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140,624 Literary Works • 673,565 Reviews
Hi Kamas,
Harsh review on request!
While I like the imagination you put into your writing, overall I felt that the sheer weirdness of some of the images, and the erratic or repetitive use of grammar, was hampering my enjoyment of the writing. I would love for this piece to be a flow of fascinating images, and that's what I see as the goal here, but it's not quite there yet.
I'm a little bit concerned that the imagery is going over the top in places. Don't be afraid to trim with a machete if necessary. I felt that overall the piece became quite repetitive - it emphasises that everything is amazing in about fifteen different ways, until I became desensitised to the amazing. And some images were more successful than others. For example, I'm following the raindrops touching the leaves and playing these notes to form a melody, but I'm not sure what a "ginger touch" is, and I'm not sure how the girl's dress can "push against [Oliver's] spirit". I think the reader might need some more help to follow your train of thought at times.
There's a risk of getting so caught up in being creative that you lose track of readability, and I think the grammar here suffered a little. I'm not sure if you were shooting for creative misuse of grammar for effect, but at times it just read like a mistake. For example:
I watched her hidden away in the darkness and dirt, like a rat like me should - The final verb here doesn't seem to match up to the rest of the sentence. A rat like him should ... watched her? A rat like him should ... hidden? The verb forms need to match for the sentence to be grammatical.
She brought life to this forgotten side of the forest. While I hid away, away from the people who hunted me, the sun, and the world - This is a dependent clause which doesn't stand alone as a grammatical sentence. Swap the full stop out for a comma or hyphen or something.
And so on.
Two quick notes to finish up:
1. Inner pain: be careful when commenting on it. Pain can come across as wallowing in self-pity unless the reader can see for themselves that it's legitimate. From the reader's perspective, it's possible that your protagonist is a whiny thirteen-year-old whose daddy wouldn't let him stay up past his bedtime. So I'd think about either axeing the unspecified inner pain or giving it a strong reason.
2. Stimulus and response: they need to follow in logical order. When a weird stimulus happens (like the girl knowing his name) the response (like asking her how she knows) needs to happen immediately, not a paragraph later.
I do like the concept of the forest sonata - the music that's played during the piece. Are there other sounds in the forest at night that could be tied in here?
Overall, I feel like this piece has an interesting premise and some fascinating imagery, but maybe needs to be streamlined for more flow. Some of the more ambitious images fail to hit their mark, and there are some repetition problems. Squall also had some good comments about characterisation. Other problems are minor.
Hope this helps!
Cheers,
Karsten
Hey Karmas.
A review above has dealt with grammar issues. Here, I'll be looking at your piece on the whole.
What do you mean by this?
You've kind of lost my attention here. It seems too vague, too abstract. How can rain play music on the leaves? It doesn't really make sense. If you are gonna use abstract techniques, then it has to somehow connect with your story and make sense.
So why would the narrator play the pipe out of the blue like that?
This seems a bit too cheerful. The imaginary that you've used thus far seems to contradict this. The only way that I see this as being feasible is if the girl has a good-good nature. But why would she have such a nature?
Overall impressions:
Hrmm. I can't really bring myself to like this piece at the moment. I can see what you are trying to do, but it doesn't seem to be alive yet. I think this is because there doesn't seem to be a driving point to the piece.
Throughout the whole piece, the narrator sees an ordinary girl much like her that is somehow returning life to a dead forest. She plays a flute which gives off a beautiful tune to which the girl nicely asks if she can play it. These events are rather unusual so I was hoping there was a good reason for it. But no, you leave too much to the audience's imagination, leaving many unanswered questions that doesn't add up to a specific point or effect and hence it comes off as kind of random.
Consider this:
1.Why is the narrator in the woods?
2.Why is the girl bringing life back to the woods?
3.Why did the girl decide to play the flute? (the abstract imagery in the piece isn't concrete enough to provide a valid reason for it).
But looking at this on the whole, I know that you were trying to create a sense of intrigue and to foreshadow future events. In that case, I suggest that you compare and contrast the narrator with the girl. I recommend this as I felt that this piece has a lot of potential in exploring the theme of admiration in a clever and insightful way (it really seemed to me like that was one of the themes that you were aiming for). The girl in the piece actually reminded me of people in our world that are admired because of the good that they've done, such as Mother Teressa. Sometimes, I ask myself "Why are they so admired?" even though it's like a no-brainer. But if you think more deeply, it isn't as simple as that lol.
This could be used to develop the voice of your narrator. Right now, she doesn't really have a distinct and strong voice, not only because she doesn't seem to have any character, but because she doesn't really seem to have any reason to be awe-struck, you just hope that the reader would make something up to fill up that empty space.
This is a good time to add depth to your narrator via backstory and through any crisises that she may be currently experiencing. Was she admiring the girl because she has done wrong and seeks redemption? Is it because she comes from a strict and cruel family and seeks peace? That's up to you to decide.
With your descriptions, try to have more variety to them. You focused too much on the flora and fauna of the forest and not enough in other areas to make the piece seem more integrated.
But overall, I really do think this piece has potential, otherwise, I wouldn't have bothered to write such a long review. You just need to fully realize the power that your piece could have and to unlock it. I know you can ^^
Good luck Karmas!
Andy
Hey!
What's with this??? Story beginnings usually don't start with two sentence fragments, do they?
G'day, please! It sounds like she's stuttering, which we both know she isn't.
This should be shake.
It should be ""Ahh. I do understand, not to worry, Oliver Rybbidle, everything will be alright," she said wisely as she stood. "
Is there a reason you capitalized the "you"?
Otherwise, that's about it. Great visual on this. Keep up the good work!
zOe
Kamas! <3 *snugs* *ponders for a moment, and glomps, then chews on Kamas' head thoughtfully*
Now that that's out of the way...
What on earth is up with this? Is it supposed to be one sentence. If so, yay! If not... well, meh. As two sentences, i's like your trying to be dramatic, but it's not working. It's like...
"I was enthralled.... By what she WAS!" It wants to be one sentence. Give it what it wants. Otherwise... >_<
Old trunkS. Plural. Trunkssss. Silly. ^_^
You just said trees. Trees, trees, trees... redundant and bad flowing.
So you're totally missing a verb. "that in the darkness of our mind" did what? =O
Hiya Kamas! Selene is here to review!
Nit-Picks:
Eh, this isn't really a good second sentence. It's a sentence fragment, so maybe you could find something better?
'Trunk' should be plural, trunks.
'They' should be the.
'Then' should be than.
You switched tense.
Haha, you've got a bit of a studder going on there. 'G'd day' should just be G'day.
'I' should be the.
.
The first 'to' should be too.
Description:
You've given a lovely visual of the forest and I enjoyed reading about it. You told just a little bit on how the girl looks, but I think it would have been better to go a little more into that. You're showing us her through your MC's eyes, so show us what he sees when he takes that first look at her. How is she in his eyes?
Character Development:
There's no character development whatsoever. I don't know why your MC was crying, what their personalities are, or what brought them to the forest. If you reveal bits at a time about your characters, then there's more attachment to the story. Character development is essential within the beginnings of a story and I hope to see it in future chapters.
Overall:
I liked the story, but there's room for improvement. If you look it over, I'm sure you can correct a thing or two and make it even better. I'll be waiting for more!