Entry Title: ABDUCTED

Author: SHERLYNN A MUCKELROY

Writing as (if applicable): 

Entry Category: Romance

​

A few quick notes~

​

• ​

Judge’s Commentary*:

 

Author takes on a lofty endeavor of world-building, featuring futuristic technology, terminology and social/political details. Author has a mighty job to do in introducing us to so much information at the start, and handles the task well to avoid an overwhelming info-dump while still situating us in this world. Even with a futuristic tech level, we understand the universal themes. Author can enhance the realism by using pauses during dialogue, eye shifts, body language subtleties and tenseness to enliven the characters. Author gives us excellent attention to varied sentence structure so that voices are very well differentiated; author has paid great care here. Watch out for typos that distract the reader and pull us out of the complex story structure. Typos are especially damaging when the story is not simplistic, but rather requires good focus, and has established care for the characters. I spotted some missing punctuation and word choice errors that distracted and required some recovery. Some gorgeous phrasing in here, such as ‘I forced a laugh I didn’t feel,’ a testament to this author’s talent with expression. Throughout the book, author demonstrated an understanding that the reader has many character names to keep straight, and author remains mindful throughout to provide some identifying details to help us out. Very thoughtful and a sign that the author has a nice instinct for awareness of the reader. Consistently well-plotted, with no lull in the middle (as can often happen with complex story structure.) Well done.

​

​