Reviews of Bete Noire 1

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  This dream sort of fizzled...
  A review of Bete Noire
  by Christopher Smith on 03/22/2012
  I hate to be the first reviewer for your first submission because I don't want this to come off as sounding horribly bad. I have three problems with your story so I'll just get them out of the way. 1) I understand the style of writing you were going for here, sort of a Cthulu period piece, however, I think you were trying to finesse the words too much in order to make them... I hate to be the first reviewer for your first submission because I don't want this to come off as sounding horribly bad. I have three problems with your story so I'll just get them out of the way.
  
  1) I understand the style of writing you were going for here, sort of a Cthulu period piece, however, I think you were trying to finesse the words too much in order to make them sound from that era. It came off as being forced. There were some places that had extra words trying to achieve that style, but they only muddied the flow of your story. For instance: "When my search for the truth found bore no real fruit in the waking world" - You need to lose either "found" or "bore". "brought me too many places" - you should use "to" instead. "this fool hearty mission" - it's spelled "foolhardy". On page 6 you use "as if" four times within three sentences. There are more example but I'll stop there. Some of these will seem petty to you, but added up, these are just some of the things that make me pause during the read and have to think about the use of language and how it seems forced too much. It interrupted my enjoyment of the read.
  
  2) On page 8 you write "She was my Selene." as if we are supposed to know who Selene is and that this is some great revelation. I again had to stop and backtrack to see if I had missed something that was supposed to help me know who Selene was and why she should even matter to me. I was not vested enough in this character to care about who she was. You need to expound on her character so she will matter more.
  
  3) I never really felt any threat from the cloaked figures. I did not feel any great menace if they got out into our world as it is never explained what great evil thing they are capable of or may do other than make your character not move. Again, the great revelation of your character being the doorway fell flat because there was not enough importance placed on it.
  
  The opening also states that your character is dictating this story to his confidant, but then you go through the entire story telling us how much of a loner he is and don't expand on any relationship or why this charcter he is telling the story to is even mentioned. The ending also states that he is completely paralyzed, so how is this story being related to his confidant?
  
  I'm sorry that I had to bring out negatives in your story, but I always ask for the truth in my critiques so I can improve. I took your review very seriously and even went so far as to go to your website and read everything on your company Facebook page to get a better feel for you as the author. I hope you will get other reviews that will prove me wrong and petty, but for me it just didn't hit the mark. Please keep writing and only let my words fire you up to write something fantastic and shove it in my face. I'm sorry if this comes off as harsh - it's not meant to be. I expect your next story will be much better! read