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 Review #4571744 |
 | The World Between Us(revision)  [E] Just a start. Don't know if I should continue or rewrite or give up.  |
| (3.5)  Welcome to WdC from the "Newbie Welcome Wagon" Good morning, Bspr2020 , and I hope it finds you well. For the record, my real name is Jack Tyler, and I am a retired fantasy, steampunk, and horror writer who tries to review in a wide variety of styles and genres. While I have a few books in print, I am neither a famous author nor a renowned critic. I'm just a guy with an opinion that I'm here to share, and if you disagree with anything I say here, remember that the only opinion that matters is yours. I should explain that I use this review template in which I discuss my views on the important areas of quality storytelling, then compare your work to my own beliefs on the matter. As I said, I'm no authority, but hopefully my comments will give you some ideas to take your writing in directions you hadn't previously considered. Before I pitch in, allow me to offer a suggestion: Put a little of your writing experince into your Bio section. You will receive much more tailored reviews if your reviewer knows a little about your background and experience level. Let me just drop a warning here, and we'll get started. THIRD-PARTY READERS TAKE NOTE: SPOILERS AHEAD PRESENTATION: This aspect deals with the first impression your story makes when a reader clicks on the title. Call it the cosmetics. I'll be looking at abstract items from text density to scene dividers in a effort to ferret out any unfortunate habits that might cause a reader to move on without actually reading anything; before you can dazzle him with your show, you have to get him into the tent!  Overall, this is visually everything I look for. The paragraphs are exactly where they should be, and set apart by both indentation (my preferred method) and double spacing. You have used the default format provided, and I won't penalize your score for that, however...I am told that the default font is Arial, but in the size provided, I call it Times New Eyestrain, as at 71 years of age I have to stack two pairs of reading glasses to make it readable. My suggestion is that you add the following command line — {font:verdana}{size:3.5}{linespace:1.4} — at the beginning of your text. That will make it look like this review, and should you decide you don't like it, just remove the commands and it will revert to its original format. MECHANICS: Whether you're writing fact or fiction, prose or poetry, the "holy grail" that you're striving for is immersion. This is an area that no author, myself included, ever wants to talk about: I've done all this work, and you want to argue over a comma?" But those commas are important. What you're really doing as a writer is weaving a magic spell around your reader, and your reader wants you to succeed. He wants to escape his mundane world for a period, and lose himself in your creation. Errors in spelling and grammar, typos, "there" vs. "their" issues, use of words inconsistent with their actual meanings, all yank him out of his immersion while he backtracks to re-read and puzzle out what you meant to say. This is never good, and this is the section that deals with that.  I found some issues that make reading this a stop-and-start affair, which is what you want to avoid. You want your reader to forget that he's reading and live your story, and these suggestions may help with that.Your story begins with internal dialogue: Huh? Where am I? Why can't I move? There are three sorts of passages on the page: Description, the glue that fleshes the story out; external dialogue, the things the characters say to each other which are set out in quotation marks; and internal dialogue, essentially what a character is thinking. It is incredibly helpful to a reader if you mark these silent thoughts with italics. When you do that, your reader doesn't have to interrupt the flow to work out whether the character actually did something, or just considered it. Wait is that light? needs italics, and also a comma after "Wait." ... the be I'm lying on... I must assume that you are lying on a bed. This looks to be a proofreading issue. Proofread any work you are serious about sharing until you're sick of your own words, then proofread it again. Here's a tried and proven principle that all serious writers know: Writing is hard work. If it wasn't, we'd all be on the best-seller lists. If you're serious about your writing, be serious about doing the work. One male and two female ones sounding a bit younger than the other. Odd phrasing; I'd suggest, One male and two female, one sounding a bit younger than the other. A week I've been in the place... Missing punctuation; should read A week. I've been in the place... I'm not going to hammer any more of those proofreading issues. There are more, but I won't deprive you of the thrill of discovery. I will mention the elipsis (...). This is generally used to signify someone's voice trailing off, or as here, missing information that she wasn't able to hear. You've spaced them correctly within the lines, but they are always three dots, no more, no less. Small numbers, i.e., seventeen and eighteen, should be written out. If it would take more than two words, then use numerals: 273,618 should never be inflicted on a reader in words! In summary here, your subtitle says, "Don't know if I should continue or rewrite or give up." First, as a famous author once said, "Writing is rewriting." Get used to doing it; nothing ever came out of the box ready for market. A