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9 Public Reviews Given
10 Total Reviews Given
Public Reviews
1
1
Review of Chapter 1  Open in new Window.
Review by Troilee Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (3.5)
Hi there :)

First, my standard caveat: What follows is my opinion only. Please take what you find useful and discard the rest. :)

I think this is a good start, an interesting start. It definitely makes me want to read on to know who the Revenant is, who he's looking for, why and what the heck he's gonna do when he finds the person. So you've hooked the reader. Excellent! That's half the battle :)

I'm going to give you some general suggestions that I've learned over the last year or so, that you might consider applying to your writing. Most of these suggestions come from things I do in my writing that are corrected by those 'in the know' when it comes to getting things published.

In no particular order:

- Be careful of -ing phrases which begin sentences (I am the world's worst about these!). Example: His mind vibrating with fear, he quickly wiped the sweat off his forehead.... You can usually re-word the sentence to make the verb much more active, thereby tightening up your prose: His mind vibrated with fear. He wiped the sweat from his forehead... Which brings me to my next comment:

- For action scenes, short, punchy sentences work best. It makes your reader read faster, which ratchets up the tension for her (or him). In chase scenes or fight scenes (or any scene where there's a lot of action), use mostly short sentences, broken up very occasionally by a longer one.

- Watch your point of view. If you're writing in one person's POV, you need to be aware of what s/he will see and notice. Example: James` green eyes stole a quick glance over his shoulder... James wouldn't notice his own green eyes. The reader will recognize this as the author trying to convey some information to him and it will pull him out of the story. You don't want that. (Btw, the possessive of a proper noun which ends in 's' doesn't drop the 's' of the possessive in the way that plural words do. It would be James's green eyes.) All of which segue ways into:

- DBPs! Disembodied Body Parts. James's eyes don't steal a glance... James steals a glance. Don't make his body parts do things on their own. (I do this all the time!)

- Learn the typographical standards for different things. What I mean is that nothing ever goes within < >. Thoughts are either typeset the same as the rest of the text, or they're set apart by either their own paragraphs or italics or both. Which stardard to use is usually left up to the author, just be consistent. Along these lines, use italics within the text sparingly. You don't need to italicize 'the Revenant.' You already capitalize it, so you don't need any other emphasis on the word.

Okay, that may sound like I'm really ripping on this, but I'm not. I definitely see the raw potential here! I think you can do a lot to improve it stylistically and that's what I'm hoping my comments will help with.

As I said, I quite enjoyed it and I do hope you carry on!
Best of luck,
Troi
2
2
Review of Out on the Water  Open in new Window.
Review by Troilee Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (3.5)
Hi Jordan :)

Let me give you my standard disclaimer: What follows is just my observations and suggestions. If you find something in it that works for you, feel free to use it. Conversely, if something doesn't work for you, feel free to toss it out. It is your story, after all :)

I found your item on the Review Requests board, so I read your comment about leaving James's situation vague deliberately. While I think that can be a good idea, I think the reader needs to have something. I found myself wondering what, exactly, he did to make him crave this sort of physical exhaustion. My suggestion would be to at least give him a profession, then let the reader's imagination take it away. Perhaps he's a lawyer - the reader can wonder: is he a defense attorney? does he represent corporations against negligence suits? Perhaps he's a doctor. Maybe his speciality is something that caters to the luxury market (plastics) rather than really helping people in a more fundamental way. He could be a business owner - the reader can wonder if he's scamming his partners. Maybe his partners are scamming him and he recently found out. Or maybe he's a corporate whistle-blower who's staying quiet and working while the Feds check out the corp.

Mainly what I'm saying is that there are so many different things he could be, I find that not having any info at all and wanting to know undermines the impact of the story for me. Just toss me a bone ;)

I really liked your first paragraph, particularly the second sentence. You've definitely got a gift for description (which is my own weakness). You might consider changing the fish though, unless he's in a very, very shallow river. Catfish are bottom feeders, so they don't really glide through water. They mostly scavenge along the floor.

One other thing that might be worthwhile: setting. Consider actually choosing a location. Choose that city of 8 million and choose the place where he's 'getting away from it all.' It will make your piece much more vivid.

