Greetings zhencoff

I am reviewing "Sylvester & Tuette: Cursed Doubt - Ch. 1"  today as part of the "Chapter One Competition. " .
THANK YOU FOR INCLUDING OUR MANDATORY PHRASE, "HAPPY SWEET SIXTEEN, WDC!" IN PARAGRAPH ## !

THINGS I LIKE
YOUR WRITING
(MISTAKES AND CORRECTIONS
TIPS

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS

The idea is a good one, although I am not sure the plot is as clear as it should be. I think the kingstone is an amulet and he is kept conscious by it and there you lose me. The beginning hook is good but needs more action and emotion, how did the king feel as he knew the dead would rise,to make it great. The end hook didn't excite me either. I should have felt at least a tingle but I felt nothing. I like the storyline but wished the plot was clearer, also, the pace was very slow and it jumped from one scene to the next too quickly.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT AND DIALOGUE

The main character, the king, didn't develop at all. The reader, me, didn't feel him at all. I wanted to know what he thought, how he felt... but it was written without even a hint at his personality or traits. I liked the dialogue, though. It was natural and wasn't cluttered with speech tags.

SUGGESTIONS

1) Try not to use words like 'was' and 'had' as they are passive words and associated with telling a story, not showing it.

'The murky sea rolled below him, each wave’s crest a dead body. (The moonlight glinted on jewels the dead had been buried with. King Sylvester knew that the dead were his ancestors and they always did the same thing: they would rise.) On the rocky edge, he stared down, unable to move or look away from this cliff and the sea of dead below. I would write... (The moonlight caught the silver jewellery of the buried bodies and king Sylvester looked away as the dead corpses of his ancestor's rose like they always did.)

2) Try to avoid 'in' words as they too are associated with telling.

(Lumbering along, the corpse kings stood tall on the cliff and surrounded Sylvester. They smelled of bile and excretions, sour water and rotten seaweed. (If anything, Sylvester wished he could vomit, but that too was frozen inside, a seed of digested foods and failures.) I would write... (He stumbled as he looked up and saw his ancestor's stood on the hill. They surrounded him as he smelt their decomposed bodies and he felt an ooze rise in his throat. He tried to spit it out but it stuck in his tube and wouldn't move.)

The dead ambled behind Sylvester,( looking at the living king’s neck, at the kingstone there. Usually, his hair was longer, covering the stone. Now it was short, exposing the base of his skull for these rotting relics.) “Go ahead and stare. It’s only a showpiece! The almighty kingstone we all share will always be worthless!” I would write... (as they peered at the king's neck and the kingstone.)

3) Try to refrain from using 'ly' words as publishers don't like them either.

The dead reached for their own necks with waterlogged limbs; (remnants of the sea they unknowingly carried fell to the ground with wet slaps and splashes.) As each touched his own neck and the kingstone there, twisted crowns appeared on their heads. Unable to move and touch his own stone, Sylvester knew no such ornament would materialize on his scalp.) I would write... (remnants of the sea fell on the ground like footprints as they lumbered along.)

4)Try not to put similes and metaphors so close together as it confuses the reader. Something can't be like blood or puss. It can be like puss oozing out of blood, though.

'With each puncture, frothy water spewed (like blood, like puss.) The thick liquid flew at King Sylvester, ropy and rancid. I would write... (like the white puss which oozes out of a wound before the red blood escapes.)

5) Make sentences less complicated.

(“Take it, take it, take it…” He said this until his own blood mixed with the putrid sea water and tried climbing into his mouth and nose.) I would write... (his own blood mixed with the putrid sea water. "Take it," he screamed as he...


(He screamed, choked, coughed, and screamed again, before succumbing to the salvation of dawn and the dreamless day that would follow.) I would write this as dialogue... ("Arr, choke, arr." The sun rose in the sky and the king's brain melted away into a nightmare world.)

King Sylvester (had never known) any of the experiences firsthand that the royal journals described. He had no insight about political affairs, no visions of what has happened before and how to avoid mistakes again, nothing. He was blind to his blood’s past. But being of King Gould and bearing the only kingstone, there was no other to lead Decennia. (never knew)

FINAL THOUGHTS

This could be a good novel with a little work. Thank you for sharing and keep on writing.

NAME: DMT1967 AKA JACKIE

"Cross Timbers Novel Workshop On Hiatis" 



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My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .