Writing Style – 2.5/5

After reading this story, I believe that Riddle has the potential to be a really excellent writer. Unfortunately, this title was fraught with grammatical and formatting errors that distracted from the story.  Riddle does a solid job of describing settings and characters without losing my attention.  I would like to see this story after another round of editing.

The Characters – 3/5

There were two primary characters (three if you include the house).  Eric was solid, interesting, and easy to identify with.  Marie left a lot to be desired, often feeling like a Hollywood stereotype.

The Plot – 3.5/5

In many ways, this story reminded me of the quirky and very bizarre 14 by Peter Clines.  I see this as a good thing since I enjoyed that book. There were a few holes and unoriginal moments in Domataphobia, but overall it was an enjoyable read.

Overall – 3/5

The grammatical and formatting errors were distracting.  If Riddle were to edit and resubmit a 2nd edition the reading experience would be greatly improved. I don’t often read short stories, but I found this one to be enjoyable.  It was a unique take on paranormal horror.

Overview

This week I began advertising this blog to other authors with the hopes that I could start reviewing fresh, independent material. As an indie author myself, I know how helpful it is for people to review your book.  Granted, this is a brand new blog with a small following (at the moment).  Still, I hope that it can prove helpful.

The winner of “first indie review” goes to Nate Riddle.  He’s a Texas native who’s fascinated with the paranormal.  He’s published two non-fiction titles, Lone Star Saucers: Searching for UFOs in Texas and Lone Star Spooks: Searching for Ghosts in Texas.  Recently, he’s started branching out into the world of fiction, writing and publishing two short stories.

Today, I will be looking at Domataphobia, a very interesting read about a paranormal experience both within and perpetuated by a couple’s home.  It isn’t perfect, possessing a few flaws particularly in the editing department, but overall I found it to be a very entertaining read.

Writing Style – 2.5/5

Domataphobia by Nate Riddle was a very interesting take on the paranormal genre. I haven’t read many short stories in my life so this was a fresh experience. There are, no doubt, many challenges unique to this art form. Last Christmas I wrote a novella that was around 27,000 words, and I found that a bit trying at times as I tried to develop a story and characters with so “few” words. Riddle used roughly 8,000 words to tell his story. For that, I say well done!

In this section, I critique the author’s writing style. This is sort of a catch-all category that looks at my general impressions of style as well as overall structure and grammatical issues. In addition, I am looking for consistency with the “voice” and perspective of the characters telling the story.

Grammatical/Formatting Issues

Domataphobia suffered from a fair share of errors that a solid round of editing and perhaps a focus group (some call them beta groups) would have solved. There were numerous formatting issues, comma splices, and other mistakes. That’s not to say that Riddle is not a good writer. Actually, I really enjoyed his writing style. When the errors weren’t present, he had a nice flow, balancing simple and complex sentence structures. This story, interesting and unique as it is, could serve as a much better example of Nate Riddle’s abilities if he were to attack the editing phase and resubmit a 2nd edition.

Character Voice/Perspective

This was another issue I had with the story. There are two primary characters—Eric and Marie—that I will look at more in the next section. Domataphobia was written in the 3rd person, told mostly from the perspective of Eric. I say “mostly” because sometimes the author inadvertently slipped into Marie’s perspective. Now, I been married long enough to realize that sometimes a married couple can read each other’s minds (almost always just the woman reading the man’s. What men can really understand a woman’s mind?!), but when writing a novel, it is important to stick inside one character’s thoughts unless intentionally switching. If that is the case, then the author needs to help the reader see that the change is happening to avoid confusion. Sometimes as I read Domataphobia I found myself struggling to follow who was thinking what.

Attention to Detail

As I mentioned earlier, I don’t want to give the impression that Nate Riddle is a bad writer. I think he has the potential to write excellent stories. One of his strengths is his attention the details of the character’s surroundings. I have to admit that one of my weaknesses as an author is describing surroundings, particularly when it comes to rooms and buildings. This is probably due to the fact that I am mostly oblivious to real-world decorations and stylings. Riddle does an excellent job of describing the house around which this story is focused. One could argue that that the house on Crane Street is the third primary character. If that is the case, then it might be the best developed character in the story!

Just a few pages in I felt I had a very solid mental picture of the house’s layout. One of things I like about his approach is that he detailed the house without losing my interest. Some authors go to such lengths to describe their settings that I find myself skipping ahead in the chapter to find something that actually interested me. That was not the case with Domataphobia.

Writing Style Conclusion

Domataphobia was plagued by a number of grammatical and formatting errors which, unfortunately, often got in the way of showing Riddle’s true talents.  A solid round of editing would raise the score of this section to at least a 3/5, if not higher. Riddle’s attention to detail and entertaining use of humor show the potential for an excellent writer.

The Characters – 3/5

As stated earlier, there are two primary characters in Domataphobia.  We will be looking at these individually in a second.  One of the things that needs to be mentioned again is that this was an 8,000 word short story.  Because of this, I wasn’t looking for an incredible development arch in Riddle’s characters.  They showed mostly well-rounded personalities, though Marie left a little to be desired.

Eric

Eric was Domataphobia’s hero and primary protagonist.  I found him to be a humorous and well-written character.  Riddle portrayed him well as your typical guy, full of bravado but when the crap hits the fan he’s screaming and running while firing a gun blindly behind him.  That’s a compliment!  I found myself really able to identify with him.  Obviously, the short story format limited my ability to truly know him, leaving me with questions, but again, that’s not a bad thing.  I would be interested in reading more about this Eric guy.

Marie

Unfortunately, I thought Marie didn’t quite live up to Eric’s promise.  As a secondary protagonist in a short story, she was obviously more limited, but I found her to be a rather stereotypical Hollywood portrayal of a woman in a horror movie.  She was the type that I could imagine shaking and screaming a lot.  I’ve enjoyed the recent trend in literature that portrays female characters with much more backbone.  The women in my life such as my mother and wife are certainly a lot stronger than most books would give them credit for.  Heck, if my wife and I were in a horror movie she’d probably be the strong one firing a gun at the darkness while I shook, screamed, and ran!  If I were to read a sequel to this story, I’d like to see a little more originality and depth behind Marie.

The Characters Conclusion

Overall, I found the characters in Domataphobia to be mostly well written.  Eric was solid.  Marie wasn’t quite so much.  She probably kept the score from being a 3.5/5 or higher.  Still, Riddle did a good job of helping me identify with the story, though if I were Eric, I would have definitely lost it after Marie told me to the call the cops for like the 1,000,000,000th time!

The Plot – 3.5/5

The title and cover of this story were very interesting.  In prepping for this post I jumped on dictionary.com to find out what Domatophobia (according to dicionary.com the title is misspelled). means.  It is:

a fear of houses, homes, or being stuck in a house

One can only imagine the horror of being afflicted with the deadly combination of domataphobia and agoraphobia!

Domataphobia was a solid title choice.  The storyline was unique and refreshing.  It greatly reminded me of the quirky and incredibly bizarre 14 by Peter Clines. Again, I see that as a good thing.  There’s no question that this was very unique story.  I found myself over halfway through and still wondering what the heck was going on.  It grabbed me and the ending left me sad there wasn’t more.

Because it was a short story, there wasn’t the complexity to the plot that longer art forms typically have.  Still, I didn’t feel like I was being led slowly from point A to point B without twists and unanswered questions.  Riddle did a solid job of leaving some aspects up to my imagination without losing me along the way. There were some plot aspects that did seem a little hollow or unoriginal, but overall I found it to be a very enjoyable read.