I’m here to judge for the ‘Pick A Couple, Pick A Flyleaf Song, Pick A Theme, And Get To Writing!’ contest.
This was a really bittersweet piece. I was definitely sad for Johnny and I definitely sympathized with him blaming himself for what happened to Jimmy. It’s hard to accept that someone’s left you, especially when you look back on it and realize that it was all painfully obvious and you might have been subconsciously turning a blind eye. It was good that you acknowledged that blame that Johnny has put on himself without making it too over the top.
You had a lot of errors that disrupted a simple flow, though. You’re missing a lot of periods. It happened during dialogue, like you didn’t know that there’s supposed to be a full stop. For example:
I ascended down the stairs to the foyer where my mother was “Johnny, are you alright? Are you going somewhere?” – There’s no reason for there not to be a period between ‘was’ (which is the end of the sentence) and the beginning of the dialogue.
“Yeah….” I said quietly as I put on my coat and reached for my scarf “Where are you going? I would like to know….” – Same thing here, but as well as that, his mother’s dialogue should be in an entirely separate line. Dialogue from two different people shouldn’t ever be in the same paragraph, not even if the other person is cutting them off. It confuses the reader as to who is talking until you specify. I thought it was still Johnny at first.
I do think you kind of overused your ellipses […] where a period, a comma or even a question mark would have sufficed just fine so long as you provided detail as to how the character said it. Which, on that subject, I think you definitely could have done with or without the use of ellipses. For something that was supposed to be deeply emotional, I had a lot of trouble connecting and empathizing because of the lack of detail. I was sad for Johnny, sure, but I didn’t connect with him on any personal level. I didn’t feel what he was feeling and as a reader, I really wanted to.
I’m not sure whether or not this is a supernatural piece or not—seems kind of ambiguous for the reader—but I appreciated the sweet ending. Bittersweet, but soft nonetheless.
This was a really bittersweet piece. I was definitely sad for Johnny and I definitely sympathized with him blaming himself for what happened to Jimmy. It’s hard to accept that someone’s left you, especially when you look back on it and realize that it was all painfully obvious and you might have been subconsciously turning a blind eye. It was good that you acknowledged that blame that Johnny has put on himself without making it too over the top.
You had a lot of errors that disrupted a simple flow, though. You’re missing a lot of periods. It happened during dialogue, like you didn’t know that there’s supposed to be a full stop. For example:
I ascended down the stairs to the foyer where my mother was “Johnny, are you alright? Are you going somewhere?” – There’s no reason for there not to be a period between ‘was’ (which is the end of the sentence) and the beginning of the dialogue.
“Yeah….” I said quietly as I put on my coat and reached for my scarf “Where are you going? I would like to know….” – Same thing here, but as well as that, his mother’s dialogue should be in an entirely separate line. Dialogue from two different people shouldn’t ever be in the same paragraph, not even if the other person is cutting them off. It confuses the reader as to who is talking until you specify. I thought it was still Johnny at first.
I do think you kind of overused your ellipses […] where a period, a comma or even a question mark would have sufficed just fine so long as you provided detail as to how the character said it. Which, on that subject, I think you definitely could have done with or without the use of ellipses. For something that was supposed to be deeply emotional, I had a lot of trouble connecting and empathizing because of the lack of detail. I was sad for Johnny, sure, but I didn’t connect with him on any personal level. I didn’t feel what he was feeling and as a reader, I really wanted to.
I’m not sure whether or not this is a supernatural piece or not—seems kind of ambiguous for the reader—but I appreciated the sweet ending. Bittersweet, but soft nonetheless.