Author: Mrs. Nixie Clause  
Reviewer: Cobe 
Hi,  I'm here to give you a review for your winning package! Since I've never reviewed you before I'll tell you how I go about it. First, I read through making notes as I go along in green. Then I go back and look for editing issues of dialog, voice, grammar, etc and correct those in red. Once I'm done with that, I'll fill out my form at the top and make suggestions.
I typically look for ways to clean up wordiness and maintain voice.
Anything highlighted in blue is your original work.
 General Impressions :The idea behind the story is interesting and engaging and unique. I like the thought of the twins sharing this "other" world and using an outside force, like lightening, is a good catalyst, but using lightning or electricity to force the change is a little cliche (been done a lot).
 Favorite Parts : The images she has of her sister's space.
Characters :Kiska - protagonist ... A writer with a dead twin sister ... although I only know that because it's in a side note to the publisher.
Peerless - a cat
Jude - dead twin sister that appears to her after a lightning strike
While the characters are fine, and you don't want to get hung up in details about characters in the beginning, they need something about them to make them unique. I have no idea who Kiska is other than a writer with a dead twin sister. With Jude we get a little bit of poking at her sister which gives us a little insight into her character.
Hook: This is great. Having your character questioning what in the world is going on compels the reader to keep reading to find out.
Plot : I'm not really sure yet where this is going.
Setting : A house ... this could really be boosted a LOT. We get more knowledge of what the dead sisters imaginary world looks like that we do of the real world.
Dialog : This needs some work. I was confused a lot of the time as to who was saying what. Make sure each character has their own paragraph and that beats and tags are linked with the correct dialog.
Voice: First person ... but you lapse into omniscient and a lot of this is passive with you telling us the story instead of showing.
 Suggestions:
1. I won't mix words here. I dislike prologues. If the information is important enough that the reader needs to know it to understand the book, then it needs to be in the book. If the information is not important to the reader understanding the book, then why put it in in the first place?? Unless a prologue is only a couple of paragraphs, I don't read them at all in published novels. Most people don't. I would seriously look at how this information can be incorporated into the story if it needs to be there.
2. Your character Kiska seems to try to explain everything ... without actually explaining them and it makes the prose wordy and interrupts the flow of the storyline. It almost seems like you're not sure that the reader will understand why your character is doing what she is doing so you added a phrase to explain it. You don't need to do that. It's confusing and becomes redundant. Let your character do things and let the reader assume why.
The whole finger in the mouth thing was bizarre. I think you were trying to make it that water conducts electricity and somehow intensified the reaction of the lightening ... but she would have to have licked her finger before she touches the light switch for that to happen so the whole water subduing pain doesn't make sense.
We do need to hear her thoughts, but those should be emotionally driven things. Things like "I wish my sister was here." or "Why did Jude leave me alone to figure this all out?" would give us insight into who Kiska is and what her emotional state might be. "Water subdues pain" doesn't help us understand her at all.
3. Is the portion to the publisher supposed to be a synopsis? Query? summary? First, it doesn't go in the prologue to the book. Second, it's really confusing because it doesn't tell us what is happening in the book. Personally, I hate writing synopsis. Every time I go online and look up examples, find one I like, and use it as a template for my own.
Grammar: Nothing glaringly stands out.
 Line-by-line:
For the publisher
Kiska Romanov's twin sister, Jude, died one year ago. When she reappears as a supernatural force, Jude sets out to alter her sister's life to bring about one outcome—the saving of a boy named Quentin. Knitting realities together, Jude ensures Kiska's unfinished novel is published by Lightning Enterprises. The next morning, Kiska receives a phone call from Mr. Ryker, infuriated because the names of his private staff are characters in the novel, Lightning Strike the Soul.
Kiska knows her sister, Jude, is responsible for the 'breach in security.'
Mick Ryker's a domineering man who never takes no for an answer, even when Kiska can't divulge the truth. Mick's keeping his past from Kiska, and her quest for answers pushes him beyond endurance. To save him, Kiska must move beyond her ordinary life and accept the reality of Mick's alien existence.
"You won't find normalcy here, and you're too afraid to believe in what you can't see." He whirls around and faces me. "So, leave. Just leave like you've wanted since the moment you arrived."
Guided by her sister, Kiska enters the Collective Unconscious to find her lover. Will she be able to find Mick again? And, ultimately, save Quentin, a boy of multiple realities?
I'm honestly confused by this section. You start out telling us that the one goal is to save the boy Quentin but then nothing else seems to have anything to do with him until the last line again. What does Quentin have to do with Kiska or Jude? And how does Ryker fit in to any of this? Why do we need to know what kind of man he is in this part? Kiska and Jude are the main characters and we don't even know what they're like so delving into Ryker seems odd. And is he a man or an alien? And what is the Collective Unconscious?
Prologue
Supernatural Sisters
It takes incredible strength to survive the conflicts of the mind, and tonight it's a full-scale battle for me. Blooms of light explode behind my eyes, and my fingers attempt to rub out the burning exhaustion. The blooms fascinate me, but the explosions intensify the burning. I flex and gasp at the stabbing pains between my shoulders. My brain's on fire writing, and there's no stopping the momentum.
