Today, I’m going to be reviewing your story that I found on the “Read a Newbie” page. Remember that the following is just my personal opinion as a reader. I’m not a professional and you know your work best. If you find something useful here, feel free to use it. If you don’t, feel free to disregard this review.
Title and Description: The title is a good juxtaposition to the subject matter of the piece. The description gives us a little more information about what we’re about to read about.
Subject Matter and Characters: The main character in this piece is being sexually abused at the hands of the people he should be able trust the most- his parents. It’s hard to watch him so helpless in the situation and you did a good job of building that emotion for the reader.
What I liked: I liked that you told the story well without telling it so straightforward. The references to giving kids away for Ziploc bags tells a lot without coming right out and saying what it’s about. I like that the reader gets inside of the child’s mind this way. He is confused in the situation and doesn’t know what is going on, but we can tell what is going on as adults. I think it’s a subject that should be talked about more often, so I like that you’re writing about it.
Possible Suggestions: My suggestions have to do with the formatting and technical writing side of the story. There needs to be paragraphs when the subject changes, because as it is now, it just looks like a big wall of text. Readers will have a hard time keeping place when there isn’t proper spacing and paragraphs. The point is that you want to get as many people to read it as possible. I also noticed quite a few fragments in your story where the sentences were half thoughts with just verbs.
Summary: Overall, I thought this was a well-written piece and it talks about an interesting topic. I think it needs to be edited on the technical side a little bit. Thanks again for sharing with us!
From Charlie on www.writing.com