Over on
fanficrants the other day, I bitched about people on ff.net favoriting "Morning Has Broken" but not reviewing it. Also wondering why readers put Story Alerts on complete stories. The reaction was somewhat hostile, but there was also a lot of good advice and explanation.
So, today I got this review for 'Morning Has Broken':
:A couple of the punctuation choices in this sentence confused me.
"Dean", the guy in denim, watched impatiently as the man in the trench coat,
"Cas", stared down into the trash can.
At first I thought someone was speaking when I saw the speech marks around
"Dean." Then, because I thought someone was speaking, I thought the comma was
in the wrong place.
The punctuation drew me out if the story.
When I realized the marks were identifying the characters in the mind of the
POV, they made more sense, but I wonder if this is a sentence you could
reconsider for clarity?
I think I would have found it less confusing without the speechmarks or if it
had been structured like this (or some variation of):
Dean, the guy in denim, watched impatiently as Cas, the man in the trench
coat, stared into the trash can.
Or this:
The guy in denim-Dean-watched impatiently as the man in the trench
coat-Cas-stared into the trash can.
I can't claim one way is right or wrong; I can only tell you how I read
things.
I thought your story was funny and I got a clear picture in my mind of the
setting. Thanks :)
BWAHHAAAHAA! And yes, that review began with a : at the beginning.