Reviews for Black Barn - FictionPress.com

Reviews For: Black Barn

Written 2008-02-24 ch 1,	abusewow! this was a stunning piece of work. I'm honestly quite impressed. you manage to convey a lot without really spelling it out for us. in other words, you trust the readers to read between the lines, and that's fantastic. very touching story!
justine dayea 2008-01-18 ch 1,	abuseafter a long break, I came back to read some of your works. Lo and behold, I was not disappointed. As expected, you wrote another beautiful piece. It was confusing at the beginning but in the last part wrapped it up. Keep up the good work! -melai
xXTaintedInkXx 2007-12-07 ch 1,	abuseI really liked this. As you read it you get a sense of...I don't know the word, but when there is a hidden meaning behind words? Like I don't know if I am right or anything but for the 'black barn' concept, I understood it to be the evil place by: in these sentences "You’re gonna be good—just like her.” (the grandpa) and "“It only took five days for me to understand what she meant when she talked about the black barn—why she was so afraid of it. He didn’t even wait for her to be put in the ground. I was getting dressed for the funeral and he came into my room and told me that if I didn’t go into the barn with him, he’d beat me." (her) I got a feeling of...sexual abuse? I don't know if i'm right but thats what came to mind. Anyways, good job, I liked how it flowed, and the idea. Great job! ~xXT.IXx
Jessica Hoy 2007-12-05 ch 1, anon.	abuseBeautifully done. I love the use and idea of touching her mother becoming a contagious affliction; it threads the story together. Sammy is a strong and well developed character that you can clearly sympathize with. Even the intro brings together the story starting in the 'now' rather than in the past. Gives the story more footing. Is this really chapter one? Well done. Could easily stand alone as a short story.
bish 2007-12-03 ch 1, anon.	abuseI think it's more clear ... at least her granpa's role in the whole thing. Good story, I think. Good luck.
Honey Beddell 2007-11-30 ch 1,	abuseI think you should break it up into more paragraphs in the beginning. Give it a more abrupt feel/read, kind of like her emotions and the general tone of the first part. Like I would have breaked at "You can't heal crazy." and had it as a paragraph of it's own, starting a new paragraph again at "I pull my knees..." Same with, "We sit in silence ..." Feels like a new paragraph to me. At the end ... the "I feel like talking" .. the punctuation should be a colon. It should be a period. If it's going to be a colon, you shouldn't have the division line ... just maybe some spaces and then the start of her past memory. The division line breaks it off from the previous section, which make the colon useless, unnecessary. "The air is crisp and blows at comfortable 74 degrees, which is just warm to run around barefoot and not return to the house with ice cube toes." -- something about this sentence is just not right. Missing a word or two, maybe? "I ran through the stalks; hid behind the tractor to spy on my brother Calvin who was smoking cigarettes behind the shed; chased Lucy, grandpa’s mean chicken; located our barn cat Tibby and her kittens; and collected dead bugs fallen from corn ears that had been doused with fertilizer two nights prior." -- Not sure what this is all about. Is it stuff she had done that morning, or stuff she normally did on the farm? It just seems like a randomly placed sentence, especially with all the semi-colons. "It's well past lunch any.." the any should be and. "As I walk through the cornfield on my way home, my mind tricks into believing ..." Word missing. "It’s not unusual to see her like this: still in the house coat she put on three nights ago, her brown hair is matted and lies limply across her shoulder blades, which are hunched forward so her back bows." -- somehow I feel like the verb 'lies' should be in continuous tense: lying limply. "She speaks no other words and again forgets that I’m there sanding in front of the place where she kneels picking up pills. " -- typo. "I know instantly that this is wrong because I watch Dad give her medicines every night: only pill one from each bottle and a glass of water poured from a frosted bottle that he keeps in the freezer behind the bagged peas. She swallows the pills with little sips of water and then sits catatonically cradling the water as if it’s the elixir of life until it’s gone and she’s asleep. Now she swallows the pills with nothing but a dry mouth. " -- should be "watch Dad give her her medicines ..." Also, the "she swallows ..." makes it sound like an action she's taking now, than an action she takes every night. Not sure how you can fix that, but I didn't connect it to the girl remembering/thinking of her mom's nightly ritual. I connected it to what they girl was seeing then, until the "Now she swallows..." part. So that is a sentence I think you might need to figure out how to rework or something. The second "something's wrong with mom" is a bit ambiguous as far as who is saying it. I'm guessing it's the girl, but it could be Calvin imitating her or something. "His eyes, as black as our mother’s barn ..." -- How does she know how black their mother's barn is?? She kind of mentions that such a response isn't unusual. If so, why did she even bother? That whole paragraph, for me, doesn't entirely fit. Cause the girl is showing some love toward her mom now and some concern. But I guess it's the narrator wondering more why they always act like this ... and maybe how this time seems worse than the others? misspelled call, when she says she can call Dad. apostrophe is needed in "I am my mother's child." The descriptions are strong. And it's a good story. I think the end part could be a bit stronger. I could see what you meant about trying to get the point across subtly ... I sort of picked up on it. With one line. I am curious to why she's in a psych ward. And why restraints might need to be used on her. Cause she mentioned that she went to get help herself ... so did she check herself into a rehab clinic. I was initially under the impression that she just comes to see a psychiatrist every week. Why the video cameras? Is she really crazy, or just broken down by trauma and shock like her mother?
invisible.writer 2007-11-30 ch 1,	abuseI'm slightly speechless. This was strangely beautiful and the detailed descriptions were so very intense. Your summary of this one I think could be...different. The ending too, I thought maybe could change - it seemed almost too cliche. The slight twist that she lived in an institute was interesting, but not quite strong enough. I also got that feeling that maybe her grandfather had something to do with her fall into insanity but I think that if this is true you should add just one more hint to this or suggest a little more strongly (or i could be off on that). Summary suggestion: The day my mom went crazy was the day she died. I often wonder if I hadn't touched her I would be normal...that I wouldn't be crazy too. Or something to that effect? That first line really stuck out to me.
Faith Adeline 2007-11-30 ch 1,	abuseI liked it, and I liked the ending. I'm a bit confused about why the mother called it a black barn and everything though, maybe I missed something lol. Also, you did a lot of telling in here, maybe you could put in a little bit more diologue so you're showing us more. ( Hopefully that makes sense) Otherwise than that, the tenses seemed good to me, I didn't see you switching or anything, and your grammer was good. Keep it up! Faith

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