Hey there! Plume here, with a review! Your work has been in the green room for a bit, so I thought I'd bump it out!
I think this little narrative song is quite interesting! You present this story of Denise, who is, in a way, trapped in her situation between Gabriel and her friends. I think you've got a unique base to go off of if you ever revisited this! Keep in mind, I don't think I've read any of your other stories with these characters, so I'm coming at this song with fresh eyes and no background into the history of these characters.
One thing I liked about this was how you executed the narrative. I think you gave us the details of the story very well, so much so that it almost felt like a narrative monologue than a song. From what I gather, Denise was coerced into a relationship with Gabriel by her friends, even though she doesn't love him, because if she didn't, her friends might abandon her. This situation is honestly pretty toxic, and I think you did a nice job conveying that. Denise sounds very frustrated and also perhaps unsure. Her repetition of "my dear friends" is almost unsettling in nature, like she's been brainwashed, almost, into thinking her friends are these great people, when, in reality, they're not. It makes me feel bad for Denise, in a way—not sure if that was your intention or if my perspective would change if I knew more about the characters, but those were my sentiments after reading.
In terms of your structure, I think you've got many good aspects of a song. Even though it doesn't follow the traditional song format with a chorus and such, there are a lot of repeated lines that could be very interesting, depending on how you set them to music. The one thing I would say is that it could be interesting to incorporate some kind of chorus into it—generally, songs have one melody that repeats at least twice throughout the song, and since we don't have the musical component with your song, it's kind of hard to assess whether it has the parts of a song/whether it feels cohesive. Do you have plans to write music for it, or do you have a tune in mind?
I thought your execution of it was interesting. There are a few things that I would modify. Like the other review mentioned, you talk a lot about Denise's thoughts, but don't necessarily give concrete examples of her feelings. You use vague statements, and, while they get the point across, they simply aren't as hard-hitting. I hesitate to use the phrase "good writing" because "good" is subjective, but I think that most "good writing" has at least some form of showing, not telling, and I'm not sure I could find good examples of that in this piece. Your narratives were clear, but I felt like overall, there was nothing in here that made me feel excited, personally. Instead of saying blanket statements like "my friends are the best" and "you're so gross and weird," show us examples of that. Try and find unique and figurative ways to show it, since this is a song, so it's poetry adjacent, in a way. Originality and little details that show the story through them will make the piece a lot more memorable and just... better, in a way.
Also, just another small thing: I'm not sure if this is a formatting/copy-and-paste error, but you don't have spaces after your commas, where spaces should go. Just thought I'd point it out.
Overall: I think your skills in actually conveying events and characters are great, but your execution could be improved upon! I look forward to reading more of your work soon! Until next time!
Points: 68440
Reviews: 608
Donate