Young Writers Society

okay! i'll bite! this is a riddle.
the thing about a riddle is, though, is that it has to be possible, with time, for the guesser to be confident about what the answer is. if it's just ~*~mysterious~*~ words, yeah the reader's gonna be puzzled about it for a long while, but the fun is that it can be cracked. that means it takes a lot of skill to make a riddle that's challenging but can still be cracked. and that means EVERY WORD and turn of phrase REALLY REALLY REALLY COUNTS.

so my guess veers over to "mountain", with spine representing the peak, teeth and cavities alluding to caverns and caves that'd be in the mountain. mountains are old, they grow when plates shift, and people "scale" mountains for mountain climbing.

is this right? if it's not, really consider again the words you've chosen!

anyway, haha, congratulations on attempting to write a riddle. it's an old and honored profession or something, according to the hobbit.

good luck and lemme know if you have any questions.

Dear me, I'm supposed to write an 100-pointer off of this? Challenge very much accepted. Well—no need to beat around the bush. I suppose we should start with the good things about this poem (or story, or whatever it is), however short the list may be.

1. Nice imagery. Not many words. Very blunt. Something more to my style. I liked it. In fact, I adored it. Enough to sit down, and type this out, which is a very hard feat for me at the moment. I very well could’ve skipped over this piece, and said: “eh, too short.” But, as you may have noticed, I didn’t. So let’s get to work.

I decided I should tear this piece apart. Stanza. By. Stanza. Hope you don’t mind, as I mean that in a very kind way, so don’t go running yet. Stay with me.

First line: “My spine grows.”

Okay, what kind of wording is this? I don’t mean to be rude, and I KNOW there’s a next line. This is hooking, interesting, intriguing. But I see that line, and I’m like: ‘This is going to end up being some kind of psychopathic murderer, isn’t it?’ And it doesn’t appeal at all. I know your intention was to create suspense, to freak the readers out a bit, but really—calm down.

Second: “Teeth bite cold.”

Again, some awkward phrasing here. Not as… odd as the first line, but it’s still up there. First off—bite cold? What is that supposed to mean? Some kind of riddling? Some kind of clue? I’m not really sure, and as unclear as that is, it does make me want to go on. So good job on that.

Third: “Old as civilization knows,”

I see you’re keeping up your reputation of keeping us in the dark. Riddles aren’t necessarily a bad thing. But just be careful—you’ve tricked us into thinking this was a poem, but you’ve also made it so insanely interesting that the reader /has/ to read on.

Fourth: “grand cavities so bold.”

Nothing new. I’m gonna skip to the last stanza, where things get VERY interesting.

“I give challenge,
teeth and spine to scale.”

Now THIS is where it gets very interesting. I give challenge. Thing is, I like challenges. And you’ve engrossed me completely in your work. Very nicely done. Riddle-ish. Dark. Interesting. Descriptive.

You’ve done a marvelous job, and I shake your hand.

Now, now. All in all—great piece, loving the entire suspense of the whole thing. I wish there was more, though. Selfish, me.

Good luck, and keep writing!

~Bandit

Hi there! So, I'm not sure what this is supposed to be, or what kind of story you're trying to tell. If your aim is to make me guess what the narrator is, well, I don't know. It's much too short to make much of an impact. Not that short poetry can't work, but this just feels somewhat bare.

Since I'm not really sure what your theme is, I can try to just give you some general advice on how to revise this to make it richer:

-- Read. Read as much as you can. It's one of the most helpful things that you can do; you can see what other authors do to tell the stories that they want to tell.

-- Describe. Instead of offering brief glimpses of detail to tell your story, pain us a vivid image. Say you're describing a wolf. What color is the wolf's fur? Is it mangy or clean? What are the wolf's surroundings like? Is it nighttime, daytime? Just to give you an idea. This will also help you improve your writing language as a well.

I'm not sure how I can comment on character, or plot, since this isn't really a short story. When you revise, keep some of these things in mind. It's important to remember that as an author you're not just catering to yourself, but also to your reader. While you may understand something, your reader may not, and you have to make sure that they do.

Good luck! Feel free to give me a shout if you have any questions.