CLN's Seasonal Reviews (CLOSED)

Dear Clara - by Engfanatic04

REVIEW DONE BY : MaxwellStevens

Dear Clara is the story of a young girl, Melinda, whose life slowly crumbles apart after a series of heartbreaking events such as the death of her best friend or her parents' impending divorce.

I absolutely love the concept of mixing letters and classical storytelling. There's one danger with this writing style; your story can become boring nand uninteressing if the style is not mastered, and it's easy to write unrealistic letters by simply putting in there everything that crosses your mind, as if you were writing a classical chapter without really knowing what you do. However, I have to say you did a really good job; I didn't feel bored at all, the letters were extremely well-balanced between realism and poetry. There's the right amount of "I'm going to tell you my day" (not too much so the letters aren't boring) and "I'm going to elaborate and share my thoughts" (not too much so the letters don't seem unrealistic).

The story is enjoyable and interesting. It's quite dark and sad, but there's a lot of accuracy in the depictions of the events, which increases the overall enjoyment.

There are little things that could be improved -- which is totally normal, for obvious reasons (typos, first draft, editing needed, etc.). First, I have to mention the typography. It's solidly OK, but gets awkward sometimes (misplaced periods, unneeded spaces, excessive punctuation, especially during the dialogue parts). However, it's not even close to being bothering.

The "problem" (heck, it's not even a problem, you know what I mean) I have with this story is its pace. It's too fast. I think the problem comes from the length of the chapters which are unnaturally short. They're too short to really go in depth. In my opinion, you should keep the outline and flesh out the chapters. I'm not telling you to write about apples falling from trees if it's not relevant to the story, but rather add details, description (there's an actual lack of descriptions), elaborate the characters' thoughts, the situations, the feelings, etc. I genuinely feel that there's a lack of those, and doing so would improve the quality of the story.

By the way, I feel like there's way more than meets the eye when it comes to Clara and Mr. Richard's relationship. I'd really like to learn more about it, so I hope we'll get to discover some more.

So, to sum things up a lil bit: this is a really great story that I would totally recommend if you fleshed out your chapters. The story is interesting, realistic and accurate and enjoyable to read. Anyway, I'm glad I discovered it and I'll be waiting for the next chapters.