Shadows; Entries 1 & 2

by Samhain

Published March 26, 2019

18+ Language Violence Mature Content

In Trash Bin

Warning: This work has been rated 18+ for language, violence, and mature content.

Comments & reviews · 2
Note: You are not logged in, but you can still leave a comment or review. Before it shows up, a moderator will need to approve your comment (this is only a safeguard against spambots). Leave your email if you would like to be notified when your message is approved.

User avatar
Atticus
Review
Atticus wrote a review Review · Mar 31, 2019

Hey there Amadeus! Tuck(ster) here to help a fellow Team Spring-er out and leave a review!

Lucille heated up quick at that.
This should be "quickly".

Other than that, there were few other small grammar mistakes, so congrats on that! However, you do have a habit of long run-on sentences comprised of small clauses that should be split up into 2 or more sentences. It would help your flow tremendously and is a better grammatical practice.

Moving on to the actual work:

There is some serious info-dumping in the beginning. It's easy for readers to lose interest when there's so much info being dumped onto them right out of the gates, and it doesn't leave a good first impression. Furthermore, the reader probably won't retain much of that information because it's presented in such a form and given to them all at once. You need to break up that information or, better yet, show it rather than tell it. For example, with the short story you tell about a man stopping Luther, you could incorporate a lot of those details into that story so that it's not in an info-dumpy form.

When Luther's parents were fighting, I didn't see a scene when his dad actually hit his mom? Obviously there was still some serious abuse there, but Luther asks his dad why he would hit his mom when there isn't physical contact of that nature. Just something to think about.

I think that the fighting parents narrative here strengthens your story here because it proves the rough situation that Luther comes from. He lives in a poor neighborhood, doesn't have a strong family life, and that puts him at a serious disadvantage. I look forward to seeing how he overcomes that and what he does because of his situation!

As one final note, it doesn't seem consistent that Luther's dad would beat and harass his mom but not Luther. It's not consistent with his personality to be a nice person who only occasionally lashes out, and it's a common misconception about abusers that should be corrected.

Hopefully some of these ramblings were helpful to you, and I look forward to seeing more from you in the future! You've done a great job setting this up as far as settings, as this is a conducive environment for someone to flourish despite challenges, and I think Luther is a good protagonist that readers will have no problems supporting! If you have any questions about this review, just let me know and I'll provide any clarification I can! Happy writing!

~Tuckster

Thanks for the review! I am definitely always open to feedback and I appreciate your thoughts. Also, thank you for placing attention on the abuse scene, since I don't really know much about how that would actually play out in real life (thank goodness) so me, being a realist in terms of writing, definitely love being corrected on misconstrued facts or misinformation in general.
I'm sure you'll enjoy the following installments as well! I'd love to hear what you have to say on those.

User avatar
kostia
Review
kostia wrote a review Review · Mar 31, 2019

Hello there AmadeusW!

This is Kostia, here to comment your chapter since it is review day!

I liked the content of this and it seems like you have a solid storyline in your hands. I found it quite interesting and descriptive. Also your vocabulary was exceptional! I really liked the delicate words you used and your overall phrasing. It seems like you have thought out your main characters and their background.

However structurally, this missed a lot. You hardly have any paragraphs and the ones you have are too long and tiring for the reader. Now this is a shame because your story is interesting and engaging from the beginning.

I suggest you to fix your punctuation and get rid of the information dumps. I am sorry to say but I believe that most of the first part of the story didn't need to be included. For me the story began from 23 March 2012. The rest of it, even if exceptionally well written is too informative and to my opinion unnecessary. I think you can take a lot out and edit it a bit to be more relevant to your story.

Another thing you should be careful about is the length of your sentences.
For instance:

"How we managed to wind up there was a mystery to me, but apparently it was on the fault of my father’s inability to get a well-paying job, as well as some issues with rent bills and taxes and shit, but despite his mess-ups, my mother Lucille stayed with us no matter her absolute dislike of our situation."

All this is only one sentence. I believe this is nearly unacceptable. You should definitely add a full stop somewhere in that.

There are a lot of big sentence in the text that get very long and tiring, destroying the mood of the whole story. A lot of words and details really mess with the creativity in this and often made me lose interest as I was reading.

I believe there are some things to fix, and that definitely needs some editing.

However you have a really good idea for a novel, your prose is neat and smooth, while you have an exceptional talent for imagery and description. So I believe you will be fine if you put so.e more time into it and get rid of the information dumps.

I will continue reading these series, I really want to see where you are going with this.

Overall good work!

Keep writing!

Best regards
Kostia

Thank you for the review! I will definitely take your suggestions under advisement.



I have my books and my poetry to protect me.
— Paul Simon