Sorry your browser is not supported!

http://www.fictionpress.com/s/2677977/1/

This story was written by a friend of mine. Try to keep political debates out of it (not that I think there will be any).

Weird...

Eh, that quote by Shakespeare about a tale being told by an idiot, and signifying nothing comes to mind. It was very descriptive, but what was the point?

I find it fascinating because it portrays the horror of genocide more effectively than anything I have ever read. Also, we're both <16, so my threshold for epic-ness may be different from yours.

Good description - it is quite vivid and I think it was well structured. But I think perhaps it's over descriptive and perhaps makes it a little 'cloudy', at least I found that I wasn't able to connect with the characters entirely - whilst in a short story a character should be fully formed, but we have no identity with the characters - who are they? What are they like? Whilst we can cringe knowing the horrors they may experience, but more of an impact may be made if the boy has an identity. Notice how charity adverts manage to exploit sympathy by introducing a person and giving them their identity - rather than saying, "this is the cruelty that'll happen", but they tend to make it specific to a person, they get us to 'know' the person despite never having met them - I think of the child abuse adverts on TV as an example. The monster imagery works in the way that a human identity is removed by the 'oppressor' - and we have some good descriptions on that, for example, the growling and how his teeth lengthen - they were monster characteristics.

Good overall, great for his/her age, so I'd definitely encourage this person to continue to write, but those are my points of critique - I don't know if you intended to pass on people's reactions or what? But there's some food for thought there, for any writer-y types.

I believe she is checking the thread periodically. Thank you for the well-reasoned and comprehensive response.

Also welcome Zach-I haven't seen you before.

No problem.

Also, I'll add that my opinion is just an 'opinion' from another aspiring writer, it doesn't make it 'correct', and all are welcome to disagree. There's no 'right' way and no 'wrong' way, just what typically works or what we think works better. I thought I'd make that point, because people often carry the mindset that when 'corrected', they've done something wrong.

I found when I was a teen writing that I'd be over descriptive and would even use 'flowery' descriptions, or purple prose as it's sometimes called.


Also, it might even be worth seeing what Writers' magazine her work can be sent to - magazines like Writers' Forum have a monthly competition where you can win cash prizes and the top stories get published in their next issue - I've sent one this month (fingers crossed), they have a section for 'young writers', with its own monthly compo, and that's probably worth shooting for - that is if she lives in the UK (I don't know if they accept entries from over-seas), she'd probably have to see if any others do it. WHSmiths tend to stock the magazine, but here's their URL just in case:

http://www.writers-forum.com/


I also have my own blog set up to do with writing - it contains my own attempts, thoughts, ideas and tips - my last entry was August 7th, thinking about Research techniques and backing a piece of writing with a bit of substance. Click here.

I've been meaning to update with more posts, but I haven't given it the time yet.