New Voice
Trying again. Sorry for the mess-up before! *crosses fingers* I think I did it right this time!
Name/Pseudonym: Lelly Fedechai
Critiquing skills
Choose one piece of work from the application of an accepted member or mod and give constructive feedback on it. You may find the 'accepted' tag on the right-hand side of the community page helpful. Let us know which piece you're critiquing.
I've decided to critique Butterfly in the Water by ellymelly (in her application.)
A butterfly struggled on the surface of the pond.
All was perfectly still.
I liked the opening line on its own, but when combined with the next line it seems rather contradictory. If something is struggling, it usually is not still. So, if the butterfly is struggling, why is ALL still? It may work better to say "All ELSE was still" or something along those lines.
Traces of water stuck to the wing making it heavier.
I'm not sure exactly if this is a grammatical error or just a personal annoyance, but shouldn't there be a comma after the word 'wing'? It would make the sentence a bit easier to follow. Otherwise, it's easy to skip over this line.
The butterfly panics as the combined impacts force both wings to lay along the surface of the water, melded together in a fatal embrace.
The children watch, heads to the glass and their eyes level to the water.
You switched tenses (from past to present) between these paragraphs. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not, but it makes it confusing. Though changing tenses sometimes adds an interesting element or important effect, it would probably be best to stick to one tense throughout this piece.
“It drowns…” he replied sadly,
Again, this is kind of a personal thing, but ellipses are usually unnecessary. Just using a comma would be sufficient.
The teacher watched the boy whose mind was fixated on the event while the other children seemed trapped by the sight of the tiny creature, fighting to stay afloat.
The way the commas are added to this part makes it sound like the children are fighting to stay afloat, not the butterfly. A different way would be something like this: "The teacher watched the boy, whose mind was fixated on the event, while the other children seemed trapped by the sight of the tiny creature that was fighting to stay afloat."
“It gets on the wings and it can’t fly sir."
You need a comma before 'sir'.
Eventually,” he moved back to the glass in time to watch another drop of rain pound both wings under the water.
The way this is phrased is awkward. You shouldn't have a comma after 'eventually' in this case-this is where an ellipsis could work. Then, capitalize 'he' and continue the sentence as it is already.
The boy mourned the broken, lifeless body of the butterfly moving with the gentle currents - brushing over the rocks.
There should be a comma instead of a dash here.
The universe watched on, feeling the trembling limbs cease to move.
This seems odd to me-if the world could forget that it was raining, how could the universe (which is bigger and has more stuff going on) feel the last tremors of a dying butterfly? This is probably just my annoying but-human-characteristics-on-things thing that I do, but since you already personified them, I figured I'd point that out.
I realize most of my critique is grammatical errors, but that's because I really didn't find much with this piece other than small things that I found worthy of a note. I absolutely loved the concept, and the writing itself was descriptive and thought provoking, as well as bringing forth vivid imagery. A great work. I can't wait to read more from you!
Writing sample
Post 1-5 samples of your writing, up to 2000 words. These can be an extract from a novel, short stories, poems, factual pieces, essays, lyrics...anything you like. If it's an extract, let us know the title of the piece, a brief synopsis, and which part of the piece the extract is taken from
This was the potential beginning to a collaborative short story that a friend and I were thinking of as a solution to our (now past) writer's block. It's supposed to be mostly an introduction to the setting and appearance of the main character. In other words, it's meant to be extremely visual and not much else.
Untitled
The town was relatively quiet. The night was kept calm by a light breeze; it carried winter’s chill but, spun within it, there was the distant promise of spring. The recent months had been dry, so there was neither snow nor ice to cause bad footing or wet shoes, much to the dismay of the neighborhood children. The grass of the lawns was a flat, dead brown, and still emitted a faint smell of the outdoors, as if in protest to the cold temperatures. The breeze picked up speed, gusting once or twice hard enough to be called wind and rattling the fragile leaves remaining in several of the trees. They clicked dryly and fluttered against each other like brown paper, one or two of them falling to the ground and landing on the empty street, where they were carried, scraping their undersides, across the asphalt. One such leaf was plucked by the breeze from a nearby oak tree, in which sat something large and out of place. It was definitely not a leaf.
