Cruel Reviews

ISAIAH'S STORY by SethAMott

1-9-2019

This is my ninth review and it's for Isaiah's story. Keep in mind that this review may no longer apply after a while, if the writer happens to edit their stuff eventually.

I want to get a few grammatical/spelling errors out of the way. 

Mom 'said' putting her blinker on. The said was omitted in the original. There are several alternative forms but the current one is wrong. 

Had seemed to cause. The rock concert happened in the past, and since the narration is in the past tense, this anecdote should be related in the past perfect tense. 

It was; it was a big house. Semi colon here. 

I would advise against using so with any adjectives. 

You mention that the visitor is wet twice. It sounds repetitive. 

Isaiah shouldn't be interested in both the box and the pizza simultaneously. They're two very different things. 

You saw a lot these days. It should be those days. Or see these days. The protagonist is relating the story from the future. Therefore the first form is incorrect. 

For more effectively building suspense(which seems to be the purpose of the very first paragraph), it should have been split into smaller paragraphs. There are some long sentences in this that should have been divided into smaller sentences to build that feeling more effectively. Of course, starting a story with a first person monologue is a risky thing in and of itself. 

A certain suspension of disbelief is required here in regards to his father willingly uprooting their entire lives to go live in a house five hours away. Schools need to be changed as do places of work. I suppose all of that was done in the background. But that would imply that his father had not 'just' inherited the house but the event had taken place a while ago. Selling the house would be much more likely. Also, it would be very unlikely that they would move into a house where the electricity hasn't been set up. 

Now here's the problem with first person narrations. The prose has to match the protagonist's voice exactly. It has to be either the ten year old narrating or his future self. It can not fluctuate between the two. This requires meticulous proof-reading to get the prose to sound just right. If you use the wrong word or something that doesn't quite fit with the already established picture of the narrator, it throws off the writing. 

The plot revolves around a ten year old boy Isaiah, who is being forced by his parents to move to a large remote house left to his father by a recently deceased distant relative. They arrive during a storm and the electricity does not work. Isaiah finds a box in his room along with an envelope with his name on it, bringing it to his parents. A pizza man arrives, and from the time spent on his description, he becomes relevant later on in the plot (I assume).

The prose used for the most part is simple with nothing to complain about, carrying along the plot smoothly with little details added to shape the plot. The grammar is solid and it helps keep the story easy to read, while helping the reader visualize the setting reasonably well. The parents are not simply plot devices but have been given their own traits, if not much dialog to display them. The mother, at the end, uses the phrase 'I would think so'. It does not fit the era. Besides this, the dialog flows comfortably as well though it could use a bit of refinement. 

That brings me to the end of my review. The author has only started out recently, having taken out only three chapters so far. This review was for only the first chapter. GOOD LUCK WITH YOUR FUTURE WRITING SethAMott!