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9 Public Reviews Given
9 Total Reviews Given
Public Reviews
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Review of The Hadrian  Open in new Window.
Review by wint Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (4.0)
Hi Lenox,

My name is Wint. I am not a trained writer but have been writing for many years, as a blogger and story teller. My audience has been almost exclusively folks who know and care about me so I have not had much critical review of my own work. I give reviews on this site primarily so I might improve my own writing, but also so other folks just joining the site may feel welcome. I hope you find my review helpful.

Overall Impression:
I enjoyed your story quite a bit.


Plot:
The plot is a bit predictable but the pace of story allows for this. What I mean by that is, I did not grow bored with the plot while reading the story. In my opinion, this is one of the marks of a well written piece.

You have an interesting message you want to convey to the reader. Take the time, make the effort to better build the underpinnings/arguments of the message. This will pull your reader in more closely to you (the story teller), make them care about the message and subsequently make the reader want to read more of your works. The ultimate goal, eh?


Scene/Setting:
The opening sentence references the weather the night the main character was born. This bit of information is not relevant to the story, it is not brought again any where in the story. Consider changing this sentence.


Characters:
In this sentence, "Although we were the best of friends, we were very different in many ways." I expected to learn how they were different in personality, values, etc. The difference in their appearance seems to add nothing to the story. The story would be unchanged if it were dropped. For me, this comes across as "filler" and was not satisfying in my read of the story.


Suggestions:
Spend more time developing characters and try to make folks care about them. What are their strengths, weaknesses, inner struggles, what do they care about.

How did the humans warring impact the day to day lives as mice?

Better connect the wall to the humans at war. Why did they build the wall?

Spend more time on Willy's climb up the wall. Describe his experience with this challenge. Do mice have paws? Maybe, but this caught my attention as "not right".

Better describe their emotions while they were "caught up in the joy". Did they embrace? Did they peered into each others eyes? How long had it been since they last met?

Spend more time describing the interaction between mice and humans. This is uncharacteristic and deserves some explanation, however fantastic it might be.

I get that the story is allegorical but it needs something more to bridge the fantasy pieces to a real world lesson.

Keeping in mind that I am not classically trained writer and I do grammar by "tone" ... your sentence structure seems great and the narratives read intuitively. My attention was never jerked hither and yon. This made reading a pleasure.

MS Word found only one punctuation error on "New Year's Eve". No spelling errors. Good job here. (You might be surprised how many times folks miss in this area.)

You are a talented writer and I hope this review encourages you to write more!

- Wint


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" Open in new Window..
2
2
Review of THE DATING GAME  Open in new Window.
Review by wint Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (3.0)
Hi Scribe,

Having just reviewed another of your stories, "The Waiting room" I think, I saw this one and thought, "Why not?"

I review stories in hopes of drawing attention to my own writing mostly, but also in hopes I notice the "three fingers pointing back at me" when I point out ways other writers might improve their stories. *Smile*


Overall Impression:
This story did not read as easily for me as did "The Waiting Room" and at the end I wondered whether you were as dedicated to this story.

I enjoyed this story and in the end was disappointed for you, given the results of your wait. This means I cared about your character. Good job!

Plot:
You set the opening scene, filled in the particulars on how you how were there, established your emotions, setup the big "reveal" well and dropped the curtain. Seemed to all flow well for me.


Style and Voice:



Scene/Setting:
Not sure what is "supposed" to go in here, but ... I did not a good sense of your surroundings. To start it was simply "the coffee shop" and later it was a "pub date".


Grammar and Mechanics:
Keeping in mind that I do grammar and mechanics by "tone". I do not know the "rules" of writing ...

Your command of comma placement seems to need work. I tend to use commas as indicators of places the readers insert a pause in how the sentence would sound orally or in "thinking". This works for me when I read my own writing but suspect the pause it inflicts on my readers is one of loss of concentration. They make the reader have to think about why the comma is there. (Hope that makes sense.)

Somewhere I learned we should not use the work "I" to open a paragraph. In my experience ... applying this rule has often produced what I felt were better sentences. You might try this, even if this is a false rule.


Suggestions:
"Scribe" just earned another connection in my synapse. Keep writing!

Hope this helps.

Wint


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" Open in new Window..
3
3
Review of THE WAITING ROOM  Open in new Window.
Review by wint Author IconMail Icon
Rated: E | (4.0)
Hi Scribe,

My name is Wint (short for Winston). I am 61 and my last lessons in writing came in high school, obviously many years ago. I also am a long time writer and have been told, by those who know and love me, that I am a good one.

So, here is my review, for what it is worth ...


Overall Impression:
I remained engaged while reading your story and never needed to review what I had just read to maintain context within the flow of the story. In my opinion, this is no small feat and a mark of "good writing".

A favorite saying of mine is, "The examined life is a hard one. The unexamined life is not worth living." Considering this, I am drawn to stories like this one and I feel you did a good job in being transparent with your emotions.

To be engaged in a story I must "care" about the characters and I did care about you, and could relate to you, as I read your story.

Nice job!


Plot:
I felt/sensed the tension in the story growing to the climax, which I guess was also the ending. The plot might have included a point of conflicted emotion around not being called sooner, or when you anticipated. This might have given you an opportunity to further define/amplify your emotions and struggles to manage them.


Style and Voice:
I am fairly new to reviewing and do not have a clear sense of what is called for in this section of this "review template". I'll just say here that you maintained a steadiness in your telling that seemed to facilitate a flow to the story.


Scene/Setting:
I appreciate clever (clever in a good way) mechanics of writing that allow the reader to "learn" about characters from dialog and descriptive text, e.g. I learned Tom is your husband in this manner. Having said that, your opening paragraph, you might have opened with "Walking into the waiting room ..." to provide the user immediate orientation to the type room you walked into.


Characters:
I found myself wanting to know more about the quality of relationship Tom beyond his being your loving husband.

Was the receptionist denying her acquaintance with you?

The older couple that came in ... you might have better woven you thoughts about them into the mechanics you use to manage your life day by day.

What were your emotions when the little jumped off her seat? You leave the reader to make a mental leap. That can be "OK", I made that leap but it may not have been where you wanted me to go. Maybe that was you intent.

Grammar and Mechanics:
In this sentence ... "Tom squeezed my hand and smiled, maybe we were both thinking the same thing." Consider replacing the word "maybe" with "as though". Also consider dropping the word "both". I tend to run long on words and am always looking for words which contribute little to nothing to a sentence. I find this results in content that may be read intuitively and allow the reader a faster pace. I strive to not make the reader think about the words, but rather the message.

Earlier comments in this review seem incongruous with the paragraph above. This is not my intent and I offer the suggestions above as ways you might further improve your (already) good writing skills.

In this sentence ... "As he left I took a deep breath, and looked around, a group of women in a waiting room", the second comma is not needed and the sentence might read better as "As Tom left the room I took a deep breath and looked around and saw a group of women in a waiting room".



Suggestions:
Continue to take risks. Telling even unknown readers what scares you in life is risky business as it requires owning, and looking at, the fear. This is true of other emotions as well, but fear is most powerful, in my opinion, and the one that will have the most draw for your audience.

Lastly, I will definitely read another of your stories should I notice one. I'll be a repeat customer so to speak, which is one of my primary goals as a writer.

Hope this helps.

Wint


*Gold* My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" Open in new Window..
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