The Discovery

- The Discovery -


(Based on all uploaded chapters)


I’ll give a few general observations on what I read before moving onto some chapter by chapter notes. As I’m a novice writer and don’t really have any idea what I’m talking about, all remarks should be taken with a pinch of salt.


General comments:

I enjoyed this and read all of the uploaded chapters very quickly, which was largely due to the pace being good and the prose very readable. I got into the story and some of the later chapters posted, for example 1.6-1.8, were excellent. I liked the short chapter structure too. It really kept things moving.

Perhaps one of the reasons I got more into it as we moved on was that I felt the main characters became more fully formed at these stages. In the early going, I felt I had a much greater grasp of the secondary chapters than I did the primary ones. For example, in the ‘preface’ I saw Prof. Robertson much more sharply than Jameson and later on Katie more than Jameson or Jack more than AJ, for example. I felt I started to get more of a hold on AJ in 1.4 with the passage on his relations to his clients and more of a sense of AJ in 1.9 with the background on his lost love.

The one area I found difficult was the relation of legal matters and cases. I had trouble understanding what was going on, particularly where a lot of legal terminology was used and this slowed the pace a little. I haven’t read John Grisham or anyone like him so perhaps this is a customary hurdle that readers can get over. Certainly, I’ve read a lot of books with subjects and terminology I’ve no understanding of and it didn’t impede my enjoyment any. I’d suggest though that perhaps these legal passages could be pared back and simplified a bit.



Some chapter by chapter remarks:


Preface

-Shouldn’t it be ‘prologue’? I’m pretty sure ‘preface’ relates more to an introduction, usually a wee essay on how the book came about etc.

-I did enjoy it though and found it effective, despite a couple of nitpicks.

-The names of the two characters , Jameson and Robertson (being both ‘….sons’ and used in quick succession) threw me a little in the opening couple of lines.

-I’d suggest giving your sentences a bit more zip by removing ‘somewhat’ from ‘Lower Manhattan was a place he knew somewhat well’ and ‘of’ from ‘off of Bleeker Street’.


1.1

-I liked the mysterious e-mail here but I got very lost in all of AJ’s day to day business and the legal stuff. I think you could measure stuff like this out over the course of your story and don’t have to pour it all in at once.

-As hinted earlier, I had a clearer idea of Jack than I did of AJ here.


1.2

-Again, I liked the chapter and the character interaction – though I had more of a sense of Katie.

-Again, I’d say you could do without the ‘somewhat’ in the ‘somewhat surreal’ biz.


1.3

-Again, I got lost in all the legal stuff and must admit to not quite understanding the case on the first read. It could easily just be me being daft though.


1.4

-Here the characterisation of Jameson was excellent as we have the descriptions of how AJ’s Hispanic clients feel about him. Now we know we have someone we should be rooting for.


1.5

-Generally good all round. Just a typo with ‘instead or responding’ (where it should be ‘of’).

-Can you say ‘unresponded e-mails’?


1.6-8

-As mentioned earlier, I thought these chapters were excellent and have little to nitpick about them. When Jameson was on the phone to Katie about his job, I had a real sense of portent that things were unravelling for him and half expected Katie to dump some other terrible news on him then and there. That feeling was then of course satisfied later on. I liked the stuff with Angies in 1.7 although I suppose this is ‘head hopping’ by going into a third character’s head early on and, although I have no problem with that whatsoever, I am often reliably informed around these parts that this is someway bad.


1.9

-As mentioned earlier, some good characterisation of AJ here and I liked the return to the e-mail here. Some good plotting in that.

-Typo with ‘it would not’.


1.10

-I read this as directed by the instructions at the top. To me, this all felt like a bit of info dump, whether it be brought in at its current stage or earlier. This is something else I’d suggest you don’t have to do all at once and parts of it could be woven throughout your story at various stages. Coming altogether as it does, it feels a bit like one of those writing excercises where you compose a biography of your character to get a better feel for them.


Although not my usual kind of read, I did enjoy the story and found it very good overall. I hope something in what I’ve had to say will prove useful. If there’s anything I haven’t articulated well that you’d like me to make clearer, just ask.

Cheers and best of luck with it,

Ross

Just read the first few chapters.
Great prologue, caught my attention straight away, and the next two chapters were also strong. However, at this point I stopped reading, because this is really not my type of book. I have no fondness for anything were lawyers etc are the focus, so this story was never going to hook me.
Leaving that subjective prefernce aside, your writing is clearly very strong, and you are obviously about to tell a very big story with the backdrop of big events.
You mention Grisham as a favourite, and his influence is quite apparent, not just with the legal aspect of your story, but also the way your stroy moves along very quickly.
Sorry i couldn't read more (my wife will be giving birth any day, so i'm returning as many read as quickly as i can, which means only a few chapter reads) but, other than my own personal tastes, this is very good work, which i'm certain will prove very popular. I'll leave on my WL and give high stars for now, and will back in the future.

I've read through the first three chapters, and finished about half of chapter four. The first chapter I found intriguing, and I was ready for the next one. The second chapter lost me a bit, I have to admit. I got rather confused with all the pieces of information and different things the new character was doing. I did, however, appreciate the introduction of new characters and a new setting, so I kept reading.

The third chapter was much more inviting. I liked your characters, and I felt like you did a good job putting across their situation as well as their attraction to each other, and even the kind of relationship they had. If I had any critique for this chapter it would be that perhaps some of the info about her could have come out in dialogue. Particularly because I wanted to hear them talk to each other more. They seemed to have a solid chemistry, and I would have enjoyed seeing more interaction between them.

The fourth chapter went back to AJ's character, and I'm afraid I was too lost to catch back in. If it had been a continuation of the couple I would have for sure kept reading, but I was just a little too lost about what was going on to get much out of it.

Back to chapter two, I just went back and re-looked at it, and I think I can give you a little more detail on where you lost me. If you were trying to strike a different tone that lent itself to the legal world, you definitely succeeded, and in that I think you have a positive element. i say if your going to jump from one setting to the next there does need to be an obvious distinction, and you have acheived that here. The readability level of it just kind of went through the roof with the combination of complex words and sentences combined with titles, company names, and trying to keep all of it straight while following the character around. However, I feel like there's something going on there that I would want to read more of.

I hope this is helpful to you, and I would love a read from you as well. I actually stopped by specifically because I look for people who give subtantial critique, and I was impressed with yours. It's refreshing to find others on here who aren't afraid to trade opinions, so if you read mine feel free to give it to me straight:)

Vieve
(Republic)

I read a few pages, it was pretty good. I didn't understand the beginning part though.

I've read all chapters, and honestly, I would love you to upload more. Your writing is clear and concise, I found myself swept along with the story from the onset and I enjoyed what I'd read.
I actually got to the end of chap 10 (which I think you should inc btw) and thought "oh, there's no more..."
The Jameson / Katie story is excellent, really really really well written. When he was contemplating their future when driving - I thought that was one of the most romantic things I'd read. Lovely :)
I want to know who emailed AJ! What does the attachment include??

Great job, really great job.
I'm not the best at grammar and punctuation, but there was nothing glaringly obvious and the key to good writing is an engaging story - this is very engaging.

Nice one, highly starred, WL'd and I'll happily back in 2/3 days (once I've rotated a few books on my shelf)