Review on behalf of the Anime and Manga Group
Hiya! Here is your requested review. Sorry it’s taken a few days. I was on holiday last week but I hope it is worth the wait.
I have to say that for such a short piece, it has a lot of issues both technical and structural. The most important issue is the very slow and, as far as I can see, irrelevant start. The first two paragraphs seem unrelated, in the grand scheme of things, to the plot and only serves as an enforced tour and history lesson for the reader of Paris. Now it’s great that you either have been to Paris or done your research but forcing all this information on the reader, unless it has an actual bearing on the plot, is not advisable. You could, possibly, get away with it if those two paragraphs didn’t start the novel, but, as it is, if a reader were to pick up your book and flick to the first page in a book shop, it would be back on the shelf before they hit the plot line. That first paragraph is extremely important and needs to act as a hook, and few readers will be hooked by an enforced tour of Paris which they could read about in a guide book, should they be interested. You need to look hard at it and either cut it down substantially, or remove it all together and just start at the point the van stops and is set on fire. Just because you have the information does not mean you should include it.
The truck moved methodically with its load meandering through the bends of the Quai du Marche Neufup and turned right into the Place du Parvis, the center of ancient Paris.
You need a comma between “load” and “Meandering” otherwise it is the load which is doing the meandering and not the truck. Also you use the word van at one point and truck in another. As far as I know the two terms mean slightly differing things and are not interchangeable. A van is completely enclosed where as trucks have open backs. Might want to decided which your vehicle is. It sounds to me like you mean a van with a trailer, in which case you should stick with that throughout.
This was the square directly in front of Notre Dame Cathedral’s west facade, of which construction began in 1200 by Bishop Eudes de Sully and was eventually finished shortly after 1240.
Is it really important for the reader to know that the Notre Dame Cathedral’s West Façade construction began in 1200 and finished in 1240? Does it add anything to your novel? If not then cut it out. If the reader is interested then I’m sure the have access to Google. Don’t clutter your writing or your plot will become lost in your history lesson.
Right before the Portal of Saint Anne, the oldest of the three west entrances, it cut left while going 15 kilometers per hour across the cobblestone plaza.
Again, is it in anyway important to know the van was travelling at 15 Kilometers per hour?
Dwarfed by the imposing structure, built as the Parisian church of the kings of Europe, the van passed the third portal that of the Virgin Mary as the driver pulled a lever on Point Zero, the precise center of Paris, and the trailer uncoupled with the drop leg at the front making a soft thump as the van continued on.
This is a very long sentence. You would do better to split it down into separate sentances as below:
Dwarfed by the imposing structure, built as the Parisian church of the kings of Europe, the van passed the third portal that of the Virgin Mary. The driver pulled a lever on Point Zero, the precise center of Paris. The trailer uncoupled with the drop leg at the front making a soft thump as the van continued on.
The trailer sat there in front of the mighty limestone house of God. The Virgin and Child looked down upon the trailer as they stand in front of the large rose created in 1225 at the center of the facade.
Tense confusion here. You have “the trailer sat” and then “the Virgin and Child looked down” and then that they “stand” to make sense “stand” should be “stood”.
She took off her coat and starting beating the flames while yelling, “Au secours, au secours, au secours!”
Again here, tense confusion. “She took off” and then “Starting beating” It should be “started beating.”
The kings of France, including Philip IV, looked down on this spectacle as the calm night air was now filled with smoke and the unmistakable smell of gas.
You don’t need the “was now” it adds nothing to sentence and impedes the flow. I would delete the words all together into “the calm night air filled with smoke” or you could substitute them for “had”. “The calm night air had filled with smoke.”
Anyway, over all, I feel your opening is slow and suffers severely with info dumping. I, personally, would delete the first two paragraphs up until the point where the trailer is released. If you don’t want to do that then at least look at my suggestion above for things you can cut back on. Be aware there are more that I haven’t pointed out so you will need to look at each line and ask yourself if it is in anyway important to the plot.
I can’t really comment on character development as we don’t really meet any, which probably isn’t a good start for a novel. I would suggest properly introducing at least one main character so the reader has someone to connect with.
The plot, however, once it gets going is intriguing and brings ups some questions, who were the people burned and why were they burned etc. This is a good start to the plot.
Anyway, I hope this review helps you. Good job so far and keep it up.
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