I Love My Dirt; My Dirt Loves Me

Wow. That was simply...amazing. I mean, you're so right. Dirt and the person...and...it has a story and...whoah. *bows to you*

Oh my, that was simply adorable. I can just imagine a young boy sitting out in his front yard that is covered in dirt, not grass, sitting on his side, whispering to it like it’s alive. It is so sad as well. I mean, just thinking about a little boy so lonely that he goes to dirt for support...it's just, too much...and I loved every minute of it!

I’m so glad you wrote this!

I did notice one thing:

He doesn’t like when I talk my best friend.

You are missing “to” here. Try to slip it in between “talk” and “my”

Other than that, keep up the good work and

Keep Writing!

That was creepy. I can't even begin to imagine why people are calling the story cute. All I could picture is Mudface from Batman stuck on the ground, whispering things into a child's ear. And as these sort of stories usually turn out to be, it's enjoyable, and there's nothing really wrong with it, but it follows a formula. You may say: "what formula? I've never seen anything like it, I wasn't thinking about anything when I wrote it!" But again, you don't need to know the formula to use it. See, when you decide to write a story like this -the dillusional kid who knows a secret about his parents, and watches everything fall apart, and can only confide with his imaginary friends-, you figure you don't have to do much to make it interesting.

I mean, you got your psychological mind-f*ck and your dysfunctional family and your unique perspective. So you throw in some clever narration (only a kid could say the word "love" that much), make the child crazy as hell (dirt is talking to him, man) and add a slightly overused but always effective plot-twist for good measure (the mother killed his father to be with Tim!), and you figure the story is done. What else does it need? And guess many people could read this and enjoy it. It's not long, it doesn't bore. I could print this story in pamplets and hand it out to people in videostores, have them rent "The Good Shepherd" instead of "Hide and Seek." But... The more I think about it, the less I like the story. I mean, it's not that I hate it, you know? It's not one of those things you read, and feel like getting banned over. The thing is though that I read it three days ago, and now that I've returned to review it, I can't think of a thing that thrilled me or moved me or that I admired. Look, I'm not saying it's bad, I'm just saying it does nothing for me. I can sit through it the same way I can sit through Robert DeNiro chasing Dakota Fanning around in the woods and I can even say I kinda liked it, but would I actually feel like digging this up and reading it? I don't know.

Thing is, with these kind of stories you see everything coming. It's the same thing with those romance suicides stories. You know that this guy is gonna shoot himself to be with her by the time this stuff is over and done, the same way I knew that the kid would have a deep, terrible secret that could either be that he was being molested or that he had killed somebody or that he had seen somebody be killed. The way you embelish the story is the way you make it interesting. It's alright that your kid is creepy and likes to say "love" a lot and that he's dellusional, but you have to make him interact with other people. Have him bullied in school, have him become allienated. I'm going to use the most obvious example here and mention "The Sixth Sense." We don't know if the kid's crazy or that he can actually see the ghosts, and that's part of the fun. The plot-twist is also good. But what keeps us going is seeing the kid trying to come to terms with the things he sees, trying to keep his mother from thinking he's friendless, etc. Crazy kids are no fun if they are the only kid the story shows. Crazy kids are fun when they're around normal kids, when they do things.

Random Thought #23: Bruce Willis is definately in my "guys I'd sex" list.

Another thing that I already mentioned is your narration. It sounds like a kid (well, no, it sounds like fictional kids ought to sound), but I don't know if that's a good thing. The text is a bit repetitive. It goes around in circles. Get some!:

"I always take Teddy with me when I go see my best friend. Teddy loves my best friend, and they both love me, and I love both of them."

I know this was kind of the feel you were going with, but this sounds like a children's book. I love Teddy. Teddy loves me. Sometimes we go to the lake and Teddy gets wet. I love the lake, too. That sort of thing. I can't really tell you how to correct it without telling you to redo the whole thing in a different way, but I can't tell you that I think it's a good idea to make your narrator talk like this. Really, man. I found it annoying.

This is not much help.

In a nutshell, I think that you're worrying more about your premise than your story. There's this character in DC that's called Etrigan, The Demon. He used to guest star in dozens of books a month, back when the whole anti-hero from hell thing was still going strong. And one of his things was that he talked in rhyme. Now, comic book writers are not the best writers in the world. Some are and those guys can pull things like this off. Alan Moore had a character who talked in Iambic Pentameter, not to mention V For Vendetta's V Speech which had words all starting with V. Other writers just plain can't do stuff like that. So... most of the time, Etrigan would talk in rhyme, yeah, but his sentences didn't make sense and you couldn't tell what was happening half the time.

Nowadays Etrigan doesn't talk in rhyme because some magician tore out his heart or something and his title's been cancelled for quite some time.

But what the hell are you talking about, you asshole? Etrigan, The Demon? This is the worst review ever! Well... I think that you're focusing too much of your effort to making the character sound like a child and seeing things the way a child does, but doing that you're forgetting to make the things he says interesting, the things he sees... well, interesting. You could write a thousand stories like this without breaking a sweat. What I would like you to do is elevate it, make it bigger, and more touching, and less formulaic. I know you can do it because I've read your other stuff. So, keep writing and good luck.

Random Thought #51: Creeeeepy stuff.

Jared!!! **hugs** hey I really like this you were right why does love always have to be between two humans so that was a great idea you were thinking outside the box kudos I really didn't know what to think when I read the title whether to check it out or to say wtf? Lol anyways I liked this and the title is actually the perfect fit. Anyways this was great and I like it. Good luck, keep writing.

your friend as always
-Max

Wow, Jared.
I cannot even sum up how amazing that piece is written.
Was in chat and Junie was telling me about this piece, and I asked her to post the link.
I am so so glad I did. This is simply beautiful.
Not to mention heart-breaking.
Honestly, I don't have any reviews.
It's written to utter perfection <3
-JD