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 Review #4658969 |
 | Strange Man Next Door  [E] Everyone was afraid of Juudai Fumetsu but Jordan was starting to figure out exactly why.  |
| (4.5)  Welcome to WdC from the "Newbie Welcome Wagon" Good day to you, BrookCarvr , and I hope it finds you well. It's Sunday, 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 a casual and very occasional writer of mystery, fantasy, horror, and steampunk, and I try to review in a wide variety of styles and genres. I took the sole Honorable Mention for the 2021 Quill Award for Reviewing, so I'll have to see whether I can do better this year. 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!  Your presentation is accurate, and rates the full five stars, with a couple of suggestions.First, the font. The default font on WdC for everything is a tiny version of Arial that resembles nothing so much as the small print on a used car contract. There are many ways to tweak your font – this review is in 3.5 Verdana with a 1.4 line space setting, for example – but a very simple way to make Arial more attractive is simply to place the command {size:3.5} at the head of the text. If you find you don't like it, just remove the command, and it will revert to its original format. The other thing I want to point out is the professional look of indented paragraphs, as we've all seen in every professional book we've ever read. You can, should you wish, achieve that here by placing the command {indent} at the head of every paragraph. Sounds like a slog, I know, but there's a shortcut key at the top of the creation box that places the command wherever the cursor is, and once you get used to using it, it isn't all that different from hitting the tab key. 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 toyed for a while with 4 stars, mostly because of your primary genre descriptor, Horror/Scary, but decided not to mar the review over that. The story starts out about a grumpy old man who's a bit of a blight on a neighborhood. A kid, our protagonist, watches him leave then enters his house to see what he can learn. In the house, he encounters a teen he's never seen around the property before, and observes a wall shift positions when his back is turned, without a doubt scary, but nothing really horrible happens to him, and he finds himself with a chance, should he choose to accept it, to find out a great deal about the old man and his youthful alter-ego. I must admit that I didn't see the point of the shifting wall in the sense that it didn't develop into a story point, and it's for that reason that I deducted half a star; perhaps it's simply for atmosphere. But if there is a deeper meaning, know as part of your feedback that this reader missed it.As far as the telling of the story, it is crisp and clear, lacking nothing except pointless side trips. You establish your characters right away, describe the situation, and get right into the story with a minimum of fuss and flourish, and that is, at least in the reading I choose for enjoyment, exactly how it is done. 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 the section where nearly every story seems to fall on its face, but despite scouring yours with a fine-tooth comb, I couldn't find a single gaffe to nitpick. I'm fair certain that nothing ever gets written out perfectly in the first draft, and this speaks to both your skill as a proofreader and your patience in not throwing up your first draft in your haste to show the world what you've done. These are both qualities that will take you far as a writer, and I tip my begoggled patrol cap to you.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 find no fault to pick at. Both (all three?) characters serve their roles well and are developed enough for the length of their story without overdoing it. Sure, I could have put different characters into this story, so could you, but you chose these, and they are presented perfectly.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? The way you've presented the settings is brilliant. It's a suburban neighborhood and the interior of a house, both pretty common things that most of us are familiar with. Yet you have imbued them, especially the interior, with a mystique not normally found in a "cookie-cutter suburban ranch-style home." I've only seen you describe the one thing, but it suggests to me that you have a certain knack for this aspect, and it was a pleasure to enter Mr. Funetsu's house, shifting wall and all!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 #2273139 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 05/22/2022 @ 7:22pm EDT