Part of me likes the style, another part (the part that has been trimming my novel by thousands of words to try and get it to a reasonable amount) kind of is flailing around and trying not to go crazy. You use a lot of words to say anything, which isn't altogether bad, but by padding it with so many words, it seemed like you got away with a couple of bad literary devices.
The beginning, for instance, I think would be better if you just cut to the chase and do the action scene where he hypnotizes her instead of going on and on about how he is homeless in New York City... but of course he's different from the rest. I don't think the background information or the talk about him thinking about doing something (with him subsequently doing it) doesn't really add anything. Why? Because you're telling us something, sometimes several times over, and then showing us something by having some sort of action scene. There's a reason why the phrase, "Show, don't tell" is as popular as it is in the literary circle. Showing is a lot more cooler. It'll give you a much better idea of who the character is and it'll excite you into reading the rest of the story.
Then... the Aladdin scene. I'm calling it that because it totally reminded me of THIS. And I don't know. Yeah, it's exciting, but it doesn't quite make sense. As Aladdin (and your character) pretty much said, "All this for a loaf of bread?"
Then you have the cheesy, "MOTHER!" flashback which seems really random to the point where it seems humorous, as if you're making fun of flashbacks in general.
The last part, too, seems largely random and thrown in, with Sam and all. It feels like you weren't sure what you were writing about (should I write about hypnosis or mother or a mysterious stranger seeing all?) and you just threw this at the end to make it possibly sound serious. Which doesn't quite work.
So yeah. Basically, cut away the style and you get this weird hodgepodge of things that were thrown together and don't quite make sense. If you outlined it, it would look weird. The style covers this up for the most part, but a critical analysis would pretty much make this story ridiculous.
Ubi caritas est vera, Deus ibi est.
"The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly." ~ Richard Bach
This is really good! Truly, I agree with Snoik on mostly everything so I am sort of not needed!
Oh by the way, Snoik I love the PIG! It's so awesome!!!
Back to reviewing matters...
No grammar mistakes that I could find, and I think your MC is to cool. You really gave your MC life instead of just placing it in there to act sort of like a puppet instead of....that doesn't make sense!
Seriously, woah. You've obviously put a lot of hard work into this, but it's a lot of work to read, as well. There's a lot of action to keep up with. And you use such big paragraphs - one or two of those would be fine, but too many make it sort of hard to read.
However, I'm interested in your MC. He's a bad guy with no real redeeming qualities, but you've given a little insight into what it's like. I'm confused, but if you straightened this out I might be able to comprehend him a bit better. I want to know what's going on here, but I can't quite understand him. I started to lose interest quite quickly, and it all went downhill from there.
And then in comes this guy Sam, who doesn't really seem to have a place in the story beyond his presence in the title. I can't see what he really does for it, but you've picked out his meeting your MC as the definitive moment, by using that as the title.
But it wasn't a badly written piece, and I can see myself being drawn in with some changes, especially the ones I and the others above me have mentioned. It needs a lot of work, but I can see it significantly improving.
Hope I helped. ~Grin
"Ruth. She's alive because she is not dead, and junk." ~JoJo
