Mel

Official Short Stories Critics' Club Review Hi, let's get started, shall we? This simile is rather awkward. It already seems like his past is a vague mental image, so to compare it to the same thing just seems redundant. I would try something simpler like "I think I came here a year ago." Still, it seems odd that he recalls this when he has no way of measuring time. Like Nuile mentioned before, this seems too elegant. I would just go with "throw-up," "vomit," or even "puke." I disagree with Nuile on the tense argument, however. Present tense should indeed be used judiciously (I've seen far too many fanfic writers simply use it to make their work seem "edgy") but in this case I think it works, especially since protagonist has been trapped in a virtual reality. I'm of two minds about the rest of your writing style. On one hand, I can see why you wanted to make the prose dry and clinical, because the protagonist has lost his ability to feel. On the other hand, I felt like it lacked immediacy. Yes, the character's emotions aren't runny through the story, but he shouldn't be telling us how he feels for our benefit. For that matter, if he has been desensitized, how can he feel guilt? How can he worry about the "moral problems" of killing himself over an over if he has lost his moral compass? I imagine this would be sort of like watching a first person shooter. Sure, you're in the person's head, but you don't feel anything toward those who are going down in front of you. One thing I did like was the subtle mention of the smell of burning rubber. It really gave this scene atmosphere and I would like to see you incorporate more details like it throughout. I really think you have something here. It just needs to be cut in some places and elaborated on in others. Best, and keep writing. ^^

Oooo, I think I might do this one. I must resist the temptation to do the Toa Inika.

Leaving on a Jet Plane has been reviewed.

Official Short Stories Critics' Club Charity Review My mother used to sing this song to me sometimes before bed, so it has a special place in my heart. I found myself humming it throughout this review. But anyways, onward! To be honest, I thought you could just cut the first few paragraphs before the first section of the song. It didn't really add anything to the story and I thought the few minutes of dialogue expressed much more about those characters than the introduction did. In general, the dialogue and thoughts of your characters flowed pretty well. There were points where I wasn't sure about your word choice, however. This just seems rather...antiquated, and British. It makes me think of Hugh Laurie in Jeeves and Wooster. In fact, the previous sentence would be better if it was just left hanging. This, on the other hand, sounds a bit juvenile, like something you might find in a picture book. I'm sure there's a more mature way to word it. I feel like this was a bit awkwardly inserted into the narrative. It would be more natural if you mentioned that it was early morning later and then talked about the flight time when it came time for them to separate. Overall, though, I really like how this is put together. Nothing ground breaking, but a pleasant little story about two adults and a nice break from the dramatic pseudo-teenage romances that I see so often. Keep on writin', being prolific is good. ^^

The Luckiest Grandfather in the World is reviewed.

Official Short Stories Critics Club Charity Review I really hesitate to give this a very detailed critique, because like you said, you wrote it in a few minutes. I'll give you a tip on this: never post a story that you hate. Let it stew for a day or two, and then you'll be in the right mind to go over it and revise. I usually handwrite all my stories before posting them, and I find that I change a lot in the process of typing. With that in mind, I shall proceed to the review. This story is written from Theo's point of view, so don't start with this. Start with Michael opening the door. It probably will take the same amount of words or only a little more. The last phrase is awkward, it makes it sound like she's saying it casually. In actuality, she's probably surprised and perhaps a bit afraid. The sentence would sound something like: "He does look like you." (The italics are not necessary.) Again, this story is initially from Theo's point of view. I'm not sure that he would actively think about how unashamed of himself he is. In general, I would like to see his thoughts color your prose a bit more. You have some good examples at the beginning, but you sort of trail off as the dialogue becomes more central. Theo is quite a character, so the inclusion of his thought process would make this story a lot more fun. This is a nicely written vignette, but I would like to see a little bit more spice. In particular, talk a bit about the setting. I'd like to have some idea what kind of world they're living in. I'm glad this sort of thing encourages you to write more. Best wishes.

And Truth is reviewed. Sorry for the lateness.

Official Short Stories Critics Club Charity Review Hello. Let me just say that this was all together a joy to read out load. The care you put into constructing this really shows, and it gives this poem an almost blank verse feel. You manage to give this an archaic edge without forcing it, and the result is altogether amazing. Now saying that, once you've followed the rules, it's okay to break them a little. Not even Shakespeare had his syllables even all the time, and I see some parts where you sacrifice the rhythm to meet your syllable requirement. I would suggest "to classify reality," for the last line. It sounds much stronger. "New children" is a bit redundant. I would suggest. "Where all children of humankind are born." (I swear it wasn't for feminist reasons. XD Just sounds better.) The last lines were really the only parts of the poem that I disliked, unfortunately. Who's avatar are you talking about? Everlasting continuity is doubly redundant (=P). I would honestly just scrap these and come up with some better ones that capture the soul of your poem more. And in finality, I will squee over these lines, because the juxtaposion of sounds in both of them is just awesome. Keep writing. ^^

That Extra Mile has been reviewed. I would like to request a break for the next week. I have a lot to do for school now, but I'll be back soon.

Short Stories Critics' Club Charity Review When I first saw this, it made me think of silk screens that you use to paint fabric. =P While I have definitely heard hair described as "silken," "screen" threw me off. Screens are flat, so a better noun choice might be "curtain" or "river." Alternatively, you could just say "the silken hair that cascaded down the back of her head." (Why is he smiling at her hair anyway?) It took me a while to realize Rachel was saying both of these. She isn't making a big speech, so you can put these two lines in the same quotes. Since you don't use any speech tags for awhile, this will help avoid confusion. "Devoured" implies "ravenously." I could nitpick more, but I would like to address an issue that pervades this story. I'm not sure what you were trying to do here. I can see the metaphor: "going the extra mile," for someone. However, by attempting to take this rather literally, I feel you didn't make an attempt to bend it out of its generic base. Who are the characters? What do they look like? At this point, they are also rather one dimensional. Rachel is carefree, and the narrator loves her. Apart from that, they have nothing that makes them stand out or make them real. This is taking out the soul of a good romance, in my opinion. Characters should have personalities that create sparks between them. Why does the main character love Rachel, besides her (not very detailed) appearance? I apologize if this sounds a little harsh. Characterization is a hard thing, and every writer needs to work on it. I would just like to see you bring a little more flavor to this story. Please keep writing; I look forward to reading more of your work.

Dreams of Darkness has been reviewed.

Official Short Stories Critics' Club Review So let me say that I just think it's destiny that Velox assigned this story to me. I don't know if you've read anything of mine, but I love Jallerangst. It's a habit of mine. So I really like the idea of this story, and how it seems to flicker between past and future. From the end, I assume it's set just before Jaller woke up from the Matoran sphere after being awoken by the Toa (now Turaga) Metru. Which brings me to my first point. You have some contradictions with canon here. Now I'm usually not a stickler for canon, but these are some inconstancy that really interfere with the story as a whole. First of all, Jaller wasn't captain of the guard in Metru Nui. They didn't need them because the Vahki supposedly took care of everything. Jaller was a mask crafter, and he was still named Jala because he didn't receive his current name until after the Bohrahk attacked. A smaller inconsistency: Jala was actually away when he received Lhikan's mask from Vakama. Now, on to nitpicking. I hope it's not presumptuous to ask if English is your second language. I'm going to point out some things that you should try and follow in your writing. Besides the canon inconstancy that I pointed out earlier, this has a few things I would change. First of all, the last two commas should be changed to periods. Second-it's a bit odd for Jaller to think of Fire as his element, since he's not a Toa and it doesn't really effect him that much. I would think that it would be more natural to think of himself as a Ta-matoran. So I would revise this sentence to read: This is the first incidence of passive voice in you story, but it is followed by quite a lot of others. In general, you should avoid saying "it was done" and instead say "he did this" because the latter is much stronger. Thus I would amend this sentence so it looks like this. Careful. You can't just use a comma to connect to sentences without a word like and, but, or or. Also be aware of the tense you're writing in. If you're writing in past tense, keep it that way. "Laid" is the past tense of "lay." (Don't worry, I actually had to look this up. English is hard. XD) Avoid redundancy. I'm not sure what you mean by "forms" in this sentence. Should be "awful." Make sure you run your story through a word processor; spell check should catch this kind of error. Passive voice again, though this sentence sounds strange in general. I notice throughout this story you do a whole lot of talking about madness and the like, but you don't give us much of a picture. However, I feel that images (meaning things you can see, but also sounds, smells, etc.) are essential to creating a feelings of sadness and confusion that carry through to the readers. Overall, I like idea you have hear, but it needs to be fleshed out and specified. If you have any more questions, feel free to ask me. And keep writing. ^^

The Ranger is reviewed.

Official Short Stories Critics' Club Charity Review I'm just going to dive in here, and then I will talk about your story in general. This feels like you trying to sell them to me. This would work better of you cut most of everything after the first sentence. Only mention the part about passing through branches; that's relevant to the scene. Leave a little mystery. This is the only sentence that you should keep from this paragraph, also, I would slightly modify it: If you said "One character did this and this," you wouldn't need a comma. If you said "One character did this, and this other character did something else," you would. In other words: take out the coordinating conjunction (and, but, or, etc.) and see if the second clause makes sense as a sentence. If it does, you'll need a comma. If it doesn't, just leave out any commas or use a subordinating conjunction (who, which, that, etc.). These have their own rules about commas, but I'm sure you can find them somewhere on the internet. I would reword this either this way: Or simply: Alternatively, you could describe what appeared to happen. Maybe his hand became a blur or all they heard was the safety click or something like that. That brings me to something that I saw throughout your story. I was confused as to what point of view you were trying to write from. If you were writing from Third Person Limited, Gerlicky's personality should have shone a little more through the prose. If you had chosen the dramatic point of view, we shouldn't have gotten so much explained to us (though this is true in any case.) In general, I felt you narration was a little too...distracted by the shiny. It's not really important what characters are wearing or how a specific weapon functions. The characters aren't going to be interested in something that they already know just for the reader's benefit. You have quite a few typos too, make sure to check for them. I found I liked the ending of the story much more. There wasn't as much excess prose, and I found myself drawn to Gerlicky and honestly concerned with his fate. The dialogue, while a little cliche, serves its purpose. You have an excellent framework for a story, but I'd like to see you improve on how you execute. Good job, and keep writing! ^^

The Final Chronicle is reviewed.

