Hmm. So, despite the fact that you put your audience as "smack dab in the middle" of adults and children, I think this would make a charming picture book. Your character has a vivid imagination, although I did find it interesting that once the lioness was noticed, she couldn't turn it into anything other than what it was. Perhaps this was more than just a daydream? Anyway, I really enjoyed this and liked seeing where Noe was going. Well done.

So, this was really entertaining and enjoyable. There was nothing that seemed too far-fetched or didn't seem to work, at least in my opinion. This was a great opening, and seemed very cinematic in the way it was written. Good stuff, and I'd love to see more of it.

Wow, I really like this. I admire the way that you give us a sense of horror that seems all-invasive in the scene with the graphic description of the corpse, and then release the tension with something that you would notice at the scene, and feel horrified with yourself for wanting to laugh at. If I had any suggestions, I think that the tagline "Just Keep Livin'," is a fine enough ending. The price at the end seems almost superfluous, and I think that it could be cut without losing any of the...

Okay, this might seem picky, but is your mental institution called Big Spring or Big Springs? It might not make a huge difference in anyone's reading, especially as it seems more to be almost a "throw-away" descriptor, i.e. something that is used to give your character more life and believability but doesn't seem to be a vital part of the plot, at least not yet. Like I said, it's not a huge deal, but it does cause a slight hiccup in my reading. When she is in the meeting with Romblin, he answ...

I'm not quite sure I get the ending. The way it's written, I can't tell if it's meant to be an accusation, i.e. "You're wearing my lucky pants, that's why United is winning," or if it's meant that the pants are having the opposite effect, so he's saying "That's it, you're wearing my lucky pants, maybe that will make United lose." I reread it a couple of times, and i think that it may be the first one, as you make a point of him saying that he can't find them early on. But at first read throug...

There are a few sentences that are too long, but longer sentences tend to work in scenes like this. Thus far, this scene looks like a scene of falling action for the moment, a calm after one storm and before the next. That said, however, this sentence is far too long. The man’s charisma, a man she’d followed for ten years, been the lover of for half that, pulled on Lily, and she wanted to be as sure as he was, but her heart was screaming that this was wrong, and that they had all murdered Sar...

It's really hard to judge this piece based on what you admit is "a very rough draft". I like the ideas behind it, i.e. the rich vs. the poor, and I must admit that you definitely piqued my interest with the words "ability to create traps." I grew up watching movies in the eighties where a lot of the magic came from the montages involving creating the traps and weapons prior to the final showdown, a la Lost Boys. If you can capture even half of that magic with this story, then you've already s...

There really weren't any problems that I could see with your narrative thus far, other than a few of the explanations seemed unnecessary. Perhaps its because I've read numerous other stories that use voodoo/vodun as plot devices, but I found the explanations for bokor/baka/loa/etc. to be almost entirely unnecessary. Also, it kind of creates a hiccup in my reading to see the proper pronunciation of Richard spelled out in parenthesis next to the first usage of the name. If it is important to th...

All in all, I really enjoyed this. Your descriptions of the various phenomena attributable to time-travel was interesting, but I honestly envisioned more of a twist than the one you went with. I mean, sure, the irony is so thick that you could cut it with a knife, but she's still young enough that she could ditch the whole "perfect man" scenario and find another guy. I was envisioning something much more poignant, such as the discovery during her absence that while you appear younger on arriv...

So, first of all, I do like it. Your style allows the reader to believe wholeheartedly in the strange apparition even though even the narrator itself finds his mind revolting at it. Honestly, the only thing I could find wrong with it were minor wording issues. For example, I'm not sure that I like the phrase "the impalement of deity sacrifice". Changing that phrase would require a rewrite of the entire sentence, however, and I can't really come up with a better one in keeping with the tone an...