Paper

This has to be the most novel approach I've seen in support of the war against smoking, and given that teenagers is the only group where the number of smokers is not decreasing, your book is an important and persausive weapon. Besides this, it's a good story, and so i'm backing it. Best wishes, Tony.

Hi Jennifer,

I've had this on my WL for ages - I came over to peek when I noticed Kim and Sue commented, but didn't have a chance until now to give this a proper read. I have to say my biggest complaint about your story has absolutely nothing to do with your writing - it's the blasted Authonomy formatting which doesn't allow me to re-size your text, so it made it difficult to read very far (I only managed the prologue and chapter one). I don't know if choosing a different overall font would help (maybe Times New Roman 12?), but it also made it hard to read the beautifully named Soulspeak.

So enough whining about my poor old eyes - what I read was excellent, and well-suited to your target audience (and beyond, since I enjoyed it as well). You've done a great job of pulling us into a world so much like our own, but markedly different (no question that we're not in Kansas when a creature leaves a room by turning into smoke). And with the cancer plot line, you've come up with an enemy that most people will identify with. Shelved!

~Traci
Tangled Web

Dear Jennifer, It’s very rare, and quite wonderful, to find such limitless originality and such brilliant technique in the same narrative. Also, though this is an amazing fantasy, your villains are all too hideously real, and it’s as if you’re using your imagination to fight them just as Casey does with her soul creatures—you put words on the page, so you both employ the magic of Paper. Besides, paper and tobacco together form a cigarette, but here they’re opposed—your imagination is not only extremely fertile, but very playful.

I’m under your spell. On my shelf. Maria, The Pharaoh’s Cat

Paper

Hi Jennifer,

You have a good idea here, rooted in the real world, in experience, distress and pain, you have weaved the fantastical and weird. I like the idea, there is much to commend it, you have a set up that immediately establishes in the reader’s mind our sympathy for your main character. There were a few problems I spotted along the way that I think are easy to deal with that will tidy things up for you and make this an even more accessible read. The use of yellow-eyed man, hyphenated description, the frail-looking man, these are like a literary tell throughout your work, something that jarred and began to pitch me out of the story. You also use adverbs in places that instead of adding description detail, weakening the preceding sentence a little, for example, the Night Stalker growled irritably. You could ditch both growled and irritably, it is clear from the dialogue how it has been spoken. One thing that I found helped me story an awful lot in the early days was a read out loud edit, made it very clear very quickly which bits needed to change. Anyway, great premise and I will keep reading, let me know as you change it and I will happily come back and have another look. If you could help out by taking a peek at my book I would be grateful.

Best wishes and good luck
Andrew W
(Sanctuary’s Loss)

Here’s an interesting start:

““Things will soon change. The humans of this world are some of the closest to the shadows we have found. Making this assignment one of the most important ones.”
“I do not need to be reminded of that. We must turn the future into the world we want it to be.””

And some equally interesting characters:

“With that, the shadow demon lifted off into the air. Night-stalker let him go, merely glaring at the space he had left. Sniffing the wind for any sign his fellow demon was still around, he turned and walked on. “

And:

“Standing on the uneven pavement of the sidewalk in front of the house, Shirley wrinkled her nose at the stench. This was going to be a bad day.
Opening her blue notebook she looked through the pages until she found what she was looking for. “Swiftpaw,” she murmured, focusing on the picture she had drawn onto the paper.
Instantly she felt a tug within her as part of her soul went into the drawing of a small kitten-like creature. Responding to her summons the drawing materialized at her feet in the form of a living, breathing animal....
They shared one soul between them, so their method of communication was soul-speak.”

