Removed

Hey RachaelElg, Fire here, I just happened to come across some of your reviews and they were, to put it simply, awesome. So i thought of checking out some of your stories as well and i ended up here. Lets see if your story lives up to your critiquing standards (i'm sure it will ^^).


And, sure enough, your story utterly blew me away. There are no mistakes (as far as my eye can see) and nothing to suggest that your an amateur writer, which i am sure, you're not. Your description was so vivid and colorful. The way you've turned something as dull as the clothes a person is wearing into this wondrous stream of emotion that keeps flowing into the mind of the reader retraining him or her and not letting him/her take his/her eyes off the story.

Your story makes me (personally) think how such... amateur writers like us can survive in a world where people like you live in. Hehe, to tell you the truth it makes me feel jealous, happy, sad (mainly cause i'm not in a relationship right now ) and... some other emotion that i have no idea how to explain. Wow, I usually don't ramble on on the sheer awesomeness of stories but your piece has certainly made me keep rambling on about it. Its... wow, i don't know how you've managed to do it. Where'd you get the inspiration from anyway?

Your piece is... too good to be true, too great, too godlike!

For both your good and mine, I've decided to end my critique here, although it wasn't an actual critique because there was nothing to critique, but... yeah. Keep it up, wouldn't be surprised if you became a bestselling author if you keep this up (that is if your going to pursue writing). Keep it up Rachael, I'll be looking forward to your future stories.

RachaelElg wrote:She liked the way the T-shirt hung from his shoulders. It was blue like water, and like You repeat like a lot here. Maybe the first time you should say something different. Loved, maybe. water it rippled down, first off his shoulder blades, and then to the hem in lazy folds. When he shifted, those folds shifted in a kaleidoscope of shadows. He looked to the side and they dove in toward his spine; he looked back ahead and that series of ripples, it refit itself, a sheet of blue silk blowing in the wind. My only comment on this first paragraph it is kind of repetitive. You said blue three times. I think the last time (green) should be a different word for blue.

His jeans. She liked those too. The way they moved over and moved around his body. Stiff, not like water, more like denim, I don't get this. The jeans wouldn't be like denim, jeans are denim. but still blue, stained, splotched with paint, and frayed at the bottoms where the heels of his shoes met the edge. They bent when he kneeled, marking the spot where he began and the world stopped. When he stood and when he slipped his hands into the front pockets, lackadaisical and at ease, the motion moved his shirt again.

Waves of blue. Lapping ocean tides. Shadows and lines rocking back and forth like a porch swing every time he shrugged or yawned, and she had to imagine the skin beneath, stretching and shifting, and the muscles beneath, stretching and shifting and relaxing, and beneath the muscles, the bone. I don't like how you repeat stretching and shifting, I get why you did it just rubbed me the wrong way. Then his soul, somewhere deeper, rolling along like grasses bent in a meadow breeze that caught the kite of his smile along the way.

This is amazing and I know my review wasn't very helpful. You have received so many others and your work is so good.

Sorry I didn't help,

A. S.

Hi Rachael! I usually don't go for this type of writing (long descriptions tend to bore me) but I have to admit I really loved what you wrote. The third paragraph was my favorite, although I'm not sure why. Maybe it just took that long for me to get used to your unique writing style. To me it just had a bigger impact than the rest. Also, I loved your ending line. That was perfectly done. I know this wasn't any help, sorry, but poetry-like things aren't my forte and I'd probably just mess you up.

Hey, dude. Do you know that I've never actually critiqued this?

(Yes you do.)

This piece frustrates me with its perfection and self-stability. I assessed it from a lot of different angles, trying to find rough points, areas for expansion. The party line is that plotless pieces can't be considered complete because there's no resolution or anything learned, but this story works. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that you so gracefully and completely capture a short stretch of time? Or the fact that the emotion serves as a stand-in for thematic elements?

Eh, who cares.

My only large-scale consideration would be to either (a) finagle the piece slightly so that it could fall under the heading of prose poetry (which I think it can already) or (b) to establish a definitive background to sort of bring out the stretch of time the piece covers. I think that maybe that would give it a clearer backbone, so that you wouldn't have to worry at all about it being judged as a pure description piece.

But it would still be perfect even if you didn't change anything. It's awesome right now. Some of my favorite lines:

--"the kite of his smile", because that's such a lovely image
--"marking the spot where he began and the world stopped", because it's such a graceful insinuation as to the narrator's opinion of the boy, his placement in her world as opposed to *the* world
--the transition from the first paragraph to the second. I love that you incorporated humor!

The snags:

--"like denim". It was already mentioned in other reviews, but if they were jeans then they were denim, not like denim.
--I rolled my eyes just a little bit when she launched into the part about his soul. I liked where you went with it in terms of imagery, but it went from a very physical piece to a much more involved one in that moment. I believed it, but it made me take a step back, become less enthralled.
--I wanted to cut the "and" from the last line, but that's a personal preference.

Also, have I mentioned that I love the title? Because I do.

Aaaaaand...I think that's all I've got. Such an awesome job! And you say you doubt your prowess at times.