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Item Reviewed: "Invalid Item"   by A Guest Visitor
Reviewer: Max Griffin 🏳️‍🌈

                                                             
As always, these are just one person's opinions. Always remember Only you know what is best for your story. I've read and commented on your work as I would try to read my own. I hope you find something here useful , and that you will discard the rest with good cheer.

                                                             
What I liked best
This will be a romance where the female lead is 60 and the male lead is in his 40s. This is a charming divergence for our youth-obsessed culture.

                                                             
Opening
Openings are critical in any work of fiction. Some editors and agents will decide whether or not to read your submission based only on your first sentence.

Your opening is your best opportunity to draw readers into your fictional world, to induce a dream-like state in which your words guide their imaginations. The readers become the author's active partners in imagining the fictional world, in a state of suspended disbelief. In crafting the opening of any story, it's the author's primary task to launch this fictional dream.

Your opening does a good job setting the scene and orienting the reader to the time and place. It answers the basic who, what, when, where, and why questions, but I think it could do a better job putting the readers inside Maggie's head. See the line-by-line comments below for more.

                                                             
Characters
Characters need to have goals: something they strive to attain. The goals matter: something bad happens if they don't achieve their goals. Those are the stakes. Finally, there are obstacles to achieving those goals. Tension arises in the conflict between goals, stakes, and obstacles. Authors increase tension by deepening the goals, raising the stakes, or adding obstacles. Tension is the key to momentum in your novel and to keeping the pages turning.

Maggie and Marshall are going to be the romantic leads, but they are both lacking meaningful goals. Maggie's husband died a dozen years ago and she clearly misses him, but her life seems full with her friends. She doesn't seem particularly lonely, so the only goal in sight is her physical attraction to Marshall, someone she's just seen (they haven't met--they've just seen each other). There's an age difference that might be an obstacle, but what are the stakes? So she's attracted. So why should the reader care about that?

We have an even less clear picture of Marshall. He's a male escort, apparently charging to escort older women. He's attracted to Maggie, but we know nothing else about him.

So, we need Maggie to have a goal. Maybe she's really lonely and doesn't know it. If that's the case, her friends will know it so you could reveal this through their interactions with her. But she needs a goal, and the goal needs to matter. Readers need a reason to cheer for her. We also need a sense of her obstacles.

The same goes for Marshall. Maybe his goals are just to use his looks to make money. That's fine, especially since that gives him room to either grow as a character to become an antagonist.

Oh, there's also Albert, who clearly has feelings for Maggie. He's a bit ambiguous, since he's aware that Marshall is an escort for Maggie. This seems to grind on him, and really that's the most interesting part of the chapter. His goal is clearly to be there for Maggie, even if her "adventure"--shallow as it is--doesn't involve him.


                                                             
Plot
This starts out like one of those romantic comedies from the 1950s--i'm thinking Roman Holiday, for example. You could certainly build an entertaining novel on this kind premise, but see above. We need a reason to cheer for at least one of the characters.

                                                             
Hook
The most compelling hooks are disaster, dilemma, and decision. Ending with a goal, conflict, or reaction is weaker but can be effective, depending on the situation.

The hook is really kind of week. Maggie is going on an adventure with a younger man she finds attractive. As luck would have it, he finds her attractive, too. People will need to read the next chapter to find out how the date goes, but will they care enough about the characters to do so?

                                                             
Style and Voice
third person limited in Maggie's head in the first segment, then in Marshall's head in the second. One small wobble--see the line-by-line remarks.

                                                             
Referencing
Nothing to really mark the era, so this could be anytime in the last 30 or forty years. No cell phones, for example. I'd expect at least someone would be using their phone to take pictures.

                                                             
Scene/Setting
Good descriptions, but they felt a bit like the author, standing outside the story, describing things. That's in part because I felt a little distanced from both POV characters.

                                                             
Grammar
Pretty clean copy. I found a couple of things to whine about, but nothing major.

                                                             
Just my personal opinion
One way to think of telling a story is that it is a guided dream in which the author leads the readers through the events. In doing this, the author needs to engage the readers as active participants in the story, so that they become the author's partner in imagining the story. Elements of craft that engage the readers and immerse them in the story enhance this fictive dream. On the other hand, authors should avoid things that interrupt the dream and pull readers out of the story.

Hitchcock famously said that the audience cares about the characters. The plot, he continued, is there to give the characters something to care about. There's truth to that in fiction as well as cinema. This novel and the characters have lots of potential, but I think more attention to goals, stakes, and obstacles will add some necessary tension to the chapter.

Thanks for asking me to read this, and by all means keep on writing.

                                                             
Line-by-line remarks
Your text is in BLUE.
My comments are in GREEN.
If I suggest a re-wording, it's in GRAPE.
                                                             
On this perfect day in April, Maggie Stempleton’s friends went above and beyond for her almost surprise 60th birthday Party.My Comment: Telling as opposed to showing. Admittedly, this could be something Maggie might be thinking, but we’re not quite fully inside her head yet. For this reason, this feels like a narrator intrusion. I’d suggest giving her some more physical sensations—smells, or sounds, maybe, or internal sensations. Maybe her throat tightens, for example, when she sees Betty rushing about and she things what a good friend she is. Maybe there’s the clatter of dishes being cleared away, or a satisfied full feeling from the lunch. Little things to put us in her head and, at the same time, set the scene. T

Alberts escorting her to any of the functions for granted.My Comment: typo: Albert’s. missing apostrophe

Alberts escorting her to any of the functions for granted.My Comment: typo: Albert’s. missing apostrophe

His deep voice floated over and around her like a warm blanket.My Comment: This isn’t something he’d thing—it’s something Maggie would feel. Thus, it’s a POV violation.

                                                             

I only review things I like, and I really liked this story. I'm a professor by day, and find awarding grades the least satisfying part of my job. Since I'm reviewing in part for my own edification, I decided long ago to give a rating of "4" to everything I review, thus avoiding the necessity of "grading" things on WDC. So please don't assign any weight to my "grade" -- but know that I selected this story for review because I liked it and thought I could learn from studying it.

Again, these are just one person's opinions. Only you know what is best for your story! The surest path to success is to keep writing and to be true to your muse!

Max Griffin
Please visit my website and blog at
http://MaxGriffin.net

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