Overall, I enjoyed it. Short fiction can be very challenging to write, so it's always nice to see good stuff :)

Best of luck with your writing!
Troi
3
3
Review of Facing The Past  Open in new Window.
Review by Troilee Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 13+ | (3.5)
Hi there :)

First, let me say, I enjoyed this piece. I really liked how Charlotte didn't forgive her father, in the end. It's much different from the status quo with stories like this. That made it very cool :)

I think you lose a lot of punch, particularly with your dialogue, simply because of spacing and lack of line breaks/paragraphs. Someone may have already mentioned it, but you should always start a new paragraph when someone different speaks. Read the last half of your third paragraph, then read what I put below. I've only added paragraph breaks. I haven't changed any wording.

         "Its all your fault," her dad shouted at her. His face was red with anger and his breath smelled strongly of alcohol.

         Charlotte covered her face with her scrawny arm to keep from looking into his coal black eyes that were burning with rage.

         "Shes gone for good now and its all because of you, you evil little bitch." He kicked her swiftly in the stomach and it instantly took the breath from her body. "Get up." He growled.

         "Im sorry, Daddy, please I didnt mean to." Charlotte whimpered, but she didnt move. She tried desperately to figure out what she did to make her mom leave them. He yanked her up into a standing position and bent down to look directly into her big brown eyes.

         "Youre nothing but a worthless little brat." he told her, "We were better off without you. I wish you had been nothing more than a stain on the covers."

Do you see how much stronger the emotional reaction of the reader is when it's separate like that?

Two things about dialogue:
1. Most of the time 'said' is fine. Do away with whimpered, growled, mumbled, etc. The context of the dialogue and the emotion of the speaker should be clear enough to  convey those things.
2. Once you've replaced all those with 'said,' get rid of them too. ;) Well, not all of them. Dialogue is much stronger without the speech tags, usually. Only use them to clarify who's speaking, so the reader doesn't get mixed up. Here's the same passage:

         His face was red with anger and his breath smelled strongly of alcohol. "It's all your fault!"

         Charlotte covered her face with her scrawny arm to keep from looking into his coal black eyes that were burning with rage.

         "She's gone for good now and it's all because of you, you evil little bitch." He kicked her swiftly in the stomach and it instantly took the breath from her body. "Get up."

         "I'm sorry, Daddy, please I didn't mean to." Charlotte didn't move. She tried desperately to figure out what she did to make her mom leave them. He yanked her up into a standing position and bent down to look directly into her big brown eyes.

         "You're nothing but a worthless little brat. We were better off without you. I wish you had been nothing more than a stain on the covers."

Take a look at your dialogue further down in the story and see what speech tags you can get rid of without leaving the reader confused as to who's speaking.

I would have liked to have seen a little more about her initial interaction with Ethan. Don't waste the opportunity to show the reader more of her personality. Having your long-lost brother show up at your office would be a huge deal for most anyone. Show us ;)  Also, reading it, I wasn't really sure at first what his situation was, as far as how his dad treated him. Later on, it seemed as if he treated Ethan the same as he'd treated Charlotte, but his character wasn't really as clear as I'd like him to be, as a reader.

One thing that I have some trouble with (so I tend to notice it whenever I read someone's work now, due to looking for it in my own) is repetition. Three things you should watch for: 1. repeating a word within a few lines of each other, 2. repeating a phrase or description for the same thing twice, and 3. stating something that the reader already knows.

Examples:

1. She turned to leave, but stopped and turned. (second to last para)

2. He looked up in surprise when she approached. "You came?" he said with a look of pure surprise.  - this one actually covers all three :)

3. not even a single rust-colored hair stuck out. (part 1, para 3) & stroking her deep auburn hair. (part 2, para 1) We already know she's a red-head; it's not strictly necessary to tell us again.

These things are things all writers have trouble with, so you're in good company. Like I said, I have all kinds of trouble with this repetition thing. My mentor is always writing "We already know this" in my work :)

Okay, there's a few things. Before I sign off, I also want to say that I really like the last line a lot. I think it embodies how she feels as if she's been set free. I think it's very good and I hope you keep it, or something very similar, in there.

