A/N: Hey guys! This is an essay I wrote for class. The topic we were given for the essay is: “The despair of youth with limited opportunities is the major reason they turn to violent conflict.” Take a position on this statement and defend it. This essay may also be submitted for a contest. I'd really like it if some one could do a nit-picky, line by line critique pointing out the grammar and punctuation errors. All your thoughts, opinions and suggestions are appreciated!
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Submitted.
Last edited by mizz-iceberg on Tue Jan 04, 2011 4:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
I'm a godmother, that's a great thing to be, a godmother. She calls me god for short, that's cute, I taught her that. --Ellen DeGeneres
Hi! Let me just start off by telling you that this was amazing! I was almost crying by the time I got to the end! It was very well written too! I didn't spot many errors at all you did an amazingly good job in writing this!
His heart races, his eyes are wild. He looks around for escape. I think you meant an escape.
Have they chosen him to take revenge on him for the actions of his elder brother who is long-gone now? You should take out either the first or second 'him' in this sentence.
Again, very good job on this! Keep it up!
As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. ~Joshua 24:15 @(^_^)@<--- This is review monkey. He says hi!
Normally, I don't review non-fiction because I'm not very good at it but I'll do my best for this one. I'll try to help you in whatever way possible. I don't think I'll be capable of doing a line by line review for this so you'll have to be satisfied with what I have here. ^.^ Not many nitpicks either, I only saw a few comma or sentence structure weirdness but nothing major, so it's good. lol
First, let me start with the introduction. I felt like it was quite wordy since you dived into a lot of description right off the bat and I didn't have a clear idea of who the character was or anything. However, with a little patience I was able to get it through my head and all understand the boy's feelings even if it was a bit overdone. I think you're supposed to make narratives a bit forced with emotion, at least that's what I read when I did my narratives so I guess it's okay. However, because of the wordy nature of that beginning I felt as if it was a bit too much and hard to really connect to this pain on a realistic level. That could be just me though, I'm not the best at figuring out these little things so you might want to get a second opinion on that part just to be sure.
Now if we talk about the main point of this narrative, I find that you don't exactly define it in a concrete manner. It's more implied through your story but it's difficult to actually see it. Maybe you should have a short sentence that shows us the main point that you're trying to get through. More preferably, I would say in the opening paragraph or so. This way you're laying down what the story is going to be about.
I noticed something in the first half of your narrative that I think I should point out. Mainly, it seems a bit everywhere. There wasn't any real sequence of events or anything. You went ahead and had plenty of description about their emotions and the tempting that was flowing through the male character's head. I would suggest adding some more details about the plot or some more information to engage the readers because it feels a bit hard to capture. I think this is more dominate when it comes to your male character. The girl, for me, seems easier to understand.
Even with that said, I still think you did a pretty good job writing this. There were enough details and nice imagery along with some nice, strong words to capture my attention. As for the emotional level, I already said that the male character was hard to really understand, but I think it was gripping and I most definitely had fun reading this and discovering how the ending turned up to be. I just wished you made it a bit longer since I found myself asking who the 'friend' was, what exactly his parents did and what not. However this story is just another story among many others and doesn't exactly pitch in with the 'major reason why they resort to violent conflict' part of it. Do you know what I mean? I felt like that last bit wasn't exactly stated, wish it could have been somewhere in there or at least given a brief idea behind it all to connect it the story with the reason thing. Could just be me... I dunno.
Anyway, this was good overall and I did like reading this. I'm sorry if this review wasn't much of a help. I think I blabbered on most of the time instead of really helping you. Hopefully it gives you one or two pointers though. And don't forget to let me know if you have any questions. ^^
-Pink
There are three rules for writing a novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are. -W. Somerset Maugham
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