Young Writers Society

Hey there Vivacious! I'm June! Nice to meet you!

Aww! This is cute! I love kittens, so this is totally one of my favorite types of poems, haha.

So! I'm not going to be too harsh on you, but let's begin on this, dear.

Let's take a look at this part:

--Meowwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

wailed the tiny kitten

• In writing, it's commonly disliked to use excessive letters! Normally, italics can be used to show extension-- but! If you want to use more than one letter, it's better to not use more than three, dear.

Also! You don't have to use quotation marks since your speech and staging is seperted by breaks in the lines, but if you wanted to you could quote what's being spoken like "this."

--Hmmm,

said the father comma here!

Who had an idea comma here!

--I wonder where your mittens are

He said with a funny grin on his face

Maybe he had an idea to save his daughter’s fate

He took a look around

Whiffed the air

And, Oh my golly!

The mitten was there!

Let's take a look at this, dear;

• Before now, we don't see the conflict, dear. The conflict is she lost her mitten and needs to find it, but we don't see her searching for it. We don't know what will happen if she doesn't find her mitten, dear. I think that we need something a little more than this to base this part upon.

Also! The father! It feels "loose" dear. We can't actually feel his connectivity to this-- right now, it sounds like he stole her mitten to get her in trouble, haha.

Moving on;

I really like your concept here, dear. I think (like Evi said) you can really, really expand upon this, and make it funnier, livelier and overall just a brilliant poem!

I like it as it is, dear, but I think it could use a bit of expansion.

Hope I helped! Any questions, feel free to PM me!

June

Expect the weirdness.

Understatement.

Now, you posted in my Will Review for Food thread, so I think you've at least earned the right to an honest review. All things considered, I didn't particularly like this. However! I tend to gravitate towards poetry that rhymes, or (even better!) poetry with a deep meaning that I have to think hard in order to unravel. This poem neither rhymes nor has any deep meaning, and while that is perfectly fine, it's just not my preference.

It might have been different if it had turned around and had some amazingly clever ending, but, alas, it did not. I understand how outrageous the prompt was, yes, but I think you could have smoothed this out a lot more. How, exactly? I'll try my best to assist you in that department.

The dashes

They annoy me. If you want to symbolize talking, just use quotations. You don't have to go inventing asymbol when there's already one conveniently on your keyboard.

The meows

Meh. I have no idea how to fix this. I mean, it's not a problem I usually face, having to find the best way to write a meow? However, forced to choose between the different 'meows', I suppose I liked the first one the best. The stuttering is the most characterization you have, and I'd hate to give that up.

Poem-ness

I'm not here to be mean, dear, remember. However, I am here to be honest, and as of right now, the poem doesn't really resemble a poem in the least. All of the things that make up poems are absent here: rhythym, rhyming, meter, stanzas, imagery, and emotion. See what I mean? It's just a bunch of words thrown together to slightly resemble a poem.

I think the easiest way to start fixing this, and the quickest, would be to rephrase things so that you have at least a steady rhythym going. Ya? You have a three-line stanza, two two-line stanzas, and a nine-lined stanza. There is no order, no form. So, I'd tweak it so you have-- just a suggestion here, mind you-- stanzas with roughly the same amount of lines. Having a shorter stanza makes it stand out more, and it gives us the impression that it's important; when we read your shorter stanzas, they are nothing but cat sounds.

Rhyme

Honestly, I think this would be a bajillion times better if it rhymed (consistently, too-- not just here or there). I am aware that rhyming it would mean basically scrapping the whole thing and starting over, but I think it would be to your benefit. Right now it's just a bunch of words, and, frankly, less of a poetic art form and more of a joke. You don't want that, do you? IT would be a lot more fun and quirky if you set up a good rhyming sceme and went by that.

Okay?

The end was very...meh. I was waiting for the 'epic quest' described in the prompt, but all it was was her dad meowing and the mitten appearing in mid-air? I know the contest is outrageously silly, but people are going to take your poem seriously. Or, worst case scenario, try to take it seriously. Which isn't so easy right now.

Ick. I feel evil. But there are some major revovations that need to be done here. You have a hilarious, quirky little prompt to work with, and there're so many directions you could take this. But you have to take the extra step for it to be great.

~Evi