Crosstimbers Review Forum

Item Reviewed: "Evil Assault"   by Bobby Lou Stevenson
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 was a fun story to read, especially this week when Zombies are stalking writing.com! Thanks for sharing!

                                                             
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 story has kind of a long, narrated preamble. The story actually starts in paragraph six, where Junior begins to brew his concoction.

My main suggestion for this story is to find ways to show--as opposed to to tell--the information in the opening paragraphs. For example, he might scratch as the safety pins piercing his neck, and yell and his mother as she nags him about finding a job or whines about his tunnelled earlobes. He might consider getting a tattoo of his squeeze, Red, but decide on a googley-eyed skull instead. When he reads the formula for his Zombie brew, he might move his lips and have to look up words. He might grumble that making a Zombie was worse than ninth grade. Good thing he never bothered with tenth grade. You get the idea. Keep us in the moment as Junior is acting, doing, and sensing. While doing so, you can reveal bits about his appearance, about his relationship with his mother, his friends, and so on.

Making the Zombie brew is the precipitating action for the story. It can also set up the ending. So, by way of another example, you might have him stumble over the word "inflammable" in the recipe, and conclude that it means NOT flamable and wonder why they'd caution about it being NOT flammable. After all, he wants to make a Zombie, not set his victim on fire...the latter showing he's not the brightest sharpest knife in his mother's kitchen. That whole sequence would also foreshadow the ending, especially if he's got black candles smouldering in his room while he works.

                                                             
Plot
I liked the plot...I did make a minor suggestion about yummy treats and brains--see the line-by-line remarks.

                                                             
Style and Voice
Third person, mostly in Junior's head.

                                                             
Referencing
Modern day. I did wonder about 18-year-old punksters trick-or-treating. Is that really a thing?

                                                             
Scene/Setting
Sufficient for staging. I think you've got some missed opportunities by not giving more details of Junior's room.

                                                             
Characters
Junior, his two friends, and Dad the Zombie. Mostly, we get to know Junior, and he's a piece of work all right. The others fit their roles nicely.

                                                             
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.

I liked this story, especially after it really got started. Junior comes to an appropriate end, and poor Dad is relegated to Zombie-dom--until the inevitable Zombie-apocolypse makes him arise triumphant. Thanks for sharing this November morning.

                                                             
Line-by-line remarks
Your text is in BLUE.
My comments are in GREEN.
If I suggest a re-wording, it's in GRAPE.
                                                             
During the wee dark hours of a still October morning, Junior prowled his city’s backstreets in search of a soul to steal.My Comment: This is where the story starts…

All the while, the life Dad knew was slowly being siphoned; My Comment: passive voice…suggest something like the vapors siphoned Dad’s life away.

“Bring back to me, this sack filled with yummies.”My Comment: A zombie’s version of yummies will be brains, right? I’d have Dad murmur, “Brains…” and maybe have Junior correct him…

he grabbed the sack and emptied a cornucopia of sugary confection on the ground. My Comment: I guess no brains for Dad...missed opportunity for a joke

caused his brew to exploded. My Comment: typo—explode, not exploded…also, you might have mentioned the combustible contents of the brew earlier, as a way of foreshadowing. See my earlier comment about "inflammable" vs "flammable."


                                                             

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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