November 30th, 2014 at 01:54pm
Hi, I'm the new judge for You Already Have It (Pre-Writes) under Mibba's Contest Revival and this is me judging your entry. Thank you for your patience!
To begin with, I love the way you started the story. You immediately told us that Taylor was sick and that Carter had been a jerk to her for too many years, and regretted it a lot especially when he found out she would most likely not make it. There was no false pretenses straight from the beginning and that was great.
My lord. I felt like I was reading a Nicholas Sparks novel or something (it might be a little redundant to say it reminds me of A Walk to Remember but it's the truth!). It's not because of the cancer or impending death that usually accompanies his books, but because of the way you wrote your story, how it progressed, the relationship between Carter and Taylor. I know some people think that when you're writing resembles an author's, it's not always a good thing, but I would disagree. I think it shows how well you write.
The description for each part of the date was short, in my opinion, but only because I would have liked you to go into more details and tell me more! (Seriously, I really like your story, okay?) But still, it was sweet despite the shortness of the individual parts of the date. I had a feeling what Carter was going to do at the dinner part of the date (although you didn't try to make it impossible for us to guess) but you still kept some mystery by not outright telling us until a little before he did it.
Personally, I love short stories, but I really like ones that are over 1,000 words because the author has more time to go into details and the relationship of the characters, sometimes developing their relationships. I think that's one of the biggest reasons I liked your story because the length made going into detail so much easier than a 1,000 worded short story does.
After the supper scene, you have a small typo where you say me instead of my. It's nothing major but I thought you might want to know. Other than that, I saw no mistakes. There were a couple places where your wording confused me a little bit but I still understood what was going on so it wasn't bad.
All in all, I really liked your story. It was well written and it sucked me in easily. It was very easy to find how well you write and your true writing ability always shines through in short stories!
Good luck in the contest! (:
Carter and Taylor's relationship was so sweet, and I love how there was that added dimension of Carter's near-constant guilt, even though it's clear Taylor's forgiven him. I saw the proposal coming, but it didn't take away from how adorable it was.
I like the way you added the song in (one of my favourites by Mayday Parade); the lyrics just suit that scene so perfectly.
Great job and good luck in the contest!