In fact, my story reads so hot, I'm aroused. My characters are sparring with sexual innuendos. Sparks are flying and I keep writing to see if Ryker walks out on Sybil, or Sybil slaps him. Will they collapse on the floor and do the wild thing? Wait, Sybil's got whipped cream, and she's . . . she's . . . My mind blanks.
Take a break, Little. Get some sleep.
Everyone has a little voice in their head. Mine happens to be my twin sister, Jude, who died last year. Grief transcends the theory of time, and every day feels like the day she died. I know she's helping me write the book, but it's not like the words disappear when we're not working together. paragraph Jude? With my fingers drumming on the desk top, I will the story to return but Sybil and Mick have disappeared, taking my plot hostage. Ian Blake, Mick's assistant remains aloof, the bisexual Holly turns away—even the dependable Daphne refuses to speak. paragraph My sister's right. Sans her professional editorial help, I falter. I wonder, not for the first time, if she's working through me to complete a book her abrupt demise interrupted.
I cast a gaze toward my cat, Peerless, who is sleeping in the middle of a stack of laundered clothes I have yet to put away. He is my constant companion, my best friend.
"Peerless? Any thoughts?" One eye opens while he considers my request This is omniscient voice. In 1st person or 3rd person we can see the actions of other characters but only know the thoughts and reasoning of the protagonist., but he yawns and goes back to sleep.
I pace around the apartment for a few minutes, knocking my head against the wall and shaking my hands, but no words tumble from my rattled brain to my fingertips. The computer's cursor blinks in accusation. In self-defense, I turn it to sleep mode and close the top, but it's impossible to leave it behind—a not uncommon relationship forged between authors and laptops, or so I convince myself. I tuck it under one arm. I'd change the first top to screen or just it.
"Thanks for nothing, Peerless," I call out over my shoulder. He's nearly deaf, so I can say whatever. With flashing fingers behind me—a rudimentary sign language— Honestly, I'm not even sure what the beginning clause means. I'd leave it out. Just say the end bit.I sign: I love you, too.
The clock's striking midnight, so I trudge up the stairs, toss the laptop on the bed, and curl up next to it.
Light explodes outside the window, illuminating the apartment like a thousand stars gone rogue. Shielding my eyes, I slip from the bed trying not to wake Peerless whose body is pooled around my feet and creep toward the window. Peerless Just use a pronoun here. thumps from the bed to the floor—it's not easy being graceful when you weigh twenty-five pounds. A triple bolt of green lightning shears the sky—it's a bizarre phenomenon—snow is falling This makes no sense. You're talking about lightening and then bounce to snow and then back to lightening again. Just stick with describing the lightening.. One crazed fork hits the transformer, the explosion knocks me off my feet and my head smacks the wall. Peerless bolts from the room. Every time you switch characters, you should switch paragraph. So you might look at restructuring this so you aren't jumping back and forth between the person and the cat. It interrupts the flow and pulls the reader out of the action.
From the floor, I watch a spattering of sparks snap and sizzle and then dim and fade, extinguishing all illumination. I reach for the light switch, but a green snap of electricity zaps me. Shaking the shocked finger, I pop it in my mouth, an instinctive reflex because water subdues pain. The soft hair on my arm rises. A whooshing sound like a train passing through deafens me. Since when does water subdue pain? Is she being struck by lightening running through the house? If she's already been zapped by the lightening, it would have dissipated and no longer be a threat. If it's run through the house, unless she's in a remote cabin somewhere (which I doubt because there's a transformer out her window) the house would be grounded and the initial burst of electricity would be gone.
Silence crashes. We have her being deafened and now silence crashes. You don't need both.
Lights flicker and flash, the energy-charged air shimmers. Walls expand and contract, losing definition, and I hear a familiar voice in my head. I would leave out the previous paragraph and move directly from her being knocked to the floor, to this.
Little.
I open my eyes and gasp. Evidently, Jude's capable of creating visual illusions, or I'm delusional, and that's why I see her sitting at a desk in a virtual office. I still feel her presence in my bones, my marrow, and my soul. If she's visible, maybe she can hear. "Got tired of living in my bones?"
"Yes, the marrow's soft, but the bones poke."
My sister's unmistakable dry humor comforts me.This goes with the paragraph before. "You're not a voice, anymore."
"Ah, you always were the Mistress of the Obvious."
"Totally not funny."
"Okay, sorry. It's easier to work as a team when I have my own desk." Her mouth quirks up on one side. "Nice place you have here." She glances around the room. "Old . . . but I like it, Little."
"I see you fabricated a complete . . . office."
Her shimmering desk floats near the window in her virtual conference room. Pinpricks of starry eyes blink against an inky sky. Like sci-fi, or fantasy. The effect is disconcerting, but she always was the creative one. Her PC sits open on the desk. It's newer than mine, which hardly seems fair.
"Which one of us is writing the book?" She's a spectral image, not a solid physical body. She types using her mind? Mind-types?
"Both of us." I have no idea who is talking in these two quotes.
