In Transit Review: Moonglow Avenue

In Transit review:

Note: An “In Transit” review is a story I feel is still “on its way”. This simply means a production isn’t complete or is in need of a rewrite. It also means I’m likely to revisit the story if it gets a rewrite.

Moonglow Avenue by Gary Pettigrew

This is actually a pretty good story at heart, but it feels like my own story several years ago, before I started working shopping it. The bare bones of an ingenious story are there, with a good plot, likeable characters, decent grammar, and an interesting universe. But the story is dragged down with unnecessary scenes, plot holes and side characters that aren’t handled very well. Really a person can only do so much just on his own, and that’s what this feels like, a good solo effort. It’s a worthwhile story, but it needs an unbiased pair of eyes. (More than just my own.) I would recommend the writer look at some writing workshops that will allow him to present this story to others one chapter at a time.

One of the major problems this story may face with publishers, is its tendency to move very fast. This is an underground society story, but it never explores the ramifications of living in an isolationist’s world, nor does it even question the idea’s merit. While most individual characters are developed rather well, scenes and ideas really aren’t fleshed out and often it feels like the author is jumping around.

This story gets a score of 8.5 out of a possible 12 with no bonus points. (Only two bonus points are available.) Really the beginning of the story is pretty solid, which is kinda the norm if a story stays on authonomy or sites like it long enough. Most people give their opinion on the first few chapters of a book and never read the rest, which is helpful, but only on those first few chapters. Hence why I recommend finding a good book workshop.

The moral score is actually pretty good. -1 for a few scenes with blood, but not an excessive amount, and -1 more for an imprisoned innocent character. (-2 out of a possible -25, which is a better score than my own story, Lost and Found, would receive.) Really nothing takes place in the story that feels more violent or scary than your average 1990’s Disney flick. I will give the story another -1 for never so much as paying lip service to the fact that isolationism, which is the culture of the residents of Moonglow, is actually a terrible way of life and always to be considered as a last resort if it’s considered at all. I’ll explain more on this issue below the review.

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Moonglow is a child friendly story about a group of children who find a passage to a world of magical creatures, hidden for fear of a world that might exploit them. When a child from that world gets out, they must rescue him before the fears of those creatures come true. The children in this story feel quite real and are likeable. The world itself explores new takes on the myths of werewolves and witches, while staying in familiar territory, making it a great story for fans of old fashioned monsters.

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And with the author plug out of the way, here are the details of how the score was decided:

Warning: Spoilers may be ahead.

1. Spelling/Grammar

Score: ¾

The grammar errors in this story are few and fairly obvious. Nothing sticks out to me as being something the author simply doesn’t understand and it feels like a few more revisions and the author should catch most of his errors.

2. Interesting Plot

Score: 1

The plot of this story itself is great. Setting up an entirely new world within our own, with its own rules and filled with strange creatures. Some of the ideas seem familiar, like the story is a close relative of the Narnia series, however the new world is portrayed at actually part of our world, rather than independent of it, which creates interesting scenes showing our world and another intertwining without us even knowing it.

3. Good Direction

Score: ½

This is where the story falls apart unfortunately.

First off, while the new world is set up, it isn’t really explored. For instance we learn that vampires are real, but we never learn much about them, despite them coming up several times. We learn that the residents of Moonglow are isolationists, afraid of the outside world which had proven unfriendly towards them. However that the entire world is so wicked it must be hidden from is taken for granted and the residents of Moonglow go from sounding justifiably afraid, to sounding paranoid, as no one is ever allowed to really question if the world ever could accept them. (I myself recall that it is only in the last thousand or so years that humans really feared magic, embracing and even worshiping it before the modern era. Why is that never explored?) Normal humans are just bad, and why is never explored, nor is it explored if there is any possibility that the residents of Moonglow might have done some nasty things to make normal people turn on them. The residents are portrayed as altogether innocent.

This also makes the story feel flat in some areas, as there is very little controversy. The residents of Moonglow are good, the outside humans are bad, that’s that. Keeping in secret is good, exposure is bad. Many writers make up for a lack of controversy with humor or lots of action. However none of the characters feel like they could pull off constant comic relief very well, and this isn’t an action packed story until the end, which I will comment is quite a romp.

A huge problem with the story not exploring just why Moonglow must remain hidden, is that many readers are just going to roll their eyes at the author making claims against humanity, when clearly the main characters and their parents and several of the residents of their neighborhood, all human, are all unquestionably good people. This proves that the residents of Moonglow are just as unreasonably paranoid as they sound. When a young werewolf is about to be shown off on TV, actually many readers probably won’t have a problem with this until they see he’s being held against his will. Until then it just sounds like the creatures will finally be made to get over their crippling fear through non-violent confrontation.

