Short Story / The Loving Lion

Interesting story. Is there meant to be some kind of Oedipal undercurrent flowing through this piece?

The tenses seem to waver in a few places eg when “Goron concedes” should it not be conceded? Also, we have George and Grace which are recognisable names and then Goron which doesn’t seem to fit with the other two.

“Upon Goron uttering those words, George became enraged” feels a little clumsy. George became enraged at Goron’s words is simpler and more straightforward.

Haha, I liked this story. It began kind of slow, but picked up. At the end where George said, “Now that I have proved myself to you by kicking your ass, I will always have much more respect for you..” it made up for it.

Getting scratched in the eye must hurt, that part made me cringe. Good storytelling though, I like how your write.

Upon first reading your story, I thought the lion was being used in a metaphorical sense and the jungle being the City. Of course, reading on I discovered this was not so. I do like the fact that you used animals to convey significant morals (we’re never too old to learn or to be humbled and respect works two ways).

However, I think you contradicted the virtue of humbleness. Towards the end of the story George says this:

“Dad, you don’t know how much that means to me. You are the best father in the world. Now that I have proved myself to you by kicking your ass, I will always have much more respect for you and never fear you.”

By telling his father he kickked his ass, George becomes as arrogant as Goron. But overall, I thought it was a good story.

Keep up the good work

Mm, I guess there is a sweet story of acceptance and love somewhere in this, but it seems to be hidden by the dialogue, which is quite cruel.  I also think there’s too much of it in this piece.  I feel it would be better if you narrated more of it and let the reader imagine for themselves what the dialogue was like.  Also, some of the sentences are a bit rushed, such as ‘shedding massive amounts of tears’.  I’ll leave aside the fact that lions can’t cry, this sounds a little bit juvenile.  A lot of this story, in fact, sounds juvenile.  Didn’t enjoy it much at all.

• add/view comments (1)

February 18, 2007

by Glistening

personal info reviewer stats

No. of Reviews	Overall Quality	Comment Followup
113	66.7% (15 votes)	28.0%

Age	Gender	Location	Last Login
24	F	Stockton, CA	March 06

Juvenile can be good—I mean, are you against juveniles? I take that as a compliment, quite frankly. Thank you for your kind review.

You must login to the site or create an account in order to post a comment.

I was left wondering what kind of audience has this been written for? The language used in dialogue was very adult, however, it was written almost simply. I did like the idea that seemed to be behind the story, that love is stronger than most “lions” know. I only have a few suggestions. There are a couple areas in the dialogue where no punctuation is used to close the sentence. For example, “I guess I just misunderstood what great sensitive love is really all about” needs a period after “about.”
I found the dialogue in the beginning a little confusing. The mother was speaking to the son and then speaking to the father and the son was eavesdropping? I think the transition could be smoothed with a little action between these two conversations, as well as clearly depicting who was speaking to whom.
In the sentence, “He emerged from his bush and pounced on his father with a furious attack that he had never known he was capable of.” It says that the young lion was unaware that eh was capable of such an attack. I think the surprise would have been more on the father’s part. You could try changing “he had never known,” to “neither of them had known,” to include that father in the surprise.
Instead of “he screams,” use “he screamed.”
Overall, I found this to be a very imaginative piece. Keep up the good work!

it seems strange to have the name goron among those of george and grace.

I would consider not using fuck in this piece. it is hard to believe that the same lions saying fuck also use sissy and wussy. those sound ,ore like child words not that of a lion.

I would going over this again and making some significant changes to it.

The fight should probably be written differently as well. Instead of just saying it how it happened maybe try saying it differently. Example: “When his dad was finally able to throw George off of him, he screams, “What the hell is your problem young man?” Try:  As George was thrown from his fathers back he could him scream “What the hell is your problem young man?”  

Try to re-word the sentences so they aren’t all saying what happened. Try to use some description to.

I would say this needs some work. re-write it than post again.

Why am I reading this is not clear. I very much prefer subtler things and this story just seems to be too obvious. Even if it would be story for children I would disagree that is at all captivating or with a moral to which I could adhere. There needs to be more of a context to be able to judge a story better. As is…not interesting.

This is just weird.  Lions using slang is unheard of!  It’s like some dysfunctional Lion King family.  If you choose to continue, have Goron thrown off a cliff or trumpled by a herd of wild beasts.  A hug is just not a good ending.