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Sorry for the inconvienience
Last edited by Talking_Pinata on Sun May 11, 2008 7:06 pm, edited 10 times in total.




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By what you think I mean: 1. Did it catch your attention?
2. How is the character development going, however short
3. Other thoughts.


THANKYOU AGAIN AND SORRY FOR BUMPING!




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This was very well written. Now to answer your questions:
1. Did it catch my attention? It was ok... I think you could make it a bit more interesting. Marvelous story idea though.
2. Character development. Hmmm.... pretty good. I would like to know more about her personality though.
3. Other thoughts. Well, I couldn't find anything wrong with the puncuation or grammer. Very good description.
I would like to see where this is going, PM me if you post more!
-Sometimes-




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I will answer your questions!
1. Did it catch your attention? Very much so! I don't show it alot but I really do like fairy tales and I always wondered how they could be twisted around... This is a grat beginning to a wonderful idea!
2. How is the character development going, however short? WEll, we haven't seen too much...but I do see a bit. I think it's pretty good.
3. Other thoughts: Overall, I really like it! DEFINATLY continue this. I really can't wait to read more!
"I write for the same reason I breath - because if I didn't, I would die." -Isaac Asimov
"We read frequently if unknowingly, in quest of a mind more original than our own." -Harold Bloom




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Thankyou! Don't forget to look for grammer mistakes! They're very helpful X3




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"Many state that these words make the story..." You may want to reword this sentence in the begining. "Many state" just doesn't feel right to me and distracts me from the rest of the sentence.
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Thankyou! I'll be looking into that >_> . Just gotta figure out HOW to do so.




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I'm VERY sorry for bumping this, I'm hoping for some more grammatical reviews (as well as overall) but mostly grammatical.




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You say you want grammatical help? That's what I'll give you, then. :twisted:

The random bleep of items being scanned echoed through the large, marble tiled grocery.
There are two problems with this sentence: 1) That should be "marble-tiled." 2) You can't just say "grocery." Groceries are what you buy... I think you mean to say "grocery store," or something like that.

Shopping carts rattled and weaved in the aisles.
I think that should be "wove."

Satu lazily picked up the tabloid from the racks and flipped through it.
I think it would be better to say "a tabloid," just because you haven't already "introduced" the tabloid. :lol:

These cliché words are fairly common in what are known as “fairy tales”.
The period should go inside the quotes. :wink:

After all, time is not really as linear as we perceive it.
This seems a little random -- try going a bit more in-depth with this idea. Give something to back up this opinion. I don't read tabloids, but I don't think this part was very realistic (like the rest was).

Fairy tales are blindly known for their childlike innocence in which it always ends “Happily Ever After”, and yet so many stories end with death, leaving nothing but bloodstained pages for the reader to remember.
I think the first part would go better as "Fairy tales are blindly known for their childlike innocence, and for the "Happily Ever After" endings." But if you don't make that change, remember to put the comma inside the quotation marks. ^_~

In times long gone, bloodstained words were all there was to remember, for stories then were told around fires or in households.
Again, you need to elaborate a bit more -- how does telling stories around fires make it so that there are only bloodstained words to remember? :?

As for talking animals, maybe no one has listened. “
This is really small, but that quotation mark is going the wrong way. :oops: Other than that, I love this line!

Satu set down the tabloid back in its slot and it flopped over the edge of the shelf.
You should delete ONE OR THE OTHER of the bold sections.

The author of that article has come up with some decent arguments, but in truth, science and technology would have probably found the woods by now.
That should be "had" so that you don't switch tenses on us. :wink:

Her mother’s basement was her entire bedroom because the house only had one bedroom- the master bedroom.
I don't like the repetition of "bedroom" in this sentence. Maybe try rewording to: "She slept in her mother's basement, because the only other bedroom in the house was the master bedroom." As least I could get rid of one of them. :lol:

Satu walked back downstairs to her unfinished basement where feet slightly stuck to the cold, smooth, and gray cement floor.
I think you mean to say "...where HER feet stuck..."

Satu opened it, and read them, considering how if the names and creatures were twisted, they were not as farfetched as some would claim.
Elaborate more here! Also, "far-fetched" should be hyphenated, like I did it.
__________________________________

1. Did it catch your attention? Yep--very well.

2. How is the character development going, however short It's quite good. I feel like at parts, it was a bit forced (like when you talk about the mother liking to use grocery bags for the garbage) but overall, very good job with that!

3. Other thoughts. You don't really describe anything. You don't need to go crazy with poetic imagery, but I would like to know a bit more about how the settings look, smell, feel (temperature) and even taste, if possible.

About the tabloid:

1. It should be italic.

2. You need to go into more detail with it. I don't actually read tabloids (so if what I'm saying is a load of bunk, feel free to ignore it) but I feel like the article was more like what you would see on the back of a novel than what you'd read in a magazine/newspaper/etc. It seems more like the author is giving an opinion that anything else. Try backing up each of the points more, and fleshing out the article as a whole.

3. You did very well with changing your writing style from the narrative to the article. I noticed the switch immediately. :wink:

PM me if you have questions/comments about my critique!

I hope this helps somewhat. :roll:
~Azila~




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i really liked this...my only problem is that the "article" didn't really sound like an article. I work at a newspaper, and I don't think any editor would allow a writer to print that article. It's too short and it sounds more like the intro to a research paper rather than a piece of news. if you spruce that up a bit, it'll be great. :D
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Thankyou! Everyone! I've done my best to edit it in the ways I saw fit! I'm eagerly awaiting more reviews! ^^




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To be quite honest, I think you have a great idea here. The writing is also good, but the one thing that bugged me was that the opening part set up a great idea, and then it suddenly seemed to halt. I don't quite know how to describe it, but I guess I was kind of expecting there to be more to it.

