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 Review #4655766 |
 | Revelations  [E] COVID revealed what life was really like.  |
| (4.0)  Welcome to WdC from the "Newbie Welcome Wagon" Good day to you, sherwood561 , and I hope it finds you well. It's Monday, and the Jackster's on the prowl for something to review. That makes this your lucky day  . I am certainly no one to be telling anyone how to write, having myself managed to successfully 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 reviewing is a major part of the WdC experience, I'm taking that as my license 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 mystery, fantasy, horror, and steampunk 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. Before I start, let me give you what may be the most helpful advice you get from this review: Put something of your writing background in your bio. As it stands right now, I don't know whether you are male or female, young or old, green or experienced, and so don't know what aspects it would be most helpful for me to concentrate on. I'll give a solid generic review, but you'll find that the quality of the reviews you received here is directly related to what the reviewer knows about your writing situation. So 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!  One word: Paragraphs. Fish need water, we need air, and stories need paragraphs. It's that simple. The professional way to form paragraphs is to indent them. Possibly you haven't found the key yet – WdC's html can be a little tricky – but the way you do it is to place {indent} at the beginning of every paragraph. That sounds like a slog, I know, but there is a shortcut button at the top of the creation box that places the command anywhere the cursor is. The alternate method, accepted on WdC, is to double-space between them. I've done both in this review, so you can judge for yourself which you prefer, but one or the other is absolutely necessary.The other thing, which you are not being penalized for, is the font. You've used the default, and no deduction for that, but it's a small version of Arial that resembles nothing so much as the fine print in a used car contract. There are many ways to polish the look of your writing – this review is in 3.5 Verdana with a 1.4 line space setting, for example – but the easiest may be to place the command {size:3.5} at the beginning of your text. If you don't like it, just remove it and it will revert to its original format. 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 a grabber, and no doubt about it. It combines COVID, politics, and the worst sort of religious repression, and ads a dose of justice with a humorous twist at the end. This caught my attention and held it all the way through, and I found it a compelling read that both entertains and makes you think... And that's without the paragraphs! A most excellent story.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 beat you up over the lack of paragraphs in the opening section, so won't do it again here. I'll just reiterate their importance to the reader's focus. Other than that, I couldn't find a single thing to cite. To put it in perspective, this section is often a dozen lines or more of "fix this, change that," etc. Great job on this.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? Well-drawn characters who sell the narrative are always your strongest tool for story building, and the diverse children who offer different views, the family of religious nuts, and even the agents who come to save them fill their roles beautifully. Even those peripheral characters who have small appearances are correctly drawn to be who they are.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? Mostly told from inside one of those "religious nut farms," I can't speak to the accuracy, but you make it very believable. I hope that doesn't come from personal experience! An excellent job on this, in any case. It supports the narrative without raising any doubts in the reader.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 #2271299 Unavailable ** "You don't choose writing; writing chooses you." Interested parties may follow my antics at "Invalid Item" — Serious writers may want to check out the biggest little group on the site. If you'd enjoy occasional deep conversations and a spiffy monthly contest featuring unusual and valuable prizes, stop in for a look. Our forum, linked below, is open access, and if you like what you see, e-mail me to be added to the roster. Hope to see you there!
 My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .
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You responded to this review 04/30/2022 @ 3:34am EDT