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This is a nice start. I especially love the reflection: it adds a sense of background in a way that is very powerful in the opening chapters. That said, may I suggest shortening it a bit?
Another point of critique I would like to make is the line, "Now why would I do that?" These words are heavily cliched, and a bit out out of (the apparent) character. I would encourage changing this.
There are also a few points where you could add in a bit more detail, like the chase, or her struggle with the man.
With all the critique over with, I must say I enjoyed reading this piece. I hope you continue writing!

KayFortNight: A review for you

I would recommend this piece to all of who have read this before that, and I'm hoping that that is none of you.

I'd like to start off by saying that this is a really cool piece of poetry, and coming from me (someone who isn't very thrilled about poetry), that means something. It has the different outlooks on all the different planets/gods, what have you, giving it a list-y, successful repetition, quasi-fundamental kind of feel to it, which is also a big plus. The pacing is great- not too fast or slow-, and the whole thing feels like a completed work. I guess it doesn't need to rhyme to have style.

I also like the voice of it. It's a classic kind of outlook on poetry, which is always good, and yet it still gives you a sense of empathy to the narrator.

The reference to Earth and the sun's "Grandchildren" is pretty bodacious as well.

One thing that I would suggest is that you add in a little background as to WHY Neptune is placed so far away from the sun. It only needs to be a line or two, but I think it will add clarity to the overall piece. If this is not the tone you want to go for however, instead looking for a fading-in-and-out kind of plea for help rather than a sobbing imploration, my advice should not be taken without a grain of salt.

Another thing would be to give it a more sing-songy, lyrical kind of kick, because I noticed that in this poem, this starts to happen every once in a while, and then your rhythmic expectations are demolished by a change of pace. However, this, like my last suggestion may not be the best advice depending on what your main goal is here. If you really would rather it be more eclectic and non-linear in telling, than it is perfectly fine the way it is.

Anyway, very good work here, brother/sister.

As the reviewer, I would like to give this piece the two-thumbs up and the five of five stars. I'd recommend it to a poetry publisher here and now if I could, so keep up the good work. All those who may claim that they could have done it better should have then done it first. As Gene Shalit might say, "this poem let's you see the planets and know-em, and then throw-em to the dogs in favor of Neptune, who has the class of one who is as a balm as a deactivating bomb. I would give it to my grandma if she was alive, because, growing up in segregated society, she has discriminating tastes! This is a win for the reading bin!"

I love this! So much emotion!
But it's sort of hard to tell if it's prose or poetry.
I'm going to assume this is prose.
The story is really sad and you can really understand the emotions of this person, who feels unwanted and useless in life. I think you should write more pieces like this. Not nessasarily about suicide, but still...
Okay, you have to pay attention to your punctuation sometimes because it feels off in a way i.e Capital letters, misplaced commas, the works.
But otherwise,I have nothing negs vitiate to say about this beautiful piece.

Ha! I loved this, it was cute. Especially the be my paperweight part that was lovely and unexpected. For some reason when I read this, the song "I'm a Barbie Girl" was playing in my head... Don't ask, I still don't know how my mind works.

As the spelling/grammar stuff has already been mentioned, I shan't say anything else on the matter.

That said, you really do need tags for your dialogue. We readers have no clue who is saying what, and while you were trying to create a sense of confusion/mystery, the sense of confusion we readers get is not the type that makes us want to continue reading; it's more the type that will chase readers away, actually. As such, any sense of mystery falls pretty flat on its face.

Also, a bit of description of the surroundings would be nice since it would give us readers a bit of grounding. Right now, we really don't have any idea of where this story is set. As far as we know, this story could be taking place in modern-day Earth, or it could be off in some never-before-seen/heard of world. If it is the latter, description becomes even more important as we readers cannot see into your head and, as such, would be missing out on the wonders of that other world.

You don't need a lot of description. Personally, I prefer dialogue-oriented prose to heavily descriptive, mainly because dialogue is a wonderful way to show characterization. However, description is still important, and even though I don't use description as often or to as great an extent as dialogue, I still use quite a bit of descriptive writing in my stories. Description is, after all, a part of narration, and every story has narration.

One last thing that I don't believe anyone else mentioned is that the ending of this chapter was very abrupt. It seemed to end right in the middle of the conversation, which left me feeling that this chapter (not the story, as that is a given) is incomplete. Pacing is a bit difficult to pin down, but a guideline to keep in mind is that each scene/chapter should feel complete and able to stand on its own within the context of the story. The first half of this chapter, the dream sequence, felt complete as a scene. The second half of this chapter, as I mentioned before, does not.

That said, I hope you can take what I've said and use it to improve. Good luck with writing!

Oh nice... lol. I quite liked that, and obviously look forward to the rest. As you know, if you can recall who I am =] I've seen your work, this I like best so far.


