INTRODUCTION

Hello Azrael Tseng ,

I am here to do a review for the second chapter of your book "Invalid Item" . This is the chapter where I can see that this was adapted from a more continuous piece, but while I had some doubts about the structure here, the content was still very solid.

So with that being said, let's get right into it.

WHAT I LIKED:

Continuing Praise

Since I'm doing chapter-by-chapter reviews there are a few points that I'll probably hit on repeatedly throughout the process, but I will try to keep them brief. The tone was consistent, the descriptions were very vivid, and I continue to be impressed with the dialogue.


Maturity

This chapter was a little darker than the first one. It suits my personal preferences a little bit better, but I also think it adds a sense of realism. The violence was not shied away from in your description, and there are some darker, assault related themes brought up by the characters.

The one thing that I will say about that was that it was a bit of a strange contrast between the two chapters. The first chapter is warmer, more inviting, and then there are darker adult themes that show up very suddenly. It's not necessarily a bad thing, (in fact if you tried to draw more attention to this contrast, I think it could further illustrate how fragile those moments of peace can be) but it is something I noticed thought I'd mention.




Opening Line

I wasn't thrilled with the first line of this chapter.

“I don’t believe you,” I state with conviction I barely feel.

This is a great line out of context, but starting the chapter with dialogue that continues from the following chapter makes it seem like a really strange place to end that chapter retroactively. My suggestion for this would either be to try and have the entire conversation between Clayton and Melanie in one chapter (although the last line you have for chapter one is already very enticing, I can see why you might not want to move the break) or to add a couple lines at the beginning of this chapter.The fact that there is a chapter break mid-conversation could be a useful tool for building suspense while this news sinks in for Clayton, so why not really emphasize that suspense? Opening the chapter with a line or two about the silence as he processes what she's told him, how he feels in that moment, or what his thought process is could really help it seem like a smoother transition.


Larry

In the last chapter I was really excited to learn more about Melanie's son, as her anguish over not having him in the town was tangible and heart felt, but it almost feels like my wish was answered too quickly? Her mentioning him to a complete stranger and then him immediately showing up unexpectedly seems like a pretty big coincidence. Sometimes that's necessary to keep pacing even, but it wears on the suspension of disbelief in longer fiction.

A couple solutions could be to actually alter Melanie's mention of him back in the first chapter (although it was very effective) so that it seems less obvious. Perhaps she doesn't mention it's her son who has been excluded from The Grin, and then there's more surprise when he calls her Ma. The reader should be able to fill in the pieces themselves. Another option could be to try and change the pacing of how this plays out. Since you have a little bit of room to experiment with, you could add in some buffer time between the conversation and Larry's arrival. (For example, Clayton could stay awhile, perhaps to pay for his drink in some sort of trade, and this could happen on his way out.)

The last thing I'll say about Larry is that his character seems to change very abruptly in this scene. His first couple lines of dialogue he seems tough, in charge, like a traditional Western-style antagonist, but he buckles very quickly, seeming to become almost childlike when asking his escorts for another chance to reason with the mother he was just trying to order around. Since that's all we get to see of him (here at any rate) it makes it hard to get a grasp for his character. I think it might have been interesting to see him keep up his facade of having control for longer, or shown his confidence to be more transparent when he first addresses Melanie.

Clayton


Wait, did I hear that right? This is Dead Man’s Grin? It has gotta be a joke.

I feel like based off the conversation he'd just had with Melanie, this shouldn't have been as surprising to him as it seemed to be. In fact there was a line in the first chapter where he seems to have almost seems to have reached that confusing before.

It sounds like she is talking about the Grin, but all I see is a well-kept bar in a ghost town. Or perhaps I am just getting very confused.

That, combined with her seeming expertise on Dead Man's Grin, being the mayor of the town, and assuring him in her ghost town that the place he was looking for didn't exist anymore, and it seems like this moment was a lot more dramatic for Clayton than it was for the audience.

Perhaps a better a stronger line here would have been something alluding to the fact that, in acknowledging this place was known to be The Grin, the rest of what Melanie said (which he had been so adamantly disbelieving at the beginning of the chapter) was all true.

CONCLUSION:

To wrap up this particular review, the story is still progressing well and your writing style suits the project very well. You're a good storyteller with an incredible amount of talent. My main suggestion would be to really play around some with the structure of the piece. Try to break it up so that having the format really works to your advantage and highlights your work.

All the best,


-Cat
















My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .