Review: New Author With Potential (Editor's Review)
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 06 8, 2013
I'd come across this author randomly and decided to take a look, as I'm always interested in new authors in my genre of choice (I'm an editor, primarily working in horror and dark fantasy fiction). The author certainly has potential; she has good intuition for plot progression, timing, and storyline. Good style. However, she does need a significant amount of work on punctuation. The comma use alone was very distracting. The sentence construction can also get awkward at times. I think the baseline foundation is there for this writer to be significantly successful (and very marketable), but I think she needs to work with a good writing consultant and/or a solid developmental and line editor before that's going to happen. She is a very new writer, so advice from a fairly harsh fiction editor may not sound too palatable, but you've got to face your shortcomings to take full advantage of your potential in the publishing world (especially when you've got potential like this). Books with this kind of grammar come across my desk (and go into the rejection folder) daily and they're a dime a dozen, but writers with this kind of intuition for story construction are rare. When people talk about a writer having "it," this is what they are talking about. This is the kind of manuscript editors want to work with. When it comes down to it, though, there is no market for books with sloppy punctuation and grammar, no matter how good the story is. That said, I think this author is someone to keep an eye on as her career grows. Tightening up the mechanics would go a long way here. A good editor's services should put this author's writing just where it needs to be with minimal effort (after all, you can always learn the mechanics if you've already got the talent), and along with an already solid foundation and good writing intuition, she could be quite a force to be reckoned with in the horror genre.And for readers wanting to know if they should buy the book, yes, this author is certainly worth your time and money.