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Review #4846401
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Bill Hawkes's Revenge Open in new Window. [18+]
Old Bounty-Hunter has debt to settle with fearless outlaw Clyde Smith. Feedback accepted.
by kadenkoker Author Icon
In affiliation with The WDC Angel Army  Open in new Window.
Rated: 18+ | (4.0)
Access:  Public | Hide Review (?)
Greetings, Kaden. I'm here as requested to review your story.

Overall, this is a gripping, gritty ride through the old Wild West, where the only law is a gun, preferably two or more. I honestly don't exactly care for this type of work, and I'm afraid I won't have that much to offer.

A general overview of story structure shows you did pretty good there: you have goals, stakes, obstacles, and motivation, with tension, moments of stillness, and action scenes. Your descriptions are strongly visual, like a movie. Perhaps a bit more of other senses such as smell and taste would balance it out some: the sting of brush smoke, the sunbaked dirt of the desert, the softness of the horse's hair against the rider's face if he leans forward, the flavor of liquor (whatever that might be...) Etc.

The scores being settled are manifold, and you did pretty good balancing the characters in such a way that they felt real, without oversimplifying the situations. One of my mentors, Max Griffin 🏳️‍🌈 Author IconMail Icon, recommends focusing on a single viewpoint throughout the story, which would mean instead of moving from Bill's PoV to Clyde's, we should see everything through Bill's eyes from beginning to end. This works best with short stories; I know one guy, Jack of Diamonds Author Icon, who scoffs at the "single viewpoint" style and brings us around to different perspectives and characters as his stories unfold. I always assumed, indeed, that multiple PoVs was the default, particularly for longer works and series. You can do what you like; this story works fine the way it is, I would think.

(You can reach out to either of these guys and ask them nicely for a review; I know Jack would love to read it, and Max might be busy but he'll probably be able to do a review. They're both great mentors, though their ideas differ. Just tell them I sent you *Smile* )

I noticed a couple minor details that seem to derail the realistic quality of the work. First off, how exactly did Clyde take Bill's eye? If he got shot in the eye, the chances of his surviving that are close to zero, as we see when the horse goes down. Second, a missing eye seriously affects one's ability to accurately aim a weapon. Are you aware of the importance of human binocular vision? Bill should at least cite his loss of depth vision as a reason to avoid fighting when the mayor shows up. The bandits could perhaps doubt his ability to shoot straight anymore, putting themselves in more of a position of vulnerability than they might have otherwise. The protagonist's lack of an eye should play a more vital role in the way the story unfolds, rather than just "being there" for effect. Also, a knife kept on someone's person wouldn't be large enough to hack off an arm, if I read that correctly *Pthb* That would require something more like a sword.

On the technical side, your eighth sentence into the beginning needs to be italicized as inner monologue. Your paragraphs run together as well; I highly recommend using double spacing, though some people prefer using the {indent} function. Also, you should make your font size larger than default. You can do this by adding {size:4}{font:Verdana} to the beginning of your text. Another point would be to add a word count at the bottom of the item, in case there's ever a contest you might want to enter with it. Word counts are always a good habit to get established from the beginning, that way you don't forget at the crucial point when they're actually required.

Also, are you fully aware of all the fun stuff we can do with our proprietary markup language? On the left sidebar > writing.com Tools > Writing ML Docs and Help, it lists all the features of WML that can be used for highlighting, tucking away notes, and other functions.

Take care, thanks for sharing, and keep writing *WingL**Heartv**WingR*


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