En Bref (Short Stories)

2021 Christmas Giveaway Review, 'A Nurse in Gotham'

Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to read the first 8 chapters of your book. Please, keep in mind that my reading of your story is by necessity a subjective opinion. Your story is beautiful and important to you more than any other story you could have been telling. How I perceived it is very much a matter of my preferences. I do hope that my review helps you with editing or with having another fond look at the story that is finished.

Eight chapters is a journey into the character's world, and usually I would expect to see the book's theme and a crucial event that sets the story in motion and makes the character tick and become restless.

Your book is in urban fantasy category, so I looked first and foremost at how much the story stimulated my imagination and how important your main character had become to me; how much I wanted to figure out what's going to happen to them, the setting that told me that 'it could possibly happen this way', and if I would be able to remember your story a few months from now.

I think that you chose a solid title for your story that signals the universe the story is set in. Your blurb is short, but provides the hint of a conflict. I would suggest making it less generic. Breaking up the sentences in the blurb a little bit would help to deliver the same content with more impact. I would also suggest a catch phrase to kick it off the bat if you could find a good hoodie one.

Your opening paragraph brings to mind the atmosphere of Gotham in the Batman franchise. It has both the beauty and the edginess of the films. I encourage you to add more backdrops that convey mood similarly well.

Your story's protagonist is an original character, with Batman moving to a maybe Love Interest role. Valorie has a profession and you have shown her at work, as well as gave us hints of her dysfunctional family. I felt, however, that her character remained largely undefined with maybe too much space given to minute actions and dialogue lines that didn't contribute to her mood or characterization.

Lots of things happened during the first 8 chapters, in keeping with the traditions of the franchise. I recognized the elements of both accidental and planned way to turn the main character into a superhero or give them special abilities. There are also familiar subplot of the orphaned character, and the clash with the super villain. I felt that the supervillain showing up in the lab just as Valorie's mother was recruiting her for testing the unusual substance on her as a human subject was fully believable. I would suggest maybe working on more beats and why's to make this section less sudden.

While the genre demands snappy pacing, I feel that you could take more time to immerse me in the environment and characters' inner world and make them more interesting, with better defined personalities. Perhaps, taking out some of the smaller details would help to bring Valorie into focus,

To improve the readability, I would suggest a few things to pay attention to during the revisions. Often, you do not break sentences when a thought is finished, adding more with or without a comma. I would suggest using simpler sentences that relate a single idea at a time. You favor paragraphs that are on the long side. It is a stylistic choice, but it makes it difficult to read, so I would suggest experimenting with shorter paragraphs. I am not sure why you divided each chapter into parts without putting them in different chapters or using simple scene dividers, like *** instead of saying 'part 1'. Your punctuation around the dialogues doesn't follow either American or British conventions. Those are more common on the Wattpad, so you might want to check them out.

Overall, I would recommend your story to those who are fond of the Batman franchise. I see the unfolding conflict and the personal involvement of the main character into the conflict. I would love to see that special something in the main character's voice or their predicament as you develop the story while you rely on the existing verse to set your plot in. Bright brushstrokes that draw attention and highlight the crucial dialogues and scenes, can go a long way to make the characters more memorable.

Merry Christmas and best of luck with growing your story.