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 Review #4611563 |
 | Emotionally Overloaded  [13+] An unreliable robot tries to make a major business decision.  |
| (5.0)  Welcome to WdC from the "Newbie Welcome Wagon" Good morning, BariRandom , and I hope it finds you well. We've done this dance before, so I'll just get right into it. I found this on the Please Review forum, which I take as an invitation to put my oar in, but never lose sight of the fact that 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'll repeat the points from my review template so you won't have to refer back and forth to my earlier review, and with all the disclaimers out of the way, here we go!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!  From font size to indented paragraphs to the easy-on-the-eyes line spacing, this is perfection. I don't know whether my previous review had any influence on your presentation, but everything here is exactly the way I like it. Beautiful!STORY: 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. Ah, yes, a tongue-in-cheek satire of androids in the workplace; what's not to like? With some of the developments coming out of Japan in recent years, this may become a business norm before too much more time goes by; some of our more enthusiastic conspiracy embracers will tell you that it already has! This little tale offers one man's way to deal with them, and a good chuckle besides.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. As good as perfect. I found one instance at the end of the third paragraph where you used a double-dash (--) in place of an em-dash (—). As you used actual em-dashes in several other places, I have to guess that you just overlooked this one during final proof reading. I'm not going to deduct for anything so tiny, but if you choose to fix it, then even the sharpest-tongued nitpicker will find nothing to complain about. Your editing skills are top-notch, and I tip my begoggled patrol cap in your direction!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? Superb choices here. The few other people in the room are empty suits whose only role is set-dressing. The scene is a terse confrontation between precision logic and a meat-bag who enjoys turning that in against itself. No distractions are put forward, not the view from the window, the line on the chart, nor a single word of dialogue from a third party. This is distilled edge-of-your-seat conflict as pure and engrossing as any high-level MMA match.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? Just as with the characters, no distractions. We are placed in a conference room which everyone has a mental picture of, whether from their own life, or countless TV shows, and that's it. It continues to exist around the characters within the reader's head without an extraneous word (read "distraction") being said about it. Everything on the page is necessary to the confrontation, and we are pleasantly immersed from first word to last.SUMMARY:  This is a clinic on the elements of short-story writing, and I thank you for sharing what is, if not a belly-laugh, then a sly chuckle with an old man who may have left the work force just in time. Here's wishing you a wonderful journey to wherever your writing takes you!** Image ID #2234836 Unavailable ** Looking forward to seeing you around the site!  Jack blimprider Tyler My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
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You responded to this review 05/24/2021 @ 6:30pm EDT