Fantasy Book Reviews

Spirit

Author: quinzenth
Title: Spirit
Link: https://www.wattpad.com/story/68333005-spirit

Spirit is a story about Alma, a girl with the power of premonitions. She can see people she's never met and places she's never visited. Of course, the townsfolk are scared of her for this and want to kill her. A sorcerer offers his help and takes Alma and her family to a city where special people like her can live in peace. We soon learn she's even more special and is the key to everything.

The story is well written in terms of being (almost) free of grammatical and typographical errors, but the style of writing needs to be hammered out. It suffers from a dreaded amount of telling and not enough showing. During one scene, the author spends a long paragraph telling us how special Alma is. Not interesting! Please get rid of this. The author does show Alma's gift in action a little later, but by then the surprise factor is already lost. Another example of a good plot twist done bad is the introduction of the villain, Mulo. We are told immediately that he is a "dark and powerful vampire" who's ultimate goal is to make his daughter immortal. What's worse, the subsequent scenes show the good guys somehow already knowing this. Birthday surprise ruined!

The plot development is highly flawed. After Alma is accosted by villagers for being different, the sorcerer Conn appears before her and gives her a note to give to her parents letting them know he's here to help. She shows the note to her parents, who immediately trust the sorcerer, and they sneak Alma to a rendez-vous point where they meet the sorcerer and he reveals his motives. Long-winded much? Couldn't Conn have just gone to their house? And is Alma 6 years old or something? Why does she need her parents' consent to do anything?  No, she's actually 18, but you wouldn't remember this because she acts like a child all through the story, until Conn sends her on a mission to collect magic shards (which for no good reason has to be Alma), and you finally realize she's 18 again. Some questions that came to mind while reading: Why did Alma and her parents trust Conn so easily? Why did Conn send Alma on such a dangerous task (oh, but he thinks it's safe)? How were her parents comfortable with Alma going all by herself out into a world of people who want to kill her? It makes no sense whatsoever!

The author clearly has a lot of ideas she wants to share with the readers, and there's definitely a hint of creativity and imagination in her writing. What would help is to picture oneself in the shoes of the characters and write what they would do / say. And it's OK not to reveal everything to the readers. We don't need your hand-holding. Let us figure out what's going on ourselves, then surprise us with a big plot twist in the end.