12/23/2009 c1 Ernest Bloom
this is not a story but an essay that morphs into a

parable, or rather, into a parable-lite. no doubt

because of the length restrictions, you've reduced

your usual care with detail into vague generalizations;

e.g., the filth, etc. i don't think the story would

have suffered much had you simply cut off the first

quarter or so and used the extra space to heighten the

detail of the rest. i'd add that i don't find your

parable to be too believable, that all the world is

darkness, and i don't think you believe it either,

judging by your other stories. this strikes me as one

of those stories that is not really a story at all,

but is preliminary thinking for a story you have not

yet written.

9/7/2009 c1 15Denizen47
This is really excellent. Where many others have struggled with handling the religious overtones with tact and clumsily ruined it, you've managed to toe the line between the personal struggle and annoying preachy.

A very compelling story, a journey reminiscent of CS Lewis or Dante Allighieri. I liked how you used the various characters and scenario's to depict the different types of unbelievers and tied it into the struggle to remain a good person despite that.

So... yeah.

Brilliant.

9/6/2009 c1 Wildblumen
This story is one of the perfect attractive ones in the contest, I may say.

Also, i've noticed that you've got a problem when it comes down to writing one-shots - just like me - because your piece has exceeded 20 words like mine...Speaking about that I'd like to tell you that the prologue of my piece has increased the number of the words, to exceed 20 words, and the problem is that I couldn't do anything more than reducing the words, I hope that it'd work this time, and I hope that Frac will not do any unwanted thing about yours too:)

Wildblumen

9/5/2009 c1 1k+Faithless Juliet
It was thought provoking, good job!

Honestly, this wasn’t even in my head to put in here until I read you a/n, but now that you mentioned it, I noticed it. You talk about how some of the paragraphs were shortened because of word length, and I did notice some of that. Your introductions to the characters are very short, and almost immediately after we meet someone they leave and we meet someone else, so it did make it hard to keep track.

One thing I noticed is your use of hyphens (-) when you use it to show another thought; example “We were looking at the boat - I could see it had sails…” you want to leave a space between the hyphen and the second word, (boat- I) or two spaces, like I showed above. What I noticed you doing is this: “Looking at the boat-I could see” the only time you’d want to use it like that is if you were connecting two words, like: “Mary-Ann” is a good example. I hope that makes since…

Like I said I enjoyed your story, I like all of the philosophical references placed throughout, and although the shortness made it a bit cryptic at times, it was none the less enjoyable. Keep up the good work, and good luck with WCC.

Much love,

Juliet.