The figure was silhouetted by the sodium-yellow glow of a street light, so that if you looked at it from just right, it appeared as nothing but a black shadow. Upon closer inspection, however, you could see the faint reflection of starlight in a pair of grey eyes. The eyes were moving slowly back and forth, back and forth, searching for something they apparently could not find. Other than the long dark hair swept about in the breeze, they were the only sign of motion within sight.
The figure sighed, its grey eyes closing. It was not an it at all, but a girl, or at least it appeared to be one. Her skin was pale, in startling contrast to the black attire she was wearing. She was extraordinarily thin, her bare feet and ankles along with her hands showing the outlines of bones. Her fingers gave the illusion of being stone. They curled around the tree limb like talons and did not move. Her feet were placed between them, similarly motionless and balanced to perfection. It was clear that the girl would be perfectly capable of remaining in her current posture for quite a while. Though she’d already been perched upon the branch for several hours, she had not seen what she had come to find.
So she waited.
Just to mix it up a little, here's some poetry. Written in '06 about the 9/11/01 attacks.
September Day
Tears drip
silently from
sad, closed eyes
and broken hearts.
Alone but surrounded,
lonely but never alone.
That one strong pulse of sadness
starts here,
where the towers fell.
It resounds and echoes,
so strong
it shatters
the dreams of the world,
but it is contained in
each
and
every
crumpled soul.
It remains at the Pentagon
and where the ones who were brave
crashed
Flight 93.
Devastation took every happiness
all in the span
of one morning.
What was once safe,
now vulnerable.
What once stood tall,
is now dust.
No one thought
that they would fall,
those two strong towers
that we could see
on the skyline.
Is there nothing left to live for?
Dwell on memories
from before that September day.
What is there
left to live for,
now that the love has gone?
Name/Pseudonym: Lelly Fedechai
Critiquing skills
Choose one piece of work from the application of an accepted member or mod and give constructive feedback on it. You may find the 'accepted' tag on the right-hand side of the community page helpful. Let us know which piece you're critiquing.
I've decided to critique Butterfly in the Water by ellymelly (in her application.)
A butterfly struggled on the surface of the pond.
All was perfectly still.
I liked the opening line on its own, but when combined with the next line it seems rather contradictory. If something is struggling, it usually is not still. So, if the butterfly is struggling, why is ALL still? It may work better to say "All ELSE was still" or something along those lines.
Traces of water stuck to the wing making it heavier.
I'm not sure exactly if this is a grammatical error or just a personal annoyance, but shouldn't there be a comma after the word 'wing'? It would make the sentence a bit easier to follow. Otherwise, it's easy to skip over this line.
The butterfly panics as the combined impacts force both wings to lay along the surface of the water, melded together in a fatal embrace.
The children watch, heads to the glass and their eyes level to the water.
You switched tenses (from past to present) between these paragraphs. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not, but it makes it confusing. Though changing tenses sometimes adds an interesting element or important effect, it would probably be best to stick to one tense throughout this piece.
“It drowns…” he replied sadly,
Again, this is kind of a personal thing, but ellipses are usually unnecessary. Just using a comma would be sufficient.
The teacher watched the boy whose mind was fixated on the event while the other children seemed trapped by the sight of the tiny creature, fighting to stay afloat.
The way the commas are added to this part makes it sound like the children are fighting to stay afloat, not the butterfly. A different way would be something like this: "The teacher watched the boy, whose mind was fixated on the event, while the other children seemed trapped by the sight of the tiny creature that was fighting to stay afloat."
“It gets on the wings and it can’t fly sir."
You need a comma before 'sir'.
Eventually,” he moved back to the glass in time to watch another drop of rain pound both wings under the water.
