Review: Jungle Writing Rules
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 10 23, 2012
Yes, plotting and plot development, character development, dialogue are all good.  As an audio book I would have no complaints at all.  Well, maybe one.  The author feels it is necessary to explain every foreign phrase, every acronym, and every use of initials immediately after it is used.  This wouldn't be so bad except that he does it even in dialogue and without ever setting the explanation off with parenthesis.  The flow of the story would be better served if he used an index of foreign words, acronyms, initials.  Or simply footnotes could serve the same purpose.  But I would think that a real wordsmith would find a way of incorporating the explanation within the storyline, itself.  For instance, when speaking of a command post and wanting to use the letters CP an author should be able to use a device similar to having having someone ask where the command post will be and someone else answers that the CP will be in a certain location.  Problem solved  The readers don't have such short memories that they won't remember what a CP is. The use of homonyms would go unnoticed in audio books, but is very distracting to a reader.  Instances in this book; isle for aisle, since for sense, coordinance for coordinates, and the almost word synch for cinch.  (That is not meant to be an all-inclusive list.)  Also, the indiscriminate use of commas serves only to break the flow of the story when a well-placed comma should actually enhance understanding.Artistically, a well-told story; an "A" or better.  As to the mechanics of writing, given the level of word usage, punctuation, etc, I'd be hard pressed to give it a passing mark.  Overall, an OK.