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 Review #4258547 |
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| (4.0)| A CHAPTER ONE REVIEW Sponsored by the NEW Novel Workshop The opinions contained in this review are subjective, with intent to be honest and helpful. Please take that which you find useful, and toss the rest with good cheer. Greetings S Ferguson~ Prepping for Prep I am reviewing "Invalid Item" today as part of the "The Chapter One Competition." .THANK YOU FOR INCLUDING OUR MANDATORY PHRASE, "HAPPY SWEET SIXTEEN, WDC!" IN PARAGRAPH 17! OVERALL IMPRESSION While there is potential here, and some definite moments that shine like the very beginning, the overall pacing to me is a little slow. I think this stems from it being very "telly" towards the center. What I Liked Best: The beginning. You did a fantastic job at captivating my attention and tugging at my heartstrings. You had me from the start. WRITING SKILLS AND CRAFT Opening Sentence & Paragraph: I like this quite a lot, but I think it could be tweaked to be stronger. Some suggestions: Take out the "I remembered..." Bring this into a more immediate focus and remove the filter. Something like: The first time I saw something that broke my heart, as well as my spirit, I'd found a baby laying with it's dead mother. It was too weak to cry... etc... but in your voice. Plot: Plot is fairly clear. I'm am unsure why a bomb being dropped on DC would end the entire country though. Is there something else at work here? I feel like between FEMA, the National Guard, Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, police, FBI, CIA, state government they would have been able to pull the country back together even if it took a little time. What else happened to get them to this point? Character Development: I have a fantastic sense of your main character. You've really breathed life into him and I can sort of feel him present while I was reading. Dialog: What little dialog there is works. Spelling & Punctuation & Grammar: A couple things: "He won't leave her. I tried to feed him." She added, holding a bottle in one dirty hand. I looked at the milk in the bottle.  NEW PARAGRAPH HERE It probably wasn't safe for the child to drink it anymore. The outside was caked in blood and mud, the sister doing her best to wash the nipple smeared the mud to an opaque brown. "Thank you sir." Her smile was tired but strong, she would survive as long as she could to take care of that baby, just as her mother had. NEW PARAGRAPH HERE I tried to smile back but it came out more like a grimace. Reaching into my back pack I took out some granola and two bottles of water. Handing it to her she looked scared, her eyes darting around as if the moment the food left my hand someone would snatch them away from her.Yet there had been so much death that the bodies started to pollute the water supply, ??they started to home disease ridden animals,?? it was death breading death. I'm unsure what this means here. They were doing this on purpose? That's how I'm reading it. There was a stench coming from the opposite side of the fence and if I wanted to see these peoples dead neighbors I would couldhave looked over the fence. I think could is more appropriate here. He could have looked over the fence but he didn't. They were going to cut his cut his hair. http://owl.english.purdue.edu/ http://www.grammarbook.com/english_rules.asp Continuity: This works well. Story progresses well, it does start to get a little telly in the middle, a little info dump. Perhaps mix a little more action in? Show us him walking through the country side, or city, or wherever. The bulk of this is our MC talking/telling the reader about what happened--very little actually happens. Try to bring some of the telling into the now and show us what's happening to improve the pace and tension a little. Clarity: The big question I have is what else happened beside the assassination and bombing to cause this? It sounds like there might be some illness going on. I'm also not sure how the lakes were polluted. Small ones, yes, but the big ones... That'd take a heck of a lot. And what about the rest of the world? Hook: Post-apocalypse USA. CLOSING STATEMENT I liked this quite a bit. I liked the quiet, steady feel of the MC and the heartrending opening. Is this going to be three POV's or just through Knox as he searches for his brothers? As is, I would read on.  
 My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
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