book is a vast undertaking, and can take longer to polish to a high luster than it can to write in the first place. Second, never give up. If you find that you can't make this theme or these characters "pop," put them in a storage file; years from now you may be working on a project you've yet to think of, and realize that they are exactly what that new story needs. STORY: But those are things that can be fixed with a few mouse clicks. Now we come to the heart of the issue. This is really the basic element, isn't it? If you can't tell an engaging story, it doesn't matter what else you can do, because nobody's going to read it anyway. You should note that if you're reading this review, it means you've garnered decent to high marks in this category, or I would have moved on to something more engaging. I will try to explain aspects from characters to grammar, but I don't know how to teach someone to have an imagination, so congratulations; you've done something well already. Now let's examine the individual parts of the whole and see what makes it successful. We'll begin with the story itself, the theme, the flow, the impact, to see what made me stay instead of clicking on to the next one. Here I have nothing to complain about. The story itself is a grabber from the first line. The main character wakes up in a strange place with no idea how she got there, and incomplete memories of the time just before. She's restrained, but doesn't know whether she's a prisoner or if it's for her safety. She hears people discussing her in the distance. What are their intentions? When she sees them, she knows with certainty that one of them is dead. And what is this strange power that flares up in her hands when she's stressed? This all amounts to an excellent hook, and no one who is interested in this sort of modern fantasy is going to move on out of boredom. Excellent work here.CHARACTERS: This section discusses all aspects of the characters, the way they look, act, and talk, as well as the development and presentation of backstory. Allow me to present "Tyler's Axiom:" Characters are fiction. Rich, multifaceted characters with compelling backstories will seize the reader in a grip that will not be denied, and drag him into their narrative, because he can't abide the thought of not knowing what will happen to them. Conversely, lazy, shallow stereotypes will ruin any story regardless of its other qualities, because the reader will be unable to answer the second question of fiction: Why do I care? I might normally say that Alyssa is underdeveloped, but if this is intended to be a book, she is presented wisely. A book needs to take its time, tease the reader along, and reveal its secrets gradually. If you put it all in chapter one, no one needs to read any further, do they? The same goes for the supporting characters introduced here. All we need to be assured of at this point is that they're going to become interesting, and that's been accomplished in my opinion.SETTINGS: This section deals with the locations you've established for your action, the ways in which they affect that action, and your ability to describe them clearly and concisely. You could say that this aspect answers (or fails to answer) the first question of fiction, What's going on here? Setting can be used to challenge a character, to highlight a skill or quality, to set the mood of a scene without overtly saying a single thing about it, and a host of lesser impacts too numerous to mention. You might think of it as a print artist's equivalent of a movie's "mood music," always important yet never intrusive. All in all, a pretty big deal, then. So how did you do? If you're going for a creepy feel, I can't imagine much more creepy than waking up restrained in a hospital with a tray of surgical instruments next to your bed. You could have started this in a lot of places, but this one really rings the bell!SUMMARY: This story is very much a first draft, and needs quite a bit of work before it's ready for prime time. My opinion is that that work is very much worth doing; you have an intriguing opening here that is well worth pursuing. I suspect that you are around the age of your ingenue, seventeen or eighteen, and when I think back to the garbage I was writing at that age, this looks like higher art. Like all things, you'll get better the more you practice.I hope that I have presented my opinions in a way that is constructive, and that you will find helpful to your endeavors going forward. It is never my intention to belittle anyone's efforts or discourage them from following the dream that I have found so fulfilling for the last six decades. In any case, if I can leave you with one thought to take with you, let it be this: Don't forget to have the fun! So many young and/or beginning writers get so caught up in the daily word count, the quest for publication, and the often conflicting advice of other writers that they forget to enjoy the journey. You may or may not become the next Big Celebrity Author, but you will always have the experience. Make sure it's a good one! Read well, and write better,  JackAllow me to offer you an invitation to visit, and perhaps join, a fairly new group that is building a brand with a unique new contest plus conversations with a number of experienced writers. All we ask of our members is to partake of what interests them, so there's nothing to lose, and everything to gain. Here's your ticket:
 My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
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You responded to this review 09/17/2020 @ 2:27pm EDT