@harrydouthwaite
We are in full swing of summer. So come on into the shop and enjoy the nice air conditioning, while I go over your book -
Feelings and Fondness
First, I apologize for making this review take so long. Simply put, life got in the way. After we finished our cookout last night I was finally able to read the two chapters.
Let's begin!
I read :
Synopsis
Chapter 1
Chapter 7
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The synopsis, while detailed is rather long. It's just a hair below 200 words. This should easily be condensed into the main facts. You have it tagged for autism. So take full advantage of it. No need to hide it as "odd behavior." - stick to the main point - Robin and his unknown autism.
Leave the story in the book. Your tags are excellent. If someone reads this and gets the wrong impression of Robin and his feelings, then they are just crazy. Because your tags say more than the synopsis.
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Chapter 1
This is a monster chapter. 7k words. That's massive. When I began reading, I felt immediately bogged down and after checking my handy dandy Hemingway app, I confirmed why. Now this chapter has over 600 sentences. Of those over 100 are either hard or very hard to read. You might be thinking that's not so bad, and ordinarily that would be true. Yet you get grace from the app because many sentences are very short.
The following paragraph is symptomatic of the chapter.
The hours slowly ticked by. Robin gazed up at the clock. Why couldn't it be time to go home, already? He daydreamed about what he'd do when he grew up, especially on a day like this. All the places he would go. All the trains he could not only see, but ride too! Maybe he'd even go to visit Justin. He turned his gaze out of the window, again he felt that sensation that he was forced to be imprisoned in school instead of doing what he wanted to do.
While the first sentence isn't wrong, it is short and mildly jarring as you continue. I can only speak for myself, but I like to read without having to stop right after starting. Consider combining like ideas into more compound sentence structure.
The third sentence breaks the narrative. The narrator is looking at the reader she going "why couldn't it be time to go home already?"
- i would also typically tell you to group ideas, but given you telling the story in such a way that the reader is forced to directly see the autism, I understood what you were going for.
The last sentence is wordy in that you don't need forced and imprisoned. Pick one and it will flow better.
Short version of this is the bullies mess with Robin, we get introduced into Robin's fascination and escape, Trains. A massive level of detail, but again given the subject matter is necessary to a point. Yet it's very difficult to read through. Ten of your one hundred hard sentences are in this section.
You don't need the section about what bully he fears the most in the middle of this section. Is it how someone with autism would change subjects, sure. Is it a jump for a reader? I think so. You get Robin's concern and fear when he sees the tires. You could put this single thought there or omit it completely.
After we get more insight to Robin, and how he relates life to the numbers, we move on to school.
Typical kid stuff. Taking one another's bags or just making life miserable because they can.
What really hit me were the teachers. If any teacher here was that outwardly mean? They wouldn't be employed long. I can't recall any of my teachers telling me to "get out of my sight" - woah.
Anyway we get out of school and he's back at the train station a second time. This is almost a complete repeat of the prior section. Other than the ice cream. Trains, check. Bikes and bullies, check. Sensations, check.
I get repetition is important to autistic folks, but here I think another round of what we've just seen was a tad much. I know you wanted to introduce Timothy here, but this could have easily been part of their meeting outside the house. Timothy being 7 has almost no filter and can easily be the one to explain that they arrived by train. This would remove three repeated idea of documenting the trains.
There's just so much more in the chapter, they chapter 1 could be a review in itself.
I think you'd be better served to split this into chunks of readable text. My chapters are about as long, but I have them in parts so it flows faster for the reader, can put it down and come right back. It's been good feedback for me to keep my parts to about 1200-1400 word sections.
So other than a few run-on sentences, your writing style hasn't changed an ounce. You still heh the quirks I pointed out before, so I'll move on
Chapter 7
Another massive chapter of 6700 words author about 80 sentences that are hard out very hard to read. In fact, two of them are right in thy beginning when Robin wakes up. After the first two paragraphs, I stopped reading for a while. The last part where it's a flurry of questions reads like it's a narrative shift again.
Until I reached the "tie my pants" section if was moving along fine. I gave to question what kids would tease anther in front of they parent? I've never seen that in my life. Plus, Timothy is 7. The second set of bullies, makes me think that the town is just hateful.
We meet Grandad, and get deeper lessons on trains. Now I'm not sure how many other times you've done it in the 5 chapters I missed, but the few I've had so far has just bogged down the narrative. I don't recall it being this overwhelming in your first book.
Now I know they are riding a train at this point, which isn't a problem. You have a fairly decent attempt at an apology from the three boys which finally breaks the train focus long enough to get rid of the bullies. (At least for now).
Then you go right back into it, it's the two boys bonding over trains - which is the point. An adult win find folly and being cute once before moving on. Almost every other line is more of the same cuteness and how innocent the two boys are until you hit a limit, then start to groan.
Thankfully you then off the train and right back to supposedly remorseful kids, but not really because that start teasing Timothy - again, like right after having apologized. Seemed kinda over used as a device.
Grammar wise, you are very well versed. A few really short sentences, a few run-ons - nothing that editing and combining thoughts can't resolve.
Overall :
The issue with your story isn't in your writing itself. I understood it just fine. The issue is you have a tendency to repeat the same thing a few times over, and it's making it difficult to concentrate on getting through the book.
The characters are relatable, your sensory details for Robin are top notch.
I think picking up the pace a bit would make this a great read. You've definitely improved,
Thin out some of the repetitive things and I think it's golden.
So you get
(3/5) cups. The story is once again wholesome and a welcome change to see. Getting inside the mind of someone autistic was nice. That perspective is your strength.
Thank you so much for letting me take a look at your second installment! I do hope this helps. Be well!
