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 Review #4620746 |
 | Rhyghts Chp.1  [13+] Chapter 1 with revisions  |
| (4.5)  Welcome to WdC from the "Newbie Welcome Wagon" Good morning, Jray , and I hope it finds you well. I found this item on the Please Review forum, which I take as an invitation to stick my oar in. My reviews are thorough and honest, and while I hope we can be friends afterward, my greater hope is that you become a better writer as a result of our having crossed paths.Let me begin with a word or two about myself. I am a retired steampunk, horror, and crime 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 tell you, remember that the only opinion that matters here 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. 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 an 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!  I'm awarding the full star here, as I can't point at anything and definitively say, "This is wrong." You've used indented paragraphs, which is becoming a lost art here on WdC, even though professional publishers use them exclusively in every book I've ever personally seen. You've also used the default font, which is a very small version of Arial. There is no penalty for using what the site provides, but let me point out something for you to consider: Arial is a very clean, no-frills font, and at the size provided, it looks a lot like the fine print in a used car contract. There are many ways to tweak your font here on the site; this review is in 3.5 Verdana with a 1.4 line-space setting for example. The simplest way to give your story some "pop" is to place the command {size:3.5} at the beginning of your text. If you try it, I think you'll be pleased. If not, just remove the command, and it will revert to its original form.Scenes. This story has many scenes; in Amy's room, in the kitchen with her mom, on the walk to school, the alley, the hospital just to name some, and scenes are usually divided by Scene Dividers, a centered asterisk in their simplest form. There are many scenes here, but they flow so smoothly together that the lack of dividers didn't hit me until I was at Amy's bedside. I went back to work out where they should go, only to find that none were needed. The first-person narrator simply moves smoothly through the story without need for a break. I have to commend you on this. I don't think it ever would have crossed my mind to attempt it. This is really an excellent piece of work, aside from the small, fine print, and I can't say that would bother me if I wasn't an old guy with tired eyes. Great job! 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. I will try to explain aspects from characters to grammar, but I don't know how to teach someone to have an imagination. Let's examine the individual parts of the whole and see what works to make it successful. I'm going to point out one little thing that bothered me at the end here, but first I'm going to say that this is a fine first chapter. It takes an "everyman," a shy kid who's dreading a speech he has to give, and throws him into a high-stress situation to sink or swim. He swims very well, acting heroically, but seeing his close friend shot because of it. He plainly lacks the maturity and life experience that one needs to come to grips with all the emotions attendant upon what's happened, and I see that conflict playing a large part in his character development going forward. Any reader who stays to the end is going to want to see what happens next, and that in a nutshell is the purpose of the first chapter.The little hiccup, and that's all it is, is this: Amy's shot on the way to school, so what, 7:00 AM? Theo takes a bus to the hospital, mentioning the noonday sun, so by the time he arrives and checks in, it should be about 1:00 PM, six hours later. Amy is awake and receiving visitors, so the wound isn't too major, but I seriously doubt that a caring mother, as Amy's is portrayed, would be grabbing a snooze with her daughter just out of surgery. That tiny point grates on the reader, and that's something you never want to do. But as I said, a tiny point that doesn't mar an excellent chapter. And, by the way, Amy very much does want that "misunderstanding" to continue and grow. Another bread crumb to keep the reader reading — it works! 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.  This is an area where nearly every story stumbles for whatever reason, and this one does, too, a bit.Some may come from eye fatigue as you're proofreading, as in, That’s makes feel at peace, hearing those words from her. With the sentence isolated like this, the missing "me" should be obvious. Tip: Proofreading never ends. There's always something else to catch. Do it slowly and carefully until you're sick of your own words. Then do it again! Characters thinking: I'm not aware of any hard and fast rule on this, but if you place internal dialogue in italics, it helps the reader keep track of what's being thought, as opposed to what's being said: Oh no he doesn’t, he isn’t getting away with this! And a trap to avoid: Never say, "I thought to myself." Unless you're writing fantasy about a telepath, who else are you going to think to? Hyphens and dashes: You've used a dash to indicate a character stuttering or stammering, which is correct. You've also used it to indicate a sudden cessation of speech, (“Ah what the-”), which isn't. It's perfectly acceptable, and recognized by publishers, to use two hyphens to indicate a dash -- but here on WdC, you can place a real dash in your text by typing {emdash} — That's what it looks like. Finally, damnit. This one grated on me, and I looked it up; damnit is not listed on dictionary-dot-com, though it could be in some of the more complete tomes. But it just "feels" wrong as the eye passes over it, and I highly recommend the use of "dammit" or "damn it." Strangely, though, my spellcheck doesn't highlight it as an issue. Goes to show the pitfalls of relying on technology, I suppose... I must mention in closing that I don't get your title right now. This is the first chapter of a book, so it may become clear in chapter twelve, but be aware that you need to tie it in somehow before the end. But take heart. I know this looks like quite a list, but this is my 574th review, and most of them display more initial problems than this. This is quite a decent job, and the corrections, should you choose to make them, won't take much effort to accomplish. 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? The main duo (I don't want to say "couple" yet) are bomb! They really drew me in, and I enjoyed experiencing their story very much. Will they become lovers? Spouses? A crime-fighting team? Right now this reads like the opening to a fairly conventional crime story, and I'm okay with that. I'm okay if it become a romance based on shared danger. You mention a love of manga in your bio. I never got manga, but given your writing style, maybe this is the story that could draw me in; I'm always up to learn something new. But no matter where you take it, the dynamics between these two characters have the potential to carry any story to a satisfactory conclusion.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? The settings are ordinary, real-world sites, and you are thus able to sketch "line-drawings" to evoke them. What I mean is, we all have internal experiences of riding a bus, visiting someone in a hospital, and so on. A lesser writer would have padded out the chapter by describing these well-known places in excruciating detail. It's to your credit that you didn't. It's very boring to a reader to have to wade through that, and marks the writer as a name to avoid in the future. Excellent job here.SUMMARY: As you can see, I've pulled a half-star for the mechanical issues, and I think it's justified. Those aspects need a bit more polish. I see the other reviews you've gotten, and I can't imagine what I missed that caused them to give you three stars. Perhaps it's the fact that the story didn't end with them living happily ever after, but this isn't how chapters work. Whatever they think they saw, I don't agree with it, and as you can see by my nitpicking, if I saw some glaring mistake, I wouldn't soft-pedal it. In any case, I thank you for sharing and exposing your work to the slings and arrows of outrageous reviewers, and I wish you a thrilling journey to wherever your writing takes you.** Image ID #2234711 Unavailable **  blimpriderPS: Allow me to turn you on to a couple of fun hangouts. My treat!
 My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
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You responded to this review 07/24/2021 @ 3:31pm EDT