Short Story / BOY A Story Based On True Events

Its a little hard to review this prologue based on a larger work.  What i’d say, is i dislike the narrator, which certainly can work to your advantage.  I’m wondering if he, the narrator (sorry if its a she), is also this same Boy.  Hope you do well, good luck with sales.

CHeers,
James

What is amazing is that once I started reading this excerpt, I immediately wanted to read more. Even if the story – about an autistic man with multiple personalities – wouldn’t usually be my choice as an escapist piece of entertainment (why I usually read!!), it certainly was interesting and well written. It answered the question I had – how could Boy and Sylvia be married? – right on cue, as soon as it had started to divert me from the reading at hand. My mind wandered on that particular issue and voila! the writer had an answer for me so I could continue on his writing. Thank you for a really engrossing piece of fiction.

You have some intriguing ideas to work with, but they are obscured by a lack of clarity in some instances.

For example,”illnesses that are affecting them”.  Try “illnesses affecting them” for a cleaner rhythm.

“seemingly harmless developed mentally disabled person”  The word “developed” doesn’t make sense here.

Do you really mean human “apathy”?  Because I don’t think apathy has “murky depths”.  it may not be the word you want in this context.

“unfortunate occurrence of meeting”  You could replace this with “the misfortune to meet”.  The opening paragraph of the Foreward is clumsy and I don’t think you’ve achieved the dramatic effect you were seeking to create.

“Personally, for many years before Sylvia came to light I, too, was fooled into feeling pity for Boy and all those who suffered from Autism or any mental disability.”  Are you saying that you shouldn’t have pity (or compassion) for people with a disability?  It sounds as if you are saying they are deliberately deceitful.  Even Sylvia’s personality is symptomatic of mental illness so it’s hard to assess the degree to which she or others can be held accountable for their actions.  At this stage i don’t think your attitude or premise is clear.

There’s lots of potential here.  Good luck with it.

This is fairly smoothly written. As an introduction, this grabs attention. However, perhaps it would be better not to reveal the true nature of Boy all at once in the introduction but instead reveal it gradually throughout the novel.

Whoa, there’s a lot of information to take in in those few words. To be honest, i think there’s too much. You load them with facts enough to fill three chapters. There’s too much to remember, too many things that seem obviously important. I think you should go easy on the reader, they won’t have authorial notes beside them as they read.
Also, there’s not much impression of character, as such. I mean, there’s plenty of information given about them, but there’s no examples. And that’s what the reader is looking for, examples. Character events are interesting. Character isn’t all about the details, it’s mainly about how they use those details. So basically, back to that old maxim: show, don’t tell.
The premise is very interesting and i’d definitely think about buying it in a book shop, but if the rest of it is like that excerpt above, i wouldn’t get very far with it.
I hope that was constructive.

Too many sentences in the first paragraph begin with nouns and pronouns.  In the last paragraph, “heed” should be “heeded” and “worse” should be “worst”.

You have a good idea going here, but I hope that this excerpt does not appear verbatim in the beginning of your novel.  If it did, in my opinion, the foreshadowing would be a bit too heavy-handed.  The moralizing also comes across overly blatently as it is now worded.

The blurp before the forward is great. It made me want to read more. But the forward fell flat. I would like to see some differences between Boy and Sylvia instead of the similarities. It might be more surprising if it was mentioned much later that they were the same person. I’m not thrilled about the last paragraph. It is a good idea to say how you are involved but I can deal without your commentary because throughout the book those messages will emerge.  

Not bad, but you need to watch out for capitalizing words in dialogue. The first word in your little ‘Mini’ dialogue, so to speak, should be capitalized.

Also, I like the idea and the concept, but I am truely hoping that in the actual story you show, rather than tell. Why don’t you show us Sylvia being entwined with the “Boy” in a sense. Why don’t you show us the small, evil glint in the “Boy”’s eyes? Why don’t you show us the gray in his beard, rahte than tell us? We, as the reader, can figure out your well placed descriptions if you bother to place them in there, somewhere.

Overall, if the entire story is lacking descriptions, I would suggest a rewrite. Sometimes, even the smallest of detail will catch the reader, causing them to fall in love with your story. You need to watch out for the words you use, too.

IF you need any further help of examples, please do not hesitate to ask.  

I enjoyed this forward and it made me want to start on the novel. Do you have parts of the novel on here? Anyway, the forward was a real interest grabber.
Keep up the work,
John

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September 03, 2007

by khufu_99

personal info reviewer stats

No. of Reviews	Overall Quality	Comment Followup
0	77.3% (22 votes)	100.0%

Age	Gender	Location	Last Login
36	M	Union, NJ	December 11

Greetings John
I don’t have anymore of the book on Urbis but if you want a copy go to Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com and type in the title under book search. Thanks again for the positive feedback.
Nathan

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