Young Writers Society

Hello, I'm here to give a review the best I can.

I am not good with History, so Ill let kattee help you there

Ill start by saying that I loved the way you wrote it. And how Kattee said, you used one part of the day to tell the story, as everything happened quickly.
The way you wrote it allowed me to visualize it very easily as well. You seemed to fit details into not much space and that was very well done.

Your grammar and prose was nice, making this easy to read.

I had no idea this was based on historical events until the end, but like I said i don't have a clue about lots of history. Despite that, you paint quite the picture. The way you weave history into a poem like story is just awesome.

All in all, I think there were a few little things, but kattee covered those, and I just wanted to say how well you did. I would give more criticism but I have none.
Wonderful job!

Hello there <3 <3

I’m so pleased that I’ve stumbled upon your prose that’s mildly blended with poetry! It propelled me to go on a relatively deep dive about this part of history. It might not have been discussed in our History class, since it’s genuinely the first time I’ve heard of this. Then again, it’s potentially my attention span that’s equivalent to the size of a tiktok so… being unaware of this might be a me-problem.

That aside, I’m pleased with the play of structure. If this was a poem, you’re using anaphora to hammer home the message, and that’s so difficult to execute successfully. It’s so admirable. Using a small part of the day to show that all these events conspired in that short amount of time -- although isn’t historically accurate -- exudes an atmospheric setting. It’s as if you’ve placed the readers in that landscape because, normally, a series of tumultuous events would splurge time and days would pass by like a minute.

The repetition worked exquisitely well because, apart from the aforementioned reason, the sun became a canonical character involved in the revolution. With each repetition, there’s either a new emotion introduced or the emotion already present heightens. I love this especially when the sun becomes one with the fire, then later on mirroring the silence of the city. It conjured the imagery of orange light slowly turning into blue hues in conjunction with how the sun was siding with the people, showing its sympathies. Just ingenious.

Moreover, “the sun sets, framing the woman as her gaze sweeps…” is spot on! The sun does not wholeheartedly “open up” to the woman (she was depraved after all), that’s why it’s only a frame of the woman -- the external -- which could be equivalent to her reputation. This aligned to her refusal to compromise her dignity and honour that she’s willing to die for it.

I suppose that my critique focuses on the content itself. I’ve only understood your work overall after I’ve done my research, which shouldn’t be the case. Your prose should be able to stand alone, and that further research is simply a bonus (if that makes sense. I mean, we should learn something new from your work through further research but it isn’t supposed to be the massive plot points? Just some easter eggs, I gather.).

Having said that, I get why this could happen. You’re trying a semi-terse writing style and that it’d be difficult to measure whether an information should be added or not, unless you have a second opinion. So here I am and hopefully it helps. I’ll be listing down plot points that need (at least from my vantage point) to be expounded upon since I’d read this before and after I’ve done my research.

1. The two people who escaped death = You should provide the readers the reason why they were executed in the first place as well as why the people are asking for mercy because, well, they were hanged for revolting? And so, in this modern era, rarely does anyone condone death penalties but isn't it normal during that time? I reckon you should add what makes their lives any different. Why are their lives valued by the public? (i’m not asking you to answer me, i know it’s because they’re the fan favs but I suppose you should sneak it in here)

=This part was tagged quite abruptly as well. I just realised that you did describe the riot which ensued this punishment, but those two paragraphs felt disconnected to each other. Since this riot involved countless men, why were seven only executed? Again, I know it’s because they were the leaders of the groups involved, but you should indicate that. More importantly, no one can really see their link because you’ve only added two of the groups (blue and green) when there are a lot more involved.
=oh my I hope I’ve explained it clearly.

2. There’s no link between Theodora’s “noble burial shroud” speech and the next paragraph “calls for his general,” when it’s directly causal. She inspired the nobles to put on a fight, when they were prepping an escape. As of now, her speech seemed tacked on. It didn’t have any significant impact, when it should have. One way you could relay this is through providing the nobles and Justinian’s reactions after that.

3. I’ve only perceived how “They wait for the command” ties with “He nods” that eventually induced the slaughter of 30,000 people, after my research. The connection was quite vague. Maybe you could add a subtle reference to the command or sword after the nod to show causality between nod >> command towards merciless killing >> a stadium turned slaughterhouse.

Moving on, this ending was on brand! Justinian was the epitome of “the sky's the limit.” He’s idealistic and all his dreams for Rome only remained as flights of fancy. However, emotionally, it was underwhelming (sorry I hope I wasn’t too harsh). One reason could be because they did ignore the bloodshed in the stadium but the extent of these deaths wasn’t described? You don’t need to say “30,000 died” but you could describe the amount by comparing it to the size of the stadium (e.g. stadium barely has space, these bodies were piled like popcorns in its box — doesn’t fit well with the tone but this is the only example I could think of at this moment lol) as well as the state of these corpses: bash corpses carpeting the stadium floor, footprints (filled in blood and mud) speckled these corpses’ skin, there are children included, etc.

This is just a suggestion but you could also add a parallelism from your first few paragraphs. You could say that their eyes were fixed on the horizon and had the audacity to “smile.” Showing no sympathy or remorse.

I’ve noted that in the first part, you’ve used the word smile of Justinian and juxtapose it with the glare of the public (which is brilliant). This showed the huge disparity in terms of class and comfort. Adding that “smile” in the end would insinuate that nothing has changed. This swine is still at the helm after every vile thing he’s done. We, as the reader, we’d be left off resenting this tyrant as opposed to understanding him? I don’t know if understanding is the right word but this prose didn’t showcase his tyranny enough. We need more (and my suggestion is in the previous paragraph). But, It’s still up to you. I just think that it’d make a lasting impression on your readers.

these are powerful men, their influence running deep in the veins of the city,