Hello people, I'm going to stop my reviews for about a month
or so. In the mean time, I'm going to focus on my fanfics and
this. This is author reviews. I will review the weakness and
the strengths of the authors that I see. This way, I don't need
to read many stories cuz I read most of the author's stories
already.
This month, I'm going to talk about Mr. Richard Lawson.
Pic's author:
Richard Lawson...
Pic's favorite fanfic by him: Heart of the Family.
Pic's least favorite fanfic by him: Manual Not Included.
Richard Lawson came started out with a surprisingly good
start with his phenomenal story called "Heart of the Family." I
was very surprised that this was his first time writing a fanfic.
However, I did assume that he had some creative writing
experiences in his past. Of course, at that time, he was new. I
didn't know who he was nor did I care. When his other fanfics
came out, I didn't know it was he who wrote it. So I ignored his
other fanfics and saved them into my hard drive, which I was
going to read later. After a while, I finally found out that
Richard Lawson wrote these other fics such as "Right Side of the
Ledger," "Storm's End," and "Thy Inward Love." I promised
myself that I would read the next Richard Lawson fic that came
through the FFML.
Then it came; the fanfic was called "Manual Not Included."
Remembering the excellent storytelling of "Heart of the Family,"
I sat down in front of the computer and started reading this. It
was horrible. This was a joke to his writing skill. This story
was another parody of those "author in his own fics" type
fanfic. I thought when I wrote "Peter's Journey," they got the
point. Obviously, Richard Lawson did not read my story or what
not.
If though "Manual Not Included," did not gave me a lasting
impression on me, I looked for his older fics in my hard drive.
I found "Right Side of the Ledger," and "Storm's end." They were
still not on the same caliber with "Heart of the Family," I
thought. Why? I don't know.
One of Richard's problems is that I don't feel that his
stories flow. Richard's blocky layout gives me the feeling that
he wrote paragraphs, cut them out, and then paste them back up
again. Obviously he doesn't know what indent is, but that is
okay. On the other hand, he triple spaces between every
paragraph. That really helps in reading because the eyes don't
see that many text ar once; however, it feels that there is
something missing in between the text. So I feel like they
paragraphs are not flowing together. One way to solve this is if
Richard can find a better transition to one paragraph to another.
One of other problem's with Richard is that the use of
Japanese. I was horrified with his first draft of "Heart of the
Family." Kasumi called her YOUNGER sister "Oneechan." That
really mad me sick. Being Asian, I couldn't bear that, for I
would never call my younger brother "older brother." However, he
did fix this in the later version. Also, many authors benefit
from using Japanese in their fics. Richard is not one of them.
I feel that he doesn't know when to put the Japanese in the
stories. I think Richard is an extremely good writer to put
cliched Japanese phrases into his fics. I am glad that he
stopped using them.
Last flaw about Richard, he does not do comedy. I don't
find any of his jokes funny, if they were meant to be jokes;
especially in "Manual Not Included," I did not find that very
amusing.
Despite these flaws, Richard's stories are filled with
master story telling. It shows that he can look into the
character's mind and be that character. Richard uses good
imagery, descriptive words, and symbolism. If you want to read a
good story, read one of Richard Lawson's, but don't expect any
comedy from him.
Well, these are my opinion and thoughts. Your thoughts and
opinion may differ. Don't flame me on how you disagree, how I
overlooked this and that, how I'm stupid, and so on. Nobody's
mind think alike. Oh, I know I have grammar mistake in this, so don't flame me for that either.
Next author: Plunger (Martin Bennett)