Genre: Dystopian
Fantasy/Science Fiction
Approximate word count: 100-105,000 words
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Author:
Chantal Boudreau
illustrates fantasy and horror stories, and has authored a number of short
stories in the same genres. Fervor is
her first novel.
Description:
This story
begins with a compelling scenario when Sam, an eight-year-old boy, wakes in his
own bedroom on the island of Fervor, suddenly deaf and with a cacophony of
screaming people inside his head. An unknown teenager appears at his bedside
and communicates telepathically with Sam—a new experience for him. The teenager
is able to telepathically compel Sam to do his bidding and they leave the
house, find a young girl (who was suddenly struck blind that same morning), and
trek for a couple of days to “The Gathering” where they become part of a group
of three hundred children who all have had one of their primary senses snatched
away—sight, sound, touch etc. At the gathering, the children are compelled to
listen to and obey a few directives about what they can and can’t do on the
island, and then they split into fifty “families” of six children each. Five of
the children in each group are able to communicate telepathically via “The
Connection.” The story follows Sam’s family to the house allocated to them.
At this
point, the story is about ten percent done. The remaining ninety percent
revolves around the interaction between the family members and their musings
and attempts to find out what the heck is going on.
Appraisal:
To engage a reader, a story must have conflict, but in each family, each child has a specific skill: The
Finder finds stuff. The Fixer fixes stuff. The Watcher watches stuff. The
Keeper keeps information. The Teller tells everyone else what to do.
Consequentially, every time a potential for conflict happens, such as when The
Watcher, who has lost his sense of feeling, blunders into things and cuts
himself—a possible source for placing him in danger and involving the reader in
wondering how will he recover—no conflict happens, instead we are “told” he has
cut himself and then the Fixer fixes him.
Sam is
presented as the most intelligent in the group. He is inquisitive about what’s
going on and could be the source of a revolution in the home, but anytime he or
any of the other “Connected” children start to push past the boundaries set for
them, The Teller tells them to stop and they have to obey. The only character
not Connected—The Control--has an argument with the Teller and leaves the house
early in the story—neatly getting rid of that potential for conflict.
The scope
of the story is narrow at best—mostly confined to the house and the nearby
beach. Much of the action and dialogue seemed trivial. The author repeatedly
had one character tell another character that although they had more
information, but wouldn’t tell them yet—this was irritating—if you’re not going
to tell me something then don’t tell me anything.
Finally,
the Point of View (POV)--the signal the reader needs in order to understand
which character to follow and root for--slipped and slid around so much that
most of the story felt muddled. As an illustration, here’s a paragraph chosen
at random (comments in parentheses are mine):
“Sam took
everything in stride (telling me what Sam did and in his POV), but the same
could not be said for everyone. Sarah had put her fork down and had pushed away
from the table. She had not been expecting Elliot’s brutal honesty (telling me
what she feels, now firmly in Sarah’s POV). Perhaps, at first, the scholars had
not realized just how much they would be playing with the lives of their
subjects (now we’re in the multiple POV of the scholars who set up the
experiment, this is omniscient POV because only the author can know this, no
one on the island has the information needed to draw this conclusion).
This,
remember, was one paragraph, and after dutifully finishing a whole story
written like this, I felt as if my head had been put through a mincer.
Format/Typo Issues:
No
significant typos, the grammar and punctuation were clean.
Rating: ** Two stars
1 comment:
If I may suggest, Chantal, there are many writers' forums, seminars and groups you might find helpful. Try googling writers groups in your area. They are usually very supportive. You might even meet some potential critique partners, a big plus.
Al's point about continually switching POV in a story is called head hopping, and it's a big no-no. That's one of the first things I had to learn when I began writing. Best wishes.
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