Like I said, I really liked the piece overall. Feel free to use my suggestions or not, as you wish. It's your story, after all! :)

Best of luck with your writing,
Troi
4
4
Review by Troilee Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (3.0)
Hi there!

Here's the standard stuff: this review contains my observations and suggestions. If anything I've said is useful to you, I'm very happy to have helped. Anything you don't find helpful, feel free to disregard. :)

Sharing your coming out story can be a very difficult thing, but I think it's important to do, not only for yourself, but for others who might be in the situation you were in prior to coming out. So kudos to you for that :)

I have a number of suggestions for this story, most of them pertaining to flow and continuity. First thought, take a moment to run it through a spell-check. There aren't a lot of spelling errors, but there are a couple typos that a spell-check will catch.

You first paragraph left some confusion as far as a timeline. In your first sentence, you say that you were about thirteen when you realized you liked women instead of men, then in the second sentence, you say that you dated men when you were younger. While this is probably not what you meant, but as a reader it can be taken to mean that when you were younger than 13, you were dating men. This also contributes to the overall confusion as to the age you're writing at in the story. When you began with the age of 13, it leads the reader to believe you're going to tell a story about when you were 13 and realized you liked women. No sentence after that really gives any age specifications, so it leaves a lot of questions.

Some grammatical and other specifics:

The next day I walked into the frontroom and asked my parents how they were?

Front room is two words. Also, this sentence should end with a period. You're telling the reader about what you asked your parents. You're not asking the reader anything, so the question mark needs to go.

My mom looked at me and said "that we were moving."

No quotes when you use the word 'that.' Either it's:

My mom looked at me and said that we were moving.

Or it's:

My mom looked at me and said, "We were moving."


Before long, all my friends began finding out that I was a lesbian.

How did they find out you were a lesbian? Did the mother of your friend tell them? Did she tell her daughter who told all your friends? Or did you tell your friends? The way this statement is phrased, it makes the reader think that you had nothing to do with your friends finding out.

When I got back home, I ask my mom what she thought about Christie?
It was at that point I ask her if it bothered her that I liked women instead of men?

Again, toss the question marks.

The end was anti-climactic for me. You should consider putting a bit more about the conflict with your dad. Friends come and go, but family is always your family. Conflict is what makes most stories interesting and a reader wants to know about the conflict and how it's resolved. I think the story would be stronger with more detail about how your parents dealt with it. You talk a lot about how you told a friend's mom, about how your friends reacted to the news, etc, but you never really go into how you told your dad or what his actual reaction was. I think readers would find that interesting.

Anyway, there's a few things for you to think about. Again, I think it's important that gay men and lesbians tell their stories and I'm glad you felt comfortable enough to share yours. Thank you :)

Good luck with your writing and happy anniversary! :)
Troi

My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Go Noticed" Open in new Window..
5
5
Review by Troilee Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (2.0)
Hi there :)

First, standard disclaimer: the stuff below is simply a collection of my observations and opinions. Feel free to use what you find helpful and discard what you don't.

I've read over this essay a number of times now and I have to say, I find it very difficult to get through. I'm not even sure if I get the premise that you're trying to communicate. Here's what I've come up with: Necessity and vanity come together to create the ego, which along with the drive for creation brings about the child (figuratively) which holds the promise of a future of endless possibilities. I'm not sure that's right, but that's what I've gleaned.

Now, if this piece is meant to be an avante-garde art piece that is supposed to be convoluted and mask its point in word-hopping and misplaced punctuation, then my review is going to be relatively meaningless. Please don't get me wrong. There are a lot of pieces out there where it's done deliberately and it's considered bold and progressive. I don't know if that's what you're going for or not, but if it is, then feel free to ignore the following :)

I had a number of issues with this piece. The line breaks were disconcerting and made reading difficult, but the punctuation made a lot of the reading almost impossible for me. Well, more to the point, it made it almost impossible for me to understand what you were saying. I'm going to use the first section as an example:

If "necessity is the mother of invention"; then
may "vanity be the father of extravagance", thereby creating the "offspring" to:

generate change, and perfect the concept of the self-actualizing (ego), and the concrete environment, surrounding the self?

