Reviews for Reality Check - FictionPress.com

Reviews For: Reality Check

The Watched 2006-04-23 ch 1,	abuseHm. Well, disclaimer, as is my usual plan: yup, I'm gonna give you some criticism, hopefully of the constructive variety; no, it's not a judgement on your personality/life/ideals; yes, I am contactable, but for the sake of my morals, please don't use the FP reviewing system as a place to complain about me - my e-mail address is on my profile if you really feel it necessary to give me a piece of your mind. Although having said that, like I say, I'm not trying to be offensive. I'm being critical. First off, I did notice that this is an old piece, but all your newer pieces are unreviewable for one reason or another - and I don't mean that in a bad way. Basically, I don't know if you wrote the poem about the Muslim woman, and I tend to steer clear of politically charged poetry for criticising anyway (a simple fear of my review being taken the wrong way); there's not enough in a haiku and I don't understand haikus enough to review those properly, and poetry is more my area of expertise than fiction - I find, when critiquing a story, there tends to be just too much for me to be as picky as I'd like. So that's why I'm reviewing this. If you've since corrected the faults I point out here, I apologise for wasting your time with this review. Anyway, here goes... First of all, the rhyming. It sort of fades out anyway, which is a bit odd, but when it is firmly in place it seems very forced, and the rhymes you use seem very childish: "When times are sad...when I'm raging mad" - it seriously detracts from your poem, and at some points reduces it to little more than a joke, which I'm sure was not your intention. The way the lines are broken also is a little odd, though I suspect this to be influenced by the rhyme scheme - "But, alas, I do/Know for a fact/That I must return/To reality, back". To begin with, "fact" and "back" (which is unduly forced anyway) are only half-rhymes, and as such should be avoided; the word-order and some of the words you use are unnecessary ("I do know for a fact") - I know you did this with your rhyme/rhythm scheme in mind, but it's much better to read unrhyming poetry with beautiful language than it is to read poetry that rhymes when the author does not seem at ease with the language. The idea of living on imagination is a lovely one, and you could have done so much with it...it seems half-formed, perfunctory, like a sketch for a painting that hasn't been painted. For example, you could have described why you like to retreat into your head, and what there IS in your head - "When the nights are cold and long and dark/When I hear voices raised next door/When there are tearstains on my mirror/When the battle turns to war... "There's a place that I can hide away/and wait for dawn to come/where nightingales sing me to sleep/where wars are long since won..." That's just an illustration, and not a particularly good one at that, where I have stuck to your rhyme scheme (and as you may be able to tell, rhyme schemes are not my strong point) and created a poem which, I feel, has a message similar to the one your poem was trying to convey at the beginning. I'm pretty sure you can do better than my example, since it really is not very good: the only thing I have done that you have not is the point of this review - rather than telling the reader about my imagination and about why I might need it, I show them, I create an image. I'm not trying to assert my superiority here; perhaps I'm just too into my "show not tell" rule and have created my very own example even for this review. To conclude: show, not tell. Put your words into a scene. Use your senses. Tell me what you see in your imagination, what you hear. Is it so real you can smell it, taste it, touch it, or are there always the smells of the real world mingling in? When you tell us that you need to face the truth, come back to reality, well, why? Show us...are you ignoring the insistent call of an alarm clock? Are you walking down the street in a daze? It's far more interesting for someone to read a scene from your imagination than a collection of your thoughts written down. And I've done it myself - it's such an easy trap to fall into - but I know for sure that it's a killer.
LePhilosopher 2005-06-02 ch 1, anon.	abuseDeep, very deep... know exactly what you're talking about...
Jesse the Storyteller 2005-03-25 ch 1,	abuseTwo typos but other than that it's pretty good =D I love the ending especially. I can see you becoming a good poet someday =)
Raindr0ps 2005-01-19 ch 1,	abuseDon't we all feel like disappearing for a while? ^.^ I liked this one too, and it brings the fact that we all have to come back to reality. Especially when i get in trouble in school, boring i tell you! Nice job
double-life 2005-01-03 ch 1,	abusePretty good! Mostly flows empecably but at times not as good. Great job though
darkpaladin13 2004-12-26 ch 1,	abuseIt's a good poem, I can see a growing poet. It's good, I liked it.
horrible writer 2004-12-26 ch 1,	abusethis is an awesome poem...deep & touching... u rock!

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