I know it's just the prologue, so that's probably not really an issue, other than that it didn't quite pull me in. Yeah, it was good enough that I finished the prologue, and I did enjoy that part, but it doesn't quite leave me wondering what happens next.

What might help (I think this was probably the main issue) is being more specific in the part where she's deciding that faerie tales can be plausible. You said:

Satu opened it, and read them, considering how if the names and creatures were twisted, they were not as far-fetched as some would claim. If names were switched around or animals given human bodies, the stories could be real.


I think it might pull the reader into the next part a little more if you maybe said how they didn't seem as far-fetched. Which faerie tales? What names could be switched? What made it seem real? Etc. Etc. Etc.

Other than that, I think you do have a great idea, and I'm very curious about how the fact that faerie tales can be real is going to tie into the story.

Keep up the good work!

-Sorceress
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.- Theodor S. Geisel (aka Dr. Seuss)




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Thankyou for the review! I've tried to edit and expain some, and I'll be thinking about how to change that even more efficiently!




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Okay...I'm here to review.


I. NITPICKS
Talking_Pinata wrote:The random bleep of items being scanned echoed through the large, marble-tiled grocery store. Shopping carts rattled and wove in the aisles. Satu lazily picked up a tabloid from the racks and flipped through it. One article titled “Fairy Tales Are Real” caught her eye particularly and she turned back a few pages to read it.


I think "being scanned" contradicts itself. It sounds...funny...like something a Southern person would say...xD "Isn't it sad that make fun of my own people? Also...hmm...your beginning is a bit weak. You start out describing the grocery store in two short sentences and then jump into the perspective of your character.


Satu, a girl of eighteen years with long auburn hair and brown eyes had taken a year away from school after high school graduation to just relax. Her mother said it was a terrible idea, and that colleges wouldn’t like that, but Satu wanted to just live for a year.

She slept in her mother's basement, because the only other bedroom in the house was the master bedroom.


This is a big info-dump. I know you like to describe your characters, but when you do you have to get it to flow with story. An info-dump actively breaks up the action of a story..description doesn't. You should edit this.

Also, about her college and the basement that's telling! You have to show us these facts not tell us. Maybe she'll have an argument with her mom or something and she says, "Go to your room!" and Satu can say, "I don't have a room I live in the damned basement remember?" Haha...but maybe not as aggressively. :wink:

As Satu finished the shopping Mother sent her to do, she entered in through the basement door and trudged up the stairs to the kitchen. Setting the grocery bags on the table, she thought about the article as she unloaded the bags into the pantry and refrigerator. After finishing, Satu put the bags in a cupboard. Mother liked to use them for garbage bags. “Recycling” she called it.


Once again this is dumping. If you were writing in first-person you could get away with this, but you're writing in third.

II. SHOWING VS. TELLING

That's the biggest thing I can possibly tell in this piece. You don't a lot of telling. You tell us where she lives, why she lives, you tell us what her mother likes, etc. But you don't show us. Think of it this way.

"I gave her a red muffin. She pushed it away; Sarah doesn't like red muffins. They remind her of blood."

"I picked up the muffin and slowly peeled away the sheet and shook it from my fingers into the swiveling trash bin. Sarah smiled at me as I broke the muffin in small pieces with my fingers and placed a piece into her small hand. She stared at it and reeled back, repulsed.

"No, no, blood! Blood!" she screeched as she slammed her fists against the table - effectively crushing the muffins and dying her hands a murky red.

Hahaha...that was a weird story. I thought of that while I was talking to you on the phone! xD Anyways...so yeah. The second piece is showing more. I was trying to convey that Sarah doesn't like red muffins because they remind her of blood. The second one despite it being showing actually shows more into Sarah's character. It shows how she actually reacts rather than how the protagonist's just tells us how she reacts. You see what I mean?

III. OVERALL IMPRESSION

I thought this was a pretty good beginning. You didn't immediately thrust your character in a fantasy setting which is good; it allows us to see how effectively a fantasy twist will change her life.

So, yes, a rather good piece! Just needs some editting.
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1. Did it catch your attention? Not at first. The thing that kind of put me off was the article. I agree with everyone else that it didn't come across as as a factual article, but more of an opinion piece with more thoughts than facts. You kind of gloss over the technical side. I would go back and follow typical tabloid bunk and just slam the reader with a shocking story of a talking frog that turned into a prince in the Amazon rainforest. You can have Satu get bored of it really fast so that the reader doesn't put the book down or something, but make it sound realistic. You're putting too much artistic flair into a gritty "news" article.

2. How is the character development going, however short? So far I like it. I am glad that we start off with the character in their home enviorment, rather than suddenly changing their life in the first paragraph, which really doesn't let us see them at all before they are acting weird. However, as you yourself say, it is pretty short and I didn't have a lot of material to work off of. Come later chapters, that will change.

3. Other thoughts? A 'Little Red Riding Hood' retelling? With the Big Bad Wolf as a human? I had an idea for that very thing, only actually set in a fantasy world and I never actually did anything with it. I'm sure that whatever you end up doing will be fabulous!

All the nitpicks I might have pointed out have already been picked up by other people, so I won't repeat them. The very first paragraph started out kind of slow, but the pace picked up. You did put in some info-dumping (My family does the same thing as her mother with grocery bags, but is that necessary to the plot? if not, I'd get rid of it.)

Anyway, I was intrigued by the end however. What happens next? Must read more...

~GryphonFledgling
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