Intro:
The Phantom of Antrim was written by spectrejim01. It follows Jack Fisher, a young man who struggles to adapt to his daily life after the loss of his beloved mother. This narrative follows deep emotional topics revolving around grief and self-discovery.
I apologize for the delay in this review. I explained in the last chapter, but I will say it here too: HammerHandedHeart wasted my time, broke the rules, and was rude and snobby to me, and all the work I did on her review could have gone to yours instead since yours was right after hers, but no, she wasted my time. I'm so sorry, it's not fair that your review came later all because someone wasted my time. I hope this review is helpful and is worth the wait. Thank you so much for your patience, and again, I am so sorry you had to wait all because of one person's selfishness.
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Detailed Feedback
What Worked:
I'm gonna start with a really small part that relates to the aesthetics, not the core content. I normally don't comment on this type of thing, but I think it's worth mentioning: I like the title. It's an engaging title and I wasn't sure what Antrim meant, but it looked interesting. That led to me looking into the word and figuring out more about its origin, so that was a nice learning experience. I always like it when books show me new things I can educate myself on. And, beyond that, like I mentioned before, it sounds cool and pretty without being over-the-top. I know that seems like a small thing, but it's important for drawing readers in. Good job!
When I review things, I often reread earlier chapters to see if I missed any details or can pick up on something new. Something I picked up on while rereading was the very first paragraph of the story mentioning how "...normally, it's a bad omen for skipping the morning routine...". That may seem like a small thing to point out, but considering bad things happen to him all throughout that week, that detail seems far more significant upon a second reading. It's a subtle moment of foreshadowing that can easily go unnoticed, especially as you read more and become engrossed, it kind of slips your mind what was said at the beginning. It gives the story more rereadability and it makes me want to keep reading that first part to see if there's anything else I missed.
In general, there are many small details like those, and I appreciate you for giving special attention to the little things. I think too many authors skip over that kind of stuff, but incorporating little details is imperative for reader engagement. Searching for and finding those details made rereading fun!
Those are the two smaller things I liked, so let's move into the bigger things.
First and foremost, let's talk about Jack himself. He's the protagonist of the story and the emotional heart that packs all the punches the readers are going to feel. I think you've done a good job setting up Jack's character, not only through the prologue chapters where you establish his relationship with his mother, but in the first core chapter as well. The sanctuary scene was mixed between the speech and descriptions of Jack's surroundings and feelings, and I liked that mix since it moved the story along while also giving us a hint at Jack's mental state.
In general, Jack is an engaging protagonist that I want to cheer for. He's dealing with an extremely difficult emotion, and it's written in a way that's believable. He isn't just angry, he isn't just sad, he isn't just missing his mom. He has a combination of a bunch of different emotions that include things like rage, sadness, and longing, but the grief goes beyond that, which I think is a great thing.
The themes are the next big thing I'd like to talk about. I've been on record saying one of my personal favorite themes is grief and the complex emotions that come with it. The story is very short so far and only has four chapters out, and only one of them is a core chapter. So it's hard to judge how many emotions are going to be present in the future of the story, but based on what I've seen, I think you have a great start.
Like I mentioned above with Jack, the emotions are never just one thing. They're motivated by each other and can change rapidly, just like how they would if someone irl were experiencing grief. For that reason, I think the grief here is presented in a mature and realistic way. When handling sensitive topics, it's important to keep the topics mature and consistent, which you have no problem doing.
In summary: When the theme is handled in a mature, realistic, and consistent way, it makes the story far more engaging, and I'm happy to say I was engaged the whole time!
There are a few character dynamics in the story thus far. Most notably, the dynamic between Jack and his mother, and Jack and Grundy. When writing a story about such a powerful emotion, how the characters interact is crucial to forming a relationship with the audience and keeping them reading. I think you do an effective job executing those two prominent character relationships and making them feel like they're going to deeply impact Jack's journey.
Jack and his mother for obvious reasons, but Jack and Grundy too. Both dynamics are going to drastically alter Jack's life. The way Jack takes his anger out on Grundy when Grundy didn't even say anything offensive by that point in the chapter was shocking, but in a good way. We went from the emotional low of Jack missing his mom to him lashing out and taking out his anger on Grundy. And even better, Grundy understands Jack's rage to the point where it feels like he understands it on a deeply personal level.
Seeing that connection between them was fascinating. I'd love to see more of their dynamic in the future of the story since I think there's a lot of potential there for a painful connection between them that further conflicts with Jack's mental state.
