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 Review #4543344 |
 | Leslie Feannag's Lighthouse  [13+] a short story, the first in a possible series  |
| (4.0)  Welcome to WdC from the "Newbie Welcome Wagon" Good morning, A. J. Hains , and welcome to WdC. For the record, my real name is Jack Tyler, and I am a retired steampunk and horror writer who tries to review in 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 reviewers know a bit 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!  Full marks in this category; everything is just as it should be. I prefer indented paragraphs, but double-spacing works just as well. As long as they are clearly defined for the reader, no harm done. I will offer a suggestion concerning your font. You've used WdC's default presentation, and you certainly can't be penalized for that, but you must admit that it's bland and uninteresting, and in a long piece like this, it can present as an intimidating wall of text that can send some reviewers off to the next story without ever getting involved. I recommend inserting the following command line in front of your story: {font:verdana}{size:3.5}{linespace:1.4}. It will open up the page and make it look much more like a professionally published book. If you decide you don't like it, just delete the command line and it will revert to its original look.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 feels more like a chapter than a complete story, like it's just the beginning of something. You do say the first in a possible series, and that's good, but this could be the basis of a full-on novel. No penalty for the lack of a definitive ending, either. This section is about your storytelling skills, and based on what I see here, yours are just fine. One little question, though: If there's no electricity in the house, how does he plan to keep his phone charged and access his wi-fi? I kept waiting for the discussion of his solution, but it never came. On the plus side, I especially like the way this begins as a typical story about an unwanted move and gradually builds its supernatural elements until we suddenly realize that we're marinating in the occult. That's fine storytelling, my friend.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? Frankly, most writers get their main character right, even if they fall down in other areas, and Angus is no exception. The real test is how the peripheral characters work, and all of yours, from the unseen family members to the fisherman, have a ring of reality to them. Very well done indeed!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? This whole story is a tour de force of descriptive scenes and settings. I could feel the cold rain and the oppressive dampness of the very air. The mood in the drafty lighthouse was perfectly conveyed, and I suffered through the agonizing trip on the boat with Angus. A splendid talent on display throughout.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. Unfortunately, like so many items I review, this one has a list of issues, or more precisely, a couple that are repeated throughout. The big one is exemplified by this sentence:I’m not taking much, anyway- just some essentials, as well as some of the family silver. My issue is with that hyphen after anyway, and I stopped counting when I got to half a dozen. Every instance I saw would have read more smoothly and clearly if the hyphen was replaced with a comma or a period. If you do want to use this style for dramatic effect, then each hyphen should be an n-dash: –, so-called because it takes up the same space as the letter n, and more on how to get these a few lines down. The long, sleepy stretches of land were almost indistinct from each other, just a bunch of dark mass on the horizon, separating the Strait from the ocean. A little jar to the ear; this would read more smoothly as just a dark mass on the horizon or a bunch of dark masses on the horizon. I don’t follow whatever weird line of thought she believes- I consider myself a “practical thinker”- but she certainly got into that idea. Here your use of hyphens is done correctly, but these should be em-dashes (and I'll bet you can figure out why they're called that): —. That makes this sentence read I don’t follow whatever weird line of thought she believes — I consider myself a “practical thinker” — but she certainly got into that idea. Finally, c’est la vie, a foreign phrase, should be in italics, c’est la vie. Now, as to those characters that aren't on your keyboard. There are tricks you can do on a desktop computer, such as typing control-alt-c to create the © symbol. You can Google them at need, and make yourself a cheat-sheet as you go along. I use a laptop where those shortcuts don't work, and if that's your situation, I suggest you create a private folder called Symbols or whatever, and every time you need one, Google it, copy and paste it to your Symbols folder, and there it will be waiting for you when you need it. SUMMARY: Okay, I gave you a pretty sound hiding over the mechanics, but don't be excessively concerned about that. Anybody can learn that stuff through a bit of reading. Nobody can teach you how to have an imagination, and the one you've put on display here is absolutely fabulous! You have a wonderful voice for telling a story, and it has been my privilege to have been allowed to read and review your work.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 Did you find my opinions useful or interesting? More are available for consideration and discussion on my blog,
 My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
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You responded to this review 04/13/2020 @ 2:04pm EDT