I can't truthfully tell you. That's the problem with unfinished drafts; I need the entire story to create a constructive opinion. You have time though; I hope to read your finished story.
bread crumbs and beaver spit
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Comments
wats UR point?
Interesting, by the fact that there are a lot of weird things happening. The story itself was thrilling, I even had a vision of what's going on in the story. It's like a fight for their lives.
Advice: so far it's really that good. I love the suspense. Always gives me good chills in the spine.
"I wonder what happens to Eliza next?" Make the next part in a flash.
Neat story. The only thing that bothered me was the re-use of words in sentences; it made it feel a bit redundant. For example:
<em>Here we see the work of man. A human whose skin is now a boiling red viscous liquid. A human who has enormous tumours all over his body, too big that it constantly squirts out a colourless, viscous liquid.</em>
You used "viscous liquid" twice in two sentences. May I suggest something like "colourless, thick puss," or something like that.
Further down you write:
<em>As he pulled it, he heard nothing but a click. He pulled it again and again, but he only heard clicks.</em>
Instead of using click again, use something like "but he only heard the trigger beat against an empty barrel."
But as a whole, solid stuff. Keep us the good work, and if you have time, could you please review mine? It's <em>Roman Betrayal</em>, and it's on the contest submission page.
Whoa. I never saw that viscous liquid part. Thanks for the heads up. And thanks for those tips dude. I'll be sure to review your story sometime.
I'm glad I saved my opinions from earlier because you have developed an entirely different and more interesting piece!
To begin, compliments: You have a damn creative idea, definitely one of the most creative I have seen so far in this contest. Many of the descriptions are also well-executed. The imagery you give is also intriguing.
Criticisms: The largest one is your verb tense. You constantly switch from past to present tense. It is very tiring to slog through the shifting tenses, but luckily, this can be easily fixed with basic editing.
Your piece's tone also doesn't quite sit well with me. At times, the tone is brutal and cutting, at other times more whimsical. Even other times, the two combine to form a more sadistic tone. While none of these types of tone are bad, I felt as if you couldn't stick to one of them. From what I've read, you want this to be a dark story which at times can be sickly funny. With this draft, you sometimes accomplish this, but too many times, like with the introduction of the turtle, the story becomes almost too fantastical to keep this dark feeling.
My final main criticism is you're stuffing your story with so many elements that they either become perposterous or one-dimensional. This problem becomes especially evident in the ending. To put it basically, Eliza comes to save the day on a mutated turtle before being apprehended by a once-nude man who ends up being her husband, and after pretending to love her, he really doesn't, but before he can do anything, she acts before him and triumphs. Now, I realize I am being harsh right now because you wrote it pretty well, but nonetheless, I was reeling at the end. The turtle, although it brought Eliza to the building, seems more like a easy way of advancing the plot rather than a vital element. And Adam, who I thought originally wasn't fleshed out enough to be interesting, suddenly becomes so central to the conflict that I can't quite believe it. The marriage plot also seems rather unnecessary.
Now, please, let me apologize if I sound too harsh. Although I stand by my criticisms, I also think you have a creative and pretty well-written piece (although you need to watch your words a bit--you repeat some words way too often). As with all pieces, my opinions are only opinions, so please only take what you agree with. I often say things that can be a load of bullocks, so you determine what is valuable.
There is no need to apologize. I just wrote this story as I went along, editing other parts when it started to go over the word limit. It has, like, 4489 words. I had to cram many stuff in there while deleting other ones, so I guess I couldn't see the big picture properly or something.
And you were right in saying that the turtle was merely to speed the story up. I was just writing about how Eliza was lost and kept passing through a rock, and then it evolved to a gigantic rock turtle. I guess I have to edit that now that I have a somewhat grander idea.
Adam was supposed to be the character that was part of a conspiracy, much like the villains in Dan Brown's stories. I sort of added him to the mix so that the reader would somehow know that Eliza being thrown out of the building is merely an experiment in itself.
Thank you for your many criticisms. I will edit this story immediately.
blakedatch
I do not mean to be the bearer of bad news, but it seems your short story is a not quite meeting the contest's rules. It does involve an island, but you only briefly mention it. The contest's guidelines state the island should be significant enough that the story could not go without it. In your story, the setting seems like it could be anywhere. Now, if you disagree, I would at least urge you to contact the judges to see if they agree that your story meets the qualifications.
Otherwise, if you continue with this story, my main suggestion is to describe more. Tell us more about who, what, when, where, and why. You have a unique idea; it just seems all hazy right now.
amador10
This island thing? It has all these undiscovered bacteria. It also has this volcano I'll describe later on. This is a draft after all. I know what I'm doing.
What do you think about the story itself though?