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 Review #4645233 |
 | Bar None  [13+] Nameless protagonist appears at a nondescript dive bar with memories of another life.  |
| (5.0)  Welcome to WdC from the "Newbie Welcome Wagon" Good day to you, M. S. Bird , and I hope it finds you well. It is with great humility that I come before you with this review. I am certainly no one to be telling anyone how to write, having myself successfully managed to avoid fame and fortune for over sixty years, but I flatter myself that I have learned a thing or two in my decades of chasing the dream. Given that you have placed this item on the Please Review forum, I take that as my invitation to offer my opinion. And make no mistake, it is nothing but an opinion for you to use or discard as you wish. My reviews are thorough and honest, and while I hope we can be friends afterward, my greater hope is that you become a better writer as a result of our having crossed paths.For the record, I am an occasional hobbyist writer of fantasy, horror, and steampunk (hence my handle) who tries to review in a wide variety of styles and genres; I have, in fact, been recently nominated for a Quill Award for reviewing. 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 an 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!  Nothing I might deduct points for appears here. You've used the default font, indented your paragraphs, everything is clean and to my liking, and since I'm the one writing the review, 5-stars it is. That said, I do have a couple of suggestions.First and foremost, you have dropped an F-bomb in the text, and that requires an 18+ rating. I recommend you change that before a moderator finds it, as they will change it for you, and if my own experience is any indication, give you a tongue-lashing that will make you want to leave the site. Most 13-year olds I know (I have grandkids) drop more F-bombs than I do, but this the reality, and I recommend you make the concession quickly; it's fight you can't win. On the default font: It's a tiny version of Arial, which is attractive enough and I use it myself on occasion, but at this size it resembles nothing so much as the fine print on a used car contract. There are many ways to inject life into your font – this review is in 3.5 Verdana with a line spacing of 1.4, for example – but the easiest way to bring the default to life is to place the command {size:3.5} at the beginning of your text. I think you'll be pleased. Finally, I think you should close the text up to within two or three line-spaces of the title. You really don't need a title here, as it appears in the large print at the top, but if you like it to be part of the text, that's fine. I just think it looks a little odd set off by itself like that. If you don't, well, opinions differ, but that's your name at the top of the page. Don't rush into changes because one reviewer has a different view than you do. STORY: Now we come to the heart of the issue. 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. I try to explain aspects from characters to grammar, but I don't know how to teach someone to have an imagination. The fact that I'm here writing a review is proof that you've done a pretty good job with the story. Let's examine the individual parts of the whole and see what works to make it successful. This is intriguing. The viewpoint character returns to some sort of sanctuary, having just "been" someone else. It was impossible to read this without thinking of Joss Whedon's Dollhouse, but that isn't a knock. It is impossible to read my Beyond the Rails series without making comparisons to Joss Whedon's Firefly. Everything has been done before. What matters is what you bring to it. I believe in your review request, you called this Flash Fiction. It is a bit longer than most flash fiction pieces I've seen here, but I'm not going to quibble over that. It fills the philosophical requirements of the style in that it's a tiny slice of something larger, and the reader is not quite given all the information he needs to work out the bigger story. This engages his own imagination as he attempts to subconsciously create a backstory, and thus becomes involved in the creative process from the back end.I'd suggest you keep this little vignette on the back burner, and when you need a plot for a series, novel, or a long-form story, you flesh this out. Its mystique is compelling. 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. Most stories, when they fall, do so here. People are so eager to get their creations in front of an audience that they skimp on the proofreading. I do it myself. But I didn't see a single tense issue, wrong word usage, homonym switch, nothing. There may be a typo in here somewhere, but if there is, I couldn't find it. Absolutely superb.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? It is difficult to develop characters in flash fiction, but you've made these characters interesting, partially because of the strange situation they're placed in, but we "get" them. They speak to us, and their motivations are clear. You can't ask for more in a story this brief.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? As with characters, so goes the setting. You placed us in a bar, which everyone has a clear picture of, be it from personal experience to watching Cheers. You give us an illegible neon sign bathing the room in an odd color combination and leave us to flesh out whatever is necessary in our own minds. Stories of different lengths have different descriptive needs, and you've handled this one perfectly.SUMMARY: And there you have my words of "wisdom." 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. I thank you for sharing and exposing your work to the whims of public opinion, and I wish you a thrilling journey to wherever your writing takes you.** Image ID #2234711 Unavailable ** The curious may follow my antics at "Invalid Item" — Serious writers may visit a group that comes with occasional deep conversation, and a spiffy contest featuring unusual and valuable prizes. Our forum, linked below, is open access, and if you like what you see, contact me or Richard ~ Looking for Luck!  to be welcomed to the fold.
 My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
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You responded to this review 01/28/2022 @ 4:25pm EST