I think that this works as poetry. The use of electricity as analogy is interesting, with its flows, resistance, and pnp “gates”. Inductively, this may have a relationship to Science, and hence science fiction, but without reviewer notes, it's hard to determine what you wanted with this. Good poetry, possibly misplaced. The only thing that really didn't work for me was: _The board is broken_ _by welded connections _ I don't really see how connections break something.

A large collection of haiku. I'm not entirely certain what you are looking for. Personally, I find many of them don't touch me. _Serenade_ is an exception, since though it doesn't seem to have the cadence of haiku, it actually comes closer to the essence of it that connection with nature, and the surprising elements nature can reveal. _Blackberry Winter_ was another nice one, but _Crossbow+Dad=No-bow_ is an example of the ones I find didn't work for me. They are either so caught up in interna...

Hi Jay, You say this is not intended for critique, but it appears in the queue. Since the only means of getting it out of the queue is to do a review, you are asking for reviews. You know that this is a valuable message. I'm sure others have mentioned it, and that help for writers is what was intended. It's not fiction, it's a non-fiction piece written as hints or question/answer. You're putting it here to force people to read it. My only real comment is that a lot of this is not strictly abo...

Yes, a good beginning. It grabs the reader's attention and holds it, though the description of Havi and the Wolf are a bit inactive. I like Havi, and he has my sympathy. I can feel his curiosity and fear. I'm engaged straight away. _His small arms wrapped around his body in a protective manner and his head moved from side to side as he checked for any signs of danger._ - This is what I mean about being descriptive. You could have said. “He wrapped his arms around his body, as if that would pr...

I enjoyed the essence of this, the notion that the first six lines are fantasy, the last line revealing a yearning soul. It puts the title in context, and adds emotional depth. On the down-side, lack of punctuation was irritating, and made me re-read sections where hyphenation was left out. The lines themselves: evocative, calling up subtle imagery of the south, images that exist but are pared of conflict and modernity, to some degree, pared of reality in favour of ideals. I liked the inheren...

General comments: I can't tell you how this will work with your other parts, not having read them. :( The story has potential, but you will have to do some serious re-drafting to bring it out. Overall, the sections from Alice's POV were reasonably active. The story has inherent tension, though you will have to work to keep it from being cliché. Sudden crashes of alien crafts have featured in many stories and movies. It will be interesting to see how you develop this one. The major issues I se...

I liked the concept, the feeling of the poem, but tripped up on a word or two. There didn't seem to be a set meter, so I wasn't sure why lines like _but someday soon you now will go_ weren't simply "but someday soon you'll go". It may be simply that I'm not saying it right. Overall, I liked it.

General impression is of descriptive prose, mostly well punctuated. Yet some of the description is weakened. Phrases like - _constant clattering rattle of the wheels on the rails became a rhythmic “clack-clack, clack-clack,_ - would probably have been stronger using one set of imagery or another (the "constant clattering", or the "click-clack"). Overall, you paint a picture, a good thing. Hints, like Pete, his cigarette, and the term "pup" create impression, but I want detail. Most strongly,...

General Comments: You asked reviewers to “give it to you”. I do so in a spirit of constructive critique. Reading this as the beginning of a book, I don’t know if I’d buy it or keep reading. “White girls kidnapped by foul-mouthed black men” is a theme too likely to descend into cliché. What might hold me in is a really good rendering of her emotional state, and an emotional state more interesting than “Oh my god! How can this be happening to me?” Unfortunately, that’s not what I get. The cluel...

You have a good sense for engagement and drama, basic prerequisites for a storyteller. It is, generally, the technical things you need to develop. I will mention that “Teenagers enter a supposedly haunted building on a dare” is a *very* heavily used plot device. You'll have to really work to make this interesting, and to introduce real suspense. Do what you can to inject a novel approach, and stay away from other “standard” props and plotlines. One way to do that is by making characters a li...