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Review #4711131
Viewing a review of:
Burning issue  [18+]
A story of intrigue, romance and betrayal in 19 th century Paris.
by Sumojo
Review of Burning issue  
Review by Beholden
In affiliation with WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group  
Rated: 18+ | (4.5)
Access:  Public | Hide Review (?)
Hi Sue. Happy WDC Anniversary! To celebrate, I thought I'd do this little review of your short story, Burning Issue. Great title, by the way.

It was for a contest that I wrote a piece for as well, so I was already familiar with the picture prompt. Your story is an excellent extrapolation from that starting point, having lots of colour, atmosphere, a detailed knowledge of the look of the Parisian setting at the time, and clever use of its characters, together with a carefully thought out plot. And I love the way you held back the info that Edouarde is actually Manet until close to the end! That was a delicious surprise nugget for me. Toulouse is not so easy to hide, of course.

The story is very well written but does contain a few niggles, however. All are easily fixed, so I will mention them here. The first thing that struck me was the irregular spacing between paragraphs. Sometimes you put a space between paragraphs and sometimes you don't. I thought this must be an anomaly caused by the difference between word processors, but it happens too often to be that. I think you are trying to establish a two-tier paragraph system in which the spaced paragraphs move the story on more than the ones that stay together. It doesn't work for me, as I think it spoils the presentation of the work and is easily construed as an error. My advice would be to get rid of the Returns within the paragraphs without spaces, leaving the text with only spaced paragraphs.

There are a few instances where sentences have been constructed incorrectly or in such a way that they can be misinterpreted. These are the ones that struck me:

"The stench from the Parisian sewers were obnoxious" - "stench" is singular.
"George cleared his throat, which turned into a series of hacking coughs..." - quite a feat!
"if not forgotten, had at least settled down and his name no longer headlines in the London Times" - needs to be "...his name WAS no longer..."

Finally, there's an error induced, ironically, by editing: "Both Edouarde and George were both determined to pursue Genevieve’s love." - One of those "both"s has to go.

It's a fine story and you tell it well, Sue. Too fine to be spoiled by such minor niggles but I, being a perfectionist, would quickly hide them! Most enjoyable reading.

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Beholden


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