The semi-colon after 'invention' indicates the end of a complete sentence, so it left me saying, "If it's the mother of invention, what??" That's a common misuse of the semi-colon, so after the initial jarring, I replaced it with a comma in my head and moved on.

I was doing fine until I hit the 'to:' part. When you put a colon , it usually means you're listing something (particularly since you set it off with two line breaks). You did list things, but then you closed a question at the end, so it left me having to scramble back to the beginning to figure out what the question was.

Punctuation is used to signal the reader what to expect. A comma indicates a pause and sometimes that additional information is coming. A period indicates the end of a full thought. A semi-colon indicates the same thing, but that something very closely related is coming up right behind it. Creative use of punctuation is a perfectly valid tool in a writer's arsenal, but you have to be careful to use punctuation that isn't completely contradictory to what should be there. Otherwise it's very confusing to the reader and the punctuation takes center stage, rather than your message.

One other quick point about punctuation. When you've got a quote and you need to put punctuation with it, the punctuation is put inside the quotes, with a few exceptions (usually the double hyphen -- which wouldn't be inside the quote unless it was actually someone speaking). Here's an example of what I mean:


"Egoism", which is: (1.) ~"the doctrine
that the goal of human conduct is the perfection of the ego or self".

This should be:

"Egoism" which is: (1.) ~"the doctrine
that the goal of human conduct is the perfection of the ego or self."

Of course that's a fragment in itself, so the period at the end is, technically, wrong altogether but I'm sure you get what I'm saying.

Okay, the other thing that made the piece very confusing for me was the constant use of this/that. I realize the this/that mechanism was deliberate, but what made it difficult was that you were using concepts that were not always the same. Usually when this/that is used, 'this' and 'that' are interchangeable. Previously, you put a spotlight on your use of words, so it makes me, as a reader, take your words literally. A couple examples:

Needs and wants are two entirely different things, not even really related to each other. A want is not associated with necessity; if anything, it could probably be tossed in vanity's camp.

Pride and vanity are both very different things as well, though are often erroneously used as synonyms.

Your calling attention to words and defining certain terms in your essay conveys to the reader that specific definitions are important to you. Therefore, when you use terms that are not representative of the same thing ina this/that mechanism, it leaves the reader to wonder:

1. Is the author really not concerned with what a word means? And if so, why should I take his as the proper definitions when mine work just as well?
2. Does the author not know the difference between these words? And if that's the case, then how can I really put faith in his argument?

Those were my main issues with getting through this piece. I hope you don't take this review as a slam, because it's not meant to be. The best avante-garde pieces break the rules but still get their point across solidly. I hope you take my review in the spirit it's given: that this particular reader lost your message amongst all the broken rules.

I wish you the best of luck in your writing and your future :)
Troi

My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Go Noticed" Open in new Window..
6
6
Review of Golden  Open in new Window.
Review by Troilee Author IconMail Icon
Rated: ASR | (4.0)
My standard disclaimer: the following are just my observations and suggestions. If you find anything helpful, feel free to use it. Conversely, feel free to toss anything that doesn't work for you :)

This is a very strong, emotional piece and is a really good subject for flash. Emotional punch is one of the best uses of flash fiction, in my opinion :) Line edit first (which will be short) and overall suggestions later.

There are a couple grammatical things, simple things, that I noticed (corrections in bold):

Amazing, he thought...

"Love of my life, love of my life.” and With a final kiss, she reached to close his eyes.

Now, my impressions:

As I said, this is a very emotional piece and you did an excellent job of conveying the feeling between the two. I write some flash myself and I know that sometimes that can be difficult. Making emotion clear and strong in such a short piece is definitely a challenge.