This is an original and creative story:

“Seems like the life was sucked out of them by these growths. Swiftpaw reported, sitting back on his haunches....
Snatching her fingers back Shirley opened her notebook to the first page and readied herself. The growths all started vibrating as if in response to the first. Causing the stiff corpses to stir, and then flail around wildly as the growths became more and more agitated....
They’re eating the corpses! He exclaimed. The room is being filled with evil energy. You must summon a Fighter!
Shirley couldn’t agree more. Focusing on the picture she had drawn on the page before her, she summoned the energy necessary to call forth a soul creature....
Before her the air began to glimmer with starlight. And a shape formed instantaneously. It stood six feet tall when it rose to its hind legs. Wings large for its body were furled at its sides. His limbs were long and skinny, and his tail resembled a snake. The head was small and narrowed at the snout. Small horns protruded from his head and swept back towards his neck. His neck was medium length and skinny. In short, this soul creature was based off a dragon. Eagleclaw was the first soul creature Shirley had successfully created. And his intense fighting skills and smaller size made him one of her best Fighters.”

This should have great appeal to YA Fantasy readers. Shelved.

Dear Jennifer, It’s very rare, and quite wonderful, to find such limitless originality and such brilliant technique in the same narrative. Also, though this is an amazing fantasy, your villains are all too hideously real, and it’s as if you’re using your imagination to fight them just as Casey does with her soul creatures—you put words on the page, so you both employ the magic of Paper. Besides, paper and tobacco together form a cigarette, but here they’re opposed—your imagination is not only extremely fertile, but very playful.

I’m under your spell. On my shelf. Maria, The Pharaoh’s Cat

A very interesting premise. I love stories that make social comments through different genres. Well done. Be aware though that many authonomists become confused if you are too experimental. Avoid diluting the cancer thread with the fantasy.
Backed Best wishes
Rob

Hi Jennifer,

I've had this on my WL for ages - I came over to peek when I noticed Kim and Sue commented, but didn't have a chance until now to give this a proper read. I have to say my biggest complaint about your story has absolutely nothing to do with your writing - it's the blasted Authonomy formatting which doesn't allow me to re-size your text, so it made it difficult to read very far (I only managed the prologue and chapter one). I don't know if choosing a different overall font would help (maybe Times New Roman 12?), but it also made it hard to read the beautifully named Soulspeak.

So enough whining about my poor old eyes - what I read was excellent, and well-suited to your target audience (and beyond, since I enjoyed it as well). You've done a great job of pulling us into a world so much like our own, but markedly different (no question that we're not in Kansas when a creature leaves a room by turning into smoke). And with the cancer plot line, you've come up with an enemy that most people will identify with. Shelved!

~Traci
Tangled Web

this is an enjoyable read with strong imaginative flair .

the sense of rage and entrapment comes through very strongly

i found the use of bold and bigger typeface for the conversation fairly unsettling at first .

shelved, and wishing you all the best

freddie
("honour")

Paper seems a typical YA Fantasy, plunging in the Prologue straight into yellow eyed demons who can vanish in puffs of smoke, and moving at a fair pace on from there to magical, dematerialising cats, soul speaking, cloaks of invisibility, soul creatures, black crusts, dragons and all the lovely panoply of the genre. This will appeal to fantasy fans, so I'll back it.
For the benefit of the next edit, my biggest problem was trying to get my head around the nature of the world you'd placed me in. I suggest you need to do more early on to set up that world view so readers can quickly buy in and move on; otherwise we are spending our time trying to piece things together instead of turning the pages. Good Luck.

Hi Jennifer,
Can't say I agree with anyone who is anti-smoking, but that's just a personal side note. I thought the writting and premise were really unique and I enjoyed reading it very much. You have the ability to create very dark atmospheres in your scenes and that adds to the enjoyment of the book - I am very happy to shelve this.
Best of luck,
James (The Lycetta Legacy).

Wow, this is a really interesting argument against using tobacco. Kind of weird to have cancer growing on the outside of a person’s body – but it’s still interesting. I did notice a few mistakes, such as you using ‘waist’ instead of ‘waste’. Also, I noticed a few errors with speech marks. You used:

“Blah, blah, blah.” She said.

It should be:

“Blah, blah, blah,” she said.

