Critiques - WattPad Reviews by David McIntosh

Critique - Souls of Faram: The Queen

Critique – Souls of Faram: The Queen by lilkolo91

I had a number of problems with this story. First, the good parts:

The writing is generally good. The story flows well, although it takes a while to get started. At times the author seems to be so excited in her story telling, though, that the words come spilling out faster than she can type. In the middle of the most exciting scenes sentence structure sometimes breaks down, making the action difficult to follow. A re-read and some minor changes can fix this.

The conflict with the Souls is an interesting idea, and the story begins to pick up as soon as this is introduced. Alene Soul is haunted by dreams of shadowy figures. Characters enter the story, adding to the mystery by calling her Adona – apparently confusing her with someone else but there appears to be more to it than that. Soon her dreams begin to take over her real life, and she is sent on a journey to find out who she really is.

The story starts out fairly early with a short but very steamy sex scene. There are opportunities later on for more, but the author seems to shy away from them. This is the author’s choice, but seeing how a lot of choices made by Alene revolve around sex, the author might want to provide a bit more information about what is happening behind those closed doors.

The biggest problem in this story is the characters. I was never sure if I was meant to like a character or not:

Alene’s fiancé Melieek is a bodyguard to the planet’s ruler, and seems likeable enough when we first meet him. Yet when he and Alene arrive on another planet and are attacked by its inhabitants, he just starts killing them by the dozens. Is this the act of a likeable character? I would think that a magic bodyguard would have a few tricks he could use to defend against unarmed civilians, especially since he was invading their home.

The king originally abducts Alene and rapes her. Bad guy, right? But then Alene decides to leave Melieek, choosing the king over him, after Melieek reacts badly to the news Alene is pregnant. So now the king’s a good guy? Melieek is never given a chance to redeem himself, so I’m thinking maybe Alene is a bad guy? Then the king decides to start a war to take over all the planets. Kinda bad, I’m thinking. They win the war and live happily ever after, so, good?

Even the main character Alene, who is on a journey to find her past and save a world, goes from being a likeable but troubled teacher to being a queen who abuses her staff by threatening to torture them. This is not the usual progression in this type of story!

The only character who is consistently good is, surprisingly, Adona. Adona, who is living inside Alene, plotting to get out and take over Alene’s body and her life. This seems enough reason to dislike her, yet she only ever tries to reason with Alene, and when she does take over her body she almost immediately gives it back, offering to share. Note that Alene never does share, even when her husband, child, and kingdom are at risk and only Adona can stop it, so who is the bad guy of these two?

A couple of things I would do to straighten out this story. Number one, the king needs to be given a reason to take over all the planets. Just saying he deserves it because his father was king is not good enough. If he is going to go to war, killing millions of people, he needs a reason or else he is automatically, irredeemably placed in the ‘bad guy’ category. Maybe Akima is working to release the Souls and destroy all the worlds, so the king needs to unite the worlds against her. Something like that.

Next, forced intercourse is not a good basis for a relationship, and the king breaking up an ideal relationship by impregnating a defenceless girl puts him in the bad guy category again. In order to solve this the author could introduce the idea that Alene is unhappy with Melieek before she meets the king. Maybe just a sentence or two about how she is settling for him, even though she feels something is missing in the relationship. Then Alene can find she is attracted to the king, but fights her impulses until she realizes she really does want to be with him. It needs to be her choice, even if she regrets hurting Melieek.

Finally, the author never resolves the problem of Adona and Alene sharing one body. Just a thought, but maybe Alene could let Adona take over the fight at the end, and Adona could be killed. Then Alene takes over, having learned from watching Adona battle. This could also resolve some problems with the final fight scene, where Alene defeats an opponent far superior to her.

Overall, a good story and an interesting read!