Ascensium

By Natay93

This story only has three chapters so far and they're quite short, so this will be a quick review...and a much-needed reprieve for the longer, more complex titles on my to-do list.

I would recommend revisiting these chapters and checking the formatting. The most glaring issue was the lack of paragraph breaks, so every chapter was a wall of text. There were some errors such as "everyday night..." and "batheher" as well as other spelling and spacing mistakes. These formatting issues are easy to fix and would assist with increasing readability.

"Every day after work, Veronica's father, Vicktor Belle, goes down to Larry's Pool Hall and returns home reeking of guilt." I love this opening line. It tells a story concisely and raises so many questions for the reader. It also establishes an omniscient narrator. I think it works very well as a hook.

I absolutely love the dialogue style. Instead of using a traditional model (quotation marks, different paragraphs for each character), the dialogue is written as a part of the prose in narrative summary. "With tears in both of their eyes she thanked her mom for showing her what a strong woman looks like. Then she kissed her on the forehead. And says okay mommy, I'm ready....Why do you cry, Veronica? Because I feel abandoned. So how do you heal your heart? I accept my father for who he is, and accept my mother's passing..." It's unique, gripping, personal, and powerful. I've seen a lot of literary authors using this style and recently read an essay by Arthur Plotnik about it. It's great to see it cropping up in new fiction as well. I think that with some proper paragraph breaks, this dialogue will continue to serve this story's style in positive ways.

The characters feel very realistic. Veronica's conflict is gritty, dark, and relatable. The line "I accept my father for who he is" is gut-wrenching. I like your use of particularity as well such as Lue Lue "firing up a cigarette," asking Veronica if she smokes to which Verionia says no, to which Lue Lue replies "Good, don't start. I quit twice today." This story features a theme throughout its characters: people who are self-aware of their flaws but aren't willing to do anything to fix them, with Veronica being the exception. I think that this is a great thematic principle for a story like this.

This story is written at breakneck speed. While I liked the plot, I struggled to keep up. Dramatic events happen suddenly: Veronica's mother dies, she leaves, Lue Lue's boyfriend is arrested (I think?), then in the next chapter Veronica must face three demons. Fiction works best when it works off of simple beats that are fleshed out well. Each chapter is brief and jam-packed. Changing genre from what I believed was drama at first to now a supernatural story gave me whiplash as a reader...and not so much in a good way. I struggled to understand what was happening at times because the pacing was so fast. Slowing down the story and expanding the chapters to give the parts of your outline the attention and care they deserve will increase the accessibility of your story to your readers.

This story is very early in production so I don't have much to say about it, but it has the potential to be a very unique and well-written story! I wish you well as you continue going through the writing process and discovering your creative work as an author.

See you, space cowboy