Saving Amelia - Comments

Mibba's May Story Contest: Historical Fiction
The first thing I noticed when I started reading was that you aren't consistent with your tenses. You jump from past to present tense which can be confusing for the writer. Also, Titanic was a huge tragedy, and when I think of it I think of so much little details I wish you would have included. You could have painted such a vivid picture. The sound of things falling over, the water rising, the engines backing up, propellers jamming. I really wish you would have added detail to the point where I felt like I was there.

Here there was a little typo: 'I looked up at my father as the lifeboat lowered, him still sipping his brandy and smoking his cigar as his wife and two-year-old daughter didn’t just fall off of a ship and I wasn’t all alone with nobody to take care of me.'
I believe you meant 'as if his'

I was also really disappointed in the way you described the scene of this ship falling apart. It kind of felt like you were just describing the actual scene from the movie Titanic, which I think anyone could do. I would have liked for you yourself to describe how it occurred, how you think it occurred instead of just taking from the movie.

There was also a typo here: 'I crabbed the baby from her mother’s cold, dead arms and hugged her.'
I believe you meant to say 'grabbed'

I really do feel you could have gone somewhere with this idea because the tragedy of Titanic is something that can be explored at many different angles. Good luck with your future writings, and thank you for submitting to the contest!

I just changed the layout a bit and the banner's gone.

Thank you. I wasn't really trying to go for the movie plot, though. I did some research to know who was steering the lifeboats and which one went back for the others. My character is actually based off of a passenger who was fifteen and was in that boat, though she didn't go back with them. I try to make my grammar as correct as possible. I so need to go back and correct a missed word or two, though.

I had actually written a different way where it tells a lot about her, but it felt too cramped with needless information to the plot that I didn't really like it. And that paragraph is my favorite. I made sure to write that as soon as I though of it before I went back to where I was.

Thank you so much. I love the constructive criticism.

Starting off with the layout, oh doll, I wish you could've done more. I'm not a fan of the default theme, in fact, not once have I used it myself. So to read a story with it, rather pains me when your story deserves much better treatment than that. That includes the banner which is way too large for the default theme itself. I find that these things immediately put off a reader.

Your story on the other hand, is actually rather interesting. Being a Titanic fan myself since I was a child I found it I found it rather stuck to the movie's actual plot. It doesn't move away from it and I find that quite disappointing. Your grammar is impeccable though, I found almost no mistakes.

I do wish your story was more detailed and with more background to it. I do understand that the contest limited the amount of words, but I feel like you could've put much more into it. I did quite enjoy the paragraph where she finds the baby and holds her against her body, that one was rather very beautiful and different. You have great talent for writing, although I do wish you could've done more with this story.