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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
A twisty plot with a surpise ending!!

                                                             
General Impression
I'm going to preface my remarks with a general impression.

When I first started to write fiction, I modelled some of my favorite TV shows. As it turns out these were all crime and detective shows. One characteristic of these shows is quick takes between high-energy action scenes. We'll have a shot of the criminal putting a victim in jeopardy, then a shot of the police getting the essential clue to locate the criminal, back to the jeopardy scene to remind us of the danger of not getting there in time, then back to the police, and so on.

This is a really effective way to create and build tension in a visual medium like TV or the movies because the camera is the eye of audience.

But in written fiction, fiction on a page as opposed to moving pictures on a screen, there is no camera. The author relies on the imagination of the reader to visualize the action, and it's the author's job to put the reader inside the fictional world, experiencing it in a kind of dreamlike state of suspended disbelief.

The best way to do this is to put the reader inside the head of a character, and let that characters eyes be the readers' eyes. In fact, that characters and sensations become the readers'.

So, what I see in this story is a potentially great screenplay, but because of the rapid point-of-view shifts it's a bit confusing. It could be a dynamite fictional story, too, but I think it would need to be redone entirely in Seb's point-of-view. It's almost that way already, and it wouldn't take much to make the entire thing in his point of view, which is my main recommendation for the story.

                                                             
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.

This means that you name your point-of-view character and start with him or her acting, doing, or sensing in order to put readers inside his head. Starting with him writing in his journal could work, but we don't get internal sensations or setting that puts us in his head.

When you jump to the next morning in the second sentence, I assumed he was still at home. It was several paragraphs later I learned he was at work, in a police station, talking to other cops. Since my imagination was already working away at him in the kitchen with housemates, this was jarring and pulled me out of the story. Which brings up another thing an opening needs to do, namely answer the basic who-what-when-where-why questions of journalism.

Again,these are minor tweaks that would take just a sentence or two to repair, but they are important as readers parse the story and meet the fictional world.

                                                             
Plot
I loved the plot, especially the conflicted and delusional detective.

                                                             
Style and Voice
This story uses a first person narrator mixed with an omniscient narrator, in which the author stands outside the fictional events, looking in. The author knows the internal thoughts of all the characters; in fact, the author knows everything.

My main recommendation for the story is to keep it first person in Seb's head. That means that when he's not in Ryan's presence, he can only hear what Ryan says to him--the bits that are in Ryan's point of view are outside the range of his other sentences.

If this were a novel, you could alternate between Ryan and Seb, and that could be really effective. But it's not a novel. It's a short story. In a short story, the readers' connections with the fictional world are more tenuous and more easily disrupted, so it's usually best to have just one point-of-new in a short story.

                                                             
Scene/Setting
I think more setting would be helpful. For example, at the start we learn the characters are in a police station from their dialogue. It would just take a sentence or two to set the stage and better enable the readers to imagine their location.

                                                             
Grammar

I noticed a couple of punctuation errors--see the line-by-line remarks below.

                                                             
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.

Most of my comments have to do with the fictional dream.

I really liked the plot of this story. You've got a detective with a long-standing compulsion, a nemesis who keeps getting away, and a twist ending that's creative and original. There's is tension and a satisfying climax. This kind of plotting shows you have great promise, so I definitely urge you to keep 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.
                                                             
“Same M.O. Killed the girl by stabbing her,” he took a deep breath, “ multiple times, left his four leaf clover, and fled the scene. You were working on his case, right?”My Comment: Aha. So, they are police officers, probably at their desks in a common room.

My hand was still shaking. Ryan noticed it, but didn’t say anything.My Comment: How does the first person narrator know what Ryan notices and doesn’t notice?

“Where should we start? Looks like he has a pattern.”, Ryan said turning pages on the file he had in his hands.My Comment: Some punctuation errors. This should read: “Where should we start? Looks like he has a pattern.” Ryan said, turning pages on the file he had in his hands.
{/endquote}

I clenched my eyes, pulled my fist to keep myself together.My Comment: typo: AND pulled my fist...

through you fingers thrice already.”My Comment: typo: YOUR fingers...

“It looks like there is a pattern among the three murders he commits usually.”, Ryan said.My Comment: Same punctuation error in closing the speech as above. When closing a person’s dialog and following it with a tag like “he said,” you end the speech with a comma, not a period, followed by a close quote, followed by the tag. Also, the “usually” seems strange. If there’s a pattern, then by definition it’s “usually” there. The way it’s written, it sounds like he “usually” commits murders, which I don’t think is your intention.

Let’s stake out tomorrow nightMy Comment: What are they going to “stake out” when they have no idea who the victim might be? An entire city street? That would take more than one officer!

Ryan hung up the phone. He received another call.My Comment: At this point, the point of view seems to shift to Ryan’s head?

He opened his maps app to double check his intuition even though he knew it was a lost cause.

I turned around my car to see a man in a hoodie running away. My Comment: This is confusing...the first bit seems to be third person, in Ryan’s while the second is back with our first person narrator, Seb.

                                                             

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
https://new.MaxGriffin.net

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