Sanctuary Reviews

Jinx by meroceank8921

Jinx

By meroceank8921

meroceank8921

Please forgive me for any errors I may have written in the following review. I am currently sick with the flu and I am doing my best to finish up my outstanding orders. Thank you for requesting me and for sharing your story.

First of all, I love the new cover and I'm so happy you supported my good friend myielaura's graphics shop. She is so talented and I love seeing her work on Wattpad. She did the banners for two of my stories and my goodness they are so beautiful.

It's great to read a story written by a neurodiverse author that features a neurodiverse main character. I liked the representation in this story and I felt like I could relate to Kathie in a lot of ways. I also appreciate the research you did on Asian-American culture.

The world-building is exquisite and I found the premise of this story to be so original. Kathie is a young inventor who wants to use her skills to bring her family out of poverty. She wants to work for Skytech industries, a corrupt organization that reigns supreme in this post-apocalyptic world. What a unique premise for a story and the steampunk elements satisfied my love of science fiction for sure.

I found a lot of the writing to be way too "on the nose." This story tells more than it shows and while I think that's okay for an early draft, I would encourage you to consider adjusting the narration so that it's far less exposition heavy and so that it shows the reader Kathie's world from her perspective. Take this paragraph for example:

Along with those things, Kathie's family barely had enough to eat; often, Kathie had to go hungry for lunch to save up some food for dinner for her entire family. Kathie couldn't blame her siblings for trying to save up their food either. Their mother worked as a washerwoman at the laundromat at her profession. The hours at the laundromat for a single washerwoman were long, and the pay in return was very terrible; yet, occasionally, there was a careless person who dropped their Pandean change on the floor and left it there, waiting to be picked up by Kathie's mother so that she could save it in her large change jar little by little until she had enough money to buy Kathie a nice present for her birthday.

This information is important to the story because it sets up Kathie's environment and gives ample backstory. However, it pauses the active story to do so and tells the reader the backstory rather than showing the reader. Here are some suggestions for giving this exposition through an active scene:

Build an active scene where Kathie and here family are eating together

Her mom can enter the room while wearing her work clothes and she can talk about her day at work at the dinner table

Kathie can pick at her meager rations and either discuss with her family that she had to go hungry for lunch or she can use internal dialogue to communicate to the reader the struggles her family faces when it comes to keeping food on the table.

You can use environmental details to show the reader the state they live in. Details about their house (is it in disarray? Is it falling apart? Where is it located? Can you give these details by showing the reader the dilapidated kitchen they are dining in?) You can also show the reader the mother's profession by describing her clothes, how she looks (is she tired? Does she have a shirt with the name of the laundromat printed on it?)

For a good resource on showing versus telling, I would recommend checking out Sol Stein's book On Writing. It's one of my favorite books on writing and it covers so many important skills. I especially like his chapters on the three main components of fiction writing: immediate scenes, narrative summary, and description. Right now, Jinx is written almost entirely in narrative summary. I would encourage you to use as little narrative summary as possible in your subsequent drafts. Regardless, what you have now is a great place to start and I truly enjoyed the story as a whole.

I really loved the original prologue you had in your previous draft and I'm wondering what prompted you to cut it out? It was exciting and it did a great job of introducing the world! A lot of people on Wattpad preach against using prologues. I've seen this advice all the time in review shops: "don't write a prologue, readers will just skip over it." But they're wrong and I don't think they really understand what a prologue is. Prologues are extremely helpful and they can be used to start a story off with a bang...and your prologue was great because it featured a character who was different from the main one. If you have an umbrella plot (the corruption of Skytech industries) and then the main plot (Kathie's story) then a prologue can be used to introduce the reader to the umbrella plot first. This is an especially helpful tool in science fiction when you must introduce a new world to the reader. "Avoid prologues at all costs" is a piece of Wattpad advice that I would encourage most people to disregard. When it comes to deciding whether or not a prologue is right for your story, go with the decision that serves your story best. Don't cut a prologue just because other Wattpad reviewers say that you should or because they preach that all prologues are bad. It's simply not true. The prologue for Avatar: The Last Airbender is a great example of how a prologue can be used to introduce a story and a world. "And then the fire nation attacked." It's an iconic opening and without it, the series wouldn't be the same. So yes, prologues are valid and they can strengthen the opening to a story especially if they are as exciting as yours was.

I really like that Kathie must avoid technology for the sake of her health. This is a great conflict for her and it really makes her wrestle with her own character. She has to give up what she loves most for the sake of her own health. That's so tough! Great job with the conflict design. Thank you again for applying for a review and I hope these notes were helpful. I really did enjoy your story and I think that it's a wonderful addition to the science fiction genre.

See you, space cowboy