Reviewer: MonkeyAbu Signed
Date: 10/18/08
Title: Chapter 1: Chapter 1
Ok, I'm having a hard time deciding where I really want to begin. I'm going to give you some very constructive criticism that I hope you don't take offense to. Rather I hope you take as a tool to help you improve your writing.
First, I'm going to be completely honest and tell you it's highly doubtful that anybody would give this story a chance because of it's appearance alone. It's highly confusing and very hard to follow when everything, including each individual's dialogue, is meshed into one big paragraph. That right there is one of the big cardinal sins of writing and a major turnoff for any prospective readers. Break it into seperate paragraphs. Don't clump each character's dialogue together into one paragraph. That alone can cause a reader's head to spin.
Next, story development. Honestly, and this is only my opinion so please don't take any offense because this is not a flame in any shape or form, but I did not see an ounce of development throughout the story. Before you jump right into writing after you get an idea, take a moment and develop it, even if only in your head. Answer the questions of What? Where? Why? When? How? etc etc etc. Give your story a back bone because a story cannot live on jumbled writing and miscellaneous dialogue alone. Also, give us some details. Paint a picture with your words so we, as the readers, can actually picture ourselves right there witnessing it as the story takes place. Aquaint us with the characters through your writing. Who are they? Why are they that way? What makes them who they are? Their likes? Their dislikes? Their quirks? etc etc etc. Anything that lets us know a little something about them. That right there gives a story more back bone. Details are very important when writing a story. Describe locations and surroundings. Describe a particular character's emotions. If it's important to the story line, describe what they ate for breakfast. You need to plan the important points of the story and build your details off of that. Does that make sense?
Also, the grammar throughout this piece was very poor. There's a bunch of grammar nazis here at AC, LoL, so don't take offense to that either. Some people have trouble when it comes to grammar mechanics, but you'll never fail at finding people here at AC who are willing to give you pointers on ways to improve. Plus, you can also google it and you'll be sure to find grammar tutorial sites that can help.
Another thing as a little advice. I would work on the maturity of the tone of your narrating character. There is absolutely nothing wrong with writing in the first person point of view. Some amazing stories are written in 1st POV. However, there was a certain level of immaturity that I couldn't get past in the narrating character's tone and it was very bothersome and distracting.
Last, I want to bring up my biggest problem with this story and that would be the story line. It was highly unbelievable and unrealistic. Creative/unrealistic story lines are ok to a point, but there's gotta be enough realism in it and I just didn't get that feeling while struggling to read this. If your story line has bits and pieces that may be somewhat unrealistic, then combat that with the realistic strong points and it should all mesh together in the end. I hope that made sense.
Really, I'm not trying to flame you, but I do believe every author deserves constructive criticism and that's what I am trying to give. Again, like I said, please do not take offense to anything I have said in this review. I am only trying to help. If you have time, take a moment and head over to the forum. You can access it through the main page of the AC site. There's plently of people there (AC authors and readers) who can give you good advice and pointers on how to improve your writing.
[Ashley]