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 Review #4583081 |
 | 322 Birchbark Road  [13+] A serial killer. Real estate porn. A Sub-Zero kitchen. Another day in the suburbs.  |
| (4.5)  Welcome to WdC from the "Newbie Welcome Wagon" Good day to you, Niv Miyasato , 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. 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 yourself into your bio sections. 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!  I do greatly appreciate the way you enlarged the default font and improved it to one that, in my opinion, is more attractive. Old, tired eyes struggle with the site default, and you have alleviated that problem at a stroke. Excellent work.The knock here is for the paragraphs. They are a necessary aid to the reader, and one we have all grown up with over decades of reading. Think of them as being as important to understanding the story as air is to breathing. You plainly understand what they're for and when to start each new one, but the presentation is the issue here. There are two accepted methods of setting off paragraphs. The more professional-looking one is to indent them. The other is to double-space them. You have done neither here, but run them together. This makes it exceedingly difficult to catch where each new one starts, especially in a long dialogue series. I strongly recommend you do one or the other. Should you choose to use the double-space method, then you'll need to find a clear way of dividing the scenes from one another. The most basic scene divider is a centered asterisk, thus: * But WdC offers over a thousand Emoticons that can be accessed through the Tools tab in the left sidebar. These can be centered to divide scenes and give your page a little extra "pop:"  As you can see, there are many options available to help your text draw in readers, and I hope I've given you a few ideas here. STORY: 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. And this is where you really nailed it. Real estate porn, indeed! You demonstrate a fine knowledge of real estate as well as obscure toxic plants brought together to create a fine thriller depicting a perfectly executed crime. There isn't a lot for me to say about this, as I have no clever suggestions for improving the basic story. This is really a fine piece of work, and come to think of it, I do have one suggestion: Pay a visit to "Twisted Tales Contest" and consider submitting an entry from time to time. If this story is any indication, you have a natural bent for twists.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 astounding. Yes, there are a couple of places that I might have punctuated differently, or used a slightly different word, but it is unheard of for a piece of this length to be free of typos, misspellings, and the like. I already took you to task for the paragraphs, and I don't penalize the same issue in two different categories, so congratulations on a hard-earned five stars.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? Three characters to tell a story, a vapidly annoying couple and the person they annoy who harbors dark intentions. I'm not sure there's a "good guy" here, but the couple is at least innocent. Your villain is delightfully dark and underhanded, putting a great deal of thought into her murderous plot. Rare to see an effective story with no heroic character, but you have pulled it off superbly.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? One beautiful house; what else do you need? There are a couple of brief scenes that fill out the singularity of the main setting, but the house basically surrounds every piece of the action, a silent witness to a despicable deed, almost a character in its own right. Again, brilliantly handled.SUMMARY:  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. You tell an excellent story, and if there was a small issue with the paragraphs, that's easily fixed. You have quite a talent for the engaging yarn, and I hope you have a wonderful journey to wherever it takes you. Thank you for sharing!** Image ID #2234711 Unavailable **  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 11/19/2020 @ 9:46pm EST