Getting Along By Kat Sharp (Kat-Sharp)

What She Was & The Interview (Chapter Title)
Paranormal (Genre)
Perception & Reality (Themes)
Third Person Past (consistent)
Suspense level (🌝🌝🌝🌗🌚)
---------------- 9.03.2020 -----------

Hi,

Thank you for letting me read your chapter. Things to look for in a first chapter:

- clear genre (Paranormal)
- clear time period (that isn't immediately clear but perhaps modern)
- clear MC (Yes/No )
- few character introductions (check, Ashiwini / Dayton / Jay)
- suspense / tension (yes/no)
- a life-changing decision / event (yes/no)

Authors spend a lot of time on blurbs. Maybe more time than they spend on some chapters. I never read them.

So right away, going into the book was exciting because I had no idea what to expect. The prologue was short so I decided to read the prologue and the first chapter (which I usually don't do because prologues tend to take away from the first chapter more than add to it). I think that is the case here as well. We don't really get much unique information from the prologue that couldn't have been put into the first chapter.

The one benefit of the prologue this time was to show her personality more. It does go a long way in smoothing her over to the reader. We get insight into what she was and what she was planning to do. But. I can't say with certainty that the interview couldn't have conveyed it equally as well.

Let's get right into it. The grammar is good and the prose isn't bad. Other than one or two sentences that didn't flow well, the overall writing was good. The pacing wasn't bad either. I thought some things in the prologue were repeated but it's not enough to turn a reader away. I feel that anyone who reads the prologue would carry on reading because the tension is good.

The interview gave me pause. And I'm not sure it's in a good way. The character voice for the MC changed. She goes from being someone sensible to a part-time mute. This was a great way to show how nervous she was. But since we leave the third person limited, we stopped getting her feelings and/or thoughts and we could only see the outward layer and not anything under the surface. That made her transformation seem like a separate person. Doing this is risky and I'm not sure the risk panned out this time.

We also don't know WHAT authority or qualifications she has to be giving this interview. Is she an expert in this field? An important person, like a politician? Does she have a PhD?

To put it bluntly, what she did was foolish; she ends up setting her kind back two hundred years and she does it...for no reason. We don't hear her inner thoughts to see her rationalize it. We don't get a glimpse into her deeper workings to understand why she does what she does. Instead, we see her do something shallow, foolish, and unnecessary and worse yet, it appears to simply be for vanity's sake.

Dayton didn't request it, nobody egged her on, none of the audience provoked her to the breaking point, and yet, seemingly out of nowhere, she does the one thing she should never, EVER have considered doing. This can be a great plot device. It's a life-changing event. It can also be the one thing that the entire book (the entire series) is based off...if we understood WHY she did it. It's okay for a character to throw their entire race under the bus on a cavalier lark, but we need the WHY. By abandoning third person limited, we also abandon the ability to emotionally invest in her decisions, especially a decision so big it could cost her, not just her but all of her kind, everything.

If she was on the verge, it would have been best to stay close to her thoughts and emotions using third person limited and give us her emotions so that we could build up to her final decision. Otherwise, she becomes an unreliable narrator who functions without reason or rhyme, and that's a tough sell.

Another thing that the interview scene could benefit from (if Third Person Limited is reemployed as it was in the prologue) is the cure of the 'white space' syndrome that developed. We can gather that this is a TV studio and stage but there's no placement, objects, or movement beyond the dialogue. I don't think we need much but if we're back inside her head, we could probably see how big the audience was. We could see if someone promoted them to laugh or clap using cue cards. We could see if she can see the fear in their eyes or disgust. We could see if maybe someone off to the side is egging Dayton on. We could also see if the bright lights are making her react in a way that she's not accustomed to, maybe in a way that makes her lose control and THAT was why she did what she did.

The setting itself is all right. The premise is good. The MC in the prologue was very likeable. I'm not sure if Dayton comes back again, but if he doesn't, maybe he should be a bigger antagonist, something to make his show edgier and maybe allow the reader to understand how everything went from zero to sixty so fast. He could tease her about being dangerous. He could even show a taser he's bought for this interview, for 'protection.' He could tease her by having her chair put a GOOD distance away from his own, for safety. He could have 'animal control' waiting in the wings or jokingly ask his producer to keep that number on speed dial. He could ask her which form she prefers when making whoopy--or allow an audience member to ask. I mean, this is an interview they'll want memorable. He could invite someone on that argues against her cause. But whatever he does to set her off, she needs to make it clear to the audience and the reader upfront that her kind+stress and fear don't mix well.

Keep in mind that this is an opinion as all technical corrections were already address inline comments so it's up to the author to consider it or ignore it.

(end) If you find this critique useful, please give it a shout out. Also, Please check out the FIRST DATES section of this book. Help the first dates out there!

P.S. I'm not sure the current book cover does the justice. If you'd like for me to take a stab at making one, sure but I'm no pro.