[1263]Soul Catcher (Chapter One)

[removed]

I liked it a lot. It held my attention. I'm instantly curious about the missing girl. I was a bit confused when everyone froze. I had to reread that bit twice. I didn't think it was literal at first. I was expecting powers but not that, I guess. So far, so good. Way to go. Did everyone unfreeze when she snapped again?

General Remarks

I want to read more, but I think I'm just a sucker for mysteries (But hey, that's the point right?).

Characters

There are actions that are pretty trite, some enough to seem almost comical; these reduce the humanity of Daniel. For example, Daniel wipes a tear from his eye. Now if Daniel is some sardonic sadist, I'd be on board, but from the rest of the text he ostensibly isn't. Try to go for a more subtle way of showing that he's crying/broken up about it, whether that be how rugged the edges of his eyes feel, or some statement about the muscle memory of reaching up to quash tears. In the same line of thought, him just telling us that he's going to miss her is a bit awkward. I suppose the point is that the memorial makes everything official, but he should already be missing her, given the time frame (unless Daniel is involved in some shady events not elaborated). Maybe note a perpetual, growing emptiness in Daniel's routine. To contrast, I think the insertion of humor around the glasses works well.

I feel your paragraph introducing Kyle works a lot better at conveying melancholy and Kyle's mental state, even though Daniel is our POV character here. Admittedly, you note that Kyle seems to be more determined/invested, so perhaps that's done intentionally. Once we get further in, he's obviously the more gung-ho of the two, so sure.

At the end of page 1, I like Daniel's little tangent on Samantha. Something about the back and forth is appealing to the eye (feels natural as a stream of conscious, and the repetition flows well), and it's characterization of Samantha that doubles as a exposition.

After we move past the initial sadness, you use dialogue to convey the pair's shared guilt. Italics to mark them emphasizing their roles, an gradual escalation to exclamations. All good. Maybe you could do with some physical descriptions of their state, but I imagine it as a fast flowing conversation, so well done at a glance.

You build Rebecca with blase irreverence, and through our other characters' reactions to her. She's antagonistic here, though you hint that this role may be a red herring to a situation that's obviously more complex than the realms of our other two characters' knowledge. I await the potential things you can do with her character, given the setup in this chapter.

Stuff (that happens)

Only one major point; Rebecca's za warudo is a teensy bit abrupt. I don't mind (I like it personally), but some readers may need a primer on the existence of abilities. Since you note that Daniel has powers, maybe start off the story showing those off a bit (do you? Did I miss them? Hm, where are they hiding?). Doing this worldbuilding gives you an excuse to have him use his abilities in a way that conveys his emotions too.

There's some tightening you can do on the pacing, but I was sucked in enough to not care. Off the top of my head, you could condense some of the longer chunks of dialogue (they tend to wax monologuey, will cover in mechanics section) as well as some of the exposition in the two thirds, but not a deal breaker for me.

Mechanics

This probably needs the most work, but it's not atrocious (YMMV).

A lot of first paragraphs I see on RDR tend to have this issue of having short, repetitive (in structure), and disjointed sentences that don't flow too well. You avoid that mostly, but you end up having some pseudo run-ons that read weirdly.

^Example ^1

I muttered as I sat in the passenger seat of the car, staring through the windshield at the sea of people clothed in black coats and boots as the rain poured.

Double "as" clause breaks flow, exacerbated by the pure length of the sentence. Commas won't fix this. Reorder, combine ideas, restructure. Off the top of my head:

I muttered as I sat in the passenger seat of the car, staring at a black clad procession through rain streaked glass.

It may stray too vague, but I also tried to kill some of the telling.

^Example ^2

A tower of lilies and carnations, some pops of daffodils, Samantha’s favorite flower, was erected with a large portrait of her attached to it.

Middle section here is confusing, esp. since your subject is singular (tower), but you spend the majority of the sentence iterating thru plurals, just to head back to the singular action of was. The little addendum of Samantha's favorite muddles it up even more. With that being said, these descriptive details can be important (muh precious flower symbolism), so again - reorder and combine.

Back to short, repetitive sentences. You use those for describing Samantha. I'm a fan of doing this myself, and I suppose this goes to show that everything has a use.

As I go through the rest of the text, there is some boring sentence structure stuff that could benefit from combining ideas when possible. Likewise, linking sentences through transitions or subject continuity would help with flow. Just general things to consider when reading through for editing.

