Published February 7, 2013
I talked to your mother yesterday I couldn't believe my ears, Did she really say she found you hanging from a tree? She told me your note said you felt all alone in this cold hearted world, she said you wrote how I must have hated you for leaving you with no one to teach you how to be a strong man. I know its too late to explain, you probably wouldn't want to hear it any way but, to get over what I have done to you I must tell you this. I left you because i thought it would be best for you not to know who or what I am. son i am the beggar on the street, I would lie, cheat, and steal from anyone i could just to get my next fix. I couldnt keep my hands from hurting your mother, I almost killed you before you were even born. how could I bear hurting you my own flesh and blood. Son I knew you would need a stable home that promised a roof over your head and food in your stomach which I couldn't even provide for my self. I know it was wrong to just leave you like that, but I knew I couldn't' give you the life you deserved. I knew you needed a father that loved you more then life its self, one that would be able to give you all his attention. Son you needed someone to pick you up when you fell down, I would have been the one pushing you down. You would have needed protection from me. I couldn't do that to you, but I couldn't give up meth either. I would change it all if I could but its to late. I'm sorry son but even if I was there I wouldn't have been able to teach you to be a strong man because to be honest son I wasn't even a man. love your dad
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137,428 Literary Works • 672,015 Reviews
Hey there leaseal
yesterdayI couldn't
Did she really
you probably
way but, to get
to youI must
because i thoughtit
son i am the
how couldIbear
your stomach whichI
life its self
.Son you needed
could but its
strong man because to be honest sonI wasn't
After reading this through, I could tell you're real problem was your spacing. I mean your grammar was bit off here and there, and you missed a period or comma once in a while, but you really just didn't hit that spacebar enough.
So I'm not gonna comment on anything that just needs to have a space, I'll let you sort that our for yourself.
Spoiler
There should be a period after 'yesterday'.
Spoiler
'Did' should be lowercase.
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Put 'and' in front of this.
Spoiler
Comma should be on the other side of 'but'.
Spoiler
Comma after 'you'.
Spoiler
Capitalize 'i'.
Spoiler
Capitalize both 'son' and 'i', and put a comma after in between.
Spoiler
Uppercase 'how'.
Spoiler
Comma after 'stomach'.
Spoiler
That should be 'itself'.
Spoiler
Comma after 'son'.
Spoiler
Comma after 'could'
Spoiler
Comma after 'man' and 'son'.
And the rest was fine.
You did a great job writing a touching letter from a father to a son, it's just how you wrote it that wasn't done too well. It would only take a bit of editing for you to fix something like this, and I'm sure you'd be able to to do it.
Keep on writing
Hello Leaseal! Dogs here with your review. Ok to start I think your avatar is ADORABLE!!!!! Mayybbee as cute as mine... maybe. Anywho down to buisness. Ok you have several simple errors in your spacing. There should always be a space inbetween words and when there isn't it just makes your writing incredibly difficult and hard to read. it also just looks plain sloppy. I understand that the formating can get a little messed up when you copy and paste things into the submission, but you as a writer need to check over and correct those errors before you post. it'll make everything look better.
Ok so your beginning is a little weak for this strong topic that you chose to write about. I want you to start with someone observing such a wonderful day and then BOOM! Dead body hanging from a tree. That extreme contrast from going from good day to hanging from a tree will do you many favors in this style of writing.
Although I did notice that this is written more like a letter than a short story. If this is a short story it needs to have more umph and description to it. More arch to your writing rather than just a letter of a dad wallowing in self pity about how bad of a father he was.
Also, whats the point you're trying to prove in writing this? It seems like it is just a letter from a heart broken dad and nothing more. I want more emotion and imagery in this piece rather than a two dimmensional letter. I need more description, show us the dead body hanging from a tree. Show us all the imagery of everything that is making the dad feel guilty.
Add those things in and you'll be on the right track. Let me know if you ever need a review, keep up the good work!
TuckEr EllsworTh
Hi leaseal,
Zephion here, prepared to review this great piece here. First, I'd like to say that the ideas were there. You had good things today and you've obviously given the story thought, but the execution was lacking. You should go over this piece and look for typos. Pu left out spaces between words and sentences, making this really hard to read. If you fix that it will be much more readable. I also have an idea for the next step to this piece. I think it would be cool if you were to turn this I to a novel consisting of letters back and forth between the father and the son. That would be very I the resting, and I would find that entertaining to read. Anyway, revise this and you will find that this piece becomes a lot better. Keep writing, and thanks for sharing!
Zephion
I like this experiment in perspective. Thinking about the whole history of a child's life in one letter is a broad thing to tackle, and I think you've got a good base here. c: The thing that would really seal this up tight (besides proofreading and using proper punctuation -- like spaces after periods and commas), would be more specifics and reality.
For example, I'm not quite sure I believe that the same person who left his son would be in a place to write this letter if he wasn't in the place to try to come back? Like, listen. If he were still addicted and still in a bad place, he'd be in a worse place out of guilt, I feel, and would not have the sense to even think this coherently to his son?
If he had been in a better place, he'd either have contacted the boy earlier and tried to meet (which he could reference had been rejected and he'd feel bad about that), or he wouldn't need to be writing from a distance. He could be speaking at the funeral, or speaking to his mother instead, getting caught up on all the things he'd missed, maybe out of a spot in his heart trying to help his ex-wife/partner by helping her relive the good things about their son's life in this dark time.
Either way, it's not going to be as vague and general as this. This is kind of the expected story: "I left you, I hurt you, I should have been better". It's not new, and it's not compelling outside of the reason that someone's son died. But if you heard about that in real life, you might for a second go, "I couldn't imagine" while trying to, and then give up and go on with your life. You don't get that emotion from a far off event. The way you've told this to us is from far off, so we don't get the emotion.
I think if you took some time to spin out a specific backstory, this could work even better. I like especially the idea that this father might have realized at the point that he hurt his son that he had to leave. That would be a pretty intense turning point. That and the shame of not being able to be a good example would be good things to explore.
Dig deeper, I say~
PM me if you have any questions.
Good luck, and keep writing!
Hey there leaseal
I quite liked this piece. It was actually written quite well and I felt the emotion that was in it and the pain of this father about his offences against his family.
The only problem I really have are nit-picky things that could be picked up through getting someone you know read it through for you or just proof reading your work before you post.
One thing is that a lot of the time you don't capitalise your I's. This is grammatically incorrect and so you should probably go through and correct all the instances where that happened.
Another problems is to do with spacing. Some of your writing doesn't have the correct spacing, so a bunch of words are squashed together. This might be just to do with YWS formatting but I thought I'd point it out nonetheless. Examples would be - 'I couldnt keep myhandsfrom' 'shesaid youwrote how i must have hated you' there are quite a few more instances throughout the piece so it would probably be wise to go through and fix that up.
And occasionally you have a few misspelt words. It also might be nice if you were to format this like an actual letter. Just put emphasis on that fact.
It's such a shame that nit picky things are letting down your overall piece so I think if you fix that up then this will read much better.
Let me know if you have any questions
Bex x