Next Big Recognition Contest

Round 28

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Author #3:Jsmada24

Book Title: The Happy Happy Village

Specified Chapter:Ms. Mercedes (Part-1)

Summary Thus Far in Book: One summer day in 1964, a man named John Eliot and his partner Jake travel to the city in hopes of becoming businessmen and climbing up the ladder for bigger and better things. But they jump the gun on smooth sailing towards the good life when the radiator of their car springs a leak; one of life's more cruel curve-balls.

Now, left on the side of the Florida highway in the hot sun and left to fend for himself in the world when his partner leaves him for dead, John has no other choice but to find help and get to his job before time runs out.

Our businessman stumbles upon a path leading into the Florida wilderness. One moment of reminiscence and sight seeing, John finds a small little village with a handful of residents. He runs down the hill triumphantly, as he finally finds the assistance he needs to get to the city. But as he got a closer look at the town, his feet anchored to the ground and blankly stared at what he saw.

Every single villager wore a bright large wide smile on their face.

Author's Note: Thank you Dawn for making this contest, it is an honor to be spotlighted as this story is the first book I've ever written.

I chose this chapter because it's the chapter where things begin to really happen, I think this is the real hook chapter to the story. If your interested/or want to know the full chapter, I suggest giving Ms. Mercedes parts 1 and 2 a look. You don't need to critique those.

1.) What are your thoughts towards this Happy Happy Village?

2.) Is John Eliot an interesting voice telling the story?

3.) If you gave this story a chance would you continue?

Thanks again, hopefully the feedback will be more pleasant than the junk I've been getting on 抖阴社区on.

-Joseph

Genre: Mystery/Thriller

Rating: PG

Winning Comment:Hey there! Wow! That was an pretty good chapter. I skipped right past your blurb (I like doing that for NBR to see if you set up the first chapter good enough so I would know what was going on) and guess what? I understood what was going on! :) I was immediately brought into the world.

I really like how you developed the awkwardness and fear between John and the villagers. The villagers have this stiffness about them that leads me to believe they have been brainwashed! So cool. I also liked how you had Ms. Mercedes on the billboard.

My favourite part of this chapter was definitely when John is first walking through Happy Happy Village and he villagers are being so happy, err, maybe creepy is the better word! ;) The continuous "Welcome!"s that you added in between paragraphs really served as a unifying thread that I really enjoyed. One thing that I would've liked for you to add would be to describe the person, or the action that the person is doing whist exclaiming "Welcome!" That would help get the reader more involved in the setting.

Let's move onto the Comment Topic. Grrrrr. Voice. I've had to talk about that sooooo much in English recently......so I have experience! Woo! ;)

Voice is, I think, the way a story is told. Just as how the same piece of music sounds quite different if played on a violin versus a flute (or sung by a choir or a rapper), a story that involves that same plot, characters, world, etc, can still change a lot depending on the voice used to tell it.