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Review: I Reached Out

I Reached Out by SparkyShinx

Genre: Adventure

Current Length: 2 Chapters

Schedule: Random

I Reached Out is about a member of Team Gust named Artemis. She was born into the organization being that her dad and stepmom both run the organization, but she was never given a chance to lead a mission. That is until now.

Warning: Since there are only two chapters, I have been given permission to give spoilers, so heads up to those reading the review.

This is a newer story on Wattpad and is just starting out. I will have to say, I'm pretty impressed with the concept of the story. I don't think I've ever seen a story where the main character is a part of an evil organization with her parents being the ones running it (unless you count fan fictions about Silver, but OC wise, this is a first). Because of that, I see a lot of potential for this story. There are so many directions this story can go, and I absolutely enjoyed seeing that.

Being a newer story though, there are some mistakes. Now, I'm giving out this warning right now, but there's a lot that can be fixed with this story. Does that make it an awful story? Absolutely not! Does that mean they should go ignored? Absolutely not. I think with what I'm about to point out here will really help this story grow a bit because—like I said before—I think this story has potential as it has a great plot line that had been introduced.

The story begins with dialogue, and that's not a bad tactic to use as that can pull readers in; however, dialogue (according to many people I know) is one of the hardest things to incorporate into a story. Why is this? Well, there's a lot of rules when it comes to dialogue. Yes, the dialogue here does have some good in it—there are quotation marks around what's being said and the following word is lowercased—but there's still stuff that needs improved on. A good example of this is the opening dialogue...

'"Come on Artemis. Hurry up. Mr. Abigoi is waiting for you.' came the low female voice from behind me."...(Chapter 1).

From a quick glance, this looks correct; however, the period after the word "you" should be a comma. The other periods are correct (though, there could be commas surrounding "Artimis", lowercase the word "Hurry" and you could end it with an exclamation point. That's just a stylized preference though as it would give more of a voice to the character...but again, not one-hundred percent needed, even though "on" needs a comma after it regardless). The only thing is that the word "you" needs to be followed by a comma. If it's a plain statement in dialogue—one that needs a period after it—it's replaced by a comma. The only times that this is pretty much ignored is if there is a question mark or an exclamation point at the end.

That's a common mistake when writing dialogue, just like lowercasing the words that come after the dialogue tag. Luckily, this story does a pretty good job keeping those words lowercase, but the period inside the dialogue is a consistent error that happens.

And that is something that this story needs a lot of improvement on: grammar. There are times where sentences seem awkward, and other times where a word isn't capitalized at all. One of the biggest ones that caught my eye was in Chapter Two, where Poké House was one word without the acute accent on the e (and seeing that this story seems very consistent about doing, so seeing one left out stuck out). This can all be fixed with some very diligent editing, whether that's having someone else look it over, transfer it over to a google/word doc and see what that has to say, or even using Grammarly (which, I've heard works really great. I've yet to try it).

Editing is something I think this story just needs because things don't always flow well together. I think a part of this comes from the fact that I'm craving detail. There are some details in the story (like descriptions as to what people look like) but I don't get the same thing with the Team Gust's hideout, what their uniforms look like, how they feel (with the exception of Artemis and Houndoum, which I'll get to later in the review), etc. Her room was probably the best described place, and that was only said to have a bed and a dresser. What do the walls look like? How does Artemis feel when she goes from place to place? You don't have to give every minor detail, but give something so that the reader can get a clean picture in their mind.

There are times where details don't always add up from scene to scene. For instance, Artemis's dad told her that he saw her training and that's why she was given the mission. When she talks to her friend, Tana, she doesn't know why her dad would give her the mission, but would just assume that. He told her he saw her in training. These little details don't add up, and I think that's why this story needs some major editing.

The good news with the editing is that it's easily fixable being that there are only two chapters out. It's not an entire story, just a little tidbit of one. With the storyline that this story has going for it, I feel like this could be an awesome story. It just needs more time taken on it, so details and events add up to one another.

One last thing that needs improvement—though, it's more of a personal preference and isn't as important as the other stuff—are the names. First off, I love them. Artemis, Tana, Avalon...there are a lot of unique names. While unique names usually throw me off if there's a lot of them, this story surprisingly doesn't do that.

That is until the end of Chapter Two when Tiana is introduced. Tiana is a common name, and it's a very pretty name too. The problem I have is that we already have a character named Tana. Tana and Tiana are spelled very similarly that if a reader were to unintentionally doze off in the middle of the story or would speed-read a section with one of those names mentioned (because lets face it, it happens sometimes) they could get really confused. I don't mind having characters who start with the same letter, or even start and end on the same letter, but it is a tad confusing when they're very similar.

But, other than that, I really do like the names that are picked out for this story. I also like Artemis's and Houndour's relationship. Even though they don't have much screen time, they have the most personality when together, and I love that! Their relationship is so adorable and lovable that I can already tell they're going to make a great team and do well together in the story.

Yes, this story has a lot to improve upon that I think could just be fixed with a few editing sessions, but lets be honest. Most stories here on Wattpad go through hundreds of editing sessions, even after they are published. With a storyline like this one, I know this one has potential if it were to take the extra steps and just go through a couple of edits.

I wish this book the best of luck in the future.