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Old 09-07-2013, 02:30 AM   #6
Certain
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This isn't as polished as some of your better writing. (I thought your verse against me in the league was the best you've dropped, even if the results were slanted.) But that rough exterior is mostly just that. I'll give you some full-verse breakdown feedback:

Quote:
they say god will save you...from the hell he put you in.
vagrants with hands out stretched?...those posing
n looking to grasp...I ask how much? you say its not for sale
Breaking rhyme on the very first couplet is generally a bad idea because it throws off the reader from the onset. It's good to establish that you know the rules before you start breaking them, if that makes sense.

The opening line was very good, though. It definitely pulled the reader in. The metaphor of the second line wasn't developed well enough. It didn't seem to jibe with where this verse was going.

Quote:
as I reveal my gaffs...you scream loud "stop the vale"
so you steal, cheat, borrow sins to get the upper hand
while I play to the rule so as to not bite THAT hand
and the world crumbles around me as the pews get soaked
in rain water from the hells of Lucifer he himself choked
from the eyes of the angels; he claimed he was provoked
Similarly, there are a lot of good ideas in this section that never connected. "Stop the vale" is a very awkward turn of phrase, and we don't have the full context to understand why it would be screamed, so that was jarring and seemed like a forced rhyme.

The writing is particularly clunky in the "while I play to the rule" line. I understand where you were going, but it read almost like one of those really lazy battle lines, like, "He couldn't handle this, while I do just that to him." Something like that. That's not a good example. Clean up your wording to be more direct in those kinds of cases.

Another thing that would help to clean up is line breaks. "He himself choked from the eyes of the angels" would have been smoother all on one line, separate from the thoughts before and after. Anyone whose opinion is worth a damn at a board like this is smart enough to catch a rhyme even if it's not at the end of the line.

Quote:
he says he offers freedom from the tyranny of those holy
he says I won’t regret it and I should be honored he thinks I’m worthy
offering endless amounts, giving all of himself for all my whims
with a sarcastic grin…here take it he says...down here it’s not a sin
Your imagery could have been stronger here, but I liked that you went head-on into a story-telling mode. In this kind of verse, it would have been easy to wander around actually getting to the heart of story telling. More specific images really help. "A sarcastic grin" hasn't really told us anything unique about this character. It's not as though any of us actually know what the devil looks like.

Quote:
to give in to temptations within you is the meaning of being HIM
why should he be the only one to touch the sun and kiss the sky?
he gave me eternity and I turned it down for freedom of, I.
shun for my views...I see only what he’s created as a reminder
that obedience is much kinder.
The rhymes get really weak here, almost as though you gave up on them entirely. And you backed away from the story telling a bit in the process, when that's what made your approach more unique. The first two lines in this quote, though, are pretty cool and could have fit. The last three are more plain and serve little purpose. Still, it did move it well into the next phase of the story.

Quote:
he tries his best to push his point of view across
whether its subtle or blatant like a TV show on fox.
a constant offer for so called freedom of ones self
a chance to live like him...lost in an egos desire for wealth
wealth of knowledge, riches with a decadent health
the opportunity to delve head first into ones own body
and pull out the deepest desire to light, its in fact godly
to be equal on mount Olympus with Zeus' lightning bolts
to run with the clouds in a defiant pose hiding faults
This part did very little for me. You were simply describing what making a deal with the devil means, in generic and cliché terms. The plot you seemed to have wanted to build is, at this point, pretty much irrelevant. We don't know anything grounded about your narrator beyond his principles. This section almost worked to dehumanize the narrator, though, which is a problem. We have no idea why he has these fundamentals or what this offer means contextually.

Specifics reinforce emotional connections in writing. It's difficult to make real connections without a sense of the stakes and the players and without details that make them real to us, beyond shapeless and personality-less entities.

Quote:
you will not be judged he said you will not be judged
take my hand, together we will skate along the razor edge

he offers the ultimate sin to the masses…freedom
hes in plain sight you don’t need glasses….tsee’em
offering a choice….few refuse
disguising his voice…few refuse
most don’t view his spiteful eye when he tucks them in at night
few refuse despite the fact… the devil offers for the right price
in what path he should begin your demise.
Given the rest of the verse, it made sense to take the broad-base approach to ending this. But I think the first couplet in the above quote forms a strange transition into that general worldview of the final stanza.

Overall, I'd say the most obvious issue for you, across this piece and other, is the simplicity of your rhymes and schemes. Building off the rhymes actually can help take content to better places, as you adjust to that style of writing. Come up with an end to end concept, as you did against me, and then try to address it with stronger rhymes.
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