Young Writers Society

I JUST READ THIS AND IM CRINGING

Kara, oh my goodness, congratulations on writing your first poem!

How did you like it? What parts were easiest and which parts were most difficult? What inspired you to write the poem? It seems like the topic is almost related to the scary story prompts you posted as well -- looks like you're into horror for now!

So, I was actually MOST interested in this poem right at the very beginning, when you went from describing this character with brands and lots of superficial things, to describing some black tar that was inside of her. That seemed to go farther than most other poems I read where the superficial character is just mean, and to insinuate there's something really messed up inside of her. I half-expected it to take a sci-fi turn, and maybe she was not human, but maybe that's because I've read too many sci-fi pieces this review day, haha.

The rest of the poem, after it turned into the narrative, seemed like it might work better as a short story. I say that because what I love to see in poetry is imagery, emotion, and presenting some kind of human experience in a new way. Your narrative is pretty straightforward and there's not a lot that's new about it, which is not to say it's not interesting, but it might work better in prose. If you were to try to keep it as a poem, I'd want to hear more from this narrator -- like how does she feel that she lost her brother?! I get no emotion from her, just more emotionless description of what happened.

I hope these thoughts are somewhat helpful to you! Lemme know if you have any questions/comments through PM or a reply here. Again, thanks for sharing,

Hannah

Hey there KaraStevens and Happy Review Day! it's just Lizzy dropping by real quick, so without a further ado, let the reviewing begin.

Lumi and the rest kind of hit most of the points I was going to make, so won't be here as I long as I thought. The main thing about this poem that bothered me was the caps/no caps. You did go ahead and follow the grammar rules pretty well for this poem, something I love when people do and I don't have to suggest it. But seeing as it's your first real poem, this advice will be something good that experiment with. Ready?
Not all the lines have to be in caps.
For a work like this, where you want the main focus to be on the characters anyways, the caps aren't all that necessary. I find the usage should always match up with the punctuation already in place and vice versa.

The flow was partially hampered in this piece by the excessive caps but also by the difference in common line lengths. Like the different bits went by pretty good because they were all long lines or all short lines. It's when you start mixing the two together that things get a bit wonky. I'm thinking that an appropriate fix would be to either break the longer lines down. Or separate them more from the rest of the stanza.
Just two things you can experiment with in editing later on.

I don't actually know how much more I have because you already have a whole bunch of reviews on this thing. I just felt like dropping by to do a review and finish out your requests. The story is pretty cool and dark, even perhaps not dark enough.
Anyways have a nice day.

~LadyLizz

Heyo, Kara!

What you have here is a piece with a ton of potential that is barking from the kennel for some tender love and care. So the first thing we'll address is the most critical issue, which is that all of the elements of the plot and poetic impact are very on-the-nose, which is to say they come on strong; the narrative plays out very linearly and in the style reminiscent of those goggle flicks from when we were kids, and you could pull the lever to make the next screen appear.

The remedy to this is a device called nuance, which is, like in cooking, adding a small amount of unexpected spice or herbs to a recipe to curb the flavor a bit. What this equates to in writing is more characterization for the things that wouldn't normally get them (see: protagonist / antagonist;) in fact, I'd like to see Jason characterized through his story of the abusive relationship. Did he pick up on the fact that she was cheating before she flaunted her new man in front of him? What kind of guy was he? We're given tons of info about the girl we're supposed to dislike and jeer against, but not much for the suicidal kid that we should feel for. In fact, other than his tragic story, there's no much that evokes that feeling in me at all.

You do a good job of contrasting the unnamed girlfriend's physical and internal characteristics; however, I believe this is space that could better be suited split between her features and Jason's. It's worth an experiment, right?

All in all, a potent piece, but also a very blatant piece. I want to know more about Jason before his story ends. I want to know why he cares for this evil person, and I want to know why he didn't turn to his sister for help, really; but maybe that's for a short story. >.>

Hope this helps,
Ty

Hey, Kara! Scythe here to do a review. I'm so stocked to finally be reading some of your work <3

First of all, I liked the theme you had going on, it was pretty intriguing and then you went deeper into the story and it really gave me the chills! You're so great at writing things like this (even your 2 sentence horror stories were awesome!) so great job! I especially loved this part,

She mentioned she had a gun hidden in her basement in front of him.
I think it was intentional.

Hi Ferruccio here for another review. Now I much prefer your micronovels but I will still try anyway. Good start, but the 'sex' bit is kind of inappropriate although I can't really blame you for that because you only said it in a single sentence. Otherwise I could report you for writing a sex story. The basis is pretty good, because it is the stereotype for anyone that is sexually arousing - someone who is mean and overall bad. Why would this 'Jason' fall completely in love with her? I would like to remind you that 'making love' is only an euphemism so it weakens the structure, as if the apparent author took it for granted. Why would he kill himself? I got the basic idea, but in other love stories I've read (like Harry Potter or Detective Conan) the lost person doesn't kill themselves even if their loved ones go missing. How come the parents let 'Jason' in? Wouldn't they know if their daughter got another boyfriend? That throws some confusion unto the matter - then the reader expects the parents to be kind of bad. You didn't elaborate on the basement, but the ending is good.
In general, most of the improvements were on elaboration, but it's Quality not Quantity. The confusion brings a burden unto the reader, thus connecting feelings better. I would expect nothing less from you - a great poem even though it's your first. Thank you for such meaning!

I really like the whole concept behind this poem. I'm sure you put a lot of hard work into making this. Even though some parts of the poem were a little hard to understand, it was still a very dark and emotional poem. I could see you writing more poems in the future! Thank you!

Heya! This is NeonCam here to give you a review!

Good things: Great use of words! I like the dark twisted concept. I like the ending and how it ends that you know what's happening.


Bad things: Some of the brands used might not be known by some people. It kind of got off track for some parts too.

Have a good day!

Probably not the best thing to do at a quarter after five in the morning, but I may as well occupy my time. Granted the first thing that struck me here was the title, what kept me was the layout of it all (a very interesting one). I like how it started calm. You're explaining a person and their appearance, then you shift to what they are. Glamouring an appearance. That part I really liked since I felt that's what every despicable person does.

The turn it took from this calmness was pretty smooth all the way to the end. It doesn't matter if a poem doesn't rhyme, in fact trying to get it to rhyme might have taken away from the overall flow and feel. It also ended satisfyingly enough for something so short, but you did a good job on it. I liked the tone of it, too; dark enough but not too much.

This was a great read. And definitely not like other poems. Most poets use poetry to convey deep thoughts and still deeper philosophical thoughts or emotions. But you used to it for murder, I love that. It didn't rhyme much, but it had a bold, dark fluidity to it that I admire. It was enjoyable to say the least. Thank you for writing this.