to find out what happens... :D
I really enjoyed this, the idea is really original and the story was quite tense in places. In response to your love of old movies, I can genuinely imagine Hitchcock having some fun with the part where they reach the ravine and the lights go out. Very tense, and the cellphone lighting is a nice touch.
I thought it could possibly use some work in the dialogue and climax. I found the dialogue a little bit questionable at times, I know it's one of the hardest things to master, but I thought that the characters sometimes under-reacted to the imminent doom inherent in their situation. I also didn't really understand the final paragraph, were you trying to infer that he's the killer, or that he's lucky but it's the last time he'll see his friends? Is it even more complex?
Apart from that, I cannot fault it. It's well written, your style shows considerable maturity and flows really quite well. The sardonic toned jokes were clever, and I liked how they provided some comic relief to the story. With some work on timing, they could become a really individual aspect of your writing.
Very clever. I love the simplistic premise, and really love the thematic implications of it. Very good. I do wonder however, if the use of the name Ima is thematically significant. If you used it because it's an anagram for "I am", I do congratulate you. That's really quite clever.
Improvements? Well, to rip you your proverbial 'new one', I would maybe look more towards the emotional side of your writing. Themes and ideas are great, but they should never be at the expense of the story, most people aren't as intelligent as the writer. I'd quite like to know why Ima bears such hatred, whether it's well founded, how she feels about it. I'd like to know how deep it runs, because it would give the story more depth, and add another layer to your wonderful final question. Namely, to what length is revenge felt, and how correct a judgement has the old man made?
Do keep writing though. This shows promise. I'll be watching.
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