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Hi. My name is Max. I'm here to review the story you submitted to the first round of the "Invalid Item" .
Item Reviewed: "A New Beginning"
Author Kotaro
Reviewer: Max Griffin 🏳️🌈
As always, these are just one person's opinions. Always remember Only you know what is best for your story. I've read and commented on your work as I would try to read my own. I hope you find something here useful , and that you will discard the rest with good cheer.
For reference, the prompt was A poor soldier returns from war, lonely and impoverished. He--or maybe she!--meets a witch, who promises him riches if he climbs into a cave and retrieves a magic tinderbox. Inside the cave, he encounters a dog with eyes like saucers guarding the prize. When he finally opens the box, a magic blue light shines on him and his life changes forever.
What I liked best
This story brimmed with action and tension. The protagonist, John, is both troubled and sympathetic, and you did a great job showing both aspects of his character. He experiences flashbacks and nightmares, and doesn't have enough to even buy meals but must instead rely on meals from a homeless shelter. Still, when he comes into a sum of money, his first thought is to donate a non-trivial part of it back to the shelter. He's a credible and sympathetic character that readers will cheer for.
Plot
The plot presents the protagonist, John, with a goal, namely to locate the rest of the "treasure" by following clues he found in his room, along with the initial bundle of cash. The obstacles are the criminals (?) following him. The stakes are high, since with the remainder of the cash he can get the treatment he needs for his PTSD.
I was a little confused about what he seemed to know about the criminals. See the line-by-line comments below. The ending seemed a little strange, too, since he didn't use the funds to get the treatment as planned.
Style and Voice
This story uses an omniscient narrator, in which the author stands outside the fictional events, looking in. The author knows the internal thoughts of all the characters; in fact, the author knows everything.
This narrative style dominated 19th century literature and continued well into the 20th. However, it has all but disappeared from commercial fiction today. About 30% of all contemporary fiction uses a first person narrator, while the overwhelming majority of the remainder uses third person limited.
Omniscient narration has many advantages, since it lets the author convey lots of information with minimal words. However, no one reads fiction to learn background information. People read fiction for the human connection with the characters: their sorrows and joys, triumphs and tragedies, loves and losses. Narration chills that connection, which is why it's so much stronger to reveal things through the words and deeds of your characters rather than by telling the readers stuff.
In third person limited, for each scene the author chooses one character to provide the point of view. The reader can know what that character sees, hears, smells, and otherwise senses. The reader can know what that character thinks, as well. But the reader has to infer these things about all the other characters through their words and deeds. The idea is that the author places the readers deep inside the head of one character, and then the readers encounter the fictional world through that character in a holistic manner, the same way we encounter the real world. That human connection, done well, will draw the reader into the story and thus into the fictional world.
A novel can--and usually does--have many point-of-view characters, but there should be only one for each scene. Most short stories, due to length, will have only one POV character.
You start out in John's head, and it appeared to be third person limited. But then midway in the story the POV hopped about, changing back and forth between the criminals, to Juanita, and to John. I've noted some of these hops in the line-by-line remarks below to help you find them.
It wouldn't take much in the way of revision to write the entire story in John's POV--although I admit you'd have to sacrifice a couple of mini-scenes where he's not around to see things. However, keeping the readers in John's head increases the intimacy and immediacy of events and reinforces the fictional dream playing in the reader's imagination. For this reason, my main suggestion for this story is to make the tweaks necessary to show the entire thing in John's POV.
Scene/Setting
This was good--lots of strong, vivid descriptions.
Characters
John is an excellent character. The bad guys fill their role, although they don't have a lot of depth. Juanita doesn't have a huge role, but she comes across strong, too.
Grammar
I wasn't ready for grammar, but this appeared to be clean copy. Good work!
Just my personal opinion
One way to think of telling a story is that it is a guided dream in which the author leads the readers through the events. In doing this, the author needs to engage the readers as active participants in the story, so that they become the author's partner in imagining the story. Elements of craft that engage the readers and immerse them in the story enhance this fictive dream. On the other hand, authors should avoid things that interrupt the dream and pull readers out of the story.
The suggestions I made above and below in the line-by-line remarks--on point of view and the opening paragraph--both pertain to strengthening the fictional dream playing the reader's head.
I had some questions about the plot, too. I note in passing that it only marginally followed the prompt, with several elements missing--the cave, the dog, and the blue light. In terms of the story, that's irrelevant. Had this been a contest entry, though, it would have influenced the judging.
Thanks for sharing this story. I enjoyed reading it. It was full of suspense and tension, and it's always gratifying to see the good guys win at the end. Keep on writing--you have talent!
Line-by-line remarks
Your text is in BLUE.
My comments are in GREEN.
If I suggest a re-wording, it's in GRAPE.
