Hi there Kara (I'm gonna keep calling you that even though it has nothing to do with your new username, k? K)!
I'm here to give you your contest review. :} As you probably know by now, the entries have already been judged and the winners announced. This review is to let you know the kinds of things Ranger and I talked about when judging your piece, and hopefully help you understand our decisions and learn from it all.
First of all, you did a really good job of making this read in a natural, conversational way. None of it felt forced or contrived or stinted--it all flowed in a very easy, emotional, believable way. I could feel your character's frustration, and I genuinely felt bad for her. You incorporated your genre and element quite nicely, too. I didn't expect to see future tense used this way, but it definitely worked, so good job! Also, where did the name Fye come from? It's lovely. :3
Anyhow, onward.
In general, I'm really not sure what I can say about this piece because it felt like a blog post. Really, I almost had to check I was reading the right thing. That's both a good thing and a bad thing. It's good because (as I said before) it made this piece feel very raw and very real. It's a bad thing because... it doesn't feel like it was written by a master blogger. This might be intentional (after all, your character isn't necessarily Shakespeare) but it made the piece come off as more of a rant than a story.
There isn't any actual character development or conclusion or... plot, really. It's just any person complaining about any series of unfortunate circumstances. Sure, the character's voice comes through pretty well, and it's amusing and entertaining... but it doesn't change. The character doesn't grow or change in any way, and neither does the reader. The end is nice, but I'm left just thinking "poor kid, seems like a nice person--too bad she has such a rotten summer ahead of her." I didn't really feel like I got much else out of reading the piece.
Now, like I said, you've nailed the Realistic genre. Maybe you've nailed it too well, even. This feels so realistic that I'm hardly sure why I should read it rather than just go onto Facebook or YWS and read peoples' blogs/statuses. It was fun, but in the same way that Facebook or YWS is fun. You don't have an extraordinary story to tell, but that's okay--in my opinion, the point of the genre isn't to tell an amazing, lucky, symbolic story that technically could have happened in the real word (though that would have been acceptable too, of course) but rather to tell an everyday, meh-ish kind of story in a way that makes people look at everyday, meh-ish things in a new way.
I think you've almost reached that level with this piece, but not quite. There are parts where the character's voice makes it fun to read, but for the most part I wish there was something here other than just ranting. I'd like to see more of the way your character sees the world around them--because, of course, that is my world too, and maybe if I understood more about how Fye sees it, that might give me insight as to how I could see it.
I hope this review helps somewhat. :} Please feel free to PM me or post on my wall.
Thanks so much for entering.
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Reviews: 721
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