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 Review #4545805 |
 | Bleached Nightmare Ch.1  [13+] A story set 400 years in the future, where mechs are powerful military units.  |
| (4.5)  Welcome to WdC from the "Newbie Welcome Wagon" Good day to you, FatFluffyPenguin , 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. 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!  A single scene doesn't need much to set it off. Your paragraphs are well-defined and easy to follow. You've used WdC's default format for which I will not deduct a point, but I will make the same suggestion to you that I do to almost everybody: The default format is rather dull and uninteresting, and on top of that, can present an intimidating wall of fine print to readers with impaired eyesight. In short, it can cost you reviews. What I suggest is that you place this line of code at the start of your story: {font:verdana}{size:3.5}{linespace:1.4}. I think you'll like what it does for your story's appearance, but if you don't, just delete it and it will return to its original form.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 isn't really a story, more like a single scene from a story, but it is well-handled and has a gritty understanding that though Marilin escaped with her life, her troubles are just beginning. I see this as an early, perhaps opening, scene in a novel or novella about what Marilin is put through after her carefully planned life falls apart. This screams out for development, but judged simply on the grounds of what it is in its present form, it lacks nothing. Tension, drama, uncertainty are all there in profusion.A couple of things did tug on my immersion. First was the strider's weapon. A 60mm chain gun for a cop? That is a military-grade weapon with a 2â…“-inch bore. A single round from such a weapon would pass through a car end-to-end killing everyone inside and damaging it beyond repair. A chain gun is made to shoot a lot of these in a hurry. Having a law-enforcement bot armed with such a weapon smacks of a totalitarian society that probably kills anyone who steps out of line. It's your story, arm the thing any way you wish, but be aware that whether it carries this anti-tank cannon, a non-lethal capture device, or something in between, the way you as the author choose to write it speaks volumes about the views and beliefs of the society that put it on the street. My other hiccup came from the fact that I was initially unclear whether the strider had a human operator on board. "Pilotable" suggests that it does, and that is hinted at in the last paragraph, but never clearly stated. That can work to your advantage, especially if you should decide to expand this into a longer work. How or whether these things are controlled could be a big part of the central mystery. In any case, these are minor glitches, and not too concerning. 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? I hesitate to call the Spirit Strider a character, as it comes across as an unfeeling piece of metal, yet Marilin interacts with it as if it was, so it fills the role. Rather than clever conversation, it only gives her the death to play off of, and I have to say, you've captured her bone-chilling terror well.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? Trapped with this thing in a dead-end alley. No options but to appease this omnipotent specter of death. It's a grand setting, unobtrusive yet palpable in its imposed helplessness. Perfect marks here as well.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. I found two issues which is remarkable for a story of this length; a piece like this will often carry a dozen lines or more of suggested corrections. I have two for you, and neither is major.First, let's examine this passage: To her, it looked remarkably like the medieval knights that she had seen only in pictures. Only they were taller than a three-storey building, held a sword superheated by sarinium that could slice a tank in half and had a fully-automatic chain gun that could decimate a Tyrannosaurus in a single shot. First, I would suggest that this is a single sentence, a long one, perhaps, but structurally one nonetheless. I would replace the period after "pictures" with a comma. Also, in this fragment: To her, it looked remarkably like the medieval knights that she had seen only in pictures. Only they were taller than a three-storey building... This suggests that the knights were taller than a three-story building, though this obviously means the Strider. If you change this to "it was taller than..." the misunderstanding goes away. Finally, story has no "e." If you write in "English" vs. "American" English, then you can disregard that particular note. The second is a naming issue. In the first part of the story, the machines are called "Spirit Striders." Then in the closing paragraphs they become "Spirit Riders." Consistency is very important to a reader, and he will stop, go back and reread, try to puzzle out whether he's seeing two different machines here. Puzzles are good in the plot; much less so in the words. Still, easily fixed, and a very good job overall. SUMMARY: Not quite perfect, in my most imperfect opinion, but close. I read in your bio that you are 16, and you published a book at 13. I am A, impressed, B, filled with admiration, and C, have just started a blog aimed at those young writers who can't yet read the 18+ material that makes up so much of WdC's content. Consider this your invitation to drop by for a read, and see whether it offers anything you may find useful.
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 My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
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You responded to this review 04/25/2020 @ 7:48pm EDT