mythologicalrealities

Malone

Hmm. The images in the second paragraph are really good. I love the Christmas lights bit.
This kind of reminded me of a commercial we had here in America in the 80s, with an Indian (American Indian) crying as people threw trash out, combined with the tree people from Lord of the Rings.

The first paragraph felt a little...unoriginal. Nothing in it really grabbed me or impressed me, and if anything it dissuaded me from reading on. The second paragraph grabbed me though, so I kept going. I'd try to rewrite paragraph one (just my opinion, see if others feel differently) to make it as original or engaging as paragraph two.


Paragraph three is good except for the first sentence. "sharp bit of the howling wind" line felt kind of cliched. The rest really works for me though. I'm overly critical when it comes to stuff like that though, so again, you may want to see how others react. Just seems to me like I've read about biting, howling wind a million times, and compared to some of your other images, it doesn't live up.

I'm only being so critical about the weak points because the strong points are REALLY strong. After the first paragraph, you grabbed me and threw me right into the scene. I could picture it perfectly. You're descriptions and images are original, unique, beautiful, and at times quite inspired.

The woods behind my parents' house are slowly being cut down, and I grew up playing in them, so I know where you're coming from with this story.

Good read. Thanks for sharing.

witioni

I am a big fan of the saying, "less is more." With that, I find condensing descriptions will tend to tighten the impact of what you're saying. Though, it could just be a personal preference and others may totally disagree. For instance...


One could only gaze upon their beauty in this moment because of the watery, diamond, baubles illuminating them.


I think you could just write...


One could only gaze upon their beauty in this moment because of the watery diamonds illuminating them.

Though it's just a minor detail, I find these things take away from the effect of good descriptions. There are other parts that can use tweeking as well.


Overall, I'm not too much into the long scene descriptions but I know you're from New Zealand and so I TOTALLY understand your take on nature. Kiwi's happen to be my most favoritist (yes, I know that's not a real word) people in the world. Also as a side note, your birthday is on the same day as mine.

Thumbs up to the piece. Goodluck with the editing.

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Faldwin

Wow, just wow. I'm trying to find some sort of constructive critism to give, but I can find nothing. The only small thing that caught my eye is that "50" should be spelled out "fifty"

I happened to like your first paragraph, starting out on the wide scale and then zooming in for your second paragraph. Also, witioni does make a good point about less being more and the example and suggestion he gave was a good one. If he had anything else in mind when he said that I don't see it.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again. Wow.

eriq1220

I really liked this one. The more general first paragraph is a good framework to build the rest of the story on. I thought it worked really well. The amount of description one puts in seems more of personal preference so the only thing I can say is that the descriptive aspect was very good. I'm a fan of adding more in the beginning so that there is more to work with in the editing stage. Awesome job!

>KârK<

I liked the picturesque manner in which this unfolds, but I do agree that it is a tad over-verbose. Witioni's "watery diamonds" was indeed a good example, as was Malone's comment on cliché. I particularly liked the way the last 2 lines of the penultimate paragraph reveal the narrator's true identity.

A nice piece, well done!

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Vvega

I only justed joined the forum yesterday and haven't read that many things yet but of the things that I have read I would say that this is one of my favorites. The way you use words is great and it reads very smoothly although I became alittle lost in the last couple paragraphs and had to slow down a bit. But I still do love it. I especially love that it was more than just a cute story and that you really had something to say. Very well done.