I found this to be a very enjoyable read, but I’m not quite sure how Casey – and everyone else – knows about Summoners; it might be a good idea to include that at some stage. I liked the characters and the ideas, and I hope you decide to upload more of the story onto here.

Hi Jennifer
Kind of Phillip Pullman-esque with the animal souls blending with the human. I like that. Quite gruesome in places, but, that is okay. The writing style and content is unusual, which will intrigue your audience. Going to give this a whirl on my shelf. Nicky. (The Changeling Tree.)

This has to be the most novel approach I've seen in support of the war against smoking, and given that teenagers is the only group where the number of smokers is not decreasing, your book is an important and persausive weapon. Besides this, it's a good story, and so i'm backing it. Best wishes, Tony.

I'm wondering how we know his eyes are yellow if his face is covered with a black cloth?
You use yellow-eyed man way too many times. Since you're going to give us his name anyway do it sooner and avoid that phrase.
As far as naming, giving him three names makes it hard to follow.
You say he walked out but then you say he paused. Which did he do?
You also say the servants are cringing but they are behind the drapes. How do we know they are cringing if we can't see them?
Also, you say he resumed his physical form, but if that were the case we wouldn't be able to see him in the scene.
I think you meant to say he took his natural form or demon form or something like that.
I'm not sure of the reason for the fancy script. Italics would be enough. I doubt the script would go over with publishers.
It also long for a first chapter. I would start a new one where you have either the first or second break.
I wasn't trying to be too harsh. It's the copy editor coming out.

Ch1: ‘the dimly lit room was reflected against them’ – I wasn’t quite sure about ‘against’ and I tried to I tried to image what about the room was reflected. In the same para you could use a comma before ‘yet’ and join to the previous sentence.
I liked the ‘dissolving into smoke’ it gives a good taste of what is to come.
“Digging into the ground his toe nails were developed into sharp, tough claws’. I wasn’t quite sure what you meant by this. Did he have claws in place of toenails or were his toenails changing into claws as they dug into the ground?
“There are billions of worlds out there” so there could be billions of demons – nice.
‘and he felt like keeping it whenever he dealt with humans in the future’ maybe ‘for whenever’
I liked the soul summoning and the explanation is good.
Not sure about ‘creeped’ maybe ‘crept’. ‘incase’ maybe ‘encase’

I like sci-fi and fantasy and I think you have a great idea and a great imagination. I do think the story needs a little polishing. I hope you find my comments useful, I will read on since I am enjoying the story and as a non-smoker who hates cigarette smoke, I’m keen to see how it develops.

Tony

Well done with great character development for Kira and others. Tying the demons to the tobacco companies is a brilliant stroke of genius that I am sure many readers will relate to. I also like your dialogue, which seems true to each character and which you use well to not only build character, but to advance the plot. This promises to be a first-rate read, and I am going to return and read more. In the meantime, I am shelving the book now, if only for its promise.

Hi Jennifer, What a creative way to write about the demon, smoking. I can imagine this with Shirley’s drawings. The demons at the start were less complicated and their purpose was intriguing. The bizarre consumption of the corpses seemed to be an extrapolation of cancer – a symbolic awful fight. With Casey and her parents, the story really started to roll, its having grounded characters. What I like is that Shirley and the fantastic creatures involve me as a reader as much as the tobacco issue does. Strong writing. Shelved – Katherine (The Swan Bonnet)

Very interesting premise, a sort of demonic version of The Insider. Your writing is solid; you can tell a tale. Just think the first chapter is a bit too long, but at least you did not drag down the pace with those long paragraphs.

Both pitches are spot on! SHELVED! Cheers.

