Young Writers Society

Hello! I'm Clairia, here to review as requested.

It was awesome to see all of your beautiful detail packed into a short story. As I've told you before, you're incredibly talented and expressive, and your love for writing shines through the work that you put out. I can't praise you enough for your use of imagery; I can only hope that you continue to use it in the elegant way that you do now.

Moving on to critiques--I'm going to be keeping this rather brief. Quite frankly, I've already pointed out the main "issues" that I have with your writing in previous reviews, so I won't be focusing too much on the overall style. I will say, however, that what you've done in your past work has carried over to storytelling quite well. Some things that I had problems with in your poetry actually seem to help you here. That's good; just know that there is a line between a narrative and free verse. Certain categories hold fundamental truths that may/may not apply for others.

Be careful not to make your storytelling too vague. Your readers may lose interest quickly if not given a foundation to build off of. Not knowing what the situation is/who the characters are/where the characters are can often lead to misunderstandings from your audience; misunderstandings that you'll have to correct in later chapters. Setting some sort of plot in the beginning to establish who/what/where/why will help your readers buy into details that are otherwise provided.

Again, your work is always fun to read. It's been great fun touring your portfolio, and here's one last thank you for visiting The Review Tavern! You're welcome back anytime. Please ping me (@Clairia) when you've got your next piece up!

Thanks for sharing,

Clairia

Hello there, @R.Harini! I apologize for taking so long to read your work and write this review, but I'm finally here to look it over.

The first thing I noticed about your work was its brevity. YWS was where I first learned about flash fiction, so I admit I'm not exactly used to reading stories so short. Despite its length, however, you managed to fit in a lot - character development, imagery, and varying/interesting word choice that shows your sophistication as a writer.

I saw your reply to @Necromancer14's review down below where you mentioned that the vagueness throughout the piece was intentional. I almost feel like the shortness of the work takes away from the vagueness - it feels like there's still a story left to be told. I think it would work well as a longer story to fill that need, or would be even stronger of a short piece if you elaborated on some of the details mentioned.

(For example, you could give more information about who is doing the chasing, or who the narrator turns on at the end.)

Grammatically, your work is almost flawless! I can't find any grammatical errors. I just think you could add some variety with the punctuation. When you used commas to sandwich little phrases in between bigger ones, you could have used something like parentheses or hyphens/dashes to achieve a similar affect. Semi-colons also are a great alternative when you're switching between different thoughts and want to change up when you're using commas.

(I speak from experience. )

My last piece of advice is to take advantage of your formatting. As of right now, you tell your story in five paragraphs. There's definitely a difference in length between them, but I think breaking them up into smaller paragraphs might suit your style of storytelling even better. Something I've done in my own writing to increase tension is count a single sentence as a paragraph. The breaks let the reader pause and focus on that one moment in the story.

For example, you could take the first sentence of paragraph five and separate it from the rest of the paragraph. Once its on its own, the reader can focus on the juxtaposition of salvation and evil.

I hope my review makes sense! Let me know if you have any questions about it. All in all, I really enjoyed your work!

Really beautifully written, a very good description of the despair that the main character is feeling. It shows a true mastery of language, one not accomplished by many.
This work really gives off a sense of paranoia and fear and the accomplishment one feels once he (or she) has beaten it, which I absolutely love.

It gives off a very magical vibe, basically a fairytale, written on pure emotion and nothing else.
It shows how much the main lead has lost and how much he wants to win, no matter the cost. He has lost this battle but the question remains whether or not this is a good thing for maybe now he will finally win the war he is fighting. The creatures he is fighting against are stronger and crueler than him, so he has to become one - but the ending poses the question if this was worth it. He won the fight, but at the cost of his own conscience, which only made it way worse for him and everybody around him in the long run.
This aspect is actually really deep - especially for such a short story - which is why I love it so much.

All in all, awesome tale, looking forward to more of you.

Well now! I'm glad to say that this hasn't happened to me. (I still have a conscience fortunately.)

Here's my review:

Well, first of all, who's chasing the person? I started reading, and I was beginning to think it was perhaps one of those dreams where you're constantly being chased. Then I got to the part where it talks about turning evil and I was like "Oh, I see what kinda story this is." However, I'm still curious about what's chasing him. Is it Goodness? Evil? The World? His Past? You don't specify. All you say is that he turns around to face them... and turns evil. That makes me think it is goodness, but he could also be giving up to them, making it evil... Then again, since he's running from it, it could be like "I was running from my past, because I did something shameful and now I'm accepting it and I don't mind doing shameful things now. BWAHAHAHA! I CAN DO WHATEVER I WANT?"

So which is it? Or is it another option that I haven't listed? Anyway, that being said, this piece had wonderful descriptions. Super good descriptions. You used really nice vocabulary words in really smart places. I'm impressed.

I would struggle helplessly, yet inevitably knowing, that my worthless determination

how I mumbled like a lost, disillusioned child, and steeled myself for the unthinkable,

I knew and they knew very well, that I would always

As I felt their monstrous, earth-shaking footsteps near me, I stopped. I didn’t run anymore. I turned back, with hate burning my eyes a deep, terrifying blood-red tint.

I smirked silently at that pathetic image of my past, that reflected on the massive pools of blood and laughed within at those huge eyes widening in horror, and collapsed into a blissful sleep.

i absolutely adore the change in tone half-way through. The imagery is likewise so striking. I particularly enjoyed the connotations of "the halo of evil", it is a truly intriguing play on how we always perceive ourselves as virtuous, numbing our consciousness "into a blissful sleep".

overall, I believe that this short story is very interesting, however, i would love to see it just a little bit more fleshed out.

thank you! x

i absolutely adore the change in tone half-way through. The imagery is likewise so striking. I particularly enjoyed the connotations of "the halo of evil", it is a truly intriguing play on how we always perceive ourselves as virtuous, numbing our consciousness "into a blissful sleep".

overall, I believe that this short story is very interesting, however, i would love to see it just a little bit more fleshed out.

thank you! x