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 Posted: Thu May 06, 2010 6:57 pm
The following is my entry into Valkyrie-Chii-Chan's JFashion Contest:
Quote: Butterfly PrincessBy: Brenli Dolores gazed at all the little black dots she'd left on the page of her journal. She found herself stuck at the end of one stanza: Spinning, she is
a swirl of soft white petticoats
black curls fading into deep red
rose petals andDolores crossed out the last line and tried again: butterflies andDolores crossed out her addition, a sigh leaving her gentle, pink lips. Frustrated, but only by a tiny bit, she leaned against the tree she sat under and shut her eyes. The poem should have been easy... a picture made in words of her favorite past time, and her favorite dream when she couldn't partake in that pleasure. Simple. Days in her grandmother's garden. During the spring, butterflies of so many types would flutter about, delicately sipping from the irises, resting on the deep red roses... She would visit her grandmother in only her finest dresses: black and red, with a touch of white. A tiny red and gold crown cocked off to the side... and her hair done up in two curly pigtails, black fading into red. Her grandmother would call her a princess and share tea with her, but Dolores best liked to run and dance in the garden, with all the butterflies softly floating about her. She would laugh and bask in her bliss: The sun. Butterflies. Loose flower petals getting caught in the wind. Her perfect bell-shaped skirt swirling around her. Her rocking horse shoes barely touching the earth for all her dancing. A light blush would touch her face, and she would become more than a normal girl. More than Dolores. She would spin and, in a swirl of white petticoats, a black and red dress, black and red curls... She would become the Butterfly Princess, dancing with her happy and gentle winged friends... “Dolores...!” Dolores jumped up with a gasp. Her worried hands moved to smooth out her bell-shaped skirt. “Yes, Grandma?” “The macarons are ready, now! Won't you have some, with me?” “Oh! Yes, Grandma!” Thus the Butterfly Princess left her winged friends, but only for the moment.
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Posted: Mon May 10, 2010 1:29 am
A very cute image. The lolita fashion is kind of fun, too.
'gentle, pink lips' seems a little overdone. It's also passive. You vary between passive and active voice; it would flow better to have one voice. Passive is also out of vogue currently, so you might do better with active voice the whole way though.
It's a pastime, or pass-time, not past time. *nitpicks*
She has more than one black and red with a touch of white dress?
'A light blush . . .' is also passive voice.
And they are macaroons.
Lovely overall, with good concrete description.
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Posted: Mon May 10, 2010 9:15 am
Thanks so much with the critique! heart Do you have any suggestions on how to make the passive voice more active? Voice has always been a sort of problem of mine, I think. Any tips and suggestions would be appreciated! Also, I meant macarons as in these. Macaroons are yummy, though; I will say that. xd
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Posted: Mon May 10, 2010 12:51 pm
Oh, those look completely delicious.
To make passive voice active, the easiest thing to do is to have her doing things as opposed to things happening to her. 'She blushed' as opposed to 'a light blush . . .'
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Posted: Mon May 10, 2010 10:33 pm
Okay, thanks! Such a simple tip, and yet this seems to happen in my work a lot, to be honest. I'm gonna have to be more careful about this! Thanks again! heart
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Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 12:44 pm
CRITIQUEBrenli The following is my entry into Valkyrie-Chii-Chan's JFashion Contest: Quote: Butterfly PrincessBy: Brenli Dolores gazed at all the little black dots she'd left on the page of her journal. She found herself stuck at the end of one stanza: Spinning, she is
a swirl of soft white petticoats
black curls fading into deep red
rose petals andDolores crossed out the last line and tried again: butterflies andDolores crossed out her addition, a sigh leaving her gentle, pink lips. (Personally, I don't think the words you've used add much. A little cliche.) Frustrated, but only by a tiny bit, (Too wordy, "A little frustrated".) she leaned against the tree she sat under and shut her eyes. The poem should have been easy... (Personally, I think ";" rather than ellipsis would work better) a picture made in words of her favorite pastime, and her favorite dream when she couldn't partake in that pleasure. (her favourite thing to do was spinning? Why couldn't she do it?)Simple. Days in her grandmother's garden. (Do you mean "Simple days"?) During the spring, butterflies of so many types would flutter about, delicately sipping from the irises, resting on the deep red roses... She would visit her grandmother in only her finest dresses: black and red, with a touch of white. A tiny red and gold crown cocked off to the side... and her hair done up in two curly pigtails, black fading into red. (Odd colouring. Is it dyed hair?)Her grandmother would call her a princess and share tea with her, but Dolores best liked to run and dance in the garden, with all the butterflies softly floating about her. She would laugh and bask in her bliss: (I don't feel that the colon is correctly used here. If you are creating a list then include what you're listing in this paragraph.)The sun. Butterflies. Loose flower petals getting caught in the wind. Her perfect bell-shaped skirt swirling around her. Her rocking horse shoes barely touching the earth for all her dancing. A light blush would touch her face, and she would become more than a normal girl. More than Dolores. She would spin and, in a swirl of white petticoats, a black and red dress, black and red curls... (You've already described this). She would become the Butterfly Princess, dancing with her happy and gentle winged friends... “Dolores...!” Dolores jumped up with a gasp. Her worried hands moved to smooth out her bell-shaped skirt. “Yes, Grandma?” “The macarons are ready, (comma not needed) now! Won't you have some, (comma not needed) with me?” “Oh! Yes, Grandma!” Thus the Butterfly Princess left her winged friends, but only for the moment.