Small criticism, in the first couple of paragraphs you repeat "the man" and while techinically sound, it begins to sound stilted in the mind, the repetition that is. Then again, maybe I'm wrong. =]

I'm almost certain that I'll get hate mail for this...

I actually really like this. Poetry is different for each person and it's obvious by this piece that you were pretty annoyed while writing it. It reminds me of a mature, angry sort of Dr. Seuss poetry. Good job on this, regardless of varying opinions.

Mon May 03, 2010 2:12 pm wrote:I must agree with everyone, it is rather captivating. I felt as though, for some odd reason, that this has been translated. Then again, that may just be me.

You see, when one literally translates from one language to the other -- something is lost, but in exchange there is strength. Sturdy, but austere words that command a certain spirit that of which only the Romani seem to wield.

It was rather simple, the piece and concise. I felt as though it truly was folklore something that has been passed down by the generations, each leaving its own mark with each rendition.

Alright, now. I compiled a list of synonyms that work out thanks to dictionary.com: aureate, auric, auriferous, aurous, aurulent, blond, blonde, caramel, flaxen, honeyed, mellow yellow, ochroid, straw, tan, tawny, wheat, amber, bisque, buff, cream, lemon, saffron, sand, xanthous, goldenrod, lutescent, apricot, brass, copper, flame, melon, ocherous. Take your pick.

Good luck!

Maybe it would be better if you just written (Hello) instead of (I am awake know)
Hay you can't have a (really bad concussion) just because you fell on the floor and the
((already)in I am already awake) could be cut out too.
OK now the thing is when you get on someones back it is hard for you to do it and it is even harder for the person who is haling you around and running like that is impossible the way i now is because i have tried it a lot.
Well if I ran through some smoke my eyes would heart not my thought.
OK now how would he now who started the fire.
If i had a concussion i wouldn't be nodding at all.
Where did they git the chair.
Fast walk never herd the term in that context.
(With fear in my eyes) might be better instead of (fear in my eyes).
But nice work otherwise.

Okay: I try to be constructive in my reviews, but sorry if I'm a bit . . . harsh?

This story gives me the feeling that it's got something to do with a video game/computer game of some sort, what with all the fancy names and all.
It leaves a lot of space open at the beginning . . . like this is in the middle of a book, but the way Icy's introduced makes me think it isn't, actually the way they're all introduced.

Okay, I'm assuming this is your first time writing, if it isn't, then I assume that it's very near that.

Any way you put it, it's well done. Your grammar and spelling are really nice, and your style keeps me thinking of a really good writer friend of mine . . .

The story seems interesting, though I'm afraid that I don't understand what the whole 'fan fic' part is . . . sorry, I live under a rock.

But living under a rock is irrelevant, I can write! And that's important.

Overall, for one of your first tries(Which I am assuming this is) this is really good, a lot better than my first/ second / third tried . . . Ugh, where those embarrassing or what?!

Good work. I'd advise a bit more . . . detail, and it would be great.


Wanna know a secret to make it so that your writing doesn't seem like it was written by an inexperienced writer . . . ?
Put in detail. A beginning writer tends to speed things up too much, and the action becomes confusing. But don't let that discourage you, all writers go through that stage . . . one day you may be a great writer, just keep working, and who knows!

Okay, so here I am for a quick review!

Now, the main problem I noticed in here is the way that you tried to mix older knightly jargon with present speaking techniques. That didn't work out too well. Using 'hail' makes everything feel wrong, especially when you've just used a word like 'couldn't' (You don't use two words mashed together like this in old English, you'd use 'could not'.

Another thing, ACTION IS ALWAYS IN THE PRESENT! If you put action in the past it completely kills it!

Also, you have Preston asking Carson (or vice versa) questions like 'will we win?' Questions that should naturally be answered by the story itself. Don't put in questions like that, you're just trying to solve a problem the easy way - don't do it or you'll get trouble only.

That last little piece of action with the arrow was in the past.

Otherwise good work, very interesting.
I enjoyed. Right now I'm wanting to go read the rest of it.


(You really need an avatar )

~Black~

Hey Champ, here I am with your review!

First off, my thoughts: Good work, it was rather strangely written, the characters were different, and then whole thing had a rather odd twinge to it. Good work there, it's not easy to write something new in our day, and you did an exemplary job! Usually original stuff is only found in fantasy!

But good work! I enjoyed it, I read it easily. I only noticed three overall mistakes (You have to have some kind of mistakes in a chapter this big).

A: It was too big, simply too large. You don't want chapters so long that they bore your reader, those simply cannot exist. There are plenty of places where you can cut it in half, you need to find them (Like just before they reached their grandparent's house) and do so.

