Hello,
It's my goal to give reviews I would appreciate getting. And I really love reviews that push me to edit and rethink. I hope this review is helpful, if not, please disregard.
You asked for honest opinions, if I would like to read on, how I feel about Luce's character and if there are things I don't understand. I'll try to touch on all of these below. I am going to add review points as I read, so these may not be addressed in a linear fashion.
I enjoyed:
The creep factor nearing the end! The hostility of the environment of the club and Luce's clear vulnerability touches on real fears. Nice.
Technical observations:
I’m including what appears to be typos. Due to the length of the piece, I’ll simply copy/paste the sentence where the error appears.
early participation is extracurricular university
bought me up so lovingly and treated me identically to their own son
I watch hopelessly as he grins
nor that I don't really want to be here anymore.
the trance-light state of the dancers,
I swing my back leg to join the front using left and right here may read easier.
a huge glass building surrounded by reaching flood lights I’m uncertain by what is meant by “reaching flood lights”.
Possibly the safest place, it even had a large taxi rank right outside. This reads as an incomplete thought as “safest place” is not expanded upon.
In general, there are multiple run on sentences and comma errors. There are also a lot of semi colons. In some places it appears that a point could be made more succinctly by taking out a prepositional phrase or a clause or adverb and condensing the thought into fewer words. In other places, a break up of a run on sentence into multiple sentence thoughts may be helpful.
EX: It appears impenetrable at first, but I squeeze around friendship groups shouting at each other to be heard, not actually in the queue but standing out of the way of the dancers, and after some careful maneuvering, I spy the bar through a gap. I reach out my arm and grasp the edge, pulling myself against its cool surface.
EX for suggested change: At first it appears impenetrable as there are multiple groups of friends shouting to be heard over the music. Their consideration in staying out of the way of the dancers is offset by their blocking access to the queue for the bar. With careful maneuvering, I finally spy the bar, squeeze through some narrow gaps, reach an arm out to grasp the edge and finally am able to pull myself against its cool surface.
Content:
While the protagonist was climbing out her window, I kept thinking, is she going barefoot about the town? Then shoes magically appeared for her once she was on the ground. This seems a missed opportunity for either building tension and/or character building. Did she toss the shoes out first? Make the climb while juggling them in her hands? Clutched in her teeth? Same for her bag, which does not make an appearance until the very end of the story when it goes missing.
one great mass struggling to escape up to this point, you have been expressing that the protagonist really wants to go to this club. Using the word “escape” here interrupts mood building as the club suddenly begins to seem rather threatening. Is this what you meant to do?
After serving two others beside me, the bar tender catches my eye, and I place my order. After your description of how crowded and poorly lit the club is, this moment seems unrealistic. In that sort of crush, patrons usually have difficulty getting the bar tenders attention, not the other way around.
You utilize descriptive scenes throughout the piece and at times what you describe does not match the emotion that Luce is experiencing.
EX: It's hard to tell, but it’s maybe half hour later when I find myself in the very centre of the room, empty glass long since discarded. I'm not sure how much of it I drank and how much was spilt, but I'm not entirely in control of my actions anymore. The smoke machines must be on full blast, stinging my eyes and filling the room in a wispy haze that hangs a few feet above the ground. I've long since lost sight of Kaira, and now I'm jumping to a fast-paced track among strangers in their own little worlds, who are dancing in odd frantic movements. We’re just one big crush of sweat and heat, free for tonight and not caring about tomorrow. I love it. This description painted a generally unpleasant experience. She had lost some control of her body, she was in minor pain from the smoke. She lost her newly made ‘friend’. Was in a crowd but alone, was overheated, but she loved it. My assumption is that you are trying to build a mood with the setting of people being wild and carefree and young. Don’t forget to throw in some descriptors of the attraction of the moment, not just the difficult parts.
In other places, I notice you quite effectively write an emotion/mood into the scene and allow me to experience Luce's inner self.
EX: It's hard to tear my eyes away from his; his stare is so intense its hypnotic. His blue eyes are electric, like he can see right through me. This pulled me into how Luce was feeling.
Wanted to take a moment to comment on what appears to be contradictions in Luce’s character. You write her as intelligent and that she grew up in a protective home environment. She is a ‘good girl’, as this is her first night making the teen escape through an upstairs window. And yet, she was naïve enough to go to a club alone without friends or acquaintances. She apparently has had enough experience with alcohol, at a newly turned 18, to know her limits, but chose to over drink anyway at the beginning of the night. When she was sitting outside the club noticing the quiet of the city, she specifically noticed Where are the taxis? The smokers? The drunks? Where are the dancers in search of an early morning feast? These specific internal questions sound like they come from a person who well knows the late nights/early mornings of club life. Not of a girl on her first night out. She appears to move between experience and naivety (or outright conscious foolishness) quite freely.
After reading the full chapter, I think I have a better understanding of what you were trying to do. I think you were trying to build in the threatening nature of the club so the reader will have their antenna up for danger. You definitely include the unpleasant aspects of the club. You quite a bit of focus on the heat, the unpleasant skin contact and so on. What is rarely touched on is why Luce would continue to stay. You tell us that she loves it, but I remain unconvinced by what is described. Why does she love it? What is so attractive about this club that she would voluntarily stay? I believe you are trying to create tension and the push pull of "love it and hate it" in the same moment. If so, I encourage you to work in a bit more on the "love it" end of things.
The last part of the story is definitely it’s strength. When Luce got to the bar the second time, keeping my reviewer brain on became a lot more difficult as I simply wanted to read. There was suddenly a tension present that I had not been experiencing in the earlier part of the story.
I think I’ve touched on almost all of what you asked for except for whether or not I’d read on. There is definitely an attraction to know more of the story, and right now the answer would be not likely. This is due to two things. One, Luce’s character confusion. She is not fully defined as she appears to vacillate between the intelligently naïve bookworm out for an adventure, and the experienced, but looking for trouble, party girl.
Second, I did not get to know much about her inner life. I was told what she was experiencing, but did not really get to experience it with her. There were some sporadic moments, but these were not consistent enough for me to attach to her.
I admired:
You set this up well to leave the reader hanging. There is obviously more story here and the reader well knows it. This appears to be a solid foundation.
Reason for rating:
I am giving this a 3.5 stars as I believe the technical stuff is getting in the way of the story and there is room for growth in the content. I do believe this is a good start and worth returning to. Hope you keep writing! |