Andy (Formerly Apemann)

I really wanted to enjoy your story... but you lost my concentration with your tedious and repetitive and excruciatingly tiresome description of her work with the ball in paragraphs two and three. This is definitely a case of far too much information for information's sake. There are other examples throughout your work, which really detracts from your story, which is a real pity. You could have covered almost all of those two paragraphs in half-a-dozen sentences without detriment to your story.

May I suggest a thorough re-read of both parts and some judicious editing to make the whole more palatable and reader-friendly? It's a good piece of work that has been somewhat damaged (not ruined!) by a dose of verbosity taking over in places. It is not irredeemable :-)

I find your work far too graphic and somewhat self-indulgent in its depictions of violence and bloodshed. It's actually rather annoying as you are a better story-teller than the stuff you submit. By that I mean that you tell good stories but (for me) overdo things by going for overkill rather than subtlety in your narrative and descriptions. You have the skills and talent to achieve much the same effect without the OTT descriptive passages. Honestly, they do not do you justice...

I would like to see you submit something that is less bloody and more interesting - and entertaining - to read. Blood, gore and the like have a limited shelf-life.

Hmm...

To be honest my first impression after reading this poem is that it is 'self-pitying': someone begging forgiveness for committing suicide. It left me feeling a little put-out by it as it just doesn't feel right.

It's not a bad poem, just the subject matter that doesn't work for me.

I do wish you would CHECK your work before submitting it! There are numerous spelling mistakes in this piece, which are unforgivable as it is unnecessary. You spoil your work through your laziness. Make the effort to use the spell-check facility on your computer!

On the whole you write well and entertain. You are often better than the work you submit. This piece is not your finest hour, neither is it your worst.

Apart from the one exaggerated use of 'poetic licence' (On webs spiders spinned/And says a little prayer/Where the grass has thinned) this is a sweet, dreamy little poem that raises a fond smile. Be careful with poetic licence: you can only get away with it once or twice :-)

This is an improvement over part one, but you are still making silly mistakes: if you are going to use 'Lace' as an abbreviated form of her name 'Lacey' then the first letter should be capitalised - Lace. Also, you chop and change your mind when you write times in your narrative; at one point you write it in digits and the next reference is written in full. You need to be consistent (written in full is the correct way of doing so) with your writing...

One other small point: you wrote 'suite' instead of 'suit', which changes the whole meaning of the sentence :-)

This is definitely heading in the right direction. Take a few extra minutes to check your work thoroughly before submitting. It will be worth it. Keep up the good work!

As this is supposed to be a stories site I have no idea what this is doing here... However, it IS here and open to review.

You DO write very well, which beggars the question: why this uninspiring nothingness when you could so easily turn your skills to something more productive and - to be perfectly frank - more interesting to read? I appreciate that you are trying to spread joy and happiness but as I said at the outset, this is a stories site. This sort of stuff doesn't really have a place here...

Please, I would very much like to read something from you that has come from your imagination, not your heart.. :-)

There are many good things about your story, but it needs some judicious editing to make it more reader-friendly. In its present form it is hard work and filled with a lot of 'waffle' and filler-type information that does little or nothing to enhance or progress the story.

Be careful, also, of over-long paragraphs. Nothing is more disconcerting to your reader than a solid, unbroken block of text to plow through :-) Try and break-up your paragraphs into shorter, 'bite-size' blocks for easier consumption.

Overall a fair effort, but needs work.