June 28th, 2017 at 06:30am
Finally here to judge The Modern Love Song Contest.
For starters, I wish there had been a layout applied to the story. Even if it hadn't been an original one, layouts really add to the reading experience.
I am not one for writing or reading second person, but I think it added to the overall story. You really feel the narrator's emotions this way and I can see why you chose to go with this approach. I was pretty skeptical about how you were going to use all three songs, but I think you did very nicely with it! I noticed the little things, like using the words 'broken' and 'bent' in Just Give Me A Reason, and the word 'hope' in the The Only Hope For Me Is You. I didn't know if it was intentional, but I appreciated those little details.
There were a few grammatical and spelling errors, but nothing that super distracted from reading the piece.
All in all, I very much enjoyed this. Thanks for entering!
Getting on with it, I think you did a pretty swell job on this! I did notice that there were a few grammatical errors, like comma placement and such, but everyone makes those so it didn't really take away from anything. I think you were able to convey the emotions perfectly, especially so in the first chapter where you can feel the main character's hurt and torn up feelings about their break up. I think it added to the realism when they were trying to find a reason to hate Jack because I'm sure that's what anyone would do when they break up with someone they love so much. This was a great read and I'm thankful you let me read it! Great job and keep it up! 
I have the biggest soft spot in existence for second person perspective so I was immediately interested and eager to read this when I realized it was second person. Something about this perspective is more raw and personal than first or third can ever be, and this story was… something else. It actually left me feeling torn. Because as Jack was getting worse, so was Michael because he was angry all the time—but it also felt like he didn’t want to be with Jack either? The way he would swing between needing/wanting Jack to being disgusted and distant startled me.
I enjoyed the way you write this past into the present with the letters and objects that Jack gave back to Michael. I also noticed the slight mirroring with the “you could care less” when Michael opened both the first and last letter—the contrast between the razor and then him almost tearing the letter apart in his haste. I also appreciated the flashback because it gave me a new insight into their relationship and how it all started—though it felt very… abusive. It was cruel of Michael to threaten Jack the way he did just for sex. I really didn’t like Michael at all by that point so for the rest of the story, I had a lot of trouble feeling bad for him. It didn’t seem like he was good to Jack at all, honestly. All of my sympathies went towards Jack definitely. I think he deserved better, especially in his final days.
Unfortunately, you had a lot of errors that made it hard to read at some points. You had spelling errors or used the wrong word entirely so I had to try and decipher what you meant to say. It took away from the experience for me because you would gain this fluid motion in your prose, but you’d lose it the second I had to try and figure out what you meant rather than what you actually wrote. I definitely recommend reading your stuff over or having someone else do so since writers tend to be their own worst editors. I’ve learned the hard way, hah.
There were also some points where you could have definitely afforded to break into a new paragraph. A lot of the really huge paragraphs didn’t actually need to be as large as they were because there were plenty of points where it could be a new one. You also tend to use commas when you should definitely use a period. Try reading it out loud as you hear it in your head so you can figure out if it’s a full stop or a brief pause.
So your prose is really nice and this storyline was definitely an interesting concept that I think you did well with, so if you edited it a little bit to tidy it up, I think this story could be even better. Good job.