Dreamland Review Archive

Bits and Pieces (A)

Title: Bits and Pieces (short story collection)

Author: sunangel6

Chapters Reviewed: Defenders (the first one) The Girl with the Wolf, The Collector, Stolen by Silence

Cover: It's simple yet nice. I like how it ties together with the title Bits and Pieces by having little pieces of what looks like book pages. The only thing I found a little odd was the little sun icon at the top, which is barely visible. Does it represent something? Or is it just a design?

Title: I think this is really fitting for a short story collection. I like it. Kinda simple and sweet, much like the cover. What I liked most was how you stayed consistent with your theme here. I know how difficult that can be when it comes to short story collections.

Blurb: You don't really have a blurb? So I'm going to rate this one N/A because it feels unfair to critique the snippets you shared in the section for your blurb. I would highly suggest creating a blurb that ties all your stories together to give potential readers an idea of what kinds of interesting stories they'll be reading. Even the ones you shared of different stories were simply phrases cut from the stories and not at all blurb.

Perhaps you could even write individual mini blurbs for each story if you feel like that would be easier? I actually did that for a short story collection of my own and found it helped to organize them better. Just a possible suggestion there. You can do whichever you feel would fit the theme of your stories best. But I would recommend a blurb, either for the story collection as a whole or separate ones for each individual story.

First Impression: Before reading, I expected more slice of life and romance-centered stories. Yours turned out to be a pleasant surprise! While some did lean more toward slice of life, I know I wasn't expecting to read anything with aliens or Skyler, and his unique abilities. I really liked that! It kind of had me wondering what the other stories are like and if they all start to connect more with each other, like how Defenders and The Collector both feature Skyler in them.

Note: I decided to do this review slightly differently from the others, as they're short stories. Instead of having a section reviewing each chapter and then the characters, I went by individual story instead. With short stories, a huge focus is typically on the main character and maybe two or three side characters at the most, so I'm keeping my character impressions in the sections labeled beneath each short story's name. I went ahead and read four of yours since they were all relatively short.

Defenders

This short story was rather sweet and gave me slice of life, teen fiction vibe with a twist of scifi, having an alien around. However, I do feel like this story could be expounded on a little more. Especially with the alien's personality and why they're on Earth during New Years. Is it something common their species does? Or is Salaar the only one who's come over to Earth? It felt like I was thrown into a story that's already started, if that makes sense? Like, I'm missing some of the beginning bits on how we got here.

I did really enjoy the friendship you've shown between these two. With how short this story is, I can't really gauge their personalities too much. But Salaar seems like he's trying to understand Earth's customs and relationships, as they're possibly a little different on his own home planet. Skyler comes across as a nice guy who's had a troubled life with his unsupportive family, but kind of has his own found family now. I thought it was sweet of him to kiss Salaar when he too got curious with his own sexuality. It was a strange kind of sweet.

The Girl with the Wolf

Eilae comes across as such a sweet girl. I love how she stood up for her wolf when everyone claimed he'd harm her or go berserk if they untied his restraints. You had some lovely descriptions that really brought the world to life as well. However, one thing I'd suggest improving is the ending. You conclude everything with, "it soon escalated into a fight" and leave it there. That's not really a cliffhanger, and felt more like the story was supposed to continue but just got cut short. I'd suggest adding a little bit more to it to have a more satisfying ending. Perhaps you could have Eilae attempt to escape them, riding away on her wolf, with worries of them catching her. I think that would make quite an interesting ending. Or, maybe during their fighting, they're distracted enough to give Eilae a chance to run away and then you could leave off with us wondering what happens to her next. This is just a small suggestion, as I really enjoyed this story but it seemed to end so abruptly.

The Collector

This was a fascinating little story about Skyler and how you showed his unique abilities. It was neat getting to read more about him after starting off with the first Defenders chapter you have in your collection. His witty humor around the unconscious prince made it all the more hilarious to read as he stole from him. It seems like Skyler's abilities give him the chance to go to a different realm, or time period? (It seemed more like a different time, given how he's researching the things he takes)

One thing I'm curious about is the poisoning of the prince. It's not clear on what he was poisoned with, but most poisons usually become fatal when the person is rendered unconscious. Not to say it's impossible, but I'm curious about what was given to him and who did it. Was it Skyler? He doesn't seem like the kind of person to do such a thing, but I could be wrong.

I really like the idea of this story and Skyler's abilities. I do wish we could've gotten more background on the area he visited and more on his unique ability. I feel like it could be really interesting to play around with it. Like, how far back can he go? Are there certain rules? What happens when people notice he's taken their things? Does it not cause any issues?

My main critique for this story would be working on your dialogue and action tags. I noticed a few instances where they were used wrong. For example;

"Gorgeous," He pulled out a cloak and tried it on. - You would want to end with a period since this is an action preceding the dialogue. "Gorgeous." He pulled out a cloak and tried it on.

"Better not be animal fur," he had a soft spot for animals, "I was hoping to take this back." This one is a little trickier since it's more like you paused the dialogue to narrate in the middle. Which I suppose isn't technically wrong, but I feel like it could be reworked. "Better not be animal fur. I was hoping to take it back." He had a soft spot for animals.

"Hector," You'd just end with a period since you have no tag at all. "Hector."

Personally, I'd really like to see Skyler's abilities explored and developed more as well. It's already neat how he's able to travel back in time or to another place? I'll admit I'm a bit confused by that, which is why I'd highly suggest expounding more on his abilities.

Stolen by Silence

This story felt more fleshed out than the other three I read. However, I feel like it would be better fit as a novel or even novella. My main reasoning for that is because this seems like a world that could really be expounded on and the ending felt abrupt, as if it were more like the end of a chapter rather than the story itself.

Each scene flowed well, yet it was a bit jarring with how it skipped over from scene to scene after each break. I feel like it would've flowed more naturally in chapter format, with each scene detailed even more. I'm not saying you should do this or that it's horrible as a short story. I just think this one has more potential to be something longer. While there's lots of details and depth given here, it still seemed like I was missing parts of the story that could be detailed more. But that's entirely up to you, if you'd want to write more on them.

Overall Thoughts: I think you've got some pretty neat ideas here. My main suggestion for them altogether would be expounding more on them. They're already so short, and I feel like most of them have potential to be even longer. (Especially Stolen by Silence) Sometimes, it felt like the endings were just left unfinished due to how fast things concluded. It left me wanting to know more, but with that being the true end, there's not anything to look forward to. Unless you might have plans to make these longer or at least, give them some proper endings?

As someone who struggles with ending stories, I do understand. Sometimes, you just gotta stop when you can't think of anything else. Good luck with your stories! I do hope to see you continue to add more of them, especially with Skyler, because I can tell he's a character that you really enjoy writing about.