Young Writers Society

Hello Leafpool,

I'm here today to review your piece entitled 'Monopoly'

Straight away I could tell this was going to be an anecdotal inspired story and was eager to read it because of the familiarity of the game. Personally, Monopoly for me always ends with someone getting agitated over tediousness or bad luck and I can totally relate to this.

Anyway, let's get into the nit picky grammar --->

She was making supper and I was laying here on the floor. Bored out of my mind -

I'm not too sure about 'laying here' personally. I would just stick with 'laying on the floor',
avoid the fragmentation my removing the full stop and replacing it with a comma.

"I would beat you so bad if I played." She'll cave soon. I know it

At this point I think it's a habit for you to just add full stops where you want the significant pauses, but let me tell you that commas and even no punctuation would be more appropriate .In these two examples you should combine the speech with the rest of the sentence.

"Whatever you say, Mom. I know you're just afraid of losing to your daughter."

Same again.

Remember to always keep full stops inside speech annotations. I see that you can do it, just double check your work next time.


You've stated that this was just a quick draft and with that in consideration, I think you've done really well here.

Other than that I think you did really well with this and hope you continue to post on YWS in the future!

If you have further questions about my review or any other literary inquiries, please don't hesitate to PM me!

PenmanshipPriority

Just a note--the blank comment was a total accident. Sorry!
Now, onto your hilarious story! OK, this is so, so true. Especially the game board-flipping part! I ended up laughing crazily at that, because that's what always happens when I play monopoly with my younger siblings. It is a very addictive and high-stakes type game--I've always been one of those people that just wouldn't play because it takes too long. Anyway, you've got a great concept. This definitely made me think back to my younger days of monopoly playing.
The ending especially--great idea!
As for the writing, I think you entered the mind of a young child very well, while keeping a Calvin-and-Hobbes-esque satirical element. There were various small-scale problems, however. For example, this is pretty obviously a first draft. Little grammatical errors and what not pop up. For example, "I was laying here" should be "I was lying here"--unless he's laying himself on the floor, or preforming some other bizarre action of the like. "it suddenly became very tempting" could be shortened to "I suddenly became very tempted". "to set up the game"--game here sounds a little redundant. Maybe switch it to 'board'? Anyway, those are just a few of the tinier problems present so far. See what I mean?
Just edit it over looking for such mistakes, and you'll be fine. Those are all common things to do--I do them all of the time. All in all, your story is quite good.

Just a note--the blank comment was a total accident. Sorry!
Now, onto your hilarious story! OK, this is so, so true. Especially the game board-flipping part! I ended up laughing crazily at that, because that's what always happens when I play monopoly with my younger siblings. It is a very addictive and high-stakes type game--I've always been one of those people that just wouldn't play because it takes too long. Anyway, you've got a great concept. This definitely made me think back to my younger days of monopoly playing.
The ending especially--great idea!
As for the writing, I think you entered the mind of a young child very well, while keeping a Calvin-and-Hobbes-esque satirical element. There were various small-scale problems, however. For example, this is pretty obviously a first draft. Little grammatical errors and what not pop up. For example, "I was laying here" should be "I was lying here"--unless he's laying himself on the floor, or preforming some other bizarre action of the like. "it suddenly became very tempting" could be shortened to "I suddenly became very tempted". "to set up the game"--game here sounds a little redundant. Maybe switch it to 'board'? Anyway, those are just a few of the tinier problems present so far. See what I mean?
Just edit it over looking for such mistakes, and you'll be fine. Those are all common things to do--I do them all of the time. All in all, your story is quite good.

First I would like to say that I like the story. It reminds me of all those fun times we had playing Monopoly as a family. My Mom, me, my dad and my cousin.

We kids sometimes also played hookey from school to play that game. It can definitely become addictive. It was an interesting read and very skillfully conveys the emotions involved in that stage of life. The child’s personality comes through very convincingly as does the mother’s. I like the ending where the board is flipped. My wife and daughter flipped any game board at which they lost or were about to lose. I finally decided not to play them. LOL.

Now, the story is written from the point of view of a young child. So the vocabulary has to be consistent with that of a young child. If the vocabulary strays, then the voice of the adult writer comes through and that’s something we don’t want to happen. Here is where I feel it happened in the story and suggestions.

“I picked myself up off the ground and [retrieved] the monopoly game.”

“I picked myself up off the ground and [got]the monopoly game.”


“....it suddenly became very tempting to abandon my [existential crisis] and play.”

“.... it suddenly became very tempting to just stop worrying and play.”


“She may be a mother of two rowdy children, but she was [competitive.]”

“She was the mother of two rowdy kids but she sure did like to win!”


“She was making supper and I was [laying] here on the floor....”

The right word is “lying”


To avoid a shift to the past to the present tense:

“She'd cave soon. I [just knew] it."

Hello, Leafpool! It’s Kara here for a (hopefully) quick review!

Give me your soul.

With that aside...

STOP! Grammar time!

She was making supper and I was laying here on the floor. Bored out of my mind.

"I would beat you so bad if I played." She'll cave soon. I know it.

"Whatever you say, Mom. I know you're just afraid of losing to your daughter."

. And I had about five dollars.

'I've raised an idiot'.

Suggestions:

Please be three, please be three, PLEASE be three. It was two.

Confusing things:

It was just me and Mom in this empty house.

Other comments, reactions, and fangirling:

Though I wish that we had the electronic version; it wouldn't take nearly as long to figure out how many of each type of bill.

I flipped the game board.

Overall:

This review courtesy of