How to sell fear

Yes I am a merchant, selling great things
but one ware is only suited for kings.

Yes, I have something here with me
that is the last thing you'd want to see.

It will make you gasp and run away
it's called true fear, and just today,

I've got something that will really make em scream
horror of the night and fear of the dream.

It will show the terrors of things unseen,
things one would avoid if one was keen.

It will show you the madness deep in a heart,
things so evil it will rip you apart.

It will show you the chaos in a mind
oh, the deep set pain you will find.

For it itself is the essence of fear
and why one wants it is really quite clear.

Think of your enemies, how they whimper in fright
when you show them the power of your false might.

They will do as you please, as long as you hold
what scares them the most, their secrets now told.

But why stop there? After all you can
have a power unending that affects every man.

The world is your oyster, armies will fall
yes, this right here is the end of them all.

Don't believe me? OK then, take the trip,
sit right here and have a drink.

Hey there, nicchaos! I'm Mizzle.

Corrections are in red.

nicchaos wrote:Yes, I am a merchant, selling great things,
but one ware is suited only for kings. You had "only suited" but I think this flows better.
Yes, I have something here with me,
that is the last thing you'd want to see.
It will make you gasp and run away
it's called true fear, and just today,
I've got something that will really make 'em scream
horror of the night and fear of the dream.
It will show the terrors of things unseen,
things one would avoid if they were keen. Having "one would avoid" and then "if one was keen" seemed a bit too repetitive.
It will show you the madness deep in a heart,
things so evil it will rip you apart.
It will show you the chaos in a mind
oh, the deep-set pain you will find.
For it itself is the essence of fear
and why one wants it is really quite clear.
Think of your enemies, how they whimper in fright
when you show them the power of your false might.
They will do as you please, as long as you hold
what scares them the most, their secrets now told.
But why stop there? After all you can
have a power unending that affects every man.
The world is your oyster, armies will fall.
Yes, this right here is the end of them all.
Don't believe me? Okay then, take the trip,
sit right here and have a drink.

Overall:
Well, Chaos, I have to say, the first thing that came to mind when I saw this poem was 'wall of text.'

After I read into it, though, I actually started to like it a little bit. It had a nice flow, though it did get choppy in a few places. Still, nothing some minor corrections can't fix, m'dear! Nice work & I hope this helps you in correcting your poem. Interesting idea, by the way.
~Mizz

Er, first Wall-O-text...use the enter key, please >.>

Over all, I thought it was pretty good. The flow was pretty good, though the whole no spacing made it a bit harder for me to find it. But I won't linger on that one thing.

I just broke it up to make this easier, feel free to change the lines per verse.

I am a merchant, selling great things The Yes wasn't needed.
but one ware is only suited for kings. This line seems a bit off, doesn't fit right.
I have something here with me Again, the Yes is unneeded.
that is the last thing you'd want to see.

It will make you gasp and run away
it's called true fear, and just today What does 'just today' mean?
I've got something that will make em scream The really shifted the flow a bit.
horror of the night and fear of the dream.

It will show the terrors, of things unseen,
things one would avoid if one was keen.
It will show you the madness deep in a heart,
things so evil they will rip you apart. You said things, so you need to make it plural.

It will show you the chaos in a mind
oh, the deep set pain you will find.

For it is the essence of fear 'Itself' is not needed.
and why one wants it is really quite clear.

Right here the flow begins to get iffy
Think of your enemies, how they whimper in fright
when you show them the power of your false might.
They will do as you please, as long as you hold
what scares them the most, their secrets now told. Again the flow breaks here, the cut off is awkward, an

But why stop there? After all you can
have a power unending that affects every man.
The world is your oyster, armies will fall
yes, this right here is the end of them all.
This part here is pretty awkward. The cut offs are a a bit off.

Don't believe me? OK then, take the trip,
sit right here and have a drink.
Finally this part seems a bit pointless. It doesn't make much sense to me, either. You take the trip, yet you're supposed to go drink? And you also drop the rhyme, keep it through to the end.

Over all, as I said earlier, I liked it. The flow, though choppy in some parts, was mostly good. And the rhymes fit nicely into it. The concept was great, I liked the description of fear, and how much power it holds. The positives I won;t go into that much, due to the fact they worked, and so not much I can really say about them, so let's move into the negative parts.

One thing is you were very representative, you used "it" a lot, the same with Will and I. And a lot of the first words were not needed as well, they were more filler words, than anything. You don't always need to say It, or Yes, or They on the line, as long as you don't change the focus people will know what you mean.

Another is the cut offs, a lot of them were just random parts of the sentence, and so it was patchy and gave an uneven feel. You don't want to literally cut it in half, you want to find a point were it will divided well, usually after a comma. And also a lot of the lines would be better if reworded, or rearranged.

Best thing to do it go over it, reading each verse carefully, thinking where is the best cut off point, and even check a thesaurus, look around to see if there are better choices. Find which words can be replaced, and if you need one or two more, and that you don't leave loose ends.

Hi there

So.. I thought this was a good piece. However, I too think it could benefit from being broken up into separate stanzas. It can be quite difficult to read a poem that is a single block of text.. it's daunting.

I thought the tone was a bit odd for this.. personally, I think that the peddling of fear is a serious matter, and you have it presented with a rhyming scheme and a voice that seems almost happy when talking about fear. That, of course, is just a personal preference for the tone.

For the tone that you've created, you've done a very thorough job, right up to the end. The diction is nice, the personality of the speaker is quite well developed. Nice job on that.

The rhyming scheme was done very well.. it doesn't devour the rest of the poem, or dominate your words in any way. However, even with the rhyme scheme, your flow kind of degenerated towards the end of the poem. I would think of going back there and cleaning that area up a bit.

Overall, I liked this.. it was an interesting concept, and the execution was pretty good. I do think it could be improved though.

Nice write!

-Coral-

First of all, your title is incredibly awesome. It's catchy and interesting and makes you do a double-take...completely awesome!

Now, your poem! I love how it's narrated by a sneaky merchant... that makes me happy since it reminds me of the very first scene of Aladdin, and yes I am a dork. And I like the ending with it's dismissive, "have a drink" part because it's like, "Oh, whatever." In that way, it reminds me of Charlie the Unicorn part 3. More specifically, The Door. And that makes me chuckle! Did I mention that I was a dork?

So! Something you may want to work on... your salesmanship! When I read this, I wasn't sold on buying fear. And I think it would be so awesome if you could twist the words around so that someone actually wanted to buy fear. After all, salesmen do have a particular way of speaking and twisting words around. It's quite poetic, actually!

So lovely idea! See if you can tweak it to be more salesy.