FREE Book Reviews

[46] CHAPTER REVIEW: Fight, Flight, or Freeze (MARVEL Universe)

Fight, Flight, or Freeze By --ZigZag--

Chapter 1; Abandoned (Chapter Title)
Fan Fiction (Genre)
Looks vs. Reality (Themes)
Third Person Omniscient (inconsistent)
Suspense level (🌝🌝🌝🌚🌚)

---------------- 3.01.2021 -----------

I think you've just fallen into a bit of bad luck because today I promised myself to no longer coddle young writers. I will come out and say what I needed to say and they will simply have to suck in that snot and march on into the good night.

So here we are.

First, I will split this review into two parts. One is the technical aspect which holds no opinions whatsoever. This is probably your strongest area.

Second, I will give my views as a reader. This one is probably not going to be to your liking but since it's my viewpoint, you shouldn't take it too hard.

Okay, let's enter the editing mode.

From an editing standpoint, you've hit a home-run. You use the dread 'parenthesis,' which you shouldn't in fiction writing (though some people do use it. It does signal a lack of professionalism to some). A lot of writing norms are being broken lately so it's up to you whether you continue to do this stylistically, but know that for a lot of readers, this is a 'uh-oh' moment. Personally, I'd recommend you use the em dash (which does the same thing) or even a comma. The em dash is the long hyphen (—) and it's an interruption, sort of like a character poking its head out of the screen and giving an extra bit of info.

Beyond that issue, there were hardly any others. You've certainly done your research on HOW to format dialogue. You have some errors still but nothing terrible. In fact, a casual reader could breeze through your work rather smoothly and even forgive the few mistakes, i.e. using 'sigh' as a dialogue tag, which it is not.

Overall, I give you an A, and dare I say, A+ for the technical side.

When I saw that this was a fan fic, I did worry. Not because I have anything against fan fiction. In fact, I have a strong respect for fans who take a big leap and try to rework something they obviously love. But when I saw the formatting and how polished it was, it made me pay attention even more. It told me this was a serious piece and not something someone threw together on a whim. You care about this story, and it shows.

Much respect.

So how did you do technically?

Well, let's go into the pros first.

Your first chapter does what a first chapter must.

- identify the genre
- give tension and/or suspense
- show the problem
- show the solution
- show what's in the way of the solution
- cliff-hanger ending

The character introduced raises a lot of questions. The chapter doesn't meander about looking out windows or something like that. In fact, it introduces a new character that may be a formidable foe/friend.

Despite all the good things this chapter does, there is one thing it does fail at and that brings us to our cons:

- A first chapter identifies the MC.

Your first chapter does not.

In fact, you have no MC. We jump from head, to head, to head at a constant. This is called 'head-hopping' and it's ineffective for a number of reasons. One main problem with head-hoping is that we have to share and shift our emotions far too often. Tony is annoyed, but Steve is smug. Each time we the reader gets close to an emotion, we have to WHIP around and get close to yet another emotion. Then WHOOSH, whip back to yet one more and so on. We cannot fully stay close to one character and/or ride this journey with one person and therefore, if we cannot connect to someone, we 'disconnect' and resolve to a 'take it or leave it' sort of thing.