B: You changed tense any number of times. Note: Only the very, very best writers can write well in omniscient anything, especially third person. Most beginning writers tend to start to switch to normal third person as they write, and you do it, a LOT! You need to find something better to use, I'd advise either first person, using the pronoun I, or third, using he/she.

C: You have a major problem in the fact that there is no focal character, understand, the point of writing a novel is to give your reader a hard emotive punch. Nobody ever bought a novel for any other reason other than that they thought they'd get a kick out of it. You need a focal character with whom your readers can 'fee', they feel sorry for him when he gets hurt, because they know him, they know him because you've focused on him! Please, choose a character (If this is your first time writing then I'd advise you to choose a guy: men usually write better when their focal character is a guy too - the characters are more real) as a focal point and use him/her.

Okay, there you've got a good overall for you. Overall being all the very general problems. One thing I might add (Though it is truly opinionated), is that the beginning part (In Juniors POV) is a bit hard to understand, your wording is rather . . . strange.

Grammar: Your grammar is rather messy, because, as mentioned before, your tense changes. Here are some examples of where you mess up:

“Victoria. . . .” Junior did his best to whisper under his mother’s Bachata music, his eyes never leaving her intense and distant gaze from the rearview mirror. Victoria doesn’t answer, or she pretends not to hear him.

Junior remembers she was not arguing though, she never argues. Victoria listens, she looks and she hears. She is different from her siblings in that way, Junior has never known her to be violent but always helpful and considerate to him, she is smart too. Junior sucks his teeth; he kicks himself for not asking her why she was crying yesterday. Although he figured by now the answer would be known, the reason for everyone packing a trash bag and loading up would make since.



There are a couple mistakes with this, A: You can't whisper 'under' music, you can whisper over it, but not 'under' it. B: The second sentence doesn't really make sense (You need some punctuation or a re-write) C: 'Rearview' is spelled 'rear-view'. D: The first paragraph had a glitch, you used 'did' instead of 'does'. It's a quickly little thing you start doing more and more as the story progresses, the only way I know to fix it is to choose one tense and hold to it.

I would go through it all and pick out the mistakes, but this chapter is a bit large for that, I'm afraid. You need to get yourself a free editor (I can point you to the right people) or do it yourself. But good luck anyway!


Spelling: Your spelling, overall is really pretty good. Though in a lot of places your grammar does not make sense, your spelling is really good. I didn't find any obvious mistakes other than an occasional word like 'rear-view' misspelled. Good work here! Good spelling is important.


Style: I've already been extensively into your tense problems so I'll pass over them now, but tense is part of style. Here you didn't do so well, your tense's are messed up, and so are your POV characters. In my view, you should never change the point of view character in the same chapter (If at all), but that you must have one.


Theme: I'm not quite sure I like this part of your story (It's feeling a bit more of a mature theme), but you're doing well here, really a first chapter is too early to judge theme. But I like it how I can feel it early, that's a high point in my mind. I'm not going to say anything real about this until I've read a bit more of your story, for now: Good work, keep this up!


Plot: Your plot is, like your theme, hard to point out after having only read the first chapter. But I feel you have one, again. Good work. I know that something is going to happen in this story, that there is going to be some kind of plot, but I can't tell you what that is till I'm practically done with the book. So for now I'll just keep up with your progress. Good work, keep this up!


Dialogue, Action, Monologue & the rest: Good work here, really. Most of it is pretty good, the only thing I have to comment on is your description of things and your wording are both rather odd, messy. In need of work. I mean, you describe things without color, and you don't make sense at times.


Re-cap: You need to fix up a lot of things, Tense, Description, Grammar . . . lots of things. Your pace overall is really slow as well, really, if you want to keep a reader you need a faster pace than this!

But good work, I enjoyed it. It's plot was exemplary in the feel, and I really appreciated it!

Good work! Keep writing!

~Black~

I really enjoyed reading this! It was original to say the least and made some very good points...It feels a little clumsy when reading it though. I would say it needs a little more work as far as Idea development and description. Even now the story is a very very good one, with just a little more development it would be AMAZING! XD

This surprised me. I was expecting just another poem, but no. This one really sucked me in. At some points though, I did have to re-read a stanza. I was confused at your word choice at some times. But other wise this poem was sad and graceful and full of beauty.

Keep on writing and thank you for the poem

I don't usually read this type of work, so I'm not sure that my review will be entirely helpful...

But your work is very descriptive. It was very easy for me to capture the mental image of this piece, and was very good.
The only things I saw that I would change is that in the third sentence in the paragraph where the girl has the 'seizure', you wrote 'tough'; and in the third sentence in the paragraph about the tattoo you wrote 'sever'...I wasn't sure if these were typos or...

But anyway, it was a very good piece, and I think that the guy would be crazy if he didn't publish for you!