Young Writers Society

Hey there, I saw you requested a review in my review thread, so I thought I'd drop by and take care of that today! I can see that you've already gotten a couple of good reviews on this, so hopefully I won't repeat too much of what's already been said.

First off, it would be helpful if you split up your chapter into multiple chapters. 9k words is really, really long for a chapter of any novel, and especially here on this site, it's much easier to read and review chapters that are 2k-3k words in length. You already have a lot of scenes separated by numbers - just make those your chapters.

When it comes to the actual story, there's a lot you do right here. I really like your opening scene and your opening line - both work very well as "hooks," setting the stage for the conflict and enticing me to read more. We have this mysterious, charismatic figure and you do a good job of revealing just enough to keep us interested without telling us everything. I particularly want to know why he chose Jaime - what's so special about him that made Lansky single him out?

The other thing I enjoyed was your eye for detail. You do a really good job of telling us the details of what people look like and what they are doing in a way that conveys their status and personality. Same with the places Jaime goes - you establish the atmosphere well. However, do be careful of repeating the same description and of giving too much description. There are a few places where you repeated information you'd given in just the last paragraph.

Also, although your eye for detail is good, I'll echo fraey when I say that your narration feels stilted. A lot of it is because you're "telling" us where people are and what they're doing rather than "showing" us. I think this is mostly caused by your overuse of the verb "to be" - you keep telling us the way things are, rather than just showing what happens. To see what I mean, search for all the instances of "was", "is", "were", and "are" in your story. You'll find that you use them in nearly every sentence, and that's what's making the narration stilted. Try to use different verbs, especially vibrant verbs that draw attention to the details you want to emphasize. It'll also help you be more concise.

For example:

The architecture of the restaurant was a modest art deco style. The long and large navy blue curtains were the first things that attracted my attention.

Hiya umbrella!

Hope you're doing well today or tonight, depending on what side of the world you're on, obviously. I'm here to give you a review just like you requested and for RevMo! Let's get started, now, shall we?

Alright! But before I start, I'm going to let you know that I only read until chapter 5. Your story is quite long, and I honestly suggest breaking it up into different posts per chapter.

I love that this is waaay back in the 1900s. Very nice, and historical. I'm not much of the history nerd type of person, so I'm not sure that you got all the bits an pieces right, but it seems perfectly fine to me! The descriptions of the streets, the beautiful girl's house, etc. It's all pretty impressive, if I must say so myself. Keep it up!

Let's start with chapter one, now.

“Yes, sir. It is me.” I said, excitedly, but trying to hide my excitement.

said the Jewish boss and lighted a cigarette. “…being a croupier in a casino is not what you need to do…" I went on listening with wide-open ears.

The airport was very crowded and it was full of pretty, blonde American tourists wearing cowboy hats, smoking cigars, and laughing out loudly.

There I met a Cuban young man who greeted me warmly and lead me to a black Cadillac, which was parked below a very tall palm tree.

The time was passed very quickly. I didn't realize how it was past.

A thin man with tiny mustaches and shining dark hair opened the door.

We sat around a large table in mid of the room.

Stassi greeted us with his lovely Italian accent and said:

On mid of July 1957, Meyer Lansky and I were sitting at the dinner table,

“Okay, I’ll come every here day. But what if you need me for something urgent?”

I couldn’t see much from that distant.

Hey there! Welcome to the website, and I'm happy to see you're already contributing to this lovely writing society! This is quite a long chapter even though it's the first section, so I think I will try to go over more general notes here with a little specificity since it's a little difficult to truly analyze 9k words in one sitting.

To start, Jaime seems like an understated character in this current form. Since the reader is being told of this story from only his view, the narration feels stilted at times and a little confusing because the constant location shifts and time skips muddle this overall idea of what's really going on in 1957 between the US and Cuba. His mannerisms come across as more of someone who seems to go along with just about everything anyone ever tells him to do - going from saying that he was satisfied with his current job, but then agreeing to a stranger's job offer. Not to mention that he seems pretty blasé about the guns and the expensive cars. It just seems like an ordinary person would react with a little more of some kind of emotion. That can definitely be improved upon with practice though.

This kind of reads as a typical gangster movie, even set in the precarious times of the '50s, and I do find myself wanting to see something unique on this to set it afar from a lot of the crime-based stuff that exist not only in book form but also movie form. I do like the different scenery as this is mostly set in Cuba, but in this story, I think it would be interesting to dive more into the culture, and how different this crime could be different than the American-typical ones. An example would be to maybe include another character based in Cuba that maybe can bring a different flavor to this overall story, as even the boss man depicts the typical big bad gangster, which along with the cheating, brings an almost too familiar image to the playing ground, I think.

I have a few specific pieces of advice for this novel. First, I do think this amount of words is pretty awesome, but limiting this number and modifying chapters into shorter pieces would really help get the reader to want to read this instead of being put off because of the sheer size. Next, I would really try to work on these characters to develop them further and make them unique, such as giving different personalities that might not fit at first, at giving different roles or sides to typically "strong/quiet/uncaring" characters. Lastly, add some inner conflicts, add some external conflicts, tie in the weather, who knows! Just pick something that's going to rock everyone's world especially Jaime and get him to react at least with his thoughts whirling around instead of just "Okay" or something short like that.

Overall, not a bad start! But I do think there are some things you can expand on to really make this story your own.