Reviews and recommendation

Pathways🤌🏻

By SurrealOasis

As I started this review, I had just gotten out of a bad brush with a troll.

As an ENTP, I love to argue. As an idiot, it took me a while to understand I was arguing with a troll.

Opening SurrealOasis home page was a breath of fresh air. Quite literally.

The author had asked me to review any of their work, making me a little suspicious. Did they care that less of their own works? As I opened their page, I understood this was far by the case.

Six works, of which the cover shined in dark green, sage and gold. None of the colors were clashing, and none of the books were out of style. When I talk of presentation, (@Melonarii, @FloydLocke) this is exactly what I mean. This author decided their objective and, most importantly, decided how to introduce themselves.

Trying to decide the story to review was a bit of a nightmare, to be honest. In the end, I decided to review "pathways" even if my focus will be a lot on the author in general (I hope you don't mind). I also read "Creative Bloom" and "Medicine".

I've put this into the masterpiece section not only for the work itself but for the brilliant, original ways of using this platform in the best way possible.

Let's get started.

Since it's experimental work, there are no proper guidelines you're supposed to follow. You're the artist here.

I obviously still have points on your work (what kind of review would it have been, otherwise?), but I decided to put the majority of them into the neutral zone.

POSITIVE NOTES

1. Love

What appears clear from your page is your love for creative writing.

I am sure this is quite common for each and every Wattpad user, but in your case, I just admire how freely you let your talent flow, bravely deciding to get rid of any kind of structure.

It seems like you love creative writing as an art. I'm still trying to understand whether you're interested in using it for other people, but at the moment I can't avoid admiring your pure, fierce passion for the art.

Honestly, there is nothing as attractive as passion.

2. Poetry and words

As short as your stories are, you seem to understand exactly how much to put into each one of them. Just like musicians have "perfect pitch",  some writers have intuitions for word's weight. You do. 

Considering English isn't even your first language, it's even more admiring. 

3. Presentation

By far, this might be your strongest point. 

You understood your vibe and perfectly understood how to deliver it to a reader.

Your main page is not your room.  As a writer, your page is your front door for people deciding whether to read your stories or not. You kept it tidy, clear, and similar to yourself, or at least the vibe you had decided. 

Not only: you managed to make it interesting. It's clear that your vibe is calm. Bucolic. Beautiful. But how boring would your page have been, were it just made by bucolic landscapes and poems? 

Your eerie, dreamish scent makes it seems like in this bucolic and perfect landscape, something is going to happen. The readers open your books with so much expectation. 

NEUTRAL NOTES

1. Shortness

Obviously, since it's experimental work, there is no need to follow specific guidelines. Therefore the "neutral"

Your chapters are way too short. Not really for "what happens" in the chapter, because I see that is a choice, but much more for an attention problem.

Quite simply, people need time to visualize things. Your images are strong, but by the time they have formed in my mind, I have already clicked "next chapter" because I'm impatient.

Maybe, to slow down the flow of the readers, you could add images and sounds?

2. Paragraphs

Even if short, quite a lot of things happen in your chapters.

But since they're all together, again, I have the impression my brain read them way too fast. Considering the silence, and the calm, eerie surreal atmosphere, you could consider experimenting with white lines alongside your sentences. Try looking up Paul Nougé.

I've written this mostly for Pathways, as I've seen that most of your recent works already have this. Good job!

NEGATIVE NOTES

1. Interface

I just love interactive stories.

But in this case, I would suggest you to make the moment in which we have to take a choice a bit clearer (maybe using a different font? Inserting it in the title?), for a greater experience.

For example, when you're supposed to choose a path, I 100% did not realize I was supposed to until I read the sentence: " I'll be posting both version of choices"

2. English

I'm sorry as I write this, as English isn't my first language either.

But even though you understand perfectly the meaning of words, their weight, and their sound and have a natural intuition for measuring them, your sentences aren't always clear. In your longer/more structured stories (like Pathways), this ruins a little the opera, as it's harder to understand what is happening.

I see this problem disappear with shorter sentences, therefore my advice is to either stick to them, download Grammarly or get a friend to read it and point out when it is not clear.

IN GENERAL:

From your stories, I found a personal hint where you explained how you struggled in school with structure, a sharp start, and a precise ending. In your stories, I found a lot of side explanations to your readers excusing yourself for how short your stories were, for the unstructured base.

Your structureless stories are original and beautiful just the way they are.

But I guessed you might want to improve yourself as a writer by being able to handle a structure.

If that is the case (I might be wrong), my advice is: exercise.

Try taking famous tales, undressing them to their core, and rewriting them in a new setting, with your style. Or find a writing buddy to help you build a story, divide it in chapters and start writing them one by one.

Only if you want to have structure.

If you love your experimentalism as much as we did, keep at it! Find your genre!

Personally, I loved the interactive story. But who knows? Maybe you would be stronger on poetry.

Keep experimenting, I'll be watching with wonder.