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Book Title: Great Timing

Book Genre: General Fiction / Fantasy

Date of Critique: March 14, 2016

Chapter(s) Critiqued: 1

Approximate Chapter Length: 2100

Content Flags: None

Summary (copied from book description)

Madeline, a brave and smart girl who wants to descend the stairs of her life and fix the memories of murders. As she opens the tempting door, she doesn't know the danger will prepare to dagger to her. Yes, she dreams to be cop, a hero of the world. But it turns out that she's risking her lives to lies. If and only the clock didn't struck at 12 that day... What a great timing!...to set aside her life problems and instead fix others's problems.

Chapter Summary

Leading up to her birthday, Madeline cries as she remembers what happened to her parents nine years ago. After her mom gave her a tour of the police station because Madeline wanted to be a cop, the family went home. However, someone attacked her parents while looking for Madeline. Her parents transformed into fantastic creatures. Madeline wanted to go with the attackers to save her parents, but her mother sacrificed herself to save Madeline. Back in the present, intruders break into Madeline's house as she is waiting for the clock to toll midnight, but her parents' voices guide her to safety by hiding under her bed. When she crawls under, the space is impossibly big, and she finds a door rimmed in green light beckoning for her to enter.

Critique

Each story attribute is rated from 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest quality. I have endeavored to be as objective as possible, but writing is a subjective art, so of course my own predispositions will creep in somewhat.

Mechanics (grammar, spelling, etc.): 4

There are a lot of grammar mistakes in this story. Much of the dialogue is bolded when it shouldn't be. The mistakes make it difficult to follow, but I will get into that more going over writing style.

Writing Style (word choice, sentence flow, etc.): 4

The structure of many of the sentences in this work make it difficult to follow. Here is an example:

I nodded. We took a right turn, and stood in front of us a mahogany door, not to mention it looks kind of a king's office. I'd never blame the golden design surrounding the door. Tempting to see what's inside, I opened the door instantly. I saw a man sitting, working thoroughly with the papers on top of his desk. He stopped and raise his head to see me.

There are misplaced and missing words, tense inconsistency, and a general sense of confusion. The writing was coherent enough for me to figure out what was going on overall, but I wasn't sure of all of the details.

I would guess that the above paragraph is meant to be something more like:

I nodded. We took a right turn and found ourselves in front of a mahogany door that looked like it could lead to a king's office. I'd never before seen something as elegant as the golden design surrounding the door.

Tempted to see what was inside, I opened the door. A man sat at a desk, looking thoroughly through a stack of papers. He stopped and raised his head to look at me.

There's a lot going on in this story, grammar and style wise. It's hard to narrow down specifics, so I'll settle for another example. I'll go with the transition from memory to present:

"Mom!" I called. "I love you too..." I continued. Tears began rolling through my eyes again.

As the same tears rolling through my eyes now. 9 years had passed. I'm not a qualified cop! I didn't save my parents! I guess I'd be having a 'lonely birthday' instead of a 'happy birthday'. I'll just wait for a few minutes and when the hand points to 12, I'll just be singing the song to myself. Aunt Eva is out of town and will be back the day after tomorrow. A loud bang was heard from my backyard. As nightmares passed through again, I immediately shoo-ed it away. I don't want my mascara to completely wear off and look like a witch or something. I peek through my window. I saw three men walking inside of my house. Wait! How did that happen? Oh. My. god! I forgot to lock our gate. Robbers! Intruders! What do I do? I don't have time to get a weapon for defense. I'll just hide and wait for me to be with my parents.

There's quite a lot going on here, and I'm not sure what all of it was supposed to be, but I'll do my best to work up a revision.

"Mom!" I called. "I love you too..." Tears welled in my eyes and rolled down my cheeks.

Nine years later, tears blur my vision again as the memory fades. I didn't save my parents. I never became a cop. Nothing has gone right. If I wait just another few minutes for the clock to turn to midnight, I'll be alone on my birthday for another year. Even Aunt Eva is out of town, so I guess I'll be singing myself a happy birthday. Or a lonely one.

A loud bang from the backyard makes me jump, sending nightmares tumbling through my thoughts. I shoo them away and peek through my window.

Three men at the kitchen door, stepping into my house one after the other. My chest freezes up. How did they even get into the yard?

Oh god. Oh god! I forgot to lock our gate. Robbers, intruders! What do I do?

I've wasted enough time. There's nothing within reach to use as a weapon. Just the remote control for the TV, but at best that might piss one of them off. I slink to the floor in front of the sofa. Maybe it I just hide here, wait... they'll probably find me, but at least they might send me to be with my parents.

This is far from perfect, of course, but it's an expansion on what the author had and hopefully doesn't take it too far off the author's original structure.

Characterization (voice, description, presence, etc.): 5

We do get a couple of good characterization details with the mom. When she reluctantly gives in to the daughter's desire to take a look around the police station, for one, and when she sees that her daughter is going to give herself up and steps in to prevent it. She's the only character we got any sort of real depth to, though. The narrator had more depth than the mother by a little, but not as much as she should have had as the main character. However, much of this is likely due to pacing and clarity issues.

Setting/Worldbuilding (description, clarity, etc.): 7

We do get one very interesting setting detail carried through into two scenes: the narrator sometimes sees smoke and fantasy figures associated with the smoke, and she's been told that they aren't real. She counts to five to get the figments to disappear. This was an interesting detail.

Outside of that and the mahogany door of the police chief's office, there is very little in the way of setting details, however.

Hook/Plot (sense of conflict, pacing, etc.): 6

There is a plot brewing and a conflict. The narrator is being sought after by fantasy creatures she was told aren't real. Her parents were murdered by them nine years ago. However, the pacing in this story has some serious flaws at present. The jumps to and from the memory aren't as crisp as they should be, and within the memory the transition from the police station to home is almost nonexistent. As you can see from the second example I revised under writing style, the author spent a paragraph on a bit of action that really should have spread over several to help increase tension.

Synthesis

Great Timing is in an extremely rough draft at the moment. The writing style makes it difficult to analyze the work as a whole because it leaves the story very unclear. However, from what I can tell at the moment, the plot and setting have promise already, though the pacing, characterization, and writing style need a good deal of work.