To touch on the dialogue, some of it is a bit awkward, but we college students are braindead enough that I won't question it as wholly unrealistic. Some of the longer bits of dialogue feel like speeches that the characters are giving to the reader as exposition, rather than natural conversation. A lot of this stuff the characters should already know. Given, you do cover for yourself with

“Kyle, we’ve already gone through this."

Even so,

“I told her that night that she was going to disappear and never come back [...] Everything is going to fall into place whether she likes it or not and she’s not going to stop me.”

reads like a villain recounting a plan via bastardized zoomer soliloquy. But, uh, given the time freeze, it's almost apt.

Closing Remarks

I think you have something here. I'm interested, at least, so keep writing.

First impression: YES! There's a lot of good here. You've captured my interest.

Pacing: Good. The first couple of paragraphs were just a wee bit slow to me, but it picked up pretty quickly. I liked the pace at which you presented the characters and information.

Confusing bits: I like the author's voice overall. However, there were a couple of sections that I had to reread. The line below confused me. Why was he saying Kyle's name?

I sat back in my seat. “Kyle.”

I think maybe he was supposed to be questioning, like "Kyle? Hello? Come on, dude, we've got to go." If yes, maybe a question mark instead? Or maybe elaborate and have him actually say, "Kyle, we have to go." or something similar.

Then this section:

He exhaled in defeat. “I’m not blaming you, Dan.”

Kyle jerked, leaning forward and wiping the creeping fog from the windshield. “What the hell is she doing here, Dan?”

The separate paragraphs and use of the name "Dan" in both made me think I missed something, that we had another character speaking and I didn't realize.

This threw me:

She wasn’t dead. She couldn’t be dead.

If he's thinking, shouldn't it be in the present tense? She's not dead. She can't be dead. will bring the reader in closer to the character as well.

There are a couple of times where you throw in Dan's thinking in the middle of Kyle-centric action or dialogue and that was slightly confusing for me. For instance:

Kyle turned to me. Again with the questions. “Why was she mad?”

I feel like this would be clearer by saying:

Kyle turned to me. “Why was she mad?”

Again with the questions.

That way you have Kyle's actions and dialogue and then what Dan is thinking cleanly separated. Plus, in this case, Dan is specifically thinking about the questions so it makes more sense to have that thought directly after Dan asks a question.

There's a section where everyone freezes except Dan and Kyle, according to the text. But then it doesn't seem Kyle is aware? I've read this section multiple times and, I could be wrong, but I think there's a mistake here. I think Kyle is supposed to be among the frozen. I don't think he's supposed to be aware of it.

The section coming out of the freeze got a little confusing for me as well.

I think the line “Kyle, you’re attracting attention.” is Dan's, but I had to reread that section, so maybe add a dialogue tag there.

And right after that:

“I told her Dan was mine and that she couldn’t have him. She couldn’t handle that so she stormed out in a huff.” Rebecca shrugged, turned on her heel, and walked away.

I'd consider doing this or something similar instead:

“I told her Dan was mine and that she couldn’t have him." Rebecca shrugged. "She couldn’t handle that so she stormed out in a huff.” She turned on her heel, and walked away.

The only reason I'm suggesting that is just to introduce that it's Rebecca that's talking earlier in the text, mainly because, again, those few bits of dialogue immediately following the freeze were just a touch hard to follow.

Structure:

The very last line says that Dan feels Rebecca is hiding something, but right before that it sounds like Rebecca just told him everything. Unless I'm completely misinterpreting the text, it sounds like she did everything but straight up say she murdered the girl. So, why does Dan "know" she's hiding something? We've been given no indication of that. If anything, the thought that she's hiding something almost seems contradictory.

The only other note I have actually comes from your text above. You mention this is a story about 4 or 5 people and each one has its own story. There's a potential there to inundate the reader with characters. I'd just caution you not to do that.

Final thoughts: I was interested by the end. I wanted it to keep going, so I think you're onto something here. I'd love to see how this evolves.

Hi friend,

I hope you are doing good. So a small disclaimer first:

English is not my first language and this is my first review, so you should take everything I say with a big grain of salt.

Review:

All in all, l liked the piece. It was easy to read through and didn´t drag too much. I initially thought that this was a straight forward missing person story. The fantasy elements were extremely subtle and came a bit out nowhere for me

So the main hook works for me as I want to find out what happened to Samatha. I got a sense (even if vague) of how her disappearance affected her environment and her friends. The prose was easy to read and the pacing of events felt right.

As for the setting, I don´t get much information other than it seems to be our world with people having special powers. This seems to be common knowledge. At least to Daniel. Does everyone have powers?

I also don´t get very much visual information regarding the campus or where things were in relation to one another but that didn´t bother me much tbh.

