2004-03-10

3:44 p.m.


Tear-Fucked

Read This Diary

CONTENT 60/70
This is definitely some heavy stuff. Nancy Drew fanatics might want to stray away from this diary, because it's devoid of a lot of the lighter "fluff" that clouds up most pages. Tear-Fucked is the outerbody experiences of a girl dealing with serious substance abuse issues. Of course, that's not to say it isn't enjoyable (I don't think that's quite the right word to use in this situation, but oh well). I found that I could actually immerse myself in this diary, and the author's feelings, which is hard, because heavy emotions like these are very hard to convey in a genuinely moving way. I guess this is because the entries here are written in the third-person perspective, which allows the reader to see and experience things almost exactly as they happened. There's no I or me to be found. I find that most people are terrible when it comes to writing in the third-person, because they come off as annoyingly arrogant, or painfully boring. This, however, was neither. Because it's written in a third-person voice, it allows individual readers to get their own perspective, without getting interrupted by a lot of the emotions of the author. It's a real collaborative experience.

I really enjoyed the very first entry in your archives, Lemon Coke. The repetition of "She cried... she cried..." was great here--you show a lot of emotion in just a few simple words. Sometimes the entries would get a little too heavy, but that's bound to happen from time to time. Other times, I found that you were treading into typical teenage territory (I take it you're a teenager?), fighting with your mother, etc, etc. That didn't make for spectacular drama, but hey, not every thing is going to be be A-list material.

Spelling was off in certain spots too... Nothing too major, an extra e hanging off one word, or a missing s on the end of another. If you'd run a spell check over your entries, you could fix all of that without any hassle.

STYLE 8/10
I'm giving you props for your originality here. Not only do you write with a third-person omniscient voice, but you've managed to express that voice very eloquently. The details are rich, and the dialogue really helps the "storylines" along.

DESIGN 7/10
Although I'm really not too fond of the color scheme (It reminds me of a really bad mixture of Pepto Bismol and Dimetap... But that's just me), this design is fully-functional. I can basically point and click my way throughout your diary without getting frustrated or blinded by a horrendous number of rings or blinkies. And I'm really liking the "click and drop" effect you've got with your navigation boxes on the left hand side. It really keeps the page clean, and lets your readers focus on the important part of your diary, the actual entries. This layout would be great if there was some visual moment across the page. Don't get me wrong; the boxes are great for organization, but they don't do much for spicing up your diary. If you're familiar with programs like Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro, you can add some simple design elements that will add more interest to your background. Heck, even a simple program like Paintbrush would do the trick.

You could also stand to change the colors of your links. The dark plum color works well enough when put against the lighter shade of purple, but all the words get lost whenever the links are visited, because they change to gray. If you do nothing else, reduce the strain on my eyes and change the color! There's almost nothing worse than not being able to read what you've put on the page. The same thing goes with the title of your diary... Why is it written in black when the entire background is dark purple? I had to highlight the text with my mouse to make sure I was reading it correctly. Granted, without my contacts, I'm blind as a bat, but that's still no excuse. Didn't you ever color with crayons or markers as a kid? If not, I'll lay down a few foundations for you: Dark print does not work well with dark colors. And inversely, light print does not work well with lighter colors. If you make simple mistakes like this, you might as well be writing in invisble ink. The whole message gets lost, and your readers get a headache.

NAVIGATION 5/5
Like I said, those boxes work like a charm. Good choice here.

FREQUENCY 2/5
Where in the world have you been?! You haven't been really steady since past December... You need to pick up the slack here!

posted by April at 3:44 p.m.
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