Sparkatale

Stretching what stands at 30 odd chapters at the time of this review, it is safe to say much is very well written and possesses an impressive range of content. With strong underlying themes of the liminal, presently or retrospectively, this collective work maintains solid buoyancy between each piece. While there is a little fan service stylings at times and the occasional use of the infamous unconditional love element does warrant some notice, it is as a while a good collective of writing.

I believe this chapter was added after my review, and I must say it is perhaps my favorite. The connotations of black ash and white snow really exploded visually add I read. The duality of both comparable and contrasting component gives an immediate texture as well as depth. Could use some sandpaper to smooth and refine which would really allow for expansion in the ideas and story. Not that it NEEDS to be expanded, but just to say that it could. Hopefully I get less busy soon so I can spend more time on here and writing!

It tickles me enormously that it resonates with any merit to reality, much less as well as you seem to indicate. I personally have essentially zero experience with law enforcement, legal matters, or criminal excursions myself and was merely shooting from the hip on this one so hitting the mark is really quite delightful to hear.

Both your grammar based and technical based critique is fantastic, if I find the motivation and time to pick up the story again I will definitely be incorporating those elements.

I'm also quite pleased you found the various bits humorous, regardless of reason. Throughout the novel there is an intended humor and expectation of reader understanding, such as the pawnshop legality issue you picked up on! It feels fantastic having people pick up stuff like that, I must say. Many thanks for the input, outstanding comment!

Excellent critique, unfortunate story choice! Hah, but thank you for appreciating it and generating good feedback, sadly this story is something I wrote years and years ago and didn't put much time in even then. I posted it for another writers reference, and truthfully I don't much care for this one myself.

That being said, I'm glad you found it somewhat creepy and or unsettling! It was intended to be sweet, but also bizarre at the same time. Your other feedback is extremely relevant as well, but as this story is so old and holds minimal person interest I doubt I'll be making the retroactive alterations in favor of working on other new material. But, again, thank you very much for the time and effort of reviewing my work!

Whoops, automatically typed out the html paragraphing for paragraphs. I don't know where my brain is today! Disregard crazy-ness

<p/>Very kind words, and excellent catch on the this-the slip-up! Already swooped in and hotswapped it!</p>

<p/>As for Marie's voice, in the .docx file it was italicized to signify speech, I chose to avoid quotation marks to make the overall visual appearance of the text constant and attractive to a reading eye as well keep a common theme of internalizing all of David's thinking. For whatever reason in the transition of moving them onto the site, the text lost the italics which I also took the liberty of rectifying. Glad you brought it to my attention, I'll have to review my other files for similar discrepancies.</p>

<p/>And I understand the confusion in the second to last paragraph, it's pretty concept dense but I hesitate to alter it to have less word lettuce as it is essentially the stories thesis. I do appreciate you saying something about it though, I may have a change of heart and make it a little more accessible at a later time.</p>

<p/>If you DO keep working on those drabbles, let me know! I love the drabble and short story format and I remember thinking your work was exemplary.</p>

Thanks again for the comment!

Posted in response to another piece. This chapter's short is pretty old now and frankly a bit self serving bloated, but may offer some ideas for Mr. Thatcher

Good, but as warned in authors notes very pulp writing. It feels like a much more involved narration, the emotion of the moment does come through and with some polishing it can really shine through. I love reading this really pulp work where authors are feeling out new techniques to see where they feel comfortable. My editors itch really kicked in on this one, shame I can't use my blue editing pen to mark up a hard copy hah. To be honest, I think I've always been better at editing than writing! C'est la vi. Reminds of a piece I did years ago, I'll have to look through archives and post it to try and help give you ideas. On my mobile though, so that will haveto wait.

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it. The first draft of that story ended quite differently... You can imagine, hah! Pleased it works out fine with the changes.

Starts off a bit shaky, but ends fantastic. I usually abhor hero stories, but this ended up well done. Props for not succumbing to the ever tiring "time slowed and I could see everything" line, a hero's power draws us in but flaws and weakness makes them believable, interesting, dynamic, and something that makes the reader think. Keep up the good work, you got at least one fan here!

Kafka on Prozac? I can dig it. Existentialism is just more fun when you inexplicably wake up as a giant insect of one form or another!

I quite enjoyed the second story, more than I had truthfully anticipated. Although the first story failed to grab an earnest sense of interest (due large, I believe, just from personal taste as the writing didn't seem especially flawed in any way) I found the story of crows, and the woman who fed them, was quite engaging.

It recalls to mind two stories in particular: Ishmael by Quinn, and The Stranger by Camus. While I loathed Ishmael and only read it out of obligation for some college course of some kind or another, the idea of a protagonist finding themselves a teacher as it is used in your story is quire brilliantly delightful. And as for The Stranger, a book I immensely enjoy, it has that same removal of self and the existential reality to it even with the mystic styling of the finale.

Speaking of the ending, I presume you created it to be ambiguous for the creative writing communal dissection aspect? Or, at the very least, that's what I gather from book summary. Either way, interestingly done. Again to invoke a pet favorite author, maybe a touch of Lovecraft slithered into the end with the sudden jaunt into the inexplicable and maddening truth never spoken and only understood by the protagonist. While I don't want to drown you with personal observations of interest, I do feel comfortable saying I enjoy this style on a personal level.

As for critique, as what is input worth if without a burdening weight wont for improvement, in your favoring of the every interesting Woman you may have accidentally left your protagonist a little too flat. While I understand the desire to create  a character that's easy for a wide audience to relate to, as well as create a significant analog for disparity of intrigue, I suggest perhaps adding more of what I like to call "superficial fluff". For instance, have them not only coming from home to the park and back and forth, have them spotting them on their way home from work or school in the begining with a built in hiatus (holiday, bereavement leave, retirement, etc) to give them more depth as well as making the ending more meaningful. Giving them something worth staying for makes leaving that much more significant.

You certainly seem to have found your style. Grouping these particular stories together created a nice over-arcing feeling that really enhanced the writing with its whole being greater than the sum of all its parts.

These are excellent examples of flash fiction, conflict resolution is kept to scale and after reading it through you understand the feeling or emotion you, the writer, are trying to convey to us, the readers.

You have a strong, and capable, style of writing. My one critique is you occasionally use either dry or clique similes/metaphors that can be a little off-putting. Try turning your language into something as truly independent as your overall style of conveying theme, setting, characters, and message.

First of your work I've read, and am curious how you would round and flesh characters in slightly longer pieces. Perhaps I'll comment on another piece soon!

Very honest writing, which a lot of people struggle with. You seem to write from the heart, and for the most part try not to over-dramatize things for their own sake.

The past tense - present tense hard switching was interesting, and well done. When it could easily have detriment your story it instead helped separate how you once felt from how you now felt. Simplicity of your described emotions were refreshingly realistic, likely from its implications in your actual life as described in summary.

My critique to offer for consideration is that it can be off-putting to place smaller or greater language gravity on some things than others when using this particular style of descriptive mapping. The main one that caught me as I read, and lead me to glance back at previous examples, was the ellipsis based emphasis on being abused by loved ones in the latter part of the story. While you are understandably trying to convey that this hurt the most, and believe me I understand, but doing so eclipses your other pain. Emphasis to create a final hammer strike on the nail of your message to the reader: Good; emphasis to the point of overwhelming your previous points: Not so much.

Good read though, and very obvious display of talent that can grow with just a little bit of TLC & practice.

Quite an evocative piece. Fantastic example of capturing that exact scene of climax in a story, that arc before free fall to conclusion. While there are a few syntax discrepancies and other grammar related issues, they are fairly limited.

This is, in my opinion, an example of good writing. You don't drown your message with a flood of similes and metaphors, you strip your idea down to its bones and made it remain engaging. Leaving your reader wondering, thinking, questioning but not so much that you feel cheated or irritated. You want to know about this mysterious hero, you want to know why they are so important or how they fell.

Message could have been more heavily intoned. I got the feeling that you wanted to instill a greater feeling of unity from the loss and or failure of this hero. The lines separating classes, or even people, became blurred into nothing as hope was lost. This is not to say you didn't do well, especially considering the very small length of this flash fiction, but just as my main critique after the basic grammar.

As a final personal preference praising, I loved the inflection of the final line, as well as its build up right before it. I would venture guessing you drew from Slaughterhouse Five's famous line "And so it goes" to invoke that gravity of language and drive your message.