Dear Friendship is Writing Group,

My name is Mr. Album. I just introduced myself in the Introductions thread, so this thread is merely to have a central place for anyone's feedback/reviews/thoughts on my story, My Little Poem. For those who are interested, let me know what you think of it!

Sincerely,

Mr. Album

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I'll be working up a detailed review here in a few moments. I'll be posting it on GDocs since it could get elaborate or wordy.

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Okay... the review is finished. Because I didn't notice/was not bothered by any massive punctuation or grammar errors I didn't bother with going into super detailed mode. So I just gave a basic to moderate review, rather than a paragraph by paragraph breakdown of issues, or problems.

The whole review can be read here: FIW: REVIEW - My Little Poem

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Thank you for the review! It was very informative. I will state a couple things that I noticed were some points of confusion, in an effort to clear them up a little. This is just for FYI, and is not a criticism on the review or it's contents.

-A Pantrostic is actually a poetic form. Since Pantrostic's talent is writing and understanding literature and language, it seemed like a fitting name to give him.

-Barbara's full name is Barbara Doll. She also had the derogatory nickname of "Baby Doll" when she was little, which is a title for a black-and-white movie about a couple who were in a similar married relationship as Pantrostic and Barbara are. While I never had the chance to watch the movie myself, I remembered its subject matter, so I used Barbara's name as a very subtle reference to that movie. Perhaps it is too subtle, but at this point in the story it may not be worth it to give her a more pony-appropriate name. While this may be a poor decision, I will stick by it for now, since I barely have much time to make a correction for this.

-The prologue happened in the past, hence the difference in written perspective. Yes, it is important to the story, but it is not immediately important.

-In a sense, these first two chapters are the "start" of the story. Protagonists and the central conflict have JUST been introduced. The third chapter introduces the main antagonizing force, which will remain unknown for now until that chapter gets published. So yes, there ARE a LOT of things left proverbially "high and dry" from the readers' perspectives. I am worried that there was too much information overload, such that readers are adversely affected by it. Perhaps I could trim some things, but what to trim and how to trim it requires lots of thought and planning, since I do not want to accidentally cut something important later on.

-"Show vs. Tell" is a tough beast to quantify. In the case of a first-person narrative, what kinds of description are in-character for the narrator, and what would be some things that character would either gloss over or mention in an off-handed statement? It's a balance that is difficult to achieve, because readers thrive on descriptions; after all, if the reader doesn't know what is around the character, they would not be able to follow that character through said character's world. It's a good question, and one that I am currently struggling with.

-Any physical act can be perfected, no matter it's classification. Yes, that particular talent led to hardship for Lilywhite, Pantrostic's mother, which created this conflict between Headmaster Daric and Pantrostic further down the road. Sometimes, a controversial decision is necessary to create conflict, because the characters would have to believably react to that controversy. That does have to be balanced, though; too much controversy, and the characters become dead to its effects.

-Thought processes do not have to mimic actual speech, as far as I know; after all, the brain operates faster than the mouth, and often creates incoherent statements that do not gel with what the character says. The challenge for a first-person narrative, then, is balancing this fact with reader comfort. Previous drafts were far worse, actually, with tons of those "thought italics" and weird turns of phrase. Perhaps I need to pare the down some more.

Anyway, these are merely for FYI. Thank you so much for the review, you pin-pointed several key themes about the story that readers would notice as well, and gave me lots of concepts to think about. Thank you for your time, and feel free to leave further comments if I misunderstood anything.

Sincerely,

Mr. Album

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-"Show vs. Tell" is a tough beast to quantify. In the case of a first-person narrative, what kinds of description are in-character for the narrator, and what would be some things that character would either gloss over or mention in an off-handed statement? It's a balance that is difficult to achieve, because readers thrive on descriptions; after all, if the reader doesn't know what is around the character, they would not be able to follow that character through said character's world. It's a good question, and one that I am currently struggling with.

Show versus tell is actually very simple. Just forget that you've ever heard the phrase. It's a gimmicky expression that is usually tossed around to neophyte writers because it sounds way more cool than just telling them, "write with more elaboration."

You are the writer, always remember that. You are in control of what ultimately gets handed to the reader.

Here's a guidepost for elaboration.

Ask these questions before proceeding.
1. Is the action progressing the story?
If yes. Do not elaborate.

2. Is what the character is seeing/going into/walking through experiencing essential information?
If yes. More elaboration.
If no. Do not elaborate.

3. Did your character just perform an action?
If yes. Do not elaborate

4. Is your character performing an action within a setting where multiple things are happening?
If Yes. More Elaboration.

5. How essential is it that you move past or stay focused on a scene?
If Staying focused. More Elaboration.
If Moving Past. Do Not Elaborate.

Writers and critics these days are constantly being hit with things like, "he grabbed his gun that was a six-shot, and poured lead into them."

What we need to do is not dress up the description with overly elaborate crap, but get creative about mentioning that it was a six shooter.
"He pulled his piece and gave the six loaded chambers a spin before pouring lead into them." No fuss, no muss, and no more of that damnable phrase. I swear to God, that if I had a nickel for every time a wannabe editor/writer spouted that craptastic phrase, I wouldn't have to write for a living, and I could retire.

That's actually a good rubric. I'll try to remember it from this point on. Thanks for sharing that!

And Chapter 3 has been published! I'm not going to ask for a re-review, this post is just for FYI. Hope it entertains!