j - 2

This is Yams here for a review on Review Day!

The hustle and bustle of the city always amazed me. How could so many people deal with such a hurried routine? I would visit New York City once maybe twice a year for a week and a half total. By the end I would be exhausted from rushing here and rushing there for all hours of the day. Not to mention the traffic but it’s lucky that I always walk. Much better for the city except if it’s nearing or after dark. Those are the cases when you keep one finger on the pepper spray and the other hand on your purse.

This first paragraph has a lot of word repetition in it, or rather, it just didn't flow all that well for me. If you chopped it into two paragraphs it would flow a lot smoother and would be easier on the eyes to read instead of a large block of text.

Surprisingly after bears moved to the city, crime rates went down. Many people thought that these wild creatures would destroy public property but they in fact helped the city. Some were even inspired to go and work in the state and national forests after seeing Smokey Bear ads. Most just stayed in the city working odd jobs but the most popular was telemarketing which we have discussed before. The most interesting cases happened to the bears working in customer service. We will now view an actual event in one of these office buildings.

I liked the randomness of this paragraph. I found it funny and it semi-related to the story. The type of humor put into this is clever and well-thought out. Even though it doesn't really make sense, sometimes peoples' reasoning's don't either.

After that paragraph, there was a big switch into going just description to dialogue that didn't really describe anything. It messes up the balance. I strongly suggest you put some description or a little more dialogue tags (even though I don't love dialogue tags). It just helps so the characters don't feel like talking heads.

After that, it goes into another long paragraph, and then repeat with dialogue. This time it's not as bad. It's just very distracting on how unbalanced everything in this chapter. Everything is in different places. It'd be much better if you evened it out, even though I do like this chapter already.

The humor was funny, and I can't wait to see more of this. It has potential.
Have a great day!

I'm not sure if you took my advice on having the bears and other animals be the focus or if you were just feeling like having long, dragged out conversations about the health effects of honey. Either way, I am extremely happy.

But first, the highlights.

-"“Yeah Bob.”" I always read your works and have Kristen Stewart monologuing it, simply because it falls as incredibly flat. Granted, my writing always sounds like a history teacher who hasn't gotten enough sleep, which is somewhat worse. But I'll take this as an example--is Jim simply saying "yeah bob", his head hanging down in lethargy, his eyes lolling upwards, or is he simply saying "Yeah, Bob?" like a preoccupied but still interested bear. This is just a matter of preference, of course, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

-"The answer is always turn off your computer and the turn it back on again." And then, not and the. Also, I just realized this but--Jim from IT.

Spoiler

You clever bastard.

-"What would the torture be, he thought, dealing with the worst customers ever?" I felt like you could expand and describe 'the worst customers ever' a little bit more. What do the worst customers ever look like? Are they old grandmas who can't tell a self-destruct button from a power switch? Teenage girls who talk like they have a tongue disease and always reply with sardonic but dumb answers? Take the opportunity and slay that satire.

-"The horror of that situation, how could anyone be that cruel." I feel like you should end this with a question mark personally. It comes off flat without it.

Now, onto the Contextual Review:

I am not calling that bear anything other than Jim from IT, you can't convince me otherwise. DON'T TRY TO, LIZ. HE'S JIM FROM IT.

Now, onto the Actual Contextual Review:

I like how you're developing the characters first before launching into the story immediately, alluding to who or what the Project Carribean is, having fun with the characters before getting down to the nitty-gritty dramatic stuff. I'm actually intrigued as to what the Project Carribean is, considering you never explain it in full details--I'm starting to think that the Project might be the narrator. But that would be too obvious. Wouldn't it?

Okay, besides my lazy predictions, what else did I think could've used some work? Well, the fourth wall breaking is still a bit jarring. To introduce the characters, no matter how well developed and comical, with a "and now we turn to the very characters of this drama" (I'm paraphrasing but you understand) still comes off as a bit shocking to the reader in a not-very-funny way. However, I think this time around we're getting used to it, but toning it down a bit (or toning it up to eleven--as in, having the narrator comment on everything and have one-sided conversations with the reader) would be a good idea.

Other than that, though, I'm pretty much good with this chapter. Everything seems to be in shape for an espionage story involving bears and wolves and skunks and flamingos and humans.

Signing out,

--EM.