Review: Storytelling is one thing; competent writing is quite another
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 12 12, 2012
It shocked me that I almost didn't finish what turned out to be a story of only 6 Kindle pages/screen (15 pages must include all the post-story info). But the author sought reviews so I finished it. Very short story, so short review.There is the bare concept of a story here, and I commend Mr. Dickerson for having the courage to put it out into the world. One could argue that the length is too short for tension to ramp up sufficiently before the "quick knife to the gut" (the author's words, not mine), but that's the author's prerogative.  And the ending certainly confirmed my nasty, growing suspicion.However, it is not a good sign when the first technical error occurs four words into the story and the second one occurs in the very next paragraph. I'd like to think that most of the errors are more the edit/proof variety but repeated instances show that the problem is more fundamental.TEA TIME is too short to even judge Mr. Dickerson's merits as a storyteller.  But no story, however unique or clever, can withstand weak technical writing skills. Proper grammar and word usage, as well as punctuation and sentence structure, are among the most basic and important tools to an author.  And AFAIK, there are additional rules to fiction writing (e.g., for dialogue).  One could argue that it's possibly "beginner's mistake" but frankly, that doesn't hold much water.  Have new authors never read a properly written book prior to publishing their own work?Perhaps other readers can ignore and/or place less emphasis on such things but for me, they are distracting and severely diminish my reading experience/enjoyment.  I'd much rather focus on the plot and the characters.