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 Review #4558630 |
 Welcome to WdC from the "Newbie Welcome Wagon" Good morning, vedwards, and welcome to WdC. For the record, my real name is Jack Tyler, and I am a retired steampunk and horror writer who tries to review in a wide variety of styles and genres. While I have a few books in print, I am neither a famous author nor a renowned critic. I'm just a guy with an opinion that I'm here to share, and if you disagree with anything I say here, remember that the only opinion that matters is yours. I should explain that I use this review template in which I discuss my views on the important areas of quality storytelling, then compare your work to my own beliefs on the matter. As I said, I'm no authority, but hopefully my comments will give you some ideas to take your writing in directions you hadn't previously considered. Let me just drop a warning here, and we'll get started. THIRD-PARTY READERS TAKE NOTE: SPOILERS AHEAD PRESENTATION: This aspect deals with the first impression your story makes when a reader clicks on the title. Call it the cosmetics. I'll be looking at abstract items from text density to scene dividers in a effort to ferret out any unfortunate habits that might cause a reader to move on without actually reading anything; before you can dazzle him with your show, you have to get him into the tent!  Your presentation is good. Paragraphs are clearly divided, and although I prefer indented paragraphs, I don't penalize for double-spacing, as it is as clear as indentations in showing where they are. I also don't penalize for using WdC's default format, but I do always point out that it looks bland on the page, and can also result in an intimidating wall of fine print in longer pieces; a difficult read for those with poor eyesight that could end up costing you reviews. I recommend you place this command line at the beginning of your story: {font:verdana}{size:3.5}{linespace:1.4}. That will make your story look like this review, and if you decide you don't like it, just remove the command line and it will revert to its original format.STORY: This is really the basic element, isn't it? If you can't tell an engaging story, it doesn't matter what else you can do, because nobody's going to read it anyway. You should note that if you're reading this review, it means you've garnered decent to high marks in this category, or I would have moved on to something more engaging. I will try to explain aspects from characters to grammar, but I don't know how to teach someone to have an imagination, so congratulations; you've done something well already. Now let's examine the individual parts of the whole and see what makes it successful. We'll begin with the story itself, the theme, the flow, the impact, to see what made me stay instead of clicking on to the next one. The story is excellent and compelling. Here is a girl, mid-teens by context, who has somehow gotten herself mixed up in a pact with a supernatural entity which, again by context, seems evil. What lifts this story above a simple anecdotal narrative is the fact that she decides at the end to continue serving this being every chance she gets. With this simple twist ending, the story transforms into something that could stand as an epilogue for a killer horror novel. A brilliant ending, and I tip my begoggled patrol cap in your direction!CHARACTERS: This section discusses all aspects of the characters, the way they look, act, and talk, as well as the development and presentation of backstory. Allow me to present "Tyler's Axiom:" Characters are fiction. Rich, multifaceted characters with compelling backstories will seize the reader in a grip that will not be denied, and drag him into their narrative, because he can't abide the thought of not knowing what will happen to them. Conversely, lazy, shallow stereotypes will ruin any story regardless of its other qualities, because the reader will be unable to answer the second question of fiction: Why do I care? Ingrid is our focus character throughout, although the entity puts in a brief appearance at the end. She is frightened to go forward, yet more frightened not to, which is the beating heart of any good horror character. These feelings are expressed believably, drawing the reader along, and the way the story is told, I almost wonder if you couldn't have made it more effective by using first-person. Not a complaint, though; it's effective enough as it is!SETTINGS: This section deals with the locations you've established for your action, the ways in which they affect that action, and your ability to describe them clearly and concisely. You could say that this aspect answers (or fails to answer) the first question of fiction, What's going on here? Setting can be used to challenge a character, to highlight a skill or quality, to set the mood of a scene without overtly saying a single thing about it, and a host of lesser impacts too numerous to mention. You might think of it as a print artist's equivalent of a movie's "mood music," always important yet never intrusive. All in all, a pretty big deal, then. So how did you do? You could have set this in many places, and had the entity waiting in her backyard coi pond, but having her return to the school dance and decide that she's never going back to that world lends her actions a sense of willfulness and permanence that crawling back in through her bedroom window could never have achieved. Excellent