I do think there's some emotional impact that is missed though. At the beginning, I wasn't clear on who was the one in the hospital. For some reason, I thought it was the wife, not the husband. Perhaps it's the psychology of illness. The first person who speaks is automatically assumed healthy? I don't know, maybe I'm rambling. Either way, I ended up having to reread the beginning (once he said he couldn't bear the pain any longer). I think this pause in the flow really kept the full force of the ending from hitting me the way it could have. I had mild goosebumps, but - knowing me - those goosebumps should have been a *lot* stronger ;)

Now, obviously this could have just been me... but it might be more effective if you make some small mention of him being the one who is ill. This might be accomplished unobtrusively (and without upping the word count much) by simply placing the doctor near his bedside:

He looked away for just a moment to nod at the doctor near his bed.

Even though it's only a few lines earlier, proportionally it's at the 1/4 mark of the story rather than 1/2. That can be important in flash. There's such a short time to convey things - every word has to count and every situation must be clear.

Alternately, you could describe how he looks, which could easily accomodate a desc of the hospital bed, tubes and wires, etc. But that would up your word count a bit more, I'd expect. I'm not sure how important a short word count is to you.

I just reread it and one other thing occurred to me. Generally speaking, there's no description of the emotions the couple are going through. The only real desc of that is the trembling of his voice/smile and her tears, both at the beginning. Putting myself in her place (being that the death of my husband is probably my own biggest fear), I would be weeping... sobbing when the dr. injected whatever it was that ended his suffering. There's emotional description at the beginning, but not at the end, when emotions would be the highest, I think. Pack your punch here, at the end. This is where the goosebumps come from :)

Okay, anyway, those are my thoughts. I think you've got a real talent for flash. This is a good piece and I think it has the potential to be really great :)

Good luck with your writing!
Troi

My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Go Noticed" Open in new Window..
7
7
Review by Troilee Author IconMail Icon
Rated: 18+ | (4.0)
Hey David :)

Wow... I have to say, this is really, really good from a storytelling point of view. It's obvious that either you served or you're very close to someone who did, because the detail is exceptional. I think this piece is something that's important for people post-Vietnam to read because I think it brings the reality of the war to life - and the homecoming. The path from starry eyed, honor-seeking young boy to bitter, damaged man is very well drawn and really powerful. Thank you so much for sharing this!

Now, I gave you a 4.0 instead of a 5.0. That's because there are some technical, stylistic things that you should probably address. Please keep in mind that these are all just suggestions and observations. Take what you find useful and leave the rest :) Here are some things I noticed:

- You used some really good turns of phrase, but you tend to over-use them. things that are unique-sounding, you should only use once, because they're noticeable to the reader and if they're overused, they seem less like a really great line and more like a crutch... a pat line. Examples: meat grinder known as war/Vietnam/Hue; he shot his XX 'from the hip.'

- Check your sentence lengths. You've got some really short ones and some *really* long ones. You've also got a couple run-ons and just some awkward sentence structures. Example: Word soon reached the battalion commander of Doc’s nighttime forays and he was ordered to cease at once which he reluctantly did only because he no longer wanted anything to happen that might take him away from this place until the enemy was all dead. -- There are a LOT of phrases in this sentence... I counted 6 and I'm not even that grammatically astute. Consider breaking it up. Use short sentences for the parts where the action is going on. Reading short, snappy sentences makes you read faster and it makes the scene seem more fast-paced. Longer sentences for the slower parts.

- Reread and look specifically for capitalization errors. Doc was lower cased a number of times, as well as things like 'Marine Corps' and 'Nam.' Also, when you reread for content, consider doing it out loud. I find that if I read to myself, if there's perhaps a word I left out or if I typed two words out of order, I'll read it the way I *meant* to write it and not what's actually on the page. Reading it aloud forces you to actually read what's there... not what you meant to put there. Reading aloud also helps with dialogue... it lets you hear how the words sound out loud.

Okay, so there's a couple things. This is really a great story... it's just in need of a little polish. Oh, I also like the ending particularly. I expected that the person talking was Doc himself, but I really liked how you brought it out - the shaving reference is wonderful. You might want to add a bit at the very beginning to let the reader know s/he's actually eavesdropping on a conversation, rather than reading an account, if that makes sense.

Anyway, I hope you can polish this a bit. Let me know when you do - I'd love to read it!

Much luck,
Troi
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