What is your opinion?
The October Amaryllis
"A brilliant effort I must say. I am certain it's going to make an interesting read."
The October Amaryllis
"I was immediately hooked from the start! I love the writing and story so far, and can't wait to read more."
The October Amaryllis
"The plot is progressing nicely and I like the characters so far. I think the concept is interesting, the grammar is good, and I enjoy the writing style. I think this story has great potential with a little polishing."
Lots of depth
"I like that you have populated this story with small digressions which touch upon the past or the life of the character. We were seamlessly taken through the protagonist's interests, his life, his mom, his dad etc in his stream-of-conciousness. The time travel segments were my favourite, especially when we read about what happened to the world as we knew it. There is a remarkable similarity between your character and my character from Released (another short story I've written). The self-depreciating jokes/commentary! My only issue with this novel was that the protag doesn't seem to react to shocking/unknown circumstances; the narrative is quite passive when it comes to that and experiencing trauma (sometimes)."
Very Good!
"I really liked the plot and I think it's something I haven't seen before, which is always a good thing. Your style is unique and thoughtful and you have a very nice vocabulary which adds to the futuristic kind of vibe. The two main critiques/suggestions I have are 1) I think you need to consolidate some chapters. When I look at a book and see that it's 131 chapters long it makes me want to immediately skip it without even looking at the blurb since, unless it's Stephen King, I just don't want to read something that long. When I actually opened it I realized the chapters are very short, but people aren't going to know that if they just skip it over by looking at the sheer number. I'd try to put two accounts in each chapter that way you can cut the count in half and it'll appear less daunting. The second critique I have is I like that this is telling the story retrospectively, but I personally don't like books written in the past tense. It makes me feel like I'm not actually experiencing the story. If it were me, I'd keep the prologue the same introducing that this is all something that happened in the past, and then have the actual events be in present tense, like it's happening at that moment. Write it like you would write another other story happening in real time, but then maybe add some retrospective commentary almost like a journal entry. That's just a personal preference though, I'm not sure how many people would agree with me on that. Beyond that, there are a few grammatical errors, for example you wouldn't say a "six feet lightening bolt" you'd say "six foot lightening bolt," and since that's a pretty integral part of your story I think that'd be important to change (especially in your blurb since that's what people use to decide if they want to read your story) All in all, I think it has good bones and just needs a bit of rearranging as far as formatting goes, but the plot itself is very original."
