Is it enough to hope?

This is for the Creative Communications writing contest, in which I have the potential to get published and earn a lot of money. This is my first time doing it, sooo...I don't know how good this will be. Plus I jotted this off very quickly after a burst of inspiration.

This essay was inspired by a burst of fatalism after reading an article in Discover about ocean acidifaction. Hence the "boiling oceans" bit. It does take on a bit of a more hopeful note at the end, I hope. O_o

Critique away, but keep in mind the contest has a 250 word limit. This is currently 207 words. Huh, it got shorter. That's odd.

Is it enough to hope?

Is it enough to hope? Is it enough to hope when people the world around are killing each other over land, over religion, over thick black tar flowing beneath the earth? Is it enough to hope when our machines, powered by that black tar, spew poison in the air and cook the world to death? Is it enough to hope when our oceans are boiling into acid, when fisheries spiral steadily downwards and the poor all the world around are forced to watch their livelihoods wash away with the pounding waves? Is it enough to hope when a mother must bake clay into cakes to quell the fire in her children’s stomachs? Is hope enough? Let’s hope it isn’t. Instead of pinning our future on dreams and desires and wishful thinking, we must take action. We must ensure that the next generation of leaders will steward this Earth of six billion souls, scarred by war, boiling alive, burning with hunger, to a safer and happier future. We must ensure that they will demonstrate a foresight and awareness their predecessors lacked, and do what’s best not for the few, the privileged, the moneyed, but for the entire world. We hold the future in our hands. Hope is not enough.

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All critique is welcome. I'd like if you went line-by-line because it's imperative every word must count for an essay like this, with such a strict word limit. It's short, too, so...

EDIT: Aaagh I know there are length guidelines here and this is rather short, but can I help the contest's word limits? And I would really really REALLY love critique on this. So...yeah.

Hmm... this was good. And I didn't find any grammatical errors.

But this is what I would do to improve it.

Let's hope it isn't. Let's hope that instead of pinning our future on dreams and desires and wishful thinking, we will take action. Let's hope that the next generation of leaders will steward this Earth of six billion souls, scarred by war, boiling alive, burning with hunger, to a safer and better future. Let's hope they will demonstrate a foresight and awareness their predecessors lacked, and do what's best not for the few, the privileged, the moneyed, but for the entire world. We hold the future in our hands. Hope is not enough.

Okay, the reason I'm telling you this is because I did something really similar to this in my English class and this is the advice my English teacher (who happened to be the best teacher in the world) gave me.

Your main point is that hope isn't enough. Your main point is that we need to take action. By saying "let's hope"... that we can do better, you are kind of contradicting yourself. I would write something kind of like this:

[s]Let's hope it isn't.[/s] It had better not be. [s]Let's hope that [/s] Instead of pinning our future on dreams and desires and wishful thinking, we will take action. Let's [s]hope[/s] take action to ensure that the next generation of leaders will steward this Earth of six billion souls, scarred by war, boiling alive, burning with hunger, to a safer and better future. Let's [s]hope[/s] show them the importance of demonstrating a foresight and awareness their predecessors lacked, and doing what's best not for the few, the privileged, the moneyed, but for the entire world. We hold the future in our hands. Hope is not enough.

My suggestions might not be the best, but you definitely need to change all of the bolded "hope"s to something else. I hope I wasn't too confusing.

Hope I helped,
Carlee

Bickazer wrote:This is for the Creative Communications writing contest, in which I have the potential to get published and earn a lot of money. This is my first time doing it, sooo...I don't know how good this will be. Plus I jotted this off very quickly after a burst of inspiration.

This essay was inspired by a burst of fatalism after reading an article in Discover about ocean acidifaction. Hence the "boiling oceans" bit. It does take on a bit of a more hopeful note at the end, I hope. O_o

Critique away, but keep in mind the contest has a 250 word limit. This is currently 209 words.

Is it enough to hope?
Comments in red

Is it enough to hope? Is it enough to hope when people the world around Um, around the world, maybe? are killing each other over land, over religion, over thick black tar flowing beneath the earth? Is it enough to hope when our machines, powered by that black tar, spew poison in the air and cook the world to death? Is it enough to hope when our oceans are boiling into acid, when fisheries plummet into gasping chasms and the poor all the world around Again, I think all around the world would make more sense. are forced to watch their livelihoods wash away with the pounding waves? Is it enough to hope when a mother must bake clay into cakes to quell the fire in her children’s My computer doesn't recognize that as a word, but I have the '03 version, so that might be why. stomachs? Is hope enough? Let’s hope it isn’t. Let’s hope that instead of pinning our future on dreams and desires and wishful thinking, we will take action. Let’s hope that the next generation of leaders will steward this Earth of six billion souls, scarred by war, boiling alive, burning with hunger, to a safer and better future. Let’s hope they will demonstrate a foresight and awareness their predecessors lacked, and do what’s best not for the few, the privileged, the moneyed, but for the entire world. We hold the future in our hands. Hope is not enough.

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All critique is welcome.

EDIT: Aaagh I know there are length guidelines here and this is rather short, but can I help the contest's word limits? And I would really really REALLY love critique on this. So...yeah.

Okay, I liked it, and I have to say I agree with what you're saying. It sounds like you're really passionate about what you're writing and that usually makes a good author. There were a few things I pointed out in the text, but nothing too major. One thing I don't get though. You say hope isn't enough, we need to take action, but then you say we need to hope that future people will do something about it. If hope isn't enough then why is that all we're doing, if that makes any sense. Maybe instead of dramatically saying we need to hope for better leaders, you could dramatically tell us what we can do to get better leaders, or something like that. Does that make any sense? Other than that, I like your writing style. Message me if you have any questions.

I took in consideration your critiques--particularly on the final portion (where I start saying "Let's hope...". Looking back, I realize you have a point when you say it doesn't jibe with the rest of the essay's tone, so I fixed it accordingly.

I'd like for further comments on the edited version as quickly as possible, as the contest's deadline is fast approaching (10/15...dun dun dun...)

EDIT: *headdesk* Why am I such an IDIOT??? Always, without fail, I confuse October and August...what, "Octo" means "eight"! Like "octopus"! I can't be blamed for thing it's 8/15 instead of 10/15 (and for those outside the US, 15/8 and 15/10...)