I like the John character a lot. His section in the end was sharp and very distinctly his. Who is he telling this story to? If he didn't want to call the cops, is it okay going around and telling people that he was involved? Also, i think you could almost do this whole piece in his voice, and have the other guy's voice still pop in from the italics portions (which was well done). Early on, i think there was some tense shifts in the dialogue portions. Some things seemed inconsistent. Can you m...

This is well written and coherent. Good work so far. I didn't know how the dad got to be on the island with the boy and the grandfather in the end. I thought granddad went off missing, and that the kid was making a solo flight. I probably just missed something. The beggining section is a beautiful slice of life, but i think it can be trimmed down. Not in overall pages or words, but in relation to the conflict/plot/suspense going on. I know you need to build up the family life, but can you mul...

at her tears, and I do - omit "and i do" its implied by her response my face at forty - great imagery, but since your narrator is an artist, can you have him draw the picture... matching it to one he gave to his girl as a gift pokes my stomach with the knife. It hurts like hell - was he stabbed? could you distinguish how the poke feels, as opposed to a slash or a stab. Evian is for water like I am for shapes - great line (although, i think having her name as Evian detracts from the power of t...

the sex craved line, i feel like theres a logic error in it. Wouldn't all sex craved people want to sleep with their secretary. is the narrator commenting on the type of sex cravedness that the character has? I wasn't sure. The tone, voice, and form of this piece are all well defined and well executed. The short of the critique is i liked the beggining a lot more than how it unfolded. The line about the waiting room inside the waiting room was really good. I lost the narrative a bit as the ac...

omit "to no one person" - "to the table" accomplishes same thing first page has a lot of "we are going" ideas. Vary your word choice a bit... its getting repetitive and isn't helping the story move along effeciently same thing with the x-factor on page three. Introduce the idea and move forward. That trend continues throughout. ITs one thing to set up a tone with repitition, i think woody allen does it a lot in his movies... but with this piece, i don't think it works. Whats the conflict? Fig...

omit "The phone had already clicked and he knew," its redundant. there seems to be a point of view shift at "Sam saw that it wasn’t just a trick of his eye". I would try to keep the third person in torres' control, since the narrator seems to be pulling for and thinking as Torres. Its jarring for the reader to be thrust into other characters head (without section breaks or other cues...). I think you can do this without too much editing, perhaps have the pov shift occur at organically with th...

I'm interested so far. I like the usage of the greek (roman?) characters. Also, morpheous, great touch. I'm inthe middle of Gaiman's Sandman and you should check it out for other perspectives of what your working with. The ending. I know you say you are going to continue to work on this, but for how long. What would happen if the protagonist doesn't heal in the end. I dunno, i thought that would be a good denoument to explore. Good work, James

This is the first i'm reading in the series, and i think i'm gonna start catching up. This is entertaining. Flows well. I like how your characters move around this world you've created. Also, Mikell, Zeke, Janessa, Lauriana, good name choices. My one critique is that sometimes you fall into pushing the plot a little inorganically through dialogue. I think this would work a lot better, a lot more fluidly, if you used less of that tact. For me, i like the dialogue to flesh out character just as...

I liked this piece, although it was a little hard with the formatting. I had to really go slow to get it down, to make sure i understood how it was being paced. With longer pieces like this, i reccommend putting in the spaces for tabs manually, because they don't copy/paste so well. The piece itself. I like how your characters come in and out, how Sandi reacts to them, and how its not always in the expected way. I think you could use to replace some of the later pronouns with proper names, ju...

In redrafts, pay attention to showing action versus telling it. "She'd spent enough time in her head preparing for this, and now it was time to prepare physically." This line doesn't add anything. Let her do some other stretch, show that her head is in it, she's just working the body now. I felt i wanted to see a more detailed account of annabelle's dance. what about it makes it magic? The line about the air and not feeling it needs to be retooled.... now its too clunky, forced even. Overall,...