Hi, Leslie Loo ,

Thank you for requesting a review, and I really appreciate the questions you included in your message. Knowing what aspects of the story trouble you makes the task of reviewing so much easier. If you don’t mind, I’ll change the order of questions and do my best to expand my answers where necessary.


> What do you like about it?

I like the narrator’s voice in this story. It begins to shine early on, giving a hint this will be a comedy. I admit I am not a huge fan of comedy, or at least I don’t think I’ve read enough (except Douglas Adams and Sir Terry Pratchett) to have a good sense of it. But I love that moment where Jersey squinted at the spray bottle to read “Magic”, shrugged, and continued with her cleaning: magic is such an overused marketing term that I would absolutely do the same.

I like your prose and admire your command of language. The mechanics are impeccable. There were a couple of places where I’d rephrase because of repetition, like “Shrugging, she continued cleaning. Once she continued [...]”, but overall, your text is very pleasant to read. Well done.

I’m not quite sure about formatting in direct thought in “What was happening? she thought.”. I’d use italics for the thought itself or even put it in quotes, or, alternatively, rephrase it as narration.


> Is the dialogue, characters, premise, etc. realistic enough?

I do understand what you mean, even though how realistic does Fantasy need to be, right? As long as your internal logic is sound, anything can become realistic. However, as a huge speculative fiction, I value stories that feel true even when there are levitation and talking animals in them. All good stories make you believe what they show (and tell) you, and a huge part of that is believable character motivation.

I’m sorry to say, but I did not believe it when Jersey immediately put her foot into the mirror. I just sprayed the mirror with an unknown substance my manager gave me (as an aside, I must mention, that as someone who isn’t familiar with retail and the routine of that kind of work, I was confused about why the manager gave her a spray bottle), it glowed, and instead of, I don’t know, poking it with something from a safe distance, I would disregard everything I knew about everyday physics and try to put my foot through an obviously solid object? Hell no. And when, by some miracle, the solid object turned out to be not solid (my first thought would have been that this wasn’t a mirror at all but a door), I wouldn’t just go in there without any kind of safety line. All the questions she had right after stepping in were proper, believable questions, except she never questioned the existence of magic itself. Other realms? Trivial, everyday stuff! That kind of reaction, to me, demotes the story from speculative fiction to children’s books.

Nor did I believe the MC’s reaction to the talking animal. “Um, okay.” is a rushed solution. A writing shortcut. Who would say “Um, okay.” when encountering an impossible phenomenon? The story loses all the narration after the beginning of the dialogue, and we don’t see the characters’ reactions—neither objective through their behaviour, nor internal through relaying their thoughts. And without that already established narrator’s voice, you’re missing out on so many opportunities to bring more comedy into the story. Jersey could be thinking that she’s having a stroke, or that she accidentally inhaled the spray and is hallucinating. I would have believed that.

The dialogue itself, to me, was not very convincing. It very obviously went where the writer wanted it to go. The progression of questions reminded me of those old commercials where two people talked to each other pretending they knew nothing about the product, just so every feature of the product could be mentioned. To my ears, “But in the meantime, why don’t I tell you more about this place?” doesn’t sound very natural. A salesman would say that, perhaps, in a scripted ad.

And this bit — “It could be dangerous.” / “How?” / “Just be careful, alright?” — touches on a pet peeve of mine: there’s never time to explain something crucial; the “come with me and I’ll tell you everything” trick in storytelling to delay the reveal. In real life, you’d make sure to give at least a few keywords to convey the gist. If there is real danger, a few concrete words would be more convincing than “just be careful”. Whoever listens to “just be careful” anyway?

There is little evidence presented to back up what’s being said. You tell us “She couldn’t believe a hidden world like this existed”, yet from the dialogue, I don’t see any proof that she’s been struggling with accepting what she encounters.


> What about the title? Should I change it or keep it as is?

It’s hard to say from this excerpt. For now, it doesn’t seem like the mirrors play any significant role in the story. The spray bottle is much more influential than the mirror. Personally, I don’t pay too much attention to titles., and the phrase itself sounds nice (and fits the “Harry Potter and…” formula).


> What do you not like about it?

I think the moment the story began leaning heavily on the dialogue, it lost a lot of its charm. The second half feels rushed, with entire scenes condensed into just a few sentences. The vision of the family could have easily been a separate scene, and instead, it’s just a dry recounting which leaves almost no space for emotion. That (and the hurried ending) makes me think this entire text is just an outline for a story yet to be written.

The story logic is questionable, too. If this — “So, the magic bottle in your hand allows you to visualize any desire you want.” — is true, then stepping through the mirror and meeting the talking otter was what Jersey desired? Or is the bottle both the key into the Land of Mirrors, and, once there, a tool for fulfilling desires? And I don’t think watching your desires come true through a small blob (a screen), being a passive spectator and not participating in the scene would be very satisfying.


> What I can do to improve this story.

If I were you, I’d try to tell this 900-word story in at least 3K words. Don’t rush. Increase the density of your story. Think about what’s important and spend more time there. Allow the character to feel, say and do things that she must feel, say and do at that moment. Make it vivid, accurate, and concrete. But choose what to enhance: not everything has to be scrutinized. Treat your word count as valuable property and allocate it carefully. Some things must be leapt over, left out. Is Mr. Burke important to appear in person and deliver that line of dialogue? Can the narrator just tell us he gave the MC a new spray bottle? I’d rather you spend your word count quota on describing Jersey’s reactions to sudden shining colours than hearing the manager speak.

Rework the dialogue. It might become tedious if all Jersey and the otter did was try to overcome her disbelief, but the otter can both fight her scepticism and deliver important facts. Add narration to the dialogue, use it to demonstrate things. Add proof of those reactions you mention later. Add comedy.

Turn the vision into a proper scene and not a passing summary of it. Unless that vision is unimportant to the story as a whole, of course; but that’s something I can’t tell from just this excerpt. If this vision is just an illustration of how the spray works, and the story will focus on something else entirely (a different vision, a different conflict to solve), then maybe you started your story in the wrong place.


I’m sorry my review is rather critical, but you asked for honesty and constructive criticism, and I did my best to deliver just that. It might happen that I’m just not the right audience for the story, and you envisioned it as something much lighter and simpler than I expected it to be. If you have any questions or want me to dive in even deeper on some aspects I touched on only briefly, let me know in an email. I love post-review discussions.

Cheers,
J.B.

My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .