Dreamland Review Archive

The Gunner and The Florist (Yin)

I feel like there's a need to expound on the background of the syndicate and the brotherhood. I didn't get much idea of their conflict the first time I read the chapter.

In chapter 2, you introduced a new MC, Ren. In this chapter, the demography of the names changes to that of the Japanese's. Ren, Mitsan. It took away from the 1st chapter's setting. But perhaps that is the objective.

I must ask. Ren is an assassin, right? Sounds a bit like a psychopath to me, or perhaps he's just a mean guy and trying to look cool. We now get to know the members of the Crimson syndicate, and I believe we still need a few chapters more to relate to the connection between the syndicate and Lennox. In chapter 2, I still didn't have any idea who Verita Aser was or what was their goal.

Compared to chapter 1, there's a 'forced' feeling to chapter 2. Some narration, like your chapter 1, flows nicely in terms of tone. In chapter 2, it feels like you're trying hard to make Ren a badass. This is an inherent problem that could only be improved by experience and rewriting. Another thing you could do to 'fix' this is by rereading your own story again and again AFTER you finish it. Then you'll see.

The first dialogue you have in chapter 3 isn't very clear. It's not clear who is who in this part. If this is Ren's POV, then I think you have to rewrite the part 'so he had some time alone with the man who took Ren…'

I think 'he' here refers to Ren? If so, the 'Ren' in 'who took Ren' should be 'who took him.'

The plan for the assassination is clear in this chapter, good job for that! I especially like it when you repeat the objective of the meeting in the narration because it made the dialogue in the meeting clearer. I'm just wondering why the meeting is so last-minute? This seems like a very important job, yet they weren't briefed much earlier. Why such a surprise? What's the point?

I'm not a fan of 'explaining' thoughts like how you started chapter 4 with. You don't actually think like that in real life. A mother's voice is not something you have to 'think' about. You heard her, and you'll instantly know it's your mom, no matter how unfocused you are. You don't wonder if the voice belongs to a bird or weird things like that, especially when she uttered a whole, full sentence. The start is a poor attempt at jokes, in my opinion.

The past tense of pay is paid, not payed. Check your grammar in the next rewrite. You have quite a bit of error here and there, which I couldn't point out.

In one paragraph in chapter 4, you wrote 'but was hindered by a Verita sympathiser'. My question is, how does he know that the person is a verita sympathizer? Is there any way to know? The clothing? Or because the party is for Verita's followers only? Perhaps you can make it a bit clearer.

Why did you suddenly use the gender-neutral pronoun 'they' in this chapter? You described Ren as not wholly feminine or masculine, but you didn't say Lennox was confused about the gender. In the few next sentences, you wrote 'they obviously weren't naturally charismatic, but something else was off about him'. So who is this 'him'? Ren? Is that a typo? If so, the typo might prove my point that Ren actually looks like a guy but you just decided to make it neutral to make the story unique or something. However, it doesn't work out that well for me.

I think it's normal to 'misgender' a person in our brain. If someone (cisgender, transgender etc) looks like a girl, we call her 'she' in our brain… and vice versa. I mean, I look at Blaire White and instantly think of the pronoun 'she'. I didn't misgender her coz she really looks like a woman, unless she told me she uses the pronoun they or he or whatever.

Unless they correct us when we utter the gender out loud or we ask their pronoun directly. If this person is Ren, then I believe Lennox would think of him as a man, coz that's the narration given in chapter 2. Nothing in your narration (description) in chapter 2 suggested that Ren could look feminine or could be mistaken/confused as a girl or gender neutral for Lennox to call him 'they' even in his mind. Is he THAT bad at reading people's faces? Or THAT good? Or just very polite in his own mind?

If Ren really looks feminine that night, Lennox could easily mistake him for a girl and call him 'she' in his mind. Calling Ren 'they' is just weird to read. I don't know. It's just super weird to read. The narration and thought there are very forced-ish and feel like you simply want to make it politically correct. UNLESS you clearly mention in the narration stuff like: Is this person a guy/girl? then describe how he dresses etc to make Lennox confused. Only then it makes more sense to suddenly start using the THEY pronoun. My problem is not on the THEY pronoun but how it is executed in the nation and thoughts. More of a sequential thing. One claim relates to one reasoning.

Another thing to focus on is your dialogue tags and narration. When you have a dialogue that belongs to one particular person, make sure the narration that comes after the dialogue tag belongs to that person too. See here:

The first dialogue belongs to the girl, so 'Lennox scanned…' should not be in 'her' paragraph, especially when the next dialogue is Lennox's.

The first thing that ran through my mind in chapter 5 was: 'so Ren does look like a guy'. Because that bouncer calls him 'sir' at one glance. Not really at a glance tho. He peered.

I know you're trying to give the readers a hint that Ren is a transman, but he obviously looks like a guy in the narration given in the book and at the beginning of this chapter where he was immediately described as a guy.

This chapter is short, so I have nothing much to say about it. Adding Trix in the scene is surprising, a good one, because earlier I believe she didn't know the mission's venue. And she's hurt pretty bad, I wonder what makes her want to be there so bad.

OVERALL
I believe your strength is characterization. You know who you want to write about and how you want them to be, which is great! I know you have a clear image of the plot and the background of the story. If this is the first draft, then you're doing excellent!

You must also keep in mind that common to first drafts, the execution tends to be...adequate if not lacking. We write what goes through our minds without really focusing on the technicalities and/or details. Your story reads good, but it also reads like a first draft. There are so much more to explore to 'complete' your book. Perfection is hard to achieve, but making it 'complete' as much as you can is very doable. It's hard to get it done in the first or second draft. You will always need a second and third and fourth and fifth opinion. It's a learning cycle.

You'll properly see the issues I pointed out in the CONTENT section when you reread your story to rewrite it later. For now, you may disagree with me all you want. And I might be wrong too, but I'm here to point out the stuff you could improve.

Good luck with the story!