Reviewer: Amateur Wordsmith Signed
Date: November 27 2013
Title: Chapter 1: Chapter 1
I would have personally called this chapter "How to not suck at plot logic", but I suppose "Misunderstandings" works as well. :)
As for the actual content of the chapter, I noticed several portions of this chapter that appeared to be a progression of one of the dialogues we had during one of our previous writers meetings. This is very encouraging.
I have one criticism however, and it is Jill's reaction to her hair being on fire. In your example you state that upon noticing her hair was on fire, she would come to the correct conclusion that her boyfriend was shrunken in her hair.
In my opinion a more realistic reaction for Jill would be her panicking followed by the water being poured onto her hair. After all when presented with a sudden danger the normal human reaction is to either run away from it (which given her circumstances was impossible), or fight it (dousing the fire in water).
Forgive me if I am wrong, but I believe that the normal human reaction to having ones head on fire is not to examine the situation from a logical position.
In short, Tom would be dead; either by being drowned by water or crushed when Jill's hand instinctively slaps down onto the fire.
Anyways, It was a good chapter, and very informative. I hope you continue with this, perhaps even add a crash course in grammar for those less able to effectively use it (like me).
Author's Response: I'm not really writing a, How To, though. These are just my thoughts, open to discussion.
Things like that writers meeting inspired me to continue this, so that makes sense.
Your criticism is noted, and 100% correct. But if Jill didn't notice, then my next example just wouldn't work, unless i was going for irony. Jill kills him only to realize she probably just killed her best friend.
Well that totally is up to the characters normal reactions and training, reactions are taught to us. For the most part, the human experience has taught us to react in a way to save us from harm, just like you have said.
So in short, Jill might have come from a world where the natural idea of doing before thinking, is not the normal case, and Tom could be alive.
I'm glad you liked it and got use out of it. I may continue this, I'm not sure, if something gets caught up in my head maybe I'll write down those thoughts again. I'd rather not do a crash course in grammar because it's one of the broadest teachings I could do, and is also one of the easiest to find information on already. We'll see.