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 Review #4660402 |
 | Deadwood  [18+] A hitchhiking encounter with a young girl sets the stage for a bizarre story with a twist.  |
| (5.0)  Welcome to WdC from the "Newbie Welcome Wagon" Good day to you, MysteryBox , and I hope it finds you well. It's Saturday, and the Blimpster's on the prowl for something to review. That makes this your lucky day  . Actually, we met a few months ago when I reviewed "The Blackout Butcher" . I am still 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 was 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!  Good sized font, easy to read, accurately paragraphed... I don't know whether you took any cues from my earlier review, but that doesn't matter, you've done very well posting an attractive, inviting narrative. I prefer indented paragraphs, and they would have helped you spot where you ran two of them together, but double-spacing is quite acceptable, and serves the purpose nicely. 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. The highest possible rating; you may consider those stars to be platinum! Here is a story that starts out looking for trouble and finds it, only to have the trouble you thought it was pale in comparison to what it really is. I can't say enough about the skill with which you handled the multiple twists and turns that drag your helpless reader to the edge and leave him, cowering, on the thinnest ledge of sanity. I could go on like this for paragraphs, but I think I've made my point...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 items to point out and in a story this long, that's almost unheard of. They are, first, The balding fifty-seven-year-old man jerked the bottle’s stout from his lips... I'm not a drinking man, and "stout" may be a term that drinkers use, but I suspect from the context that you meant "spout."The second is near the end in this passage: Oh, that tasted good! Damn good! Its first drink in how long? Six years? Yes. Six years since being captured and put in that accursed research facility to be poked and prodded by men in white coats. Six agonizing years spent planning an escape. Tonight, a careless guard and a faulty security door finally presented the opportunity it had been waiting for. One question remained: where to go now? Isolated like this, it's easy to see where you left out the double-space for the paragraph. This is where indentations would have made this stand out like a sore thumb. These are two little errors – one may not even be an error – each the result of a single keystroke. You plainly know what you're doing, and I'm not going to mar this review by carping over something this minor. One more proofreading would have caught these, but they don't harm this magnificent story a bit. 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? Walter and "Jamie," whatever the hell Jamie is, drive this story with horsepower to spare. The nameless agents are a necessary touch, as is the biker. Everyone serves a purpose; the purpose of characters is to drive a story forward, and there are no distractions here, just people caught up in this alien horror's agenda, each with a purpose, and each elegantly crafted. I tip my begoggled patrol cap in your direction!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? There's nothing unusual here, nothing that requires you to detour for pages of description while the story fades in the reader's mind. Deserted road, gas station, what's to describe? This is the beauty of familiar settings, and they also add to the creepy factor, the implication being that you don't have to put yourself into an exotic location to be assailed by the horror. It's all around you.SUMMARY: And there you have my words of "wisdom." In my humble opinion, you could become the next Master of Horror, or at least a top-tier practitioner. Of course, my opinion and twelve dollars will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks, but this is really, really good. 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 ** "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 06/05/2022 @ 3:55am EDT