Paranormal_Princess

Rating: B+, pretty damn good.

This first chapter fits its genre hauntingly. As we follow the last moments in a fictionalized ending of Van Gogh's life, we readers are very disturbed. That's the best word for this: disturbing. You go into great detail about how he mutilates himself to create artwork; how he literally tears open his flesh for blood to use as paint. It's very awfully haunting in detail, like watching a mantis eat her mate after mating. It's violent and gruesome, and I'm sure that's what you were going for.

As a hook, Jesus Christ that's something else right there. It's effective because it's just so fucked. As readers we need to know where this is going, what the hell happened for this to happen. And yes, this is a first chapter review, but the 'Warning' before the the first chapter sets the stage and gives the reader a disturbing curiosity. It reminds me of the picture of the shell-shocked soldier from WWI. You can't help but be disgusted and want to know more. You definitely have a touch for the *mature* content in writing.

Criticism: While you have great imagery and an undeniable hook in your first chapter, the reason why I gave it a B+ is for mostly one thing, and that one thing bugs me.

It's about flow and sentence structure. No run-ons, which is good. No overly complex or stunningly simple diction and structure, which is good too. It's the mistakes in every paragraph or so. Sometimes you incorrectly punctuate, maybe you miss a comma and it sounds awkward, and even sometimes you miss an entire subject and independent clause of a sentence. I'm not as fluent in sentence anatomy as I should be, so I had to look that up, because I could just tell sometimes your sentences were missing something.

While the ideas were all there, the rules of grammar you use to sew those ideas into a correctly written story weren't there 100% of the time. 

I was going to give you a B, but considering you had just about everything else and did a god job with a lot of things outside of grammar and structure, and at heart that stuff isn't all that important, I gave you a B+. Great job on your chapter!

It's eerie and hooking, and I would always recommend it to a friend if they want something reaaaally fucked up.