Flaming vehicles and flashes of light defeated the night and illuminated the pride of culture lost. The funk of burning tires and flesh churned his guts. Screams of agony rent the crackle of combustion and the roar of weapons. His squad huddled among rubble or laid dead or wounded in the streets. The shriek of an incoming round rose and rose to a crescendo.My Comment: There are some wonderful sensory images in this opening paragraph. The opening establishes that the POV character is a soldier, and one who has known violent, even horrifying combat. The opening also foreshadows the plot by giving a hints about the goals of the protagonist.
I do have some teaks to suggest, however. First, there is no antecedent to the pronoun "his," so I'd take this opportunity to name John. We learn his name a few hundred words later, but stating it now will help to draw readers into his head and hence into the story.
Secondly, we learn in the next paragraph that the vivid events of this chapter are a dream. This might work in a screenplay, but it's really hard to pull off in a short story. Unlike a movie or a play, the action of a short story all happens in the reader's head. The reader imagines the fictional world, based on the clues provided by the author. The reader becomes the author's partner in constructing the here-and-now of this world. Launching this "fictional dream" in the reader's imagination is one of the primary purposes of an opening.
By starting with an actual dream, the reader is "fooled" into launching the wrong fictional dream, one that's in the middle of combat. As soon as John wakes up, the reader has reboot the fictional dream with a new set of cues. Every reboot to the fictional dream playing in the reader's head runs the risk of disrupting that dream-like state and breaking the partnership between the author and the reader in imagining the fictional world.
This kind of opening can work, but it's tricky and difficult to pull off. In a screenplay, for example, special effects, or even a transposed shot of John squirming in bed, can cue the person watching that they are witnessing a dream. But in a short story, you don't have cameras, or music, or a foley artist, or all the other things a screenwrite and director can access. You've just got words on the page.
So, my main recommendation for the opening is to start with John waking up from the dream, not with him in the dream. He can always sit up and think, that was a bad one." He could sniff for the smell of burning flesh, listen for the crackle of combustion and the roar of weapons, but hear only silence. Or maybe hear the neighbor's TV playing the song from Jeopardy. Alex Trebek was never like his dream.
That starts in the real here-and-now, but still lets you use the great images you put into your opening paragraph.
His t-shirt was damp with sweat.My Comment: Beware of sentences where the primary verb is a form of "to be." Here, for example, maybe his sweat-soaked t-shirt clings to his clammy body.
Gusts tossed old newspapers into the air. They flew up the street, shining wet from recent rain, then drifted to the pavement to be picked up by the next gust. He thought his life was like those discarded newspapers; pushed around by random events he had no power to influence.My Comment: Great paragraph, and awesome use of simile.
After a leisurely breakfast at a diner, he had a barber cut his hair short, then strolled to a men’s shop to buy some clothes. During that time, at the hotel, two men in suits broke into a room on the third floor. With them was a woman in jeans and a sweatshirt.My Comment: We've been in John's head so far, but here the POV abruptly shifts to his vacant room and an omniscient narrator.
My Comment: Establishes that we're in Juanita's head.
Eventually, the man they wanted saw the way they scanned the street and scrutinized the faces of the men they passed. He was slightly alarmed that they had come before he left.My Comment: Now we're in John's head.
They noticed he matched the age, height, build, and color of hair, but so did a lot of others. The things that didn’t match: the clothes and the haircut, convinced them he wasn’t the one.My Comment: Omniscient narrator, again, telling us what the pursuers know and think.
The tables were empty and the racket of pots and pans being washed could be heard. My Comment: "could be heard" is passive voice, which puts your readers in a passive, receptive mood. We know that the "other one" is probably hearing this, so there is no need for the passive voice. Since it puts readers in a passive rather than active mode, it also works against engaging the readers' imaginations.
he discovered it occupied by the woman in the back seat and the thin man in the front. Probably, the muscular one was inside the church.My Comment: This phrasing suggests that Holmes knows who these people are. Was that your intent? From what went before, it felt like there was no connection between them except for the fortuitous discovery of the money.
I only review things I like, and I really liked this story. I'm a professor by day, and find awarding grades the least satisfying part of my job. Since I'm reviewing in part for my own edification, I decided long ago to give a rating of "4" to everything I review, thus avoiding the necessity of "grading" things on WDC. So please don't assign any weight to my "grade" -- but know that I selected this story for review because I liked it and thought I could learn from studying it.
Again, these are just one person's opinions. Only you know what is best for your story! The surest path to success is to keep writing and to be true to your muse!
Thanks again for sharing this item. Keep on writing!
Max Griffin 🏳️🌈
http://MaxGriffin.net/
http://MaxGriffin.net/blog/
Check out my essay on short stories.
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