The Adventures of the Super Six

by 

stf678

Reviewed

by

 AmyMarieZ

Overview: The Adventures of the Super Six is the story of six crime solving teenagers. Written in the style of a screenplay or script, the story has a unique charm to it. The reader can't help but place his or herself right there in the action with the characters, becoming immersed in all of the adventures they get themselves into. The characters are charming and funny, and the mysterious plot makes it a pleasure to read.

Structure: The structure of this story is atypical. Rather than being formatted like a novel or a short story, the author has chosen to write it as a though it is a script for a play or movie. In many ways, this works very well for the story. Dialog keeps the pace moving and pushes the plot along quickly. However, at times it leaves a bit too much to the imagination. While some scenes begin with a brief description of setting, at the beginning of other scenes little to no description is provided, leaving the reader in the dark to guess. Additionally, while at times parenthetical descriptions of tone of voice for character speech and character actions are included, the bulk of the story is just dialog. It is a unique and certainly acceptable choice to write in this "script" style, but it may also limit the audience that would be interested in picking it up.

Grammar: Overall, the grammar in this story is good. The sentences are kept simple, which works well with the style of writing. There are a few sentences that are awkwardly worded, but the only persistent grammatical issue throughout is verb tense. There are many times during the "scene setting" where the author switches between past and present tense.

Pace: The good part about the "script" style of writing is that the pace is pushed and constantly moving, so the story never feels slow or boring. However, at some points the pace seems a bit fast. Occasionally, entire scenes are skipped with just a few sentences of italicized text summarizing what happened. For example, at one point where a client is telling the team about a stolen necklace, the entire story of how the necklace went missing is summarized by: "The next hour passed hearing the story." While it makes sense to skip some parts if they are irrelevant to the story and mundane, it seems like interesting parts are sometimes skipped in this story, leaving the reader feeling a bit let down, as though he or she is missing out on something. The quick pace decreases the suspense of the otherwise interesting plot.

Character Development: The characters in The Adventures of the Super Six show their personalities almost entirely through dialog. Because of the nature of the "script" style, at times it becomes difficult to visualize the characters themselves. Some actions and descriptions of tone of voice are dispersed throughout the dialog, helping the reader to visualize the characters, however at times the reader may still be left wanting to know a bit more about who these characters are. Ideally, this style of writing would be acted out, so the "audience" rather than the "reader" would get a lot of personality from the actors and actresses themselves.

The story is almost entirely plot driven, so while the characters are funny and engaging to read about, it is difficult for a reader to develop a strong emotional attachment to any of them. The dialog is certainly interesting because it revolves around solving the mysteries. However, some of the dialog comes across as stilted. The way the dialog is written lacks many colloquialisms typical of natural speech. The characters often do not use contractions as would be expected. One example would be the character Beatrice saying: "You are right Zander", where the reader is expecting "You're right Zander". While technically there is nothing wrong with this, it does give the story a slightly odd feel to read, and some realism it lost.

Vocabulary/Description: The vocabulary and descriptions used in the story are simple for the most part. The descriptions of scenes are precise, almost as though they are to be read technically. It makes sense with the style of writing, because if this story were to be put on as a play, the italicized descriptions themselves would be used to create the set where the actors would act and would never actually be read by the audience. However, for a reader, the descriptions are not extremely captivating because they are primarily just technical descriptions of scenes rather than creative imagery. It is not a problem, more just the nature of the style in which the story is written.

At some points there is unitalicized narration that provides small amounts of backstory or character descriptions. While these bits are enjoyable to read and add value to the story, it is unclear what the intention is (as in, is it a narrator speaking or just scene setting/background information), given the style of the writing.

Plot: The plot of the story revolves around a group of six teenagers that solve crimes. The story is broken up into a number of episodes where separate crimes are solved. The first two episodes seem slightly dull to read. The team gets a case, they go from point A to point B, and then they solve the case without much challenge or intense drama. However, the third case that is currently in progress in the story holds more potential and interest. It seems to really be developing into a serious and intense mystery!

Summary: The Adventures of the Super Six is certainly a fun and upbeat story to read. With funny and entertaining characters, it's really something that a reader can get into and enjoy. The mysteries are entertaining, but at times too straight forward. Much like a serial tv show, the episodic nature of the story makes it an idea with a lot of potential to draw a consistent fan base!

Note: The review book offers several options. To review only grammar and sentence structure. To review only character development and plot. To review only vocabulary and descriptions. Or, the requester can ask for all of this to be reviewed. There are two options when making this request – for it to be sugar-coated or not.

This review is for it all to be touched on (not sugar-coated).