Thank you so so much Sharmayne!!!

Haha, thanks Duane, I’m honored. I do come from poetry, so I guess it shows. I entered the challenge to improve my narrative skills. Looking forward to what the next prompt brings, and to reading your next submission! Thanks for your nice words!

Thanks so much for taking the time to read and comment, Jes, and specially for your kind words!

Hi Babette,
I enjoyed this a lot, the inner dialogues are so natural and realistic that I had to laugh when recognizing some trains of thought “She hated the damn dress. She wished she had the same one. She would look awful in it though.” The entire piece is excellent, the way you jump from Susan to Fiona comes naturally and the subtlety of the…[Read more]

Hi Sharmayne,
very clever mix of intrigue and comedy, I love the natural flow of the dialogues, you can hear them talking. It’s written with such ease, and I find dialogues so hard, really well done. I can’t believe you wrote this in a day. Remarkable.

Hi Duane,
a beautiful yet sad read, and a thorough character study I quickly devoured. Very mature voice, great tempo, great choice of words and cliffhangers, remarkable for a drama. I’ll gladly keep you on my radar, congrats for a fine work.

This was so funny and satisfying. ‘Chick-flick’, that is, but you dismantled the bad rep of it as a minor genre with a piece that’s psychologically insightful, every sentence full of spice and bile, I laughed my ass off, good job 🙂

Dear Elaine,
what a great story, so full of tension. Your style is straight and full of nuances, you sound like a very mature writer, specially in the dialogues, I loved this bit: “Natural causes.” He hurries on, “He drank heavily. Very free with his fists. Nearly killed her once. It was touch and go for a while.”

I also enjoyed how you ins…[Read more]

Hi Bonnie,
I was drawned to your piece by its title and I found this clever, insightful depiction of the alcoholic brain and all its dirty tricks, for me personally so close to home, that I had to shed a couple of tears at some parts; it reflects such deep knowledge of the subject “The ache that he lived with never left no matter his state (…)”…[Read more]

I loved this one. Very clever writing. I like the very effective way you present a character with few words:
“Marco grunted, thinking of his wife, who had yelled at him this morning for forgetting to buy milk.”
“said the bellboy, pretending indifference”
“said Fredrico, but he felt a pain in his heart”
They all present the characters as…[Read more]

Dear Amrita,
you got me with the gore warning – a genre I wasn’t expecting from you, and you nailed it. You just keep getting better and better, and have the talent of creating addiction. The athmosphere, the ravens, the ghoonghat, the dialogues, the fog, it all builds up the tension to a glorious ending, and done with such ease, it comes…[Read more]

Hi Jes,
I had fun with your crime mystery, and like others I also felt it plays out like a movie scene. A bit over-explanation of the main character at some points (“People wouldn’t recognize a celebrity”- it sounds a bit forced that a celebrity calls herself one, and that bit of information is easy to grasp later on in the story;
“but I did m…[Read more]

Oh, Amrita, your words of support give me so much energy to continue the work. I know this challenge is also about learning to give/receive criticism, but heck, I love compliments. I worked so hard on this imperfect piece that I need a bit of respite, in the form of a positive comment or two, haha… We keep on practicing, we keep on working and…[Read more]

Thank you Becky. I really struggled with this one, and the character’s motivations lack clarity. Still working on it. Thanks a lot for reading!

Excellent as usual, Bob. So cinematic. It reminds me to the latest Eastwood films. An insane sense of pace and punchy comebacks, it seems like you’re at home in the genre. Always enjoyable, well done.

Hi Beth,
thanks a lot for your kind comment.
My apology is based on the fact that I believe humanity needs a bit more happiness and less darkness, but I guess you cannot force yourself, as an author, to choose a specific subject, as we’re drawn to those that awaken something inside of us that we need to let out. The fact that you don’t find it…[Read more]