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 Review #4817812 |
Airplanes  [13+] Two grounded teens exchange paper planes and fall in love, without ever seeing each other.  |
| Good morning, Ethan Wolverton , and I hope it finds you well. My name is Taylor, and I put most of my effort here into reviewing. Today I decided to check the Please Review page for a story to tuck into, and this was the first offering, so, not to put too fine a point on it, you asked for it!A brief word about me: I'm old, and while I've achieved no great success, I've learned a lifetime of lessons that I'm willing to share. The things I will tell you here are my opinions, and are merely suggestions; I'm a self-taught hobbyist, so take anything I tell you as merely something to consider rather than some profound truth. Okay? Let's get started, then. NOTE TO THIRD-PARTY READERS: POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD! STORY & THEME: This is by far the most important category in any review. If your grammar is poor, you can learn; if your story is physically unattractive, you can fix it with a few html commands. But this describes how you get your vision from idea to page, and I don't know if there's a book that teaches that.  This is a most excellent treatment of two people, unknown to each other, communicating through short written messages. Each makes a profoundly erroneous judgment about the other's gender that will become both comedic and tragic when they finally meet... or maybe they'll just become good friends. There's a lot of room for development, but maybe you prefer to leave that meeting ambiguous. I relate personally with Riley's dilemma, as I was shipped off at 14 to spend the summer with the other parent. Torn away from friends, neighborhood, and everything I knew, it turned out all right and became quite an adventure, but I get that "kid" feeling. You really have less freedom in many ways than a convict.I, too, fell for the gender confusion (good writing, that), and when Mom unveiled her plan to ship Riley off, I was saddened because he wouldn't get to meet Jamie. Once I learned that Jamie was a boy who would hold Zero, with a capital Z, romantic interest for Riley, that emotion disappeared. Not sure how you fix that. Maybe it doesn't need fixing. But Riley is convinced that Jamie is a girl, and refers to him with the "she" pronoun throughout. He is plainly disappointed that he won't be around to meet "her," and will likely take that feeling to dad's house along with all the other baggage. Bottom line: this is a hell of story! CHARACTERS: I learned early on that characters are fiction. Rich, dynamic characters can lift a painfully ordinary story to heights its author never dreamed of. It doesn't work the other way, however; lazy, phoned-in stereotypes can drag the best narrative into the depths of mediocrity. We have Riley and his mom, and Jamie. Riley is plainly the viewpoint character, and we spend a great deal of time in his head. From what I remember, he is the typical grounded teen, pacing his limited world like a caged predator, seizing on any bit of outside stimulation such as a paper airplane with a note. Mom is your typical draconian parent, making life-altering decisions without giving a thought to what the child might want. Jamie is an enigma right up until they unwittingly meet in the grocery store, neither having any idea that the other is their phantom "airplane buddy." These are good characters, well-drawn, and support their story flawlessly.PRESENTATION: What I've considered here is how the story looks on the page. This affects different readers differently. Some will see an unattractive layout and make the assumption that you're lazy or don't know what you're doing. Others see it as no big deal; if the story's good, that's all that matters. I myself will overlook a lot to get to a good story, but I'm going to approach this as a stickler might to give you plenty of information that you can use or not as it suits you. The deduction is for, first, the fine print. WdC recently improved the default font — hard to imagine what it was like before — but not near enough for my lights. When you are a few decades down the road and your visual acuity has faded away, you'll be more likely to appreciate this plea, but for Heaven's sake, make your font bigger! This is like reading the fine print on a used car contract. If you simply add {size:4} to the beginning of your text, all this will be solved. That's all I've done on this review, and you can see the result.The other thing is that when the viewpoint changes between Riley and Jamie, I would strongly recommend that you center the change. The html command is {center}{/center}, and it looks like this: Jamie The way it is now, you have to step outside the story and scan to see whether it's a change or a signature. Good job otherwise. MECHANICS: This covers spelling, grammar, "there" vs "their" issues, anything that might yank your reader out of the flow and send him backtracking to see whether he's missed something. When you write a story, you are weaving a spell around your reader, and he wants you to succeed. He wants to lose himself in your imagined world, and when you drop one of these gaffes in the text, it jerks him out of it. It's as if a stage magician were to drop the prop out of his sleeve in the middle of the trick; the reader is now focused on which pocket the rabbit's in.  The only thing I noticed is that sometimes you change tense mid-sentence, as in this example: I almost say something stupid like 'Hot enough for ya?' but decided to let Hoodie Person live. "Say" is present tense, "decided" is past tense. Unless you're writing about time travelers, you need to keep these the same. Otherwise, no issues.SUGGESTION: This has nothing to do with your story, but is something that can help your work stand out in the tidal wave of offerings here on WdC. Use or discard as you see fit: If your membership level allows it, you should put covers on all of your works. When a reader asks the site to "show me newbies," "show me romance," "show me poetry," or whatever, it throws up a wall of offerings, most of which share that generic quill-and-parchment icon. An individual cover makes its story stand out like a neon sign, and I have to guess draws more eyes and readers to itself. CONCLUSION: overall. This is a marvelous concept marred only by a couple of procedural issues. The story and the storytelling are just great, and I thank you for sharing. It made a great start to my day! I wish you the greatest of success on your writing journey, whatever you consider that to be. Don't forget to enjoy the sights along the way. It's a trip very much worth taking!Stay inspired, Taylor...  PS: Consider this your invitation to visit my blog, "You Don't Know Jack" . You never know what might be on tap... My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
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You last responded to this review 06/19/2025 @ 3:27am EDT