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 Review #4539053 |
 | Invisibility  [E] What is worse...being invisible to the world , or just to yourself ?  |
| (4.5)  Welcome to WdC from the "Newbie Welcome Wagon" Good morning, Penelope , and welcome to WdC. For the record, my real name is Jack Tyler, and I am a former steampunk author who has transitioned to horror, but I try to review a wide variety of styles and genres. While I have a few books in print, 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 should explain that I use this review template in which I discuss my views on the important areas of quality storytelling, then compare your work to my own beliefs on the matter. As I said, I'm no authority, but hopefully my comments will give you some ideas to take your writing in directions you hadn't previously considered. Before I pitch in, allow me to offer a suggestion: Put a little of yourself into your bio sections. You will receive much more tailored reviews if your reviewer knows a little about your background and experience level. Let me just drop a warning here, and we'll get started. 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 a 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!  Your story is well laid out, clean and neat on the page, presented just as it should be. I prefer indented paragraphs, but double-spacing is perfectly acceptable as long as they are set off in a clear manner for the reader. I will suggest to you what I do to nearly everyone. WdC's default font is rather drab and very bland, and can present a dense and intimidating wall of text to readers with weak eyesight. Try copying this command line at the beginning of your text: {font:verdana}{size:3.5}{linespace:1.4}. It will make your story look like this review, and I think you'll like it a lot; if not, no harm done, just change it back.STORY: 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. You should note that if you're reading this review, it means you've garnered decent to high marks in this category, or I would have moved on to something more engaging. I will try to explain aspects from characters to grammar, but I don't know how to teach someone to have an imagination, so congratulations; you've done something well already. Now let's examine the individual parts of the whole and see what makes it successful. We'll begin with the story itself, the theme, the flow, the impact, to see what made me stay instead of clicking on to the next one. This is a dark tale of a person afflicted with a terrible inability to interact with life, and I sincerely hope it isn't autobiographical. But you've captured the soul of a person who is excluded from the flow of life in such a way that anyone reading this would think you have a special knowledge of those feelings. I could go on like this for a while, but this is a hell of a presentation, and as difficult a read as the subject calls for. Fabulous work.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? As in most first-person narratives, my comments on the Story also apply to the sole character we get to meet. While not specified, this feels to me like a feminine character, so I will say that she becomes the embodiment of her own story, and sells it powerfully.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? A few ordinary places seen through the lens of our damaged protagonist's eyes is a perfect treatment. Everything feels real, yet nothing intrudes, demanding attention that must be taken from the character. This is beautifully done.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 is so often the case, this fine work has a few blemishes that could be corrected with a thorough proofreading. A few examples follow.There are many instances where you place a space on both side of a comma , like this. I've seen that before, and think it might be common in the writing in Australia, maybe, or Canada? Yet in many other places you use the American style, like this. Whichever way you want them, you need to go through and make sure they're all the same. They cause the reader to stop and question what he's seeing, and that's never good. There are a few typos throughout, for example saddness is spelled with one D, and no one (sometimes with a hyphen, no-one) is two words; Noone is an English surname. Can't find anything else it might mean. SUMMARY:  A very creditable piece of work, and all the important parts are spot-on. I've pointed out a few minor mechanical issues, but I wouldn't get too worked up about that. There are hundreds of books that can teach you where a comma goes; I have yet to see one that can teach you how to have an imagination, and I could find no shortcomings in that department. An excellent piece of work, and I thank you for sharing.I hope that I have presented my opinions in a way that is constructive, and that you will find helpful to your endeavors going forward. It is never my intention to belittle anyone's efforts or discourage them from following the dream that I have found so fulfilling for the last six decades. In any case, if I can leave you with one thought to take with you, let it be this: Don't forget to have the fun! So many young and/or beginning writers get so caught up in the daily word count, the quest for publication, and the often conflicting advice of other writers that they forget to enjoy the journey. You may or may not become the next Big Celebrity Author, but you will always have the experience. Make sure it's a good one! Read well, and write better,  Jack If you found this review useful, and would like to join into ongoing discussions of this sort of issue, I recommend a visit to
 My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
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You responded to this review 03/25/2020 @ 12:12am EDT