Critique of Dangerous Creatures

This week’s 100 word challenge from Julia’s Place was the most daunting yet. We had to choose somebody else’s piece from last week and write a critique of it.  My first thought was “I really don’t want to do this” and I can really sympathise with TaoChild’s battle of the instincts. It really does feel quite arrogant, as if I believe the quality of my writing to be so superior to everyone else’s that I am able to pass judgement. In fact the opposite is true. I’m completely in awe of quite a lot of the 100 word challenge for grown-ups folk.  However, a small group of us decided that perhaps if we critiqued each other’s work maybe it would be less scary. So here it is.  This is a critique of Anna Halford’s ‘Dangerous Creatures’.

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This reads just like an actual newspaper report, with really good use of the passive voice, witness reports and the alliterative ‘prized pets’. It was also clever to include the title/headline within the 100 words.
The content is delightfully humorous, and the words paint wonderful pictures of this lizard creature behaving inappropriately towards other animals.
The writer may wish to reconsider the size of the creature, as the idea of an animal the size of a large family dog does not seem to fit with it being concealed amongst baggage. However, in my opinion this just adds to the humour.
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That’s the end of my 100 words, but I have more to say. Because I feel that this incongruity adds to the humour so much that I can actually picture a horrified business woman opening her case, only to find that the suit and shoes she had packed for a really important meeting are missing, and in their place is an over-sized aquamarine lizard shouting “Surpise!”