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 Review #4658018 |
 Welcome to WdC from the "Newbie Welcome Wagon" Good day to you, green is happy  , and I hope it finds you well. It's Saturday, and the Jackster's on the prowl for something to review. That makes this your lucky day  . Now, 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. 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!  The full five stars in this category, as you've done everything correctly. There are a couple of recommendations I have for you, but nothing is wrong per se. Just suggestions...I wouldn't have put the title in the text. Just me, but the title is prominently displayed outside the piece along with the subtitle and a place for a picture, should you care to attach one. It seems redundant within the text. I'm a fan of indented paragraphs. Nothing wrong with double-spacing, indentations just look more professional. You've used the default font, which carries no penalty in regard to this rating, but the default is a very small version of Arial that looks like nothing so much as the fine print in a used car contract. There are many ways to perk up your text – this review is in 3.5 Verdana with a 1.4 line space setting, for example – but the easiest way to make Arial attractive is to place the command {size:3.5} at the top of the text. If you don't like it, just remove the command 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. I'm not going to offer any morality judgments here; this is your story to tell, and it is powerful. You should add Horror to the categories because this very much is. Johnson is horrible, what he did to his dogs is horrible, and the fact that Ms. Monroe expresses every intention of murdering him by exposure makes her horrible. I think it qualifies. Okay, that's a morality judgment, I guess, but no matter how you feel about the principals, the story grabs you by the neck – collars you? – and drags you along for a ride through the outskirts of hell. Fantastic work!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.  This is most often the downfall of otherwise excellent stories, some of them generating a laundry list of corrections. I've only caught a couple of little things here, but they do mar perfection, and need to be addressed.First is this paragraph: "I see you don't miss many meals, Mr. Johnson? "You have a fairly nice house with a large if somewhat littered yard. Yet all the animals we've removed were starving. Can you explain that?" There is an extra set of quotation marks in the middle. Perhaps these are left over from an edit, or you intended to put a speech tag here? It gave me quite a little jar when I tripped over it, forcing me to reread to puzzle out what I'd missed, and this should be corrected. The moral here? Proofread, proofread, proofread, until you're sick of your own words, then proofread again. It is the single most powerful tool of the serious writer. The other issue: "OMG!" Oh my God! You're writing a story here, not a tweet. Spell these things out. Seriously, though, I rarely find stories as reader-ready as this one. Just... proofreading is your friend. 'Nuff said. 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've already expressed my opinion that both characters are villains, but this section is about their construction and presentation. Both are believable in their roles, and I have no problems with seeing them for what they are, in other words, they are properly believable. Johnson is one of those two-legged turds you see on the news from time to time, and Monroe obviously views herself as the avenging angel of God. In another setting she might be the cop who plants evidence to ensure a conviction or the night nurse with the hypodermic in the nursing home. She's the most dangerous kind of villain, the sort that was described in a Firefly episode as "A monster who thinks she's right with God." Brilliant work on both of them.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? Living most of my life as I have on the edge of the great southwestern desert, I had no trouble visualizing the setting, but someone from the Pacific northwest or the evergreen forests of New England might not be able to as easily. I'd recommend a bit more description, either through dialogue or some exposition about the rising heat as she rolls up to the site, to really convey the idea of trying to live on a broiler pan which is life in the desert. Not deducting here, as I don't think it deserves that, but something to think about.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 last responded to this review 05/14/2022 @ 2:21pm EDT