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Review: Chapter One of Octavia's Reprise
Nick !Nack.SzZIw
Sat, Feb 15th, 2014 10:58
No. 129740
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>>129731 >You'll have to forgive me if I'm a bit rusty on my reviewing format; it's been a while since I did this. Overall Thoughts: Not a bad beginning to a story. The hooks at the beginning and end could use a little work, and your grammar and word precision aren't as tight as they could be, but the premise is far from poorly executed.Plot Synopsis (C1): Octavia, a snooty cellist, goes to get a cup of tea after finishing a performance. A near-death experience gives her something like an artistic identity crisis.Review: The first thing I noticed in this story was your writing style. You've got a habit of "indirect narration", where you mention what a character begins doing, or what they were doing. This isn't exclusively a passive tense issue, but generally, the passive tense should be avoided in writing if possible. I'll definitely admit you did a good job setting up the scenery in on the stage and in Octavia's apartment, but those segments slightly dragged for me because of their tense. Next, I think you overuse adjectives / adverbs. Adjectives and adverbs on their own aren't bad, in my opinion. There are some people who say to avoid adverbs altogether, and to use more precise, colorful verbs (instead of "ran quickly", "dashed"). I take the middle ground of "Why not both?" The important thing isn't to reduce descriptive words totally, but to paint a more cohesive image in your readers' mind with as few words as you, the author, need to. If I were you, I'd do a quick Ctrl+F in your story for "ly", and for each instance of it, ask yourself, "Is there another way I could have said this?" If yes, try to phrase the sentence in a more descriptive manner. If no... well, you're the author, and that's your decision you've made for that particular sentence.…