There are some grammar issues throughout which I've tried to point out (I think phantom may have too).
You do have some really beautiful descriptions but you just need to touch up on the wording so that everything sounds much clearer.
Good job.
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Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 1:52 pm
YAY, more critique~! Thanks, elemental! Definitely helpful; just dropping in to say that yes, Dolores' hair is dyed. I should also point out that I failed to comment that her pastime of spinning and dancing in the garden isn't something she normally does because it is considered too childish - an issue many lolitas run into, and this is an entry in a Japanese fashion contest.
Again, definitely realizing thanks to these critiques that I should have put it through editing for voice and grammar a couple of times before submitting it. Unfortunately it's too late for me to do that for the sake of the contest, but these are helpful reminders for me - these are hurdles I need to overcome! Thank you~! heart
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Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 2:59 pm
I do that frequently Brenli. I don't really take contests too seriously, it's really the challenge of writing something for a set date sometimes with a prompt. biggrin
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Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 3:59 pm
Mmm, well for me, personally, the challenge of the Jfashion contest was that all written entries HAD to be less than 1 page in length. Now, that's absolutely no excuse for the errors in my entry, but it definitely had an effect on my judgment. There was a lot of cutting I did, and oddly this piece wasn't anything LIKE what I was initially going to write. xd The original idea was to try to chronicle Dolores' getting into lolita fashion, but that turned out to be too broad of an idea for me to work with, at the time and with the constraints.
I will say, though, that technically the deadline isn't until May 25-27. eek I have, however, been feeling very rushed. I'm looking for Oakland apartments, LA apartments, LA/Burbank hotels/motels for a cousin's wedding... xd So much to do. I wanted to get the contest entries done and out of my system as fast as possible, as a result. I can definitely tell where this was my downfall, now! xd
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Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 9:53 pm
Real life can swamp you like that sometimes. biggrin At least you gave it a go, and I quite like it when a story sneaks up on me like that.
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Posted: Wed May 12, 2010 10:55 pm
Me too~! Hahah, well I guess that now I just have to hope that I win - oddly, I seem to be the only one who has entered the Jfashion contest. eek As someone who's only just started getting into contests, I have to say that the experience has been... interesting. ALL of the contests I've entered have had so few entries and I'm starting to wonder if that's normal, somehow...?
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Posted: Thu May 13, 2010 10:40 am
Brenli Me too~! Hahah, well I guess that now I just have to hope that I win - oddly, I seem to be the only one who has entered the Jfashion contest. eek As someone who's only just started getting into contests, I have to say that the experience has been... interesting. ALL of the contests I've entered have had so few entries and I'm starting to wonder if that's normal, somehow...? They seem to go through phases. At the moment, short story entries a few and far between despite there being so many writers. I can only assume many don't want to write for gold, they want to write for money. biggrin
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Posted: Thu May 13, 2010 4:32 pm
xd Makes sense... if Gaia gold got us food then I suppose they're be a LOT more incentive!
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Posted: Thu May 13, 2010 10:13 pm
lol. Yes indeed! I think there's also there's this fear of people poaching ideas that doesn't help...
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Posted: Sat May 15, 2010 7:26 pm
Mmm, I can understand that fear also... In particular when it comes to work for a full-length novel. I might - MIGHT - be able to get over someone stealing the basis for a short story, but a full-length novel? Oh lordy, I will be up in arms in .000001 seconds.
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