Hello Torin M. Rutledge ,


First I just want to thank you for your formal review request for your item . I know how scary it can be asking for feedback for a piece you're really proud of and I'm glad that you trust me to give you valuable feedback.

What you wrote in your request makes me feel like you're looking for a very specific kind of feedback, so I did away with my usual review template and I'm just going to try and address areas you seemed concerned with.

So let's get right to it.

I think it's really good that you're confident in your writing. You have to be able to sell yourself if you want to get your work out there, and it's good that you're already thinking about things like your marketability and the next step for your piece. You seem to have a good handle on what you want to do, and getting some feedback on your piece before moving forward shows just how rational you're being about reaching your goals.

That being said, I hope you're not offended when I say I think the piece needs some work before submitting to markets. (It also wouldn't hurt to see if you could find some test readers to critique you who are a little more familiar with action fiction and the corresponding markets.)

You asked me about the perspective changes, and I don't think that hurts the story at all - in fact I think that it's necessary to capture all the aspects of the story that you've included. It's a technique I've seen used a lot from some of my favorite writers, and I was impressed by how seamlessly you were able to manage the shifts from perspective. That's something that can be alienating to audiences and disrupt the flow of a story, especially in short fiction such as this. It's a practical decision that was well executed, and I don't think you need to worry about it.

The area I think could use some work is your exposition.

Generally I feel like there should be a higher action to exposition ratio. It's fantastic that your characters have rich backstories, but it often felt like you spent more time informing the reader about the past than letting them see events unfold in the future. I think this was especially noticeable because of it being a shorter piece. This also had a negative effect on the pacing, which already felt a bit uneven.

I hope this has answered your questions about moving forward with the piece. I also hope that it hasn't discouraged you because you have a lot of good material here. The writing itself is vivid, the characters are obviously very well thought out, and I enjoyed the premise a lot.

I wish you the best of luck in getting your writing out to your desired audiences.

Sincerely


-Cat















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