empty words

[Linsey]

one of the few things i've wrote in a long while. i'm finding it really hard to write abything decent. hope you can offer some constructive crits and help me get back on some kind of track, writing-wise...
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doorstep kisses;
"its been nice having you round".
colloquial pet names.
it had been perfect.

holding hands
on the back seat of the bus.
shivers and nostalgia;
it had been so long.

you're the king of empty words.
when you're done with speaking again,
i'll turn the letters into empty boxes,
and use them to store the memories.

months between
the first lies and the truth.
it came out without
you knowing,

or saying a word.

months again.
i'm still feeling the same;
asking you if you are
still in love.

you're the king of empty words.
when you're done with speaking again,
i'll turn the letters into empty boxes,
and use them to store the memories.

[Linsey]

aaanyone? :S

[TojesDolan]

Yeah, I'll go to class and give you a crit. Tomorrow or later today. :)

Thanks for yourcomment darling. :)

[Sloth]

first off, thanks for the crit :thumb:

Ok...I really like the way you wrote the first stanza. There are TONS of other ways you could have done it, TONS of ways to make it terrible. But you didn't do it like that. You could have said something like, "We kissed on my doorstep, 'I love you pooky', we were perfect back then" I don't know. Ha, pooky the first thing that popped in my head. So I like how you didn't get 14 year old love song -esque on us.

holding hands
on the back seat of the bus.
shivers and nostalgia;
it had been so long. This..This.. I don't like this. This is just what I was talking about.

you're the king of empty words.
when you're done with speaking again,
i'll turn the letters into empty boxes,
and use them to store the memories. This, for some reason, I like. I've seen these same ideas a lot, but for some reason, I like it here. Maybe it's just the flow I had/have going on in my head...


Over all, the piece is nice. I like it.
(ha, this is my sum up and it sucks...sorry)

[Linsey]

thanks for the crit.. yeh that was my least favourite stanza. any ideas on improving it?

thanks again.:thumb:

[Mr. Ron]

one of the few things i've wrote in a long while. i'm finding it really hard to write abything decent. hope you can offer some constructive crits and help me get back on some kind of track, writing-wise...
----------------------------------------


doorstep kisses;
"its been nice having you round".
colloquial pet names.
it had been perfect.

holding hands
on the back seat of the bus.
shivers and nostalgia;
it had been so long.

you're the king of empty words.
when you're done with speaking again,
i'll turn the letters into empty boxes,
and use them to store the memories.

months between
the first lies and the truth.
it came out without
you knowing,

or saying a word.

months again.
i'm still feeling the same;
asking you if you are
still in love.

you're the king of empty words.
when you're done with speaking again,
i'll turn the letters into empty boxes,
and use them to store the memories.
I like it.

[slack]

I like the simplicity of this. This part,months between
the first lies and the truth.
it came out without
you knowing,

or saying a word.

months again.
i'm still feeling the same;
asking you if you are
still in love.which I assume is verse two, is underwhelming. I suggest rethinking it, perhaps cutting some or all of it, because it doesn't really deserve the space it occupies. There is something better to say.

The chorus is superb, though. Good job.

[Surf]

nice crit mr ron. care to elaborate?

i think the piece suffers from being too distinctly split between two halves. on one hand, there's something of a more mature relationship and it's inherent issues (months between/the first lies and the truth.), whilst on the other, there's the nostalgic, somewhat childlike relationship (on the back seat of the bus./shivers and nostalgia), which is in my opinion more interesting.
now you could either split one off from the other, and write an individual piece for each, or better yet, combine and develop the two halves more, so that the become symbiotic metaphors, i.e. one half informs of the other, e.g. a problem experienced by the child lovers could reverberate and give insight into the current, mature relationship. like flashbacks in a film.

sorry, this isn;t a line by line crit, i was just thinking of new directions you could take this. i did like a good deal of this though, so don't get the wrong message.

[Linsey]

thanks for the crits guys. much appreciated.

yeh, i feel i need to make the distinction clear between the two halves. either that or scrap the second (use it as the basis for a different piece or something)..

the reason that there is the contrast is that the second half relates to now, and how its been months since things happened between me and this person but i still think of them... still wonder why it ended as i was never sure. the first half is memories of those times we had months ago.. when even then, there were memories from months before that.. if that makes sense.

do you think, perhaps, that the best thing to do would be to separate the two? ie. have one piece about the memories, and another about the questioning.

or would it be better to work on this more and make the transition/contrast more effective, and work on the second verse to make it less "underwhelming"?

thanks again for your help.

any more crits are welcome! :thumb:

[TojesDolan]

I could've sworn this was going to be a lot more abysmal. :-0

To begin with, the subject has been written for thousands and thousands of centuries, yet this sounded fresh for a reason. This is decent, indeed. Let me give it a closer look to find crap:

doorstep kisses;
"its been nice having you round".
colloquial pet names.
it had been perfect.

holding hands
on the back seat of the bus.
shivers and nostalgia;
it had been so long.

I see no problem with the first stanza. Despite the lack of flow between lines, it seems to work as separate ideas merging into one stream of... consciousness.

I'm almost certain it's "in the back seat..." But I'm not sure.

you're the king of empty words.
when you're done with speaking again,
i'll turn the letters into empty boxes,
and use them to store the memories.

The first two lines are not very... tight. The last two are awesome, but the first two, you should make a comparison with something that's as hollow as this "king of empty words".

months between
the first lies and the truth.
it came out without
you knowing,

or saying a word.


Hmmm. The thought comes across but it's not very well presented. I think the space is completely unnecessary and untold for, but whatever floats your literary boat. On a second thought, it is simple, but I don't know, this could be exploited in a vast way. Rephrasing.That would complicate things, so what your little heart tells you will work in here.

months again.
i'm still feeling the same;
asking you if you are
still in love.

you're the king of empty words.
when you're done with speaking again,
i'll turn the letters into empty boxes,
and use them to store the memories.

Well, you've advanced quite a good mileage, why not remake the chorus into what you've come across with time? What I mean is, change the chorus into what you've discovered of this "kingof empty words". That should give depth and a more conclusive finish to the piece.

It's overall good, but what I did was merely nitpick. Overall it works alright.

[Linsey]

thanks alot.

yeah, that idea for the last chorus couldnt have come at a better time really.. i've only just sort of come to that turning point of moving on.

i will revisit this piece over the weekend and take your crits on board.

thanks again.

[Surf]

do you think, perhaps, that the best thing to do would be to separate the two? ie. have one piece about the memories, and another about the questioning.

or would it be better to work on this more and make the transition/contrast more effective, and work on the second verse to make it less "underwhelming"?

the second one, but maybe use the 'memory' style verses o throw some light on the 'current' verses. i.e. try to show a little problem develop from an old memory, into a big problem in the present.

and then do the stuff tojes suggested, he got a lot of the problems i couldn't quite place my finger on