Artistic License, chapter 3

Starting to query so AL is down.

Hey there! I haven't read any of the chapters before this one so my review might not be real helpful in some ways, but hopefully I'll still have some useful words for you.

I like the story you're writing. Your writing is pretty good and you've got an interesting romance going on. I'd say my biggest complaint is that I'm not really sure what's going on. Where's the conflict? What is the character's goal? What is he struggling with? I didn't feel much tension in this chapter, apart from in the first scene with the girl he drops, but it was so quickly lost. I skimmed the second half of the chapter to get the basic idea of things. I still don't really know where you were going with it. Like I said, it's good, but it needs conflict. Why do I want to read this? (rhetorical question!) What questions do I need answered that will make me read more? I think you need to find your focus in this chapter and in each scene, perhaps develop your characters more. As it is, this chapter just seems like filler either to get us to the main conflict or filler for the sake of filler. If it's the former, you may need to start your story somewhere else. If it's the latter, well, you just need to find conflict and ax anything that isn't important to it.

Also your first person narrator felt a little wandering at times:

She flipped through her sleeve book of CDs, trying to decide which one to use. She finally pulled the elastic out of her hair and put it on her wrist. Her hair itself fell down her back, reaching about her waist. She shook her head a little and it spread out. She even pulled a piece of it over her shoulder and ran her hands down it as she looked through her CDs.

Did he really watch her do all that? He's paying a lot of attention to a female, especially since he's gay! Keep in mind that in first person, the reader only sees, hears, notices, thinks what the character does. If your narrator isn't paying attention to that, you don't need to tell us about it. First person is like reader tunnel vision. Anything that isn't happening to the narrator doesn't need to be in the story.

I hope this review helps! Send me a PM if you have any questions.

Stella here!

I. NITPICKS

When she asked me to demonstrate how to swing dance with her,

But didn't she ask, "Do you know how to swing dance?"

“Jesus Christ,” she said, pushing my hands away before I could do it myself.

For accidentally brushing, that's a bit of an overreaction.

“Know what? Why don’t you just leave.

leave?

II. PLOT

At this point, I'm seriously questioning, where is your plot? So far, it's fluff, fluff and more fluff. The only thing you've got going for it is that he's gay, which really isn't a big enough deal to make the scenes stand out without a plot to support them. If this is a romance, then who's the love interest? Because we've met way too many random people at this point. And where on earth is the story going? Three chapters in, and something should have happened to give us an idea. So far, all that's happened is some drawing and dancing and talking. Exciting stuff.

The plot is the backbone of the story. So give it some.

III. OVERALL

It's good as far as fluff goes. Only you can't fluff forever.

Hope I helped, drop me a note if you need anything!

-Stella x

This was great! I don't have much to say as far as edits but I just wanted to pop in and say that I loved this. Keep writing please!