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Review #4048962
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by A Guest Visitor
Review of The Children  
Review by Charlie ~
In affiliation with SIMPLY POSITIVE GROUP  
Rated: GC | (4.0)
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Hello, 🌑 Darleen - QoD . My name is Charlie and I'm happy to be reviewing this story in correspondence with your recent winning bid in {item:}. Please keep in mind that the following is just the opinion of one reader. I am not a professional and you know your work better than anyone else. If you find something helpful here, use it. If you don't, feel free to disregard this completely. *Cool*



Hey Darleen! I'm stoked to be doing this review and I have a lot to say about your story, so I'm going to deviate from my typical template and I hope that's cool! I know this is the one you're using for nano next month, so I want to get in early and give you my thoughts on it.

I'm also going to email you the notes I kept while reading the story. I'm not sure if they'll be useful to you or not, but they will put you inside the mind of a reader as they're reading the story. You'll be able to see which parts really stood out and if there are other parts you want to put more focus on, you'll be able to see those more clearly. Also, if I got any of the basic facts of the story wrong through misunderstanding, you'll see that as well.

Okay, so, let's get started.


Things I liked:

I loved the beginning of the story. The way it starts out right in the middle of the shrieking, spewing patient and Dr. Red giving her advice that is echoed back to her later in the story was awesome. It's cool when we get a reflection of the beginning in the end.

I felt like you excelled at setting the surroundings and the scene. I could see the things that were taking place because you used such vivid imagery and detail to describe not only the inside, but also Pluto's surface and storms occurring outside. Inside, everything felt very sterile from the marbled floors to the perfectly arranged 'patient' rooms. It was cool because it seemed to reflect the coldness in Dr. Black and Dr. Red's hearts regarding the treatment of the prisoners.

The conflict in Dr. Red's mind was great to see unfolding. I was rooting for the Children by the end of the story. Even though she seemed to have some goodness in her heart about the fact that they seemed like normal, innocent children, she still ended up torturing them and the couple. Her want to do the job was greater than her need to make sure that these children were actually the dangerous beings she had been warned about previously. It added another layer to her character though. She wasn't as coldhearted as Dr. Black.

The best part of all, it was scary! The most unsettling part was when Dr. Red encountered Patient A and asked when speaking of his nearly missing legs, "Why does it look cooked?" That sent a shiver down my spine. In fact, my note on it said 'scary'. *Laugh* I also loved the foreshadowing here: I did not pass this information on to Dr Black. I don't know why. I wondered if it would've made a difference. Now, I'll never know. I knew this was not going to end well.


Potential Issues:

I feel like names are really important, especially for a novel. Call me stupid, but I kept mixing up Dr. Black and Dr. Red. I think because they're both just colors, I couldn't keep track of which is which and had to go back to the beginning to make sure I had them correct. I know that you mention later that they're code names, which is cool, but I would suggest creating code names that would be more unique to each character. I feel like having them as colors is almost like having them as a random four-digit number. It's easy to forget which is which.

I did notice quite a few technical errors, but I don't think those are going to be important as you're doing nano. I know the most important thing to do is to get the words down and do the editing later. There were a couple that tripped me up. I'll just list a few so you can get an idea for the types of things I noticed.

"Probably" He replied as if uninterested in even knowing what I'd even heard. This one has a couple issues. There's no punctuation in the dialogue and then the word 'even' is used twice in a row, which reads strangely.

It look like we were looking from the inside out of a plasma ball. Here, 'look' should be 'looks' and the idea of looking from the 'inside out of a plasma ball' probably isn't the most graceful way to describe that imagery.

Each hooked up to it's matching color-framed section of the console. I noticed this one in a few different spots where it's should be its because it's a possessive pronoun.

"Can I turn up turn up the gas on Chamber One?" Turn up, turn up!! *Wink*

Again, these aren't a huge deal when you're sprinting through nano, but I thought I'd mention them, even if it's only helpful with this short story.

It took me a minute to get used to your writing style, which probably isn't a bad thing. This is just more of an observation. In the beginning of the story, I felt like there were some words used often that didn't truly add value to the sentences. That made them feel overly wordy at times. By the time I got into the story though, I magically stopped noticing it, so that may just be your style. *Smile*


Moving Forward:

Now that we've covered all that, we need to look forward to the future of this story and how you can expand upon it to novel length. I'm most excited about this part of the review! *Laugh* I'm just going to throw my ideas out there as a reader and you can mull it over. Cool?

I really enjoyed seeing Dr. Red struggle with her conscience. I'll admit, I didn't think she even had one in the beginning. When that side of her started coming out, things got complicated. I wasn't sure who I was rooting for, until she decided to go through with torturing the children. I think you have the perfect way to expand this story and make the plot more intricate.

If I were to read a novel version of this story, I would want to see a build up of the torture performed on the children. I'd like to see Dr. Black trying to get an emotional/physical need from the children and I'd like to see Dr. Red be the first to see those signs in the children. She has a weak spot that is clear. She doesn't feel comfortable with torturing innocence. I want to see turmoil between her and Dr. Black as she slowly opens her mind to the Children. I want to see the darkest sides of Dr. Black and I want Dr. Red to see them too. I want her to fear not following through with the torture, whether from Dr. Black or from the council. Perhaps even a team up of Dr. Black, the guards, and the council against Dr. Red and her newfound belief that the Children can be reformed at the very least.

I'd like to see the suspense, tension, and scare tactics (great potential for horror with those) build up to a boiling point. You can let it all spill over into the same ending you have now, where a particularly horrific torture results in the death of Dr. Black and presumably Dr. Red as well. You can go in a different direction with it where Dr. Red ends up killing Dr. Black and upon releasing the Children learns of their true ways.

There are so many places you can go with it and I know you've probably got a vision for it yourself that will do it justice. You clearly have a talent for writing horror and leaving the reader in suspense. I can't wait to see what you come up with during nano for the story. I guess this is where I should cut it. Sorry it's so long as it is. I'll email you the notes I had while reading the story as well because those may help you.




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