The way this is phrased is awkward. You shouldn't have a comma after 'eventually' in this case-this is where an ellipsis could work. Then, capitalize 'he' and continue the sentence as it is already.
The boy mourned the broken, lifeless body of the butterfly moving with the gentle currents - brushing over the rocks.
There should be a comma instead of a dash here.
The universe watched on, feeling the trembling limbs cease to move.
This seems odd to me-if the world could forget that it was raining, how could the universe (which is bigger and has more stuff going on) feel the last tremors of a dying butterfly? This is probably just my annoying but-human-characteristics-on-things thing that I do, but since you already personified them, I figured I'd point that out.
I realize most of my critique is grammatical errors, but that's because I really didn't find much with this piece other than small things that I found worthy of a note. I absolutely loved the concept, and the writing itself was descriptive and thought provoking, as well as bringing forth vivid imagery. A great work. I can't wait to read more from you!
Writing sample
Post 1-5 samples of your writing, up to 2000 words. These can be an extract from a novel, short stories, poems, factual pieces, essays, lyrics...anything you like. If it's an extract, let us know the title of the piece, a brief synopsis, and which part of the piece the extract is taken from
This was the potential beginning to a collaborative short story that a friend and I were thinking of as a solution to our (now past) writer's block. It's supposed to be mostly an introduction to the setting and appearance of the main character. In other words, it's meant to be extremely visual and not much else.
Untitled
The town was relatively quiet. The night was kept calm by a light breeze; it carried winter’s chill but, spun within it, there was the distant promise of spring. The recent months had been dry, so there was neither snow nor ice to cause bad footing or wet shoes, much to the dismay of the neighborhood children. The grass of the lawns was a flat, dead brown, and still emitted a faint smell of the outdoors, as if in protest to the cold temperatures. The breeze picked up speed, gusting once or twice hard enough to be called wind and rattling the fragile leaves remaining in several of the trees. They clicked dryly and fluttered against each other like brown paper, one or two of them falling to the ground and landing on the empty street, where they were carried, scraping their undersides, across the asphalt. One such leaf was plucked by the breeze from a nearby oak tree, in which sat something large and out of place. It was definitely not a leaf.
The figure was silhouetted by the sodium-yellow glow of a street light, so that if you looked at it from just right, it appeared as nothing but a black shadow. Upon closer inspection, however, you could see the faint reflection of starlight in a pair of grey eyes. The eyes were moving slowly back and forth, back and forth, searching for something they apparently could not find. Other than the long dark hair swept about in the breeze, they were the only sign of motion within sight.
The figure sighed, its grey eyes closing. It was not an it at all, but a girl, or at least it appeared to be one. Her skin was pale, in startling contrast to the black attire she was wearing. She was extraordinarily thin, her bare feet and ankles along with her hands showing the outlines of bones. Her fingers gave the illusion of being stone. They curled around the tree limb like talons and did not move. Her feet were placed between them, similarly motionless and balanced to perfection. It was clear that the girl would be perfectly capable of remaining in her current posture for quite a while. Though she’d already been perched upon the branch for several hours, she had not seen what she had come to find.
So she waited.
Just to mix it up a little, here's some poetry. Written in '06 about the 9/11/01 attacks.
September Day
Tears drip
silently from
sad, closed eyes
and broken hearts.
Alone but surrounded,
lonely but never alone.
That one strong pulse of sadness
starts here,
where the towers fell.
It resounds and echoes,
so strong
it shatters
the dreams of the world,
but it is contained in
each
and
every
crumpled soul.
It remains at the Pentagon
and where the ones who were brave
crashed
Flight 93.
Devastation took every happiness
all in the span
of one morning.
What was once safe,
now vulnerable.
What once stood tall,
is now dust.
No one thought
that they would fall,
those two strong towers
that we could see
on the skyline.
Is there nothing left to live for?
Dwell on memories
from before that September day.
What is there
left to live for,
now that the love has gone?