Shut Up and Review

#12: My Name is Avery

My Name is Avery: Dree Stories

The opening chapter and paragraph were quite powerful. I thought something much worse was about to happen to Camille and was pleasantly proven wrong. However, immediately after, the second paragraph was a bit confusing. I found I had to read it a few times to understand what was going on. It may be a mixture of a large number of characters, how much was going on and how it was written.

There was no real POV in chapter one, but I assume that was intentional as chapter two utilised Deep POV very well. My advice here would be to describe the protagonist's actions and expressions as she speaks as well.

For example, in chapter four, Avery speaks seven times. Of those, only one statement has anything other than "said" or "stated." You can argue that she isn't human, and from what I understood, she processes emotions differently from humans. However, she still has desires and wants to fulfil them, namely pleasing Sigmund. For any character to leave an impact on readers, they need to be understood. After reading eight chapters I feel like I understand Sigmund better than Avery. So to fix this, ask yourself how she would feel as she said it and how it would affect her physically. Would she stiffen? Would she relax her shoulders? Would she look away as she spoke, or would she stare directly at her recipient's eyes, meeting their gaze with her own to impress her unwavering beliefs?

A more specific example from chapter four is when she is with Alice and says, "No I will not disappoint master." There has got to be some kind of emotion going through her head. Where does she look? What goes through her head? If she does and thinks nothing, say that too. It makes the difference between humans and androids more relatable. It makes the difference between a book and a play.

A small inconsistency in Chapter five shows she can read facial expressions very deeply. While an argument can be made for Sigmund as he seems to be observing her all the time, why didn't she do this with Alice?

Despite the lack of most "feelings," Sigmund's ominous reality is protested quite well. There was a good amount of foreshadowing leading up to the third chapter and the unsaid horrors that happen between chapters three and four. I enjoyed the almost robotic simplicity that Avery presented, it played a major part in why Sigmund grossed me out.

There were small proofreading errors that I would recommend going through as well. For instance, in chapter four, Sigmund says, "Very well," when I believe he meant to say "very good." Very well on its own, is a way of agreeing, like "ok." There is another instance in chapter five when he seems to be eating rockets, I think you might have meant rocket chillies.

The POV seems to shift from first person to third in chapter eight which threw me off quite a bit. I believe you were trying to portray this from Alice's POV. However, I would still advise not changing POVs in the middle of your story. Choose one, first or third and stick with that.

Lastly, I understand that Wattpad encourages reader interactions and yours are short and sweet like they prefer. The only little nitpick I have is when you announce what the chapter is going to be about before I get to it. In novels like in TV series, you shouldn't announce the summary before the chapter, it takes away from the anticipation.

Overall it is a very interesting read, and was a very good first draft.