Jerk Reviews - Closed

17_Tales from New Jump City

Review of Tales from New Jump City by dizwikz

This story has an edgy, Marvelesque origin-story energy to it. It has good doses of action, description, dialogue, and even history. One reviewer enjoyed it, though the writing lacked clarity in places and there were a few incorrect words; a rewrite with a focus on copyediting and clarity is recommended.

However, it must be said that although some reviewers admired the comic book-esque flare to the piece, it wasn't necessarily their cup of tea. Nevertheless, these reviewers still believe the work to certainly be creative, well-thought out, and likely to appeal to fans of this genre, yet there are some obvious areas for improvement.

In short, reviewers agreed that this is a cute story with great building blocks of imagination and development that needs a little more polish, and the author needs to decide what the overall feeling and tone of the story should be.

Grammar, Syntax, and General Editing

As a whole, the piece was well written and edited, though there were a few typos and general editing issues. Although basic editing was done, there are still times when it becomes clear that the author has not read through their narrative to confirm what they're wanting to say is being communicated effectively. Reviewers recommended that the author tries saying their sentences out loud, as this may help them iron out some sentence structure issues.

These easy-to-catch issues are problems such as using a question mark at the end of a statement rather than a question and repeating words at the beginning and ending of sentences. There are also sometimes changes of tenses in the middle of sentences or mistakes such as lacking apostrophes to indicate ownership.

Other issues include basic typos. For instance the author writes, "...whatever they decide to reign down on us." This example reflects the improper use of "reign" rather than "rain." One reviewer also noted that a few commas may be needed in places to clarify clauses of sentences. Furthermore, the flow of the writing can feel a bit breathless at times due to the lack of clear guideposts for the reader. Dialogue tags were inconsistent; where lacking, they were ambiguous or seemed backward. Take, this example:

"Huh?" You're the one that walked next to me." Ronaldo paused for a moment.

"Man, the weather is bad today, isn't it?" Emi was dumbfounded by this poor attempt to change

the subject.

Upon first glance, based on the details following the quote, it seems as though the first quote was said by Ronaldo and the second by Emi, but one reviewer also suspects it's the other way around.

This reviewer also felt that the dialogue veered too much from the conventions of basic grammar:

"Th-that's impossible." Stuttered Nelson.

"Whatever was in that glue was strong." Said Thubbins.

Other reviewers, however, noted that this style of writing was likely an attempt to create more natural-feeling dialogue, and it was not particularly bothersome for them as long as the improper "spoken" grammar like stuttered words and casual sentence structure remains contained within the dialogue itself.

Beyond the minor issues that were already pointed out, there are a few other problems the author might want to consider. For instance, the use of "hahaha," while it fits with the tone of the piece, was just too much for some reviewers to handle. Similarly, the author uses words in all caps for emphasis, which is not technically correct. Nevertheless, it seems to fit with the tone of the piece. Additionally, although this is a minor grammatical issue, remember that articles (a, the, & an) as well as prepositions should be lowercase in titles, even chapter titles.