Published November 5, 2008
Book is Being Redone, Sowe
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I want to thank you guys for the criticism and help with grammatical errors, it really helps sometimes. I want to point out that the emotions are a bit exagerated because Ryan is an emotional person. It is not juvenile to love someone. Maybe you wouldn't know. I would also like it if critics could be a bit more sensitive as to not discourage me or my boyfriend from writing further. We are both not confident about our writing skills, and since im writing most of it it discourages me more. I do take the criticism very seriously and try to use it to my advantage, but if I think the critic is being a bit too mean I tend to not take the criticism seriously. It is a fault of mine and I'm working on it. As much as these spotlights on the flaws of my work are hurtful they are also in there own way helpful. I will try to be more detailed and try to work on my grammar (which is my weakest point). Thanks for the help, and try to be nice about it.
Hey there Freeman, and welcome to YWS. I hope you will enjoy your stay here.
Chilly how? Show it more.
There are two problems with this sentence. Firstly, how is the first clause connected with the second? It doesn't. You are talking about gazing the mountains in the first clause, but in the second, it's about how threes are changing colour. Secondly, trees changing colours? Are you talking about the leaves that are on the trees or the actual tree itself changing colour? Be clearer here.
Cliche. Find some other way to express the idea that Alyx is dear to the narrator's heart. Using light and darkness as an allegory is overused in literature.
This is a grand, sweeping statement. Is the world really consumed by hatred and death, or there are positive aspects to it?
Eternity? Kind of exaggerated don't you think?
Nix "in accord".
This sentence is grammatically incorrect. This is because there is no dependent clause in this sentence.
Why? Elaborate.
Mention the colour of the light to create a stronger visual picture. If you have experienced a camp fire before, it radiates an orange-yellow coloured light that can be easily distinguished.
It became dark during our short walk to camp.
State the source of the light as camps themselves do not glow.
Show, don't tell. Give examples.
Again, you are dumping information onto us. Show, don't tell. For example, if Enid is a good leader, give examples where she demonstrated leadership.
Overall impressions:
First thing that I noticed while reviewing this is that this piece seems to split into two. For the first half of the piece, you were focusing on the narrator's life, but in the second half, its more focused on the zombies and the operation to deal with this scourge. The shift is rather sudden and creates quite a disturbance in the flow of the narrative. I suggest that you try to transition those two parts more successfully or get rid of the start.
Now for the crunch of this critique. I couldn't sympathize with your narrator nor would other experienced readers during the first half of the piece. The reason for this is that your narrator doesn't seem to care much other than for himself and for his lost love. It's acceptable to have that in a blog, but not in literature. With literature, your role as the author is to help the audience search for meaning through your work. However, if the narrator himself only views the world from one point of view, then it places great restrictions as to what the audience can get out from reading your novel. Cliches do not add anything new to your writing either. With that said, you seem to portray love as a "life or death" matter. It is not. Love is simply one aspect of life. Don't exaggerate the theme of love like that as it is highly unrealistic and quite silly. Your making the voice of the narrator seem juvenile as a result.
You also tend to "tell more than show" in this piece. This makes the writing seem a bit bland as a result. When you are describing or characterizing someone, give specific and relevant examples and descriptions to give the audience the impression that's in your mind. Also, I would like more sensory imagery in this. If you haven't been to a forest before, it has this very rich smell to it. Use your experiences to help create a picture for the audience.
Alright, that's all I have to say for now. I hope this critique has helped.
Good luck.
Andy.
Hi! I know that I am not a moderator or the person to be doing this but you need at least two reviews to a post. Other than that it was okay.
I thought your story was awesome. I'm new, so i havent done much here yet, but from wwhat some of my friends try to write, this is amazing, it is crazy awesome, I love your story!!!!
hey, its eli, glad you finally made an acount.
1. whoever has NOT read the zombie survival guie will die whenthe infection reaches us. I have read and will be laughing at all you fools who havent.
2. Nice story so far. check spelling, there were a couple of times where there was a word that was just missing a letter or something like that. other than that not bad.
3. I also noticed the change in tense and this might be because two people are writing the story so just make sure that you both communicate about which tense you will use (i realize it may have been only one of you writing this in that case just look over it)
4. nice start so far and i am not trying to be meen, not in any way, but the story takes place in america from what youve told me, but the names are not something that would be found here, even two years after the outbreak. like i said just nit picky but not a real issue.
5. I would recomend seperating the last paragraph from the rest because i dont think it is connected to him sleeping, but thats another nit picky thing. Good luck with the rest and i hope you get to finish it.
P.S. YAY!! i have a character in the story (Roland case you're wondering)!!!!
This is a really enjoyable read, especially for me as I previously didn't know anyone who has read The Zombie Survival Guide (aside from one friend who read it because I recommended it, but didn't think much of it).
I've noticed that on a few occasions you have switched from present tense (which seems to be the tense you intend to write this in) and past tense. I'm assuming this wasn't deliberate-if it was then I can't understand why! The tense switching was quite frequent, so you might want to go over the whole thing to change it.
There was also another tiny grammatical error (lack of an apostrophe mark), but when I looked for it having finished reading the story I couldn't find it! Anyway, it's hardly a story-ruining error (I'm guessing it was a typo), so I shouldn't worry too much about it.
I have to say, the suspense you built up at the end was just evil. In a good way.