Sparkatale

First of all, sorry if it took me so long before writing this – those last weeks had been quite hectic – however the good thing is it allowed me enough time to think over your story. Secondly, forgive me if I’m unable to give you an opinion about grammar, sentence structure and orthography, since English isn’t my first language – and generally, those are things that a good and reliable beta-reader can help you with, as well as for plot and character development. However, one thing that stands out is the “monoblock look”: narration, description and dialogue are all in one paragraph which, unless you are aiming for a Joyce-like stream-of-consciousness, can make the text hard to deal for the reader. A good rule is to start a new paragraph each time someone is speaking; as for narration and description, it’s up to your taste – personally, I keep together sentences that feel like an unicum, nevertheless someone advised me to use smaller paragraph to “make it easier to read”. Still on the subject, I advice to visually separate thoughts from speech, you tend to use inverted commas for both which give the impression the character is thinking aloud – something someone doesn’t do all the time. I feel it’s too early to say if the story is good or not, especially since the rhythm is too fast for my taste: there is a lot happening in a bit more than 1600 words and, at the same time, there is little information. You have chosen a first person narrator: don’t be afraid to show the reader what Scarlet thinks and feels about what is happening around her or about the people she’s dealing with. Don’t be afraid of detail and use only sight in descriptive passages, but also hearing, smell, touch, taste and most of all her impression. I know it’s not easy, because it forces the writer to think over about all those detail, however the story would benefit from it. For example and back to dialogue, instead of merely write down what someone say, add a couple of words to let the reader know the voice tone used, the expression of his/her face, how he/she sounds like. Why, you may even add a little action ;-) And do not forget to state every now and then who’s saying what, sometime it’s hard to tell. Another advice, what about using the “Show don’t tell” technique? For example, you tell the reader that Scarlet is sleep-deprived due to her dreams, yet you limit this to a “pale with bags under her eyes” look and to her dozing off in class, however, except for that, her behaviour seems quite normal to me. She feels sleepy and tired, and that’s all. Another example is her relationship with Alecia: the reader knows they are roommates, but nothing else. Sometimes they feel like being on speaking terms, other being rather friendly: if they are (best) friends, show the reader how. As about the characters, for the moment I feel Scarlet more like a high schooler that a college student in her last year, especially with her complaining about how much homework she has to do and how much she would like to avoid it: maybe it’s a consequence of her lack of sleep, but it’s not very clear. I hope my review was useful and I will certainly keeping on reading: I’m curious to know what will happen next. Kindest regards, D. Rose