Working with my dead sister poses serious mental issues. In fact, I'm overly dramatic and fear for my mental stability No one thinks like this. She might think "Am I going mad? Am I really seeing this? What's happened to me? but no one says to themselves "I fear for my mental stability.". It's as if she reads my mind.
"You're not going to end up in a loony bin. Don't worry."
"Easy for you to say, you're already dead."
"Little, when you answer the phone tomorrow, remember where I was before the . . . the incident."
"Answer the phone? Someone's calling me?" This is nuts. "I . . . um . . . you were working in Syracuse as an editor. You talked about a book you were working on."
"Exactly. See, it all makes sense now."
"Seriously?"
"Yes, Mick Ryker will call you."
"He's a character in my . . . our book, Jude. Not a real person."
"Oh, he's real, alright. I'm surprised you don't recognize the name."
"You're driving me insane."
"He might question the names of the characters in the novel."
"Because—"
"You'll think of an explanation."
"You're guaranteeing this Ryker guy calls tomorrow. You alter the future?"
She laughs and walks away from her desk, her feet hovering a few inches above the floor. "Observe." She sweeps the room with her arm and a river appears next to my feet.
It has to be an illusion, but I stumble backward and fall on my ass.
The river is turbulent, rushing and churning, flowing steady, These two phrases contradict one another ... turbulent and churning but steady??? and cascading over a cliff all at the same time. I try to pin down thoughts tickling my brain.
"Time isn't a straight line?" Who says this?
"Forget time. It's merely a physical construct used to frame your universe. I'm able to operate without those constraints."
"So, you traveled from the past into my present and changed the future?"
"Cool, huh?"
"Cool, nothing. This isn't happening, you're not here, and it's not possible." As if words create reality, Jude dissipates.
I check my watch. Midnight. She's right. No time has passed. My body twitches, releasing tension, and an uneasy sleep dims my consciousness. It's almost a relief, but I feel guilty as if I'm rejecting my sister's . . . whatever she's offering. Companionship? She'll follow me around and hang out? Tossing and turning, fist-beating pillows, kicking away covers, nothing helps me drift into a deeper sleep. Jude's always in my mind. How did she get in bed with pillows and covers??? She was laying on the floor from where she'd been knocked down and she hasn't moved since.
"Little?"
I'm wide awake. My back is pressed against the headboard, covers pulled up to my chin and clutched with fisted hands.
"Sorry to disturb you, but you thought me away before I finished."
Jude's added more plants to her desk and the stack of books is higher. This line goes with the dialog above. "I'm racking my brain, searched the internet for any references, but still came up empty. You died. How can you be here?" When did she search the internet. She's been trying to sleep, wakes up, sits up, and clutches the blankets. ?????
"I can transfer from energy to matter, but it drains me. Kiska, in part, your love keeps me here. I exist in others' memories, but yours are the most defined. When you meet and fall in love with Mick Ryker, all our destinies will change.
"Again, with the Mick Ryker." Her cryptic words baffle me. "How will I find you?"
She's returned to her chair, wearing her wry smile. Behind her desk she's tacked a poster of the "New York Giants" football team. Actually, the picture hovers, but it's obvious she believes it's pinned to her wall like her room on Taber Road where we grew up.
A blink and the scene changes. Now, my little brother is seated in her lap, surrounded by dozens of teddy bears. It's a picture from my mind. My reality's at stake here. Her desk dangles from a midnight sky. Is she projecting these images, these conversations, into my reality or have I entered hers?
"The answers will come to you. Think of me tomorrow, and I'll be there for you. Gotta go."
And then she's gone. People who take weird occurrences as normal need doctors, doctors writing prescriptions. What would a shrink think if I told him I have a supernatural sister? They say twins are linked in a unique way, beyond death, apparently. Jude intentionally smashed my world into Mick Ryker's. Why?
Right before my body lapses into blessed sleep, I wonder where Jude is, exactly. An alternate universe, through a wormhole, up a tree?
 These are just my thoughts and ideas as I read this piece and are intended to help. Please use what you can and ignore the rest. You know what is best for your story.
I hope this is useful. Happy Writing!
Cobe |
| (4.0)
| (4.5)
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My review has been submitted for consideration in "
In General: You have a good start to a horror story and a lot of elements that are often found in a horror story. Flickering lights, thumping sounds, mysterious happenings, someone going mad ... maybe. You've also set up a plausible scenario and gave it a twist. Those things are great! 
Characters: You have two characters and others referred to. But no one has a name and we know nothing about either of them. Problem is ... a reader needs a character to identify with, feel sorry for, root for, cheer on, hate, love, etc ... so we need to know a little more about who this character is. We don't even know if the MC is male of female. Are they a college student? or are they just an unemployed bum looking for money? Whoever this character is, the reader needs to be able to feel something for them AND because you've written this in 1st person it would serve the story well to make them unreliable to add the overall feel of "going crazy". 
Plot - You have a starting place and a middle, but you don't have a conclusion. I struggle with this too. It is very tempting to want to leave the reader hanging and imagining the "worst" ... but it is so much more satisfying to actually bring everything to a horrifying conclusion that makes the reader drop the book, push it away, and shudder everytime they think of it. Remember to have a story you must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. 
This review is part of your shower from "
