The Official Writing Challenge
This article has been read 606 times
Member Comments
Member
Date
11/20/15
Clever use of narrative and dialogue to draw out a great life-lesson.
11/21/15
Clever use of the word stir in this week's topic. I was intrigued how a pitchfork and a compost heap would tie in to the MC lesson of a more fulfilling life. Well done
11/25/15
Good writing.
What a delightful story. I've struggled with that exact conflict. I often refer to the joke about the man and the flood. I'll skip most of it, but the punchline is when the man reached Heaven, he asked God why he didn't help him after he had declared his faith. God answered, "I sent you a car, a boat, and a helicopter. What else did you want?" I had a similar discussion with Jesus when I asked why he wasn't helping me out of my depression. He tod me he'd given me the gift of writing, he couldn't help it if I didn't follow through. Well, to be clear, he could have made me follow through because he's omnipotent, but... Well, you get it because your character learned the same message. I need to be reminded of that again, and your story did just that.

I'd urge you to count how many times you used exclamation points. I bet you'll be surprised. They were all in dialog, which is good, but still in a piece this size, you should have one, maybe two at most. Your word choice is great and does the exclaiming for you, which is far more powerful than punctuation.

The other thing that threw me off a bit was: Lilly cautiously followed her aunt, wondering if her pastor was still in his office.
I'm not quite sure why this is important, but I'd guess you needed to cut some words, and on the floor are words that would explain this. It's happened to me a few times too.

Overall, you did an awesome job on this story. You pulled me in right off and kept my attention all the way to the end. Your message is powerful, and I loved your take on the topic. It was wonderfully fresh (pun kind of intended ;) ).
You left me with a warm feeling at the end. Congratulations on ranking 18th overall! Happy Dance!