Second off, several elements are left unexplained altogether. When the vampires are first seen in the story, they’re shown as predatory and possibly sadistic killers that do so without reason or regret. Then they later show up as good guys, for reasons never explored. Werewolves show up in the story too, and many interesting elements are explored about them, but the ever essential element of just how their transformation works, is left alone for the most part.

Third, several times the author seems to flat out forget large details. For instance, one of the characters begins to explore magic and casts a number of spells with lasting effects, but never undoes them. The spells are simply accepted as nullified because the story needs them to be for certain scenes to work. Another character, Ryan, is transformed into a werewolf and de-transforms completely off camera, several paragraphs going by before you realize that he’s no longer supposed to be a wolf.

Fourth, the ending also has issues as it rushes past the final interactions of the main characters. Even key events such as the reuniting of the werewolf family, are glossed over.

Finally, the writer seems to have some scenes that really weren’t thought through. In one scene the main characters have a picnic on top of a moving grey hound bus, with a spell that keeps them on top. However the writer never addresses why no one sees them up there as they travel into the city, and to make matters worse, the aforementioned picnic includes a table cloth and basket that stay on top of the bus roof with nothing holding them down for no reason.

Really this story feels like it has a lot of worthwhile material, but it’s only three fourths or even half the length it needs to be to explore them. If the writer is getting frustrated reading all these corrections, let him take this away above the individual critiques. This is a good story, and good stories are worth taking time to tell.

4. Author Interest

Score: 1

I’m giving this score to the author based on how he interacted with me. However he does look like he could stand to be more active on authonomy.

5. Believable Main Characters

Score: ½

This is another problem area in just how fast this story is being told. Pretty much all of the characters, main and side, are seen as black or white, good or evil, with the only in between characters being ones who won’t be on camera for very long. All of the residents of Moonglow are good, even the vampires (whom actually seem pretty nasty when they first show up, but their sadism is seen as something to just go around). All humans are questionable if not straight up evil, expect for the main four protagonists their parents and those in their neighborhood. Any mistakes the good characters make are pure mistakes, no malice is ever intended nor is any selfishness or short sightedness clear from their actions. Heck the biggest mistake the main characters make is leaving a gate open none of them had any reason to believe was important to shut. I really wanted at least one of the characters to be like those in old the Disney classic, Aladdin. Those were characters that were good at heart, and often good in deed, but had their flaws lying in selfishness or near sightedness, not just a simple lack of experience or knowledge.

6. Likable Main Characters

Score: 1

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Believability and likability are NOT related categories. Yes it was annoying to see Ryan obsessing over the only mistake he ever made in the entire story, leaving open a gate he had no idea was important. It was annoying that that was his biggest mistake, however that he cared enough about the folks around him that that got to him, made me sympathize with him. It has happened to most good people that lacking one key piece of knowledge has had devastating consequences for others and seeing him upset over it makes him feel like a person I would like to have met in real life. Billy is a curious boy who loves mischief, though not the dangerous kind. Jasmine loves to experiment and actually its odd to think that she and Billy never give the writer opportunity to explore the world, as exploring seems like their natural state. Nicole is girly, but she sounds like she would still have been a cool little sister.

7. Likable Side Characters

Score: ¾

The side characters tended to be the residents of Moonglow, which saved the author in this category. They were funny, inventive and interesting. From the goofy ghost boy, to the sadistic vampires, you never quite knew what to expect from these people and it was easy to see they had stories that went beyond the book.

I however hated the villains of this piece, and not in the intended way. The reason this doesn’t take away from the score of the main characters is that the villains can’t justifiably be called main characters. They’re neither fleshed out as people, nor do they really drive the plot except to be obstacles, nor are they really given at lot of scenes in which they are even present until the end. The hunter and TV host are never fleshed out as to why they do what they do or what their history is. Drebin is a reference is Jerry Springer and Buck is an obvious reference to Kraven the hunter from Spider Man. Yes, Jerry was a controversial figure in real life, and Kraven was a very interesting character, but... Well Jerry was only interesting because he was real. He as a person was incredibly boring and irritating. The fact that he existed and was NOT a product of fiction was the only interesting thing about the man as he epitomized everything about the cliché sleaze show host and no one ever saw anything redeeming out of him. Drebin was Jerry Springer. Kraven had a back story in spider man that was admittedly one dimensional, but what was interesting about him was, when he bragged, he had the skills and body to convince you that he was telling the truth. Kraven was every bit as good as he said he was and he had a real consuming passion for what he did, making him feel like a play off of captain Ahab. Buck was just a big headed coward with a lot of money and some goofy stories.

