[stylist] {Spam?} Novel excerpt

[Chris Kuell]

Hi Alyssa,

It's great to see someone posting actual writing to this group.

This first chapter reads well to me. Your pacing is good, your characters are just introduced, but are interesting so far. You do a good job of balancing detail with action and dialogue, and no grammar/punctuation errors jumped out at me. I really appreciate that you didn't do a background-info-dump in this chapter (a rookie mistake) so as I said, this reads well.

If I put on my editors hat, my primary critique would be that there's no tension. There's no reason for a reader to go on to chapter two. It doesn't matter what genre book it is--you need tension to keep the reader reading. You need them to wonder what happens next. You are obviously a skilled writer, so I won't make suggestions here. But think about it, and try a little revising.

Thanks for sharing.

Chris