Sanctuary Reviews

The Girl Who Was Afraid by LucyAnnWrites

The Girl Who Was Afraid

By LucyAnnWrites

LucyAnnWrites

I really love the premise of this story. Cerise has agoraphobia and struggles to leave her house. Fear controls her life completely. When her guardian passes away, she must overcome her fears, leave her house, and face the London streets in order to find a suitable guardian. If she can't find someone, she will be sent to an orphanage that's...for lack of a better word, "evil."

Your writing is really impressive for a teen author's work and it demonstrates many advanced techniques that some well-seasoned authors fail to exhibit in their own stories. I really love your descriptions. The blood rushed back into her forehead and she imagined the sharp lines of woodgrain etched on her pale skin." You are very adept at paying attention to detail and you have mastered particularity well. You are also very talented when it comes to character descriptions: "His grey hair, usually neat and soft, flopped greasily around his eyebrows and there was a crumpled look to his mouth that certainly hadn't been there before." Your environmental details are also well written and you are very good at setting the tone and atmosphere, from your description of the uncle's bedroom to the sitting room where Cerise must face the news that her uncle is going to pass. I really think that this is due to your astute attention to detail and your creativity when it comes to giving environmental exposition.

The following are some notes that I made while I was reading.

While I like your opening sentence, I'm not sure if starting out in passive voice serves your opening well. The bell in the corner was ringing so violently that the oil lamp vibrated might work better with an active verb: The bell in the corner rang so violently that the oil lamp vibrated. It may be beneficial to comb through your prose and search for other instances of passive voice, then consider using the active construction instead.

Sometimes there are long chunks of dialogue that might benefit from breaking up with either beats or responses from the other party. "As you know, you have lived here since you were a little girl, since your father was taken by typhoid." This paragraph is a good example of a fairly large wall of dialogue without breaks. Without dialogue tags, it feels a bit stiff, and because this character is on his deathbed, it feels unrealistic that he would be able to speak so clearly for several sentences. Is he wheezing? Coughing? How is he moving? How does Cerise feel while she is listening to him struggle to speak? Can Cerise join in the conversation too? Perhaps Cerise is encouraging him to rest and save his energy. There are many opportunities for her to interject, for example:

"As you know, you have lived here since you were a little girl, since your father was taken by typhoid..."

"Yes, I know–"

"I loved Thomas, my own dear brother, like I have loved no one else–no one, except you..."

"Yes, thank you, Uncle. It'd be good for you to rest now–"

"And so I took you in..."

In David King's Self Editing for Fiction Writers, he talks about writing with a general rule to break up a character's dialogue after a maximum of three sentences. This is to avoid creating large chunks of run-on dialogue. While I wouldn't follow this rule strictly, I found it helpful to keep it in mind when I was learning dialogue mechanics myself.

I wanted to address the pacing. I do feel as if the first few chapters drag a bit. Perhaps the uncle could have died in the first chapter. That would be a good placement for the inciting event. The scene with the doctor in chapter three felt unnecessary and drawn out. While it's good to get to know these characters: the uncle, the doctor, and Cerise, I feel as if all of this could've been accomplished in the first chapter alone. The slow pacing was what I struggled with the most because there was quite a lot in the second and third chapters that didn't progress the story much at all. I feel like their purpose was to show how Cerise struggled with shyness and anxiety, but the first chapter accomplished this well enough on its own. This is a subjective note and if you're happy with the pacing, then I wouldn't change it. I just personally believe that the uncle could've died in the first chapter and that a lot of the content in the second two chapters (like with the doctor and Cerise going faint) could have been cut without altering the story much at all. I understand how important the fourth chapter is and how important it is that Cerise meet Dr. Harper in the fifth to discuss her agoraphobia, but I feel as if all of that could have happened after the Uncle had died. It might be more interesting that way because now Cerise find a way to face her agoraphobia and gain the courage to go outside which raises the tension and the stakes, so she must talk to the doctor about her condition.

This story's strengths outweigh its weaknesses by far. While I struggled with the pacing, it's not a deal breaker for me and it doesn't cripple the story by any means. I love how strong the thematic principle is and how clearly you state it to the reader. This sentence was particularly powerful for me, then Cerise was "terrified of illness and terrified by ghosts and terrified by people. It was much better if she stayed trapped in her own bubble." It sums up the main conflict that drives the story and it directly relates to what the main character struggles with the most. This is such good use of an imperative storytelling technique. I was really impressed with the maturity of your writing throughout, and I think that you have a really good story on your hands.

Thank you for applying for a review.

See you, space cowboy