Entry for tnme22's Flash Fiction contest~ Please Review

And Here's Thinking You Were Gone.

I never expected to drop like this. My wings were always working, keeping me up amongst the clouds. Then with one small mistake, the wings fell apart.

I should have known.

The sunlight patrols my thoughts, like a prison guard, and you are forgotten. A dusted picture in the back of a locked room. But now the sun is asleep, and one bright spark lights the sky. I call that star Love, and she is wrapped in your dark embrace. My thoughts are like a violin; with each stroke of the strings, gentle memories are stirred back into existance.

I jump slightly at the movement of a tear sliding down my cheek. A smile twitches at the ends of my lips. Should I catch it like you used to? Or let it fall?

And here's thinking you were gone.

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yeah, i know it is unbearably short. i think its a dead-end piece, so you can rip it apart and do whatever cos i highly doubt it's gona win. and yes i do realize i've switched tenses at the beginning, but im unsure of how to fix that without making the piece even shorter.

I liked it! I always like detail in writing and how you spoke of the thoughts, very good line Overall I would say it was detailed within short sentences and well thought out.

Its a little short... That's what's struck me most. That and I didn't have a clue what was going on.

"Don't ever lose your starlight, Starla" You told me.
"You're my sky, Wyatt, how could I shine with out you?"
"You would manage, some how."

Who is Wyatt? And, also, shouldn't it be 'without'?

I mean, is the wings thing metaphorical? I'll guess its literal for now, but still. Who is Wyatt? Wha-?

Hey, Auteur. You seem pretty keen to get reviews, so I think I'll give you one. I'll nitpick a bit, because it's obviously quite short.

Like a broken clock my gears stopped working and down I went.

I'm not sure I like the simile here. At least include a comma after "clock", because it helps the flow, but the simile itself doesn't fit too well. After all, a clock doesn't fall when it stops working, does it? I think you're trying to associate the clock's connotations of time with your writing, but I don't think this is the best way you could have done it. Anyway, moving on.

"Don't ever lose your starlight, Starla" You told me.
"You're my sky, Wyatt, how could I shine with out you?"
"You would manage, some how."

Right. I'm not going through speech punctuation again, so please, use this website for now. Scroll down for the information on speech formatting. I've corrected this one for you, but what matters is that you understand what I've done. Here's the corrected version.

"Don't ever lose your starlight, Starla," you told me.
"You're my sky, Wyatt. How could I shine without you?"
"You would manage, somehow."

Also, "somehow" and "without" shouldn't be separated into individual words. They're both one word. As for this dialogue, I'm not sure I like it. It's not quite clichéd, but it's either going to make your readers swoon or puke, if you know what I mean. And does your MC have to be called Starla? What about Stella? That means star, as does Astra. They're both actual names, so it would work better.

The sunlight forbid me

"forbade" is the past tense of "forbid".

My thoughts are like a violin; with each stroke of the strings, gentle memories are stirred back into existance.

Again, I'm not sure I like the simile. It's a pretty image, but it doesn't seem to have any real relevence. With a piece like this, that's so short, each word has to count. However, since it is so short, I'm not sure you're going to be able to edit all of this as I say, so don't worry about it too much. Oh, and "existence" is spelled like that, rather than with an "a". Check back through for typos and suchlike.

General points. You switch tense halfway through. It's very confusing, and left me wondering whether you meant to do it, whether it makes sense, whether it's grammatically incorrect... I don't know. It's odd, and threw me off.

I don't think we need to know who Wyatt is, but I was lost as to what the wings at the beginning were about. I'm pretty sure now that it was just a metaphor, but even so, it's a bit confusing. Your piece is predominantly metaphors, which is why I was lost. It's beautiful imagery, but a piece should have some sort of backbone before you go off with description. This one's probably just getting away with it. I do the same thing; in fact, reviewing this is helping me learn a lot about my own writing.

Okay, so it's a little hard to understand then, but I get your general message. I like it, actually. Just sort the speech out and this'll be pretty good. It's one of the first times I've actually thought the title suited the piece, but then, looking at the rules of the contest, it's hardly surprising. Hope this review helped, then.

Thanks for the reviews... Yeah Idk where I got Starla from, it just like came into my head. I'll change it to Stella. And I thought maybe forbid was forbade, but then I wasn't sure if that was an actual word. As for the name Wyatt, that was another random name that came into my head. I'll try and fix this up later when I get some time. Thanks again!

Finally, I get a chance to check out your work!

I'll start with the little nitty-gritty things, since those are my favorites!

I'd never expected to drop like this.

Strikes me as weird. The grammatical structure of this one line itself paired with the lack of context really irked me, but that's just one line.

My wings were always working, keeping me up amongst the clouds. Then with one small mistake, the wings fell apart.

You switch POVs here. You start out in the first person "...keeping me up amongst the clouds." and end with the third person "...small mistake, the wings fell apart."

The "the" is the bad guy in this instance. Consider changing it to "my."

"Don't ever lose your starlight, Stella," You told me.
"You're my sky, Wyatt, how could I shine without you?"
"You would manage, somehow."

This is a perplexing trio

• Again with the POV switching (now we're talking in second person).
• Is (1) and (2) the same person talking? If so, then no line break is needed after the "...told me."
• Consider rewording "You would manage, somehow." to something more along the lines of "You would manage," I started, "somehow." That'd not only keep said line within your (character's) point of view (first person), but make a bit more sense when thrown in with the two lines above it.

I should have known.

Back to first person! Yay!

The sunlight forbade me...

Sounds weird, even if it's (hopefully) grammatically correct. Consider rephrasing.

...existance.

Common error. "Existance" is spelled "existence," unless other English-speaking countries spell it some other way.

A tear slides down my face.

A switch from a predominately past-tense writing to the present-tense. Consider rewording this one.

And here's thinking you were gone.

Excellent ending

Now that that's out the way...

It's so short! I was just getting in to it when I realized it was over, but that's flash fiction for ya. I think I got this piece better--or maybe 'able to form my own sense of this piece'--thanks to reading your other work, Miracles. Every reference to wings got me thinking of butterflies, even though, by the end, I got to understand the true meaning behind the piece

All in all, flash fiction is too short for my tastes, but good nonetheless. The way you craft your stories is very intriguing (in a good way).

Oh, I loved that piece!
That was magnificent!
I wish it was longer so I could be awe stricken by more of your wonderful writing!
Ugh, it seems as if your piece has left me speechless. It was very well writ, thank you for posting. Bye-bye now!