JATL Reviews Stories: Socialite · 5:54am Apr 18th, 2014

Well, I said I would do it, and here I am! It was actually quite a bit of fun to write this one, and I actually feel like I may actually help this author in some way. Who knows. Anyway, here is my review of Socialite!

So, I am going to split this up into two parts: story and writing and grammar. That is how I do my reviews after I point out a few spots that need work. Let’s go ahead and jump in, shall we?

Story

I went into this story knowing that it was a sequel. The reason being is that there is a certain way sequels should be handled that way a passerby can easily be able to become interested and want to read the prequel first. Here, you lack that aspect completely.

When starting a sequel, you must take into account the best spot to start it that actually makes it an entirely different story and not simply another chapter to the original. In this case, you literally started the story back up from where you left off (after looking back at the final chapter of the original story). This instantly creates a problem because you are not branching off from the original story to start another one; as I said, you are simply writing another chapter to the original story. With this, you already create a confusing and ambiguous atmosphere.

Next up is how the story progressed throughout the first chapter. Put simply, you seemed to have tied a cinderblock to your foot and stepped on the gas in a Ferrari. The pacing was completely off and made the entire story fly in seconds. This is already a terrible thing, but tied on with the fact that I couldn’t understand a thing going on and was confused throughout it all (and this is only partly due to me not reading the other story), this created a very boring atmosphere overall. I wasn’t drawn into the story because I couldn’t follow the story, and when I tried to, I was whisked off into the next scene. There is no time for the reader to sit and brood over the information her has just received, not that the reader can easily understand the information he is given in the first place.

The story itself could easily have promise. You seem to have had a massive amount of development and world building in your previous story, but it seems that you make it to where all of that can only be found out if you read the previous story. Generally, this is fine, but if I literally cannot begin reading the story without reading the one before it, there is a problem.

Writing and Grammar

Your writing seems to be edging towards the precipice of advanced, but what’s holding you back is vocabulary and sentence structure. First off, you have a decent vocabulary, but it is rather simple overall. You try and make up for this in how you write your sentences. As I said, you are trying to write eloquent sentences, but with the words you choose and how it is worded in the first place, it only comes off as awkward and draws unnecessary attention to the writing itself.

The next thing is that nothing is really shown. First-person is generally a very limited POV in and of itself. I can completely understand that, and this is why first-person can be useful in accurately exemplifying thoughts and emotions to where the reader can feel everything and see everything they see. However, everything is . . . basically glossed over and left alone. Even the few descriptions you had were lackluster because they only explained a few things about an object or character. Nothing else is apparent whatsoever, and everything is rather hazy when I try and see anything. So, you need to work on showing instead of telling. I’ll give you a few links to some helpful articles below that will do a better job of explaining that point than I ever could.

Next up is the grammar. I have already told you about your main problem: comma splices. This is by far the most prominent error in the entire first chapter. In fact, it is close to being the ONLY error grammatically that you have. However, you seem to also have a problem with using conjunctions when they are needed. You tend to want to say: “He wore a red mask, yellow shoes, with a handkerchief.” First off, this example implies that the handkerchief is associated with the shoes. That is automatically wrong. But since you would no doubt be talking about it apart from the rest, you would need to rewrite it as “and with a handkerchief hanging out of his shirt pocket.” There are many instances where you do not use conjunctions.

Another prominent error is using commas when there aren’t supposed to be any. This is different from comma splices in that you aren’t using a comma with an independent clause. In fact, it isn’t a clause at all. Take this example directly from the story:

His mane was pure white, and his mask dressed for war.

In this case, the comma is wrong because everything after it is not a clause at all. It does contain a subject, “his,” but it does not contain a verb. The only way you could use a comm is if it had both. In this case, “dressed” is a participle that is describing “masks.” It is not an action; it is a description. Therefore, you do not use a comma. There are other instances where you wouldn’t use a comma but many do, and that is when you have a compound verb. Here is an example:

Twilight walked up to Rainbow and started to furiously kiss her. Rainbow’s eyes widened at the sudden intimacy but closed and then pushed forward against Twilight’s assault.

Excuse the romance, but I am an avid TwiDash fan. Anyway, in this case, there would not be a comma after the first “and” because “started” is associated with the subject “Twilight” because it doesn’t have one of its own. Basically, there is no noun or pronoun in front of “started” that can be the subject of the sentence. But anyway, enough of the grammar lesson

I would suggests these two groups for editing:

The Proofreader Group

Looking for Editors

It might also be good to look up WRITE, a group that will offer similar reviews such as mine if you really want more reviews and such.

As I said, I hope that this helped you some. Know that I am not trying to be belligerent nor condescending with my review. I am simply trying to be helpful.

Have a good day, sir!

That's all there is. If you guys want to read it, go on ahead.