Overall, the relationships in the story effectively challenge Jack's mind and bring him more obstacles to face when confronting himself. The story is off to a great start with solid character building and a consistent, realistic theme that's handled in a mature way and packed with subtle details.
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What Didn't Work:
Some of the paragraphs are unnecessarily long and could have been broken up a bit more. For example, in the first prologue, the paragraph that starts with "On the sidewalk, where I was supposed to..." That paragraph is really long and can be broken at the line, "For the past 25 minutes..." since it's a new main idea. When you have new main ideas, try to make sure they're in separate paragraphs to avoid having one really long paragraph that's more like three or four independent paragraphs.
Dialogue tags are sometimes done incorrectly. You do them right most of the time, but there are times you end the dialogue with periods/full stops when using a tag, which is incorrect. For example, from the first prologue: "I thought you didn't want to go to school." she replied. It should be: "I thought you didn't want to go to school," she replied. You do tags right most of the time, just keep in mind that when using a tag after the dialogue, it cannot end with a period/full stop.
There are tense issues where you flip flop between past and present tense incorrectly. Since you are writing in past tense, present tense is used very rarely and in specific scenarios. For example, you can use present tense in direct, and typically italicized, character thoughts.
Be careful with tonal consistency. In the second prologue, you suddenly have this line: "...she possessed a divine laughter that echoed through the heavens, a celestial smile that illuminated the cosmos, eyes of purest sapphire, woven strands of ethereal golden hair cascading in braided splendor, and a radiant spirit that effervesced with an otherworldly charm."
The rest of the writing style is nothing like this, so it took me by complete surprise. It feels like it's from a different novel. It made the tone feel inconsistent since the text before and after it is written completely differently. I would recommend making sure there aren't any drastic changes in writing style like that, that way the reader can follow along more easily.
There are some moments the story goes into summary instead of scene (or telling over showing) when I feel it doesn't have to. In both the first and second part of the prologue, you cut Grace and Jack's bonding time out. Considering the audience already knows her fate, spending more time with them instead of the other things could have been beneficial. It could have added more drama since we know what's going to happen. There are many times throughout the story you'll zoom out and summarize what happens instead of showing us what happens.
Of course it's okay to use summary and do some telling over showing, but consider what parts you are choosing to summarize and if you really need to summarize them. In general, there are many phrases that are telling over showing, and they happen multiple times per chapter.
Examples:
"Mom encouraged eagerly, her hazel eyes sparkling with motherly love." You're telling us exactly how she feels.
"I grinned, accepting her challenge." You're telling us his intentions, and this is also redundant because the dialogue that comes after this tells us again that he's accepting her challenge, so you don't need the "accepting her challenge" in that sentence.
"I said apologetically, realising it was probably sensitive territory." Again with some redundancy because "apologetically" isn't needed. The "Sorry" in the dialogue prior to that sentence already lets the audience know he's apologetic. You're also telling us he's apologetic. You can show this by instead describing his face, body, and/or the sound of his voice. Even just a wince can show how he feels about it in a more engaging way than telling us.
Individually, there's nothing wrong with telling over showing, so none of these sentences are inherently wrong and I'm not saying you should remove them. But when combined and in the same chapter, it can become a little much. So I would recommend doing more showing over telling. You don't need to do big descriptions to do this, even just adding one or two words here and there, or one or two short sentences, can do the trick. I hope that makes sense!
This is nitpicky, but I didn't really see the purpose of having a three-part prologue instead of them just being chapters 1-3. There's nothing in those three chapters that make it seem like a prologue; they feel like standard story chapters. Prologues typically don't include the main character and take place in the past, while this includes the main character and takes place in the current timeline. While there are of course exceptions to a standard prologue, this three-part prologue didn't strike (no pun intended) me as a prologue, if that makes sense. It definitely feels more like chaps 1-3.
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Summary:
- Cool title
- Really nice attention to detail
- Engaging protagonist
- Grief is handled maturely and realistically
- Interesting character dynamics so far
- Consider shortening your paragraphs
- Grammar errors (tags, tense issues, writing style)
- Consider using more showing over telling/scene over summary
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Overall:
The Phantom of Antrim is an ongoing narrative with heavy but realistic angst. It is a character-driven narrative where Jack's emotions and journey is the forefront of the story. If you are someone who enjoys character-driven narratives with intense themes, then this is the book for you!
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Thank you for submitting your story. Please let me know if you have any questions or would like any additional reviews!