Hell of a time

This was a very lovely and well-written piece. I wouldn't even call it a story, I would call it a "paralit" (haha, just coined a new term). It is a paragraph, yet it is so descriptive! Reading it really made me think and put into perspective on how others, as in those who love a person, view the death of said person. It is sad. The way you wrote it too was interesting. I think you are very good at writing these sort of things, and I urge you to write more!

J.R. Spotswood

This was very nice, caught my attention instantly.

Your wording was nice and the way you set this up made it even more impactful. I can relate to this a lot, & you definitely hit it right on the spot. So vivid and descriptive. I had good images in my head while reading this. Good job, inkcharmer.

Wow, I really like this. It caught my attention right away. It was really moving.


lost one of my friends to a house fire, not the same thing, but it still moved me because it made me think of her and what happened to her. Like her little brother wasn't in the house and when you said the little brother didn't have a roll model anymore, I know exactly what you mean.


"There are always going to be little rips and smudges in reality." Now, I really like the sentence A LOT. Just because it reminds me that no ones life is perfect and sure not like the one you described here in this paragraph, like its like you want it to be perfect so you'll let the good little moments overthrow the bad ones. I really like this sentence, Reality is a hard thing that people always try to pass and make it unbelievable.

"No one to throw the ball back. It just sits on the grass." I liked this sentence because I could really see it, and it made me feel for the little brother and the girl writing this, its so sad. But I love it.

All in all, I just want to say, you've got a great amount of skill and keep writing I loved the paragraph. And your right it is a hell of a time.

Hey inkcharmer,

I quite like the way you've phrased this paragraph! The title and the description drew me in, mostly because you didn't tell me too much about the piece. The description and the ambiguity of the piece is also quite interesting.

I also love the way that this is from the dead girl's perspective. At first I thought you were narrating from the point of view of a girl who just lost her boyfriend, in which case I would've said that it's not very original. The twist you gave it was very clever!

Now, for some of the things that I feel you could have improved on.

I didn't particularly care for the phrase "little rips and smudges in reality" because it implies a certain sense of fantasy or make-believe or something unrealistic, and that is not at all relevant to your piece, and the use of the word "little" isn't entirely grammatically correct. Perhaps you could try something pertaining to life and not necessarily reality.

"It's funny how love and death are so closely related." I love that you've used this line and the perspective it brings, but it interrupts the flow you've got as you're describing the different ways that the death of a person can affect the living. You can use that to start off the descriptive bit of your piece, and that will give it that much more impact.

"Anyone who knew him and who didn't, they were all unsuspecting." This line is a little too vague for my liking, and could use some rephrasing, because it's a key part of what you go on to say next. It has to be a little more powerful.

"Picking out long sleeved shirt." There's a tiny grammatical error here. It should be shirts, not shirt.

I also wasn't completely satisfied with the way you ended this piece. I understand the point of reiterating the title in the last line, but it doesn't contribute much to your piece and is a little contradictory to the persona of the dead girl. You could possibly do away with the line altogether and write something different in its place, or you could modify the last couple of lines to reflect a little regret and sadness.

Overall, I liked this piece! It's very tragic and the twist at the end was entirely unexpected, but very orignal and creative. I like the simplicity of the language, as it conveys the tone of an abused girl very well, and there are some very thoughtful details in there. You have a few things to improve on, though, perhaps the imagery and a little bit of the way you phrase the sentences, and the ending needs to be worked upon. Other than that, this is a pretty good piece.

Hope this helped
~Day

Wow. This is a highly tragic piece, but a fairly realistic account of what domestic violence may bring, in the most extreme cases. You captured the pain that abuse can bring quite well, and made it interesting in the way you narrated from the dead girl's point of view-that was clever- but I can't help but feel that you lacked in some descriptive language, and could've used a couple of extra metaphors or similes. Of course not too many, because that would sound like you were being pretentious, but just enough to show of your creativity a bit. And you are obviously creative

But then again, you might just have a different style of writing to me, and others would robably love this the way it is.

Good job.