choices here once again.MECHANICS: Whether you're writing fact or fiction, prose or poetry, the "holy grail" that you're striving for is immersion. This is an area that no author, myself included, ever wants to talk about: I've done all this work, and you want to argue over a comma?" But those commas are important. What you're really doing as a writer is weaving a magic spell around your reader, and your reader wants you to succeed. He wants to escape his mundane world for a period, and lose himself in your creation. Errors in spelling and grammar, typos, "there" vs. "their" issues, use of words inconsistent with their actual meanings, all yank him out of his immersion while he backtracks to re-read and puzzle out what you meant to say. This is never good, and this is the section that deals with that. It is here, as in so many reviews, that we hit some little snags. I would deduct a half-star for typos and grammar mistakes, but these are substantive, more "baked into" the narrative.First, there are some odd phrases. A couple of examples: ...suddenly Ingrid could see so much clearer. This is a "clunky" read, sort of a "speed bump" in the reader's flow, and would be smoothed out, in my opinion, by changing it to "...could see much more clearly." ...she halted to a stop at the park’s entrance. Halt means stop, so this essentially reads "she stopped to a stop." Suggest "came to a stop" or "slid to a stop." But the big issue I had was with where you chose to divide your paragraphs. Basically, a paragraph is a continuous dissertation on a single subject, and when you start a new paragraph, you're moving the action on to a new point to be made. Now, some aspects of paragraphing can be pretty subjective, making it hard for anyone to say, "You paragraphed this wrong." But I'm one random reader telling you what one random reader thinks, I think you have way too many paragraphs in this piece. To wit: I would combine the first three into one, and restructure the second two. Had I written this story, it would have begun thus: Wind whipped through Ingrid's hair as she raced down the hill. She couldn’t see much on account of it being midnight. All she could was hope she didn’t crash into anything. The bike kept picking up speed. The clouds covering the full moon moved and suddenly Ingrid could see so much more clearly. The park wasn’t far away now. Ingrid blinked and she was there. Jamming her sneakered feet on the bike’s brakes, she slid to a stop at the park’s entrance. Her dress snagged on the bike seat as she tried to get off. Cursing, she untangled herself and entered the park. Her heart thumped. She rubbed her bare arms, which prickled with goosebumps from the glacial night. There was an unease in the air. Someone or something was lurking in the trees just off the path. She could feel it. Ingrid stared up at the full moon and star-speckled indigo sky, trying to calm her nerves. “Why did you lead me here?” she asked the moon, but she knew the answer. She just didn’t want to accept it. A breeze picked up, making eerie whistling sounds as it passed through the hollow trunks of trees. The boughs of trees bent and seemed to point Ingrid in a certain direction. Ingrid shivered and followed the boughs left. Eventually she came upon a place she recognized: the playground she played on often as a child. At night, the playground seemed lonely and sad, and a little spooky. The swings’ hinges creaked in the wind. The moonlight made the steel roof of the slide shine bright. Ingrid felt that uneasy feeling again. Something shined in the corner of her vision. A small object sitting on a park bench. As she got closer, she saw what it was, and her shoulders relaxed with relief. The necklace. This could be done throughout, but it's your prerogative to decide whether my criticism has merit, and what you want to do if you think it does. One more tiny point hit me as I was formatting your paragraphs here: Is midnight a bit late for a school dance to still be going on? I don't know. It's been half a century since I was in school, but if this point is inaccurate, your modern audience is going to jump all over it. SUMMARY: Overall, this is a good, solid story that kept me entertained throughout, and I thank you for sharing. I hope that I have presented my opinions in a way that is constructive, and that you will find helpful to your endeavors going forward. It is never my intention to belittle anyone's efforts or discourage them from following the dream that I have found so fulfilling for the last six decades. In any case, if I can leave you with one thought to take with you, let it be this: Don't forget to have the fun! So many young and/or beginning writers get so caught up in the daily word count, the quest for publication, and the often conflicting advice of other writers that they forget to enjoy the journey. You may or may not become the next Big Celebrity Author, but you will always have the experience. Make sure it's a good one!Read well, and write better,  JackI read your bio, and most of what you say you like is what I write, so consider this your invitation to click on my suitcase and visit my port. I want to stress that this is not a request for you to review anything; I never request that of anyone. Quite simply, if you visit and find yourself entertained, I would consider that a great honor.  My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
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