I like the way you characterize Samantha through different elements.

Example 1: Campus was going to be crowded today. I didn’t realize how much of an understatement that was until I saw the memorial

Example 2: Glasses framed her eyes. She once admitted she didn’t need them and wanted to wear them because it made her look more intellectual.

I get the impression that she´s the “overly ambitious”, “most popular girl at school” type of girl and that this may be a facade:

Example 3: “[...] You know how she gets.”

As to her relationship with regards to the other characters, I´m not sure. Kyle seems to be to most effected by her disappearance. Daniel seems to just want to get it over with. I´m also not sure what the nature of the relationship between Daniel and Samantha was. They seemed to be just friends but the conversation with Rebecca seems to imply that there was more (at least on Samantha’s side)

Rebecca doesn’t seem to care much. She comes off a bit one dimensional and tropey but I think that is intended.

Some of the descriptions felt a bit off.

Example: I wiped a tear from my eye.

This one especially felt like a parody and didn´t work for me.

Example: I took a look at Kyle who was leaning forward and resting his chin on his steering wheel, mirroring the same glum look on my own face.

This pulled me out of the immersion a bit because I immediately asked myself how Daniel knows how his expression looks like. Is there is a mirror somewhere ? I think what is mirrored his mood.

There were some bits that confused me.

I sat back in my seat. “Kyle.”

“Shutup.” He said under his breath as he focused on the people again

I don´t quite get why Kyle lashes out here. I assume it is in the way Daniel speaks out Kyles’s name and maybe that they already discussed the topic ad nauseam. Maybe you could add some descriptor that Daniel sounds annoyed.

You address this in the following paragraph by mentioning that they argued frequently over the last days but it still felt a bit odd.

The biggest problem I have with the Story is the way you introduce the supernatural elements.

Rebecca snapped her fingers and everyone froze. Kyle and I whipped our heads around wondering if this was real.

For me, this comes totally out of nowhere and not in a good way. It left me confused. Especially in the way Daniel and Kyle react. At first, it seems that Daniel is as surprised as I am but then this line follows:

I hadn’t known anyone who had that kind of power.

This seems to imply that supernatural powers are a thing in this setting but I can´t be sure. Kyle doesn´t seem to care much.

Rebecca snapped her fingers.

“No shit. Isn’t that why I’m asking?” He said sarcastically, raising his voice.

This also confused me as is mirrors the lines leading into the bit. Did she just reverse time? Was Kyle also influenced by her powers?

The last line of the scene feels a bit forced.

Part of me knew she was hiding something but I couldn’t quite place it.

Rebecca seems to be pretty straight forward in regard to what happened and her feelings towards Daniel and Samantha. Even if it paints her in a bad light. So I personally don´t get the impression that she is hiding something. I´ll have to take your word for it.

Final thoughts

Would I continue reading? Yes. Mainly to see how the supernatural elements will add to the story.

Although some of the motivation comes from me wanting to sort out the confusing bits.

Sorry if this comes off too harsh. Like I said in the beginning I liked the Story so far and I think this could really work.

I hope this review is helpful.

GENERAL REMARKS

Overall, I like the setting and the character interactions. The Mystery behind the girl disappearing was fantastically built up. There are some things that can be tightened up or expanded upon, which I will highlight below.

MECHANICS

Your title works for the piece as it gives some sort of indication of what the reader can expect in the coming parts. Overall, the language was simple, and straight-forward, making it for an easy read. There were some instances you could have used more complex descriptions rather than adverbs. But it is a minor gripe.

Also, some of the lines seemed repetitive, especially when Dan was thinking about her fate. Though I understand they are needed, they pulled me out of the reading and broke immersion. As a writer, you always want to maintain that so that your readers don't stop reading.

SETTING & DIALOGUES

The setting could have been described better. We know that it is a college campus and a memorial is happening for the missing girl. I think you should take some time to describe the setting better. Set the scene for the reader. Use the five senses of the POV character. How they interact with their environment and what they think about certain things.

Dan's interactions with Kyle and Rebecca are good and there is a sense of mystery about them. They feel distinct, Rebecca more so. This is definitely your strong suit. SO I would suggest you focus more on descriptions.

PACING

The pacing was good. You didn't linger at any point for too long and moved through the conversation at a good pace. It kept me engaged throughout. The story was mostly told through the dialogue, which works for the scene.

OVERALL

Some minor things that need to be improved. Descriptions are big things that are lacking. I was definitely intrigued as to what happened to that girl and why and how Rebecca was so powerful. All the best to you!