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ririxclip - Summer's End

Title: Summer's End

Chapters Read: 9

Score: 3.5/10

INTRODUCTION:

Summer's End tries to create an intriguing plot, with a reference and devotion to the classic summer camp slashers. But the story's slow pace, obvious lack of direction, and poor exploration of characters certainly destroys the 'intrigue' it tries to create. Though the story's rather constant tense atmosphere deserves some praise too.

What I LIKED about this book:

Great introduction of characters. I feel like your characters had a great and smooth integration to the story. I appreciate that you introduced these characters with simple details, maybe just giving us a cutout and summary of the character while expanding on them exponentially later on. This helped to keep me interested, all while giving your characters a smooth development rather than a rushed one.

Beautiful descriptions of scenery also. It's informative and unrestrained, detailing much of the scenes with ease and without limits. I find this very helpful when it came to our part, as it not only helps us visualize the story easier, but also adds color to the story.

What I DIDN'T LIKE about your book:

Most of my criticisms are directed towards the plot.

First: the plot's pace was too slow. I've read until chapter 9 and there's still lots of details and elements that still hasn't been established. All of the chapters I've read until chapter 9 were used for introduction and unnecessary and irrelevant details. There's no nod whatsoever to the murders the blurb hinted at. If it's going to occur later on into the story, I think that's too late already.

Second: the lack of action creates a boring experience rather than the intriguing one the blurb promised. Most of the chapters are all exchanges between characters that doesn't build up or develop the plot in anyway, it still serves as introductions until chapter 9. One thing that probably helped in the plot is Lake and Celeste's relationship, nothing else.

Third: conflict and the direction of story hasn't still been established that far into the story. Reading further, I don't actually know where the story itself is going. It talks about summer camp experience more than the build-up that would've attracted readers. The lack of direction and conflict sure served as the reason for my lack of interest.

Moving on. I've noticed that the characters are merely explored superficially. Given that the story is told in third-person, you would've had a lot of opportunity to further explore these characters and give them depth and authenticity. Up to this point, most of these characters are blanks, with exception of the attitude that they show to the people they interact with. Other than this, these characters have no further developments.

To character descriptions, the characters are well-described frankly. But it all comes down into detailing actions. I haven't been supplied with an exact age for these characters but I suspect they range from 16-18 year-olds? If so, the main problem with the characters' actions is that I feel that they tend to be a little bit unrealistic. I think Celeste is mature enough to avoid throwing a tantrum at Dior for avoiding her as they're both complete strangers. Lake and Celeste's relationship is very rushed and forced. What I still don't get is if these girls in Celeste's cabin are snakes or real friend because I really can't tell. The characters' lack of diverse emotion and depth further adds insult to injury.

CONCLUSION:

The biggest thing I've noticed is that you tend to keep your chapters very short.

Don't, just don't.

Whenerver you're writing chapters, maximize the space as much as possible. Introduce who you want to introduce, build what you want to build. The main problem here is that you don't want to have two differing perspectives in one chapters, I've noticed this more than once. It's totally okay to mix your perspectives in chapters as long as you put transitions between them, your story is also written in third-person, which makes this easier.

Other than that, focus on developing more than your characters. I've seen that most of the chapters revolved around character dialogue with no regard to plot development. Balance it out.

Other than that, with a few edits in the story's structure, I think this will be a really good story!