Official Short Stories Critics Club Charity Review I'm going to have to agree with the poster above that the second person at the beginning was awkward. Second person is very hard to use in a convincing way, and I have to say that first person would have served just fine. In addition, I think this could use a bit of re-organization. Most short stories tend to cover small periods of time, but ones like these are best served in flashback mode. That means you should start with base camp and work from there; perhaps certain experiences will unearth certain memories. And these should be flashes, scenes, sounds and images. This brings me to my next point. I was disappointed that despite all the talk about photographs and movies you didn't really show me a lot of images, and the ones that you did show were cliche. You do a lot of telling here, and you don't show much. This makes it really hard for me to sympathize with the characters problems. How did her supposed friends back stab her? What were the taunts that people hurled at her? I only have here word for how bad her life is, and she's an unreliable narrator. Characters complaining without much specificity often makes them sound whiny. Also, this is set in India? I didn't know until you told me half-way through. India is a very image-heavy place. I might seem ordinary for you, but a writer's job is to never take the ordinary for granted. In conclusion: Nooooo. You ruined the moment. Sometimes a laugh, a scream, tears, or even silence is much more appropriate than words, and these words sound stiff. You have a good idea here. However, I feel like it really needs to have a personal touch, a colorful spark that brings it to life. Otherwise, it's just a bunch of angst.

They probably say it like Yaverutaru or something like that. No, they also released pronunciations. (ee-VELL-tawl) Yeah, but the Japanese are going to add some extra vowels in there, and they don't distinguish between r and l either.

Cold Cold Heart~Norah Jones

They probably say it like Yaverutaru or something like that.

Ever Up is reviewed.

Short Stories Critics Club Review First, I'd like to say for being named after a writer that I usually associate with well, verbosity, your prose is remarkably concise. Forgive me if I don't have much criticism to give you. Usually I advise writers to be more economical with their prose or create more atmosphere, but you've achieved an almost perfect balance here. I especially liked this phrase. Usually, we here "show, don't tell," but you have told us something here that works stylistically. It has personality and it just feels right, and that's something that every writer looks for. (Though I would leave out the "He would miss them" at the end. It sort of diffuses the impact of the paragraph.) In general, I would just be careful with the word "was." "To be" verbs are weak and you don't want to use them too much. This would be more wieldy as "the breeze that rose over..." I feel like the first one should be "he felt lonely." You have two strong verbs in that sentence ("sent" and "wept"), and the "was" just makes the sentence awkwardly grind to a halt. I don't think you need that "suddenly". Again, I don't think you need it. I know "suddenly" is one of the adverbs most tempting to use (I know it is for me), but you're better without it. Also, you use the present tense at the end of this sentence. I think you should change "may" to "could" unless you're going to write that entire last part in present tense. Otherwise this is a remarkable story. I look forward to reading more of your writing. ^^

Wooden Avengence has been reviewed.

Official Short Stories Critics' Club Charity Review Hello! Since this excerpt is so short, I'm going to focus on the details. Let's start, shall we? The crossed out sentence sounds weak. The following sentences effectively show how wrong the destruction of the forest is. If you want to leave the sentence in, change it to "It wasn't right," or "It was wrong." Replace the periods in the third and second-to-last sentences in the paragraph with commas. Where is he pumping this power from? Himself? Or just the accelerator? Don't use "we" in a story as if you're addressing the audience. (Unless you're Lemony Snicket or Douglas Adams.) I would suggest that you change it to something more like the following. Change the comma to a period and separate this sentence into two. Also, "it's" is the contracted for of "it is." When it's possessive (=P), it's spelled "its." Do you mean "more than excited?" This is an awkward sentence. I would change it to: "They were almost oblivious to what was going on ahead as the braced their tools for action." I similar problem presents itself here. The use of "with" somehow links the action of shouting directly to the roadblocks loss of hope, when they seem to simply be things that are happening at the same time. I would change it to "A shout of caution echoed over the excavator's loudspeakers. The small roadblocks ahead were losing hope." Overall, this is a nice concept, but I'd like to see a better picture of the setting. You do a lot of telling me what happens, but I liked to be shown more. What do the trees look like, or the excavators? The POV was a bit confusing as well. First we were in Yoshiza's head, then we were suddenly watching the entire seen. I think it would be better if you focused on an individual Draganoid, and get a more intimate picture about how they were feeling. Of course, it's hard to critique something that was written when you were younger. I would edit any old pieces that you have written yourself first before you put them up for others. Keep writing as always! ^^