FWFC Cycle 2 Review Book

Week 4 Review Response: bentchbites

Hello again! :)

If you thought my AMA answers were long, oh man, you need to sit down and prepare yourself for this one! I enjoyed reading and learning from your comments (all 23 printed pages of them), how could I not respond to ALL of it! I hope you're already comfortable in your reading chair because here goes nothing:

HearmJan

I don't get what you mean by "expose some propaganda of the content" but thanks for reading. And yes, I do love stories about witches, and for a time I actually considered converting to Wicca. Good thing I didn't. LOL.

Regarding grammars in English speaking countries, I am well aware of the differences between American and British English. The reason my spelling (*It's spelling when written. Pronounce or pronunciation is for the spoken word) for some words are in British is because my writing program is set in the local Singapore standards, hence the autocorrect function changes. This is a slight oversight on my part during editing so thanks for pointing that out.

About your comment on "the voice", I know a lot of grammar rules but I don't know which four you are referring to. Please let me know so I can cross check my work with them. I remember a lesson similar to your advice from one of my favorite authors, Stephen King, on his book "On Writing". He said learn the basics of grammar and composition, and then make them your own.

For the melody of words, I don't know exactly what to do with the info you shared since my work is written, not spoken. But I will assume that these phonetic examples stem from the notion that my narrative seems to be speaking to the reader, and that's great! One of the best experiences I have had as a reader is when I become so engrossed with the story, I forget I'm reading. It's like the story is being told to me verbally, or like I'm watching it with my own eyes. If that's the experience you had reading this, then I did well. :)

Thank you also for the tip on dialogue tags, and the compliment on my writing style.

As for showing and telling, I have to be honest and say I think I did a pretty good job at it in this story. I am proud that I showed more than I told. I followed the examples of my favorite Fantasy writers in fleshing-out the details as much as I deemed necessary, and created a world my readers could get lost into.

In any case, thank you for reading and reviewing my work. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

libranages

I struggled with using the third person POV because my prior works were all in the first person, so thank God you enjoyed it!

As for your comment on Lucille's crying scene, I guess that's what happens when I over edit chapters. In my mind I saw her getting torn apart by mixed emotions of happiness, sadness, fear, etc...but I wasn't able to effectively transfer that on paper. This had been revised at least five times because I could never be satisfied with how Lucille was breaking apart and apparently, some of the emotion got lost between revisions. I wanted her to be strong and weak at the same time and it's clear that I still need to work on writing characterizations like that. Haha!

I will admit that I have not read The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde but I am familiar with its cult-pop context, so I can say there is a similarity. But I'm afraid I cant elaborate on the shadow's relation to The Necromancer without spoiling it to all of you, so I urge you to keep reading. Haha!

As for Rebecca's bath scene, I intentionally didn't explore Rebecca's sensations because I felt as a clean-slate amnesiac, she wouldn't have that stock knowledge of how showers felt, thus nothing to compare if it felt good or what. I wrote it as she felt it, instead. It was cold, then it was hot. That's it. Also, I didn't wanna over describe that part of the shower because I wanted the 'inner voice' part to stand out. (I don't know if i actually managed to do this, tbh. haha) The part where her inner voice tells her "I am Rebecca. I am sixteen and I can do this" is more than just to tell the readers that she is Rebecca and she's sixteen. It will return as a key point in upcoming chapters, so watch out.