JC

Congratulations this is expertly done I think.
The prologue works for me..very tricky to plunge straight into the fantasy world.
But I liked it. Ther demons bickering and displaying their badness!
Then an adventure thriller with demonic intervention..but so realistically done!
Suggestions.
You've got horror thrills suspense adventure... all you lack is a bit of humour and irony.
I'd watch out for the opportunity.
A few typos. Hatrid....for hatred in the `pitch.
best wishes with this..........Mikey.... The Free.... (shelved, by the way)

I like the way you use, ‘yellow eyed man’, it’s good characterisation because the reader instantly knows who you are talking about! I also like the names shadow-tail and night-stalker, you are building a very dark and shady feel here with these characters. I can imagine them in movie form - looking shifty! Ooo I like the way the drawing becomes real!!
I’m realy enjoying this, and I’m not a fan of fantasy! I like the way you’ve created this world, I am hugely against smoking myself, so I can sympathise with Shirley.
Ooo I love the way she makes these soul creatures, now a fighter!
Honestly, I would make your pitch sound a little more appealing because I think if people start to read this they’ll love it! The way the soul creatures are created I can see being a big craze - like pokemon! For example, focus more on the fantasy side to draw the readers in!

Best of luck! x

Jennifer,
Wow, super writing and a very clever way to go after the cigarette industry with young readers. You have an incredible imagination. I love it. Those demons with black wings are quite scary, and that Shirley is one powerful girl able to summon a book full of interesting fighters. Very descriptive with yellow and red flying puss. That should get the reader's attention. Great writing and a fun read. I think all it needs is a little word trimming. For example:
The contrast startled the eye and created an uneasy feeling in any who looked over it.
The contrast startled the eye and created an uneasy feeling.
If you can trim words that are understood by the reader, the pace will quicken. On the other hand, the extra words might be needed to maintain your writer's voice. It's your story, tell it the way you want.
Good luck with your book.
Steve Ward
Test Pilot's Daughter: Revenge

Very good story. Your characterization is perfect as is your dialogue. A genre I don't normally read but, I like this!
Very interesting plot.
Shelved!
Tammy
The Chimney Still Stands

Hi Jennifer.
Since my husband has just been diagnosed with cancer, I have to support this!
This is well written and carries an important message to young adults. I think it should be published and read as part of the curriculum.
I'm more than happy to shelve this.
Best wishes
Sue
A Boy Called George. (I hope you'll find time to take a look)

Hi Jennifer!

I love it when a book starts right out in dialogue - it really hooks the reader into the story from the get-go. This is a great story and message for young adults, and I think you've pulled it off brilliantly! Great job - on my shelf.

Kim
Invisible Justice

Hi Jennifer,

I think your premise is interesting. You’re highlighting an important subject matter and sending out a good message.

“Yes.” (T)he other man…

You use some wonderful vivid descriptions that set the scenes well.

“Huh. Cowards(,)” the old man whispered… I replaced the period with a comma because you follow with a dialogue tag, and it’s the same thought as opposed to being a new sentence. I notice this error happens in other places. Have a run through and you’ll spot them.

A good prologue with lots of tension and excitement to keep the reader turning the pages.

Chap 1.

“Casey(,) wait(,)” her mother… I placed a comma between Casey and wait because you’re directly addressing the character. Always use comma with direct address.

Casey’s a well drawn character, and the dialogue was believable.

Good hook at the end of chap 1.

You have a intriguing story here that has a lot of potential. I think you’ll do well.

It’s well written, but does need some polishing.

Shelved!

Shinzy :)

Hi Jennifer

This is an interesting twist on a modern-day problem. This isn't my usual genre but I really like the way you blend real-life issues and fantasy elements to move the story from the world we know to somewhere a little different.

You set up the conflict between different groups of being well, giving enough description for me as the reader to image the scenes and see the action unfold, and use a hook at the end of chapter 1 to keep readers turning the (virtual) pages.

Shelved :-)

Best wishes
Lorelli (The Man Whisperer)

A very interesting premise, and backed for that reason. You have mispelt "loosing" - you mean "losing"... on your profile page. In the "thought" quotations, you should use italic normal size font, rather than over-sized font, if you get me. Looking forward to more.Alan