Mauled - Book 2 of the Close Call Series (Currently Published On Amazon)

Editorial Assessment

Editorial Assessment done by lspearson

Mauled by Korina Hornbuckle

Available on Kindle

Opening Remarks

Author Korina Hornbuckle has crafted a unique short story where the seemingly insignificant side characters somehow seem to shine much brighter than the main characters by the end. Going into the story, the reader does not expect to end the journey in such an emotionally beautiful epilogue.

Title/Blurb/Cover

The title is simple and well-chosen for the story. The cover fits the story well, but there's room for improvement. The font doesn't seem to mesh well with the picture chosen. It's clear at a glance that it's a self-published book and could use some polishing to make it appear more professional. This is the first thing your readers will see, and many readers avoid self-published books. The second thing a reader will see is the blurb containing a few grammatical/punctuation errors. Also, I recommend removing the last sentence from the blurb. The previous line, "And with them, comes the horrible truth," creates a sense of mystery that had me wanting to immediately open the book and see what that truth was (Although the title and cover made it pretty clear). Even with already knowing what would happen, that line still hooked me, but the following line took all the mystery out of it and ruined the sense of suspense you had just created.

Opening Pages

This story opens up with a group of college friends getting ready for a camping trip. The vibe is fun and cheerful. There's not much action here, but that fits well with this particular story. We learn a little about our leading group of characters as they set out for their annual adventure into the woods.

Characterization

This is where I found many of the issues. The traumatized Laura seemed to be your main character, but we don't really learn anything about her at all other than she's in love with Josey, and she's traumatized. Although we never know what caused the trauma. There's a brief mention of her having flashbacks of blood, broken glass, a dead toddler, her parents leaving, and her never seeing them again, but that's all we're told. It causes confusion more than anything else. I know this is a short story, and we don't get a lot of character development, but we need a little more here. Her character needs a little work to make her come alive for readers.

Neka is obviously an adventurous and playful young woman. She was even going so far as dragging her friends out to go swimming in the lake at 5:30 in the morning when they'd much rather be sleeping. I was most happy with her character development. Although I did find it strange when Laura was clearly in shock, Claire was crying, and Josey was acting weird, Neka never even bothered to ask anyone what was wrong. She just tried to comfort her friends without even wondering what had them so upset in the first place.

Then we have Claire, a dance major who loved music. Her character was pretty well developed as well. At least better than Laura and Josey.

Last in their friend group is Josey. He's said to be gentle and sweet, which does come across throughout the story. Yet, even though he's one of the main characters throughout the story, we never get a single detail of his physical description. We even learn what the cat (mentioned only once) looks like, but nothing about Josey. It's said that Laura finds him "mesmerizing," but that doesn't resonate with the readers.

Then we have Carrie, who was barely mentioned but outshone everyone else. She was strong, brave, and selfless in a way that very few people are. Her sacrifice was heartbreaking and heartwarming all at the same time.

The mother's character was moving, and she will stick with readers despite never even learning her name. Her name isn't needed to understand her character perfectly.

Plot

Mauled has a very dialogue-driven plot with very few thoughts mentioned at all. I think throwing in a bit of narration might help these characters come to life and help readers understand their decisions better. Many of their choices made no sense to me. For example, they hear multiple screams and gunshots, but they never even try to look outside their tent to see what's going on. They just lie there in fear until it's quiet, and then they all go to sleep! No investigating, no worry for their safety once it's quiet. They all fall asleep. And once they are all up and realize what's happening, Josey blindfolds the girls while he packs up the tent. LEAVE THE TENT! That is no longer a priority. And then they plan to leave without even talking to the authorities even though there are dead bodies and police everywhere. They were witnesses even if they didn't see anything except some shadows. We need more info into their thoughts that made them come to these decisions to understand them. I'm sure they had their reasons, which are in your head, but they did not show in the pages.

Other than my confusion about their decisions, I really did enjoy the story. It had a fun, lighthearted beginning, an anxiety-inducing climax, and a beautiful ending that told of love and sacrifice.

Structure

The structure is pretty solid. There's a clear exposition, climax, and resolution. Although not much background information is given, and there is basically no rising tension before the climax, that's pretty normal for a short story. There's not much time to build tension before reaching the climax when only working with approximately 10,000 words.

Pacing

Obviously, the pace is pretty fast since it's a short story. There were no scenes where it dragged or lost my interest, no scenes that seemed unnecessary. All in all, I was happy with the pacing.

POV

Mauled seems to shift between omniscient third-person POV where we get some thoughts from different characters and third person objective where we get zero thoughts from anyone (although it suddenly switches to first-person for some reason in chapter 6). Third person is a POV that works well for the story. A lot is going on with multiple characters in a very short amount of time. So, having the 'bird's eye view' worked perfectly. You should choose between omniscient & objective though, and stick with it. I personally recommend omniscient. This POV allows you to explore each character's thoughts & feelings freely. Use that to your advantage. It's needed here.

Editorial Recommendations

Aside from the recommendations already mentioned, Mauled could use a copyedit/proofread. It has quite a lot of grammatical/punctuation errors. There were some misspellings/typos throughout the book. I noticed a timeline inconsistency. I also found one spot in chapter 7 where part of the chapter is repeated again later on.

Final remarks

Mauled is an exciting story with a surprisingly emotional ending. It is fresh, imaginative, and shows individuality. With a few changes and a little editing, this story will be greatly enhanced, and I'm positive you'll have an appreciative audience.