What happens when you take a horrible movie and smash it?
Something magical! Now THAT'S a movie I'd watch!
Today on the smashing block is Wolf & Hood by @KnightofEmpires.
TLDR; a new story take on Red Riding Hood. So far it looks like it may be mystery, drama, and romance with some fantasy elements. Werewolves and supernatural stuff work their way in.
The story is rather short so far so I am going to use my short story method.
Positive:
Going into this I expected something along the lines of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, may it be burned at the stake, but to my relief, it was about as different as Android 18 is from Captain 'Plank' Marvel. It has wolves, werewolves, changelings, whatever the hell you call them, a grandmother, and a youngish girl, sure, and there is the sense of hunter and prey, but that is about as far as the similarity goes.
The story had a solid start. In the first chapter you had a strong character with emotional resonance because you see his connections to others, a sense of character and social dynamics and family, you see a clear conflict brewing as he witnesses suffering in people he cares about, the reason is explained very shortly, quickly, clearly, and without it feeling like information dumping. I can tell he put a lot of polish and work into the first chapter and it stands up on its own. If I could rate single chapters it would be 4.6/5.
But its not a single chapter story. It keeps going. The other characters are... so far descent. No, actually they are good. They feel human, they feel dynamic, they feel organic and natural. They act and sound their age. The problem is just that first character we are introduced to is so much better than them out the gate, while we are having to grow on the rest, that he already overshadows them. This is still qualifying as good as it won't take much at all for the rest of the cast to be brought up to his level of characterization and influence on the story.
The story is fast paced, which is great for keeping my attention. The plot is fascinating and shows promise of mystery, drama, intrigue, spying stuff, and if it goes in some directions I am theorizing then we can see deeper and more powerful subjects like racial discrimination and genocide. The characters agendas are clear and are aimed right at each other! Lock in load people! Someone's gonna die! Hopefully. Maybe? Please?
Negative:
Ah! You knew it was coming! Time for the part where I go 'oh no you didn't!'
Grammar. I lost track of how many sentences have random spaces, no punctuation, spelled funny, and then there is text-speech! This is, honest to god, the first time I have read a story on Wattpad with text-speech. Makes me want to stab something. Or drink heavily. Where's my tea?!
TTTTTTTTTTTTTTEAAAAAAAAA! wait where was I?!
Beyond that the Grammar is actually good. I don't see advanced issues, just a lot of basic ones. Nothing a good second draft wont fix!
The pacing is fast, but is almost too fast. Things are moving quickly out of the gate, and I am having no difficulty whatsoever keeping up, which is good, but the problem is it gives me a sense of 'just how long is this story?' How long can we keep this pace? Is this story aiming to be long, to be short, to do loop-da-loops? I don't want to see the characters going from hating each other to jumping each other's bones in the span of two minutes. Gotta let drama breath bro!
Overall:
Overall at its current state, I would rate it 4 smashing out of 5! It's a solid start. I do not see it, currently, improving to a 5/5, but who knows he may surprise me. All of the potential the story teases me with is already explored outside of the grammar, but its such basic things it barely counts because it can be fixed in minutes. We have barely gone around the first lap of this circus.
If anything I am afraid he is putting all of his good work into the start and is going to crash on us, bringing its potential down. Because here is the thing. In writing, there is only positive and negative movement. There is no staying neutral. The closest there is to that is becoming lax. You either improve actively or you lose practice. Sure you can go up and down in such swift movement from day to day it appears normal, but that's the closest there is. Either he stays focused on the goal or the story might deteriorate.
I'm out with a smashing!
If you are interested in learning to write, mastering the craft, want some really good reads, or just to chat and hang out with a mature group of adults, feel free to hit me up for a smashing discord book club that has lasted years.