Ryu's Review

Chapter: "A Lovely Shade of Gray- Chapter One"

Author: sbedwards

Plot: No plot really revealed, though that’s to be expected given it being a first chapter. There are several excellent hints of what’s to come. I do have a concern though, which I’ll cover later on.

Style & Voice: I like her voice and the way she acts, but if since she’s near 100 you might want to consider incorporating some of that age into the way she acts. Since most see her as 33 this could be some interesting hooks there.

Referencing: Nothing noticed out of place

Scene/Setting: I don’t really like university settings to much, I find that they usually get bogged down in the students antics rather than telling the story.

Characters: Hard to judge since we only have the one character so far, but she’s a good one.

Grammar: My own grammar is abysmal, so I wont poke at yours since I usually end up being wrong any way :D

Just My Personal Opinion: There are several thing I noticed about this chapter, one of which for me is the killer. It looks, sounds, feels like an already published book called wicked city (a damn good read from one of the world’s best fantasy/post-apocalyptic authors, you should go read it!!) Now I’ll admit there are some stark differences between yours and Hideyuki’s, but since you’re going a similar route you might want to read his first to get an idea. Unfortunately for me I had only just recently finished reading it so it was fresh in my mind, and found the similarities a bit much.

Also drop the first person all together. This was something I was told when I first joined, and like you I’d written in first person. Though in my case it wasn’t intentional, just the way the story came out. There are a lot of issues that make first person telling a nightmare to work with, especially for a first attempt. You’d be better off with third person, and have Freeman as the narrator, as though she’s telling the story to someone, or looking at her life on the death bed thing.

Also I noticed you slipped from present to past tense on a few occasions, If you stick with first person you must make sure you keep your tenses in the right order, it looks confusing otherwise.

It took to long for you to introduce her name for me. Some people like this style, feeling it adds mystery. I do as well to an extent. But felt you dragged it out for to long. I’d possibly ad a bit when she’s looking for her keys, possibly a miss-spelt name on the door or something. Jst so the reader can relate to the character. You can’t bond when you don’t know who they are.

It lacks any real tension for me. The first part of the chapter while a good read, was weak, it doesn’t have anything that jumps out and grabs the reader by the throat. Then when the demon suddenly appears, it’s like “well I knew that was about to happen”, and the tension you suddenly try to build up doesn’t really work as well as it could

Overall as a first attempt it’s pretty damn good, and the mistakes you’ve made aren’t to bad or hard to fix. Good luck with the future chapters.