I liked this. It was simple but captured a real moment of intimacy with the dog and illustrated the depth of affection between you both. Perhaps you could change the last line of the second verse to "only you know why" I think it makes the dog sound more enigmatic and less dumb.

Wow! This was a very mature work. There was a real sense of the deep bond this couple had with each other, beautifully illustrated with your choice of language. Nice foreshadowing in the first paragraph with "we are falling together." The only place I think you slipped is when Ofelina says: "I'm sorry for the shit that I've put you through." The word shit just seemed jarring to me and it felt out of character. Still, its a minor criticism. You should submit this to a literary magazine if you ...

You make a decent fist of scene setting in this first chapter. I assume all of these disparate personalities are now going to be thrown together by the explosion that just happened. You've managed to give each character a distinctive voice and you make a nice juxtaposition of how others see them to what they are actually thinking. You've also managed to create mystery by including the bomber in the narrative. There are some lapes in tense eg "he was hoping against hope that the idiots at Hend...

This poem doesn't really seem to go anywhere. The simple rhyme scheme is ok and is probably appropriate for the type of sentiment you are trying to express however the end result is confused and seems to be more about making it rhyme than making it make sense. I'd be tempted to move the third and fourth lines to the start and then have lines one and two. "my love for a child stemmed from long ago" doesn't make sense to me. Are you implying that you wanted a child for a long time? If so, this ...

Despite the massive clue given by the title I was completely blindsided by the ending of this story. It began in a very stream of consciousness kind of way which I suppose reflected the conversation with the child - having an eight month old baby this section had quite a lot of resonance for me! I liked the use of repition (the alphabet song. "going up the mountain") which helped develop the them of circularity. I also liked the slightly melancholy ending which, like I said, suprised me. Crit...

Your synopsis sounds interesting although I think you try to pack too much in so simplifying it might help. For example the part about a former bullying victim returning as a teacher seems redundant not to mention slightly cliched. By all means keep that plot strand but it seems secondary to the main narrative the way it is currently written. You could do with some editing at this stage. EG In the first para "...screamed the grossly overweight driver as he rose with great difficulty from his ...

I found this piece to be rambling and incoherent. There is potentially a good set up with you unable to sleep, flipping through tv channels and reflecting on your relationship but the execution feels painfully self conscious - like you're trying to hard to make this sound like "proper" writing. The point of view wanders all over the place. My advice - Stop. Go back and write it again and this time be honest about your emotions and let that come through in your writing. I would utilise a dairy...

As you say this is a draft so you already know that it could be tightened up a little. I'm also writing this as I read each page so I may write something only to have it contradicted by something later. The first paragraph is overly descriptive imho and should be streamlined. For example you mention he is coughing frequently then the next sentence you mention he is choking. Similarly with the second paragraph which talks about his eyes - I would maybe lose the part about trying to cleanse out...

There are some very good turns of phrase and nice images here but by the end I was left thinking "what was the point?" My own personal opinion is that you could really develop this idea a lot further than you have at present. How did he die? Why had nobody found him for nearly a week? Your narrator doesn't seem to have much of a connection with the dead uncle yet muses endlessly on his death - surely he must have made more of an impact to trigger such a response? On a nit-picky note - you use...