To be fair, Buck and Drebin are two villain types that are very hard to pull off interestingly. The bragging coward and the entertainment exploiter. What seems odd on that note is that bragging cowards are considered relatable as protagonists and exploiters... well no one loves an exploiter, it’s something we’ve all been on the receiving end of. A cowardly protagonist shows passion and an amateurish quality that can be related to. A cowardly villain, regardless of how realistic that is, just feels ineffective. They can be hilarious, but they can’t be intimidating. Maybe if the author played Buck more for comedy he could work better. For Drebin... especially since he’s trying to show off a werewolf to the general public, and half the story isn’t supposed to be devoted to him convincing everyone not to write him off as a nut... I say change him into a freak show host, not a sleaze show host. Freak shows tend to not be real or even realistic, which is why they’re not as hated, and they’re far more mysterious because they aren’t as well publicized. Yes, they’re exploitive, especially if they in any way involve real people, but that air of mystery gives them an edge over sleaze shows. We know what sleaze show hosts are, but we don’t really know what freak show hosts are. This give the author a chance to explore the character and keep the reader interested. In any case, remember, passion is always more interesting than someone just making a living. If Buck and Drebin were passionate about what they did, they could probably have had no change to their central themes, and still be interesting. Drebin seemed to just be making a living, and Buck seemed to just want something to brag about.

8. Good Scene Descriptions

Score: 1

While many of the scenes weren’t set up as well as they could have been, they were very well described. I especially like the scenes showing the world through a werewolf’s eyes and those showing the magic and natural world coexisting. The super natural was explained and shown with a sense of awe and wonder, just like how a child approaches the subjects and it was fun to read.

9. Targeting

Score: 1

Despite hiccups in direction and character development, the story still has that sense of wonder and awe for magic and a certain love of fun. Children, the obvious target, will love this story. The characters are goody goodies, but they are fun, and if they were given a few more flaws they would feel like real people.

10. Broad Appeal

Score: 1

Because of the way the world of Moonglow is crafted, there’s much for an older mind to wonder about. Also this story won’t alienate the fans of old stories and movies by completely reinventing mythology. (I admit, I do reinvent mythology in my stories, and yea, I’ve gotten hate for it.) It has its own interesting spin on things, but keeps to the myths folks have grown up with.

Note***

Here’s where I go into the part of the story I had a moral problem with. I sense this was unintentional but actually the author promoted a very nasty moral system: isolationism. I agree that in most stories, just because the protagonists do something, doesn’t mean what they’re doing is meant to be seen as right outside their particular situation, or even right at all. But when it’s never questioned or shown in a bad light, it sure looks like their behavior is being promoted.

The residents of Moonglow isolate themselves from the world and are content to believe that on a whole, normal humans are bad. They even show a certain nonchalant attitude toward some of their members (the vampires in particular) being openly hostile and even violent toward outsiders without any form of cause. Even when not hostile, they are shown as afraid of outsiders and unwilling to give them a chance, even when thoroughly proven wrong and shown that not everyone on the outside is that bad. What’s worse, is that for the most part, the story sets out to prove the residents of Moonglow right in their practice, and the major conflict is trying to keep them isolated from the evil outsiders.

Isolationism pretty much never leads to good places. For nations, isolationism leads to excuses for Tyranny, war and even genocide as those perceived as outsiders or sympathizers with them are systematically killed or pushed out. Examples are, North Korea, Iraq and many Middle Eastern territories that have fallen prey to tyranny and terrorism. Those who isolate themselves as individuals from people they don’t understand or like in the real world generally end up as racist and bigoted and can often become dangerous. If they don’t become violent, they often end up ignorant and rather lonely individuals.

Isolationism is like killing. While circumstances exist where it can kinda be justified, it’s still generally wrong. A man should never kill for fun, sport or any form of personal gain. However when faced with protecting his family, his freedom or even his convictions he may have no choice. The Jews isolated themselves in Nazi Germany (those who couldn’t outright escape) because they had no choice, and the country around them really did hate them. What was sad (beyond the obvious) was, there were actually good German citizens that would have helped them had they been given the chance, but the empire was so strong, it wasn’t worth the risk to associate with them. A kind of hostility really did eventually grow between the two people, because that kind of system has to breed such. It’s not good or even acceptable. It’s terrible. It’s often a problem that’s far bigger than an individual can fix, but that doesn’t mean it should be treated as okay, or worse still, prudent and a good idea.

I would strongly suggest to the author to show the isolationist system as more an obstacle than an asset, and something that the good people of Moonglow want to leave behind. Even if they don’t succeed in this episode and find that, as of yet, they just can’t see a way out, showing such a terrible system in a bad light would be better than just accepting it. Like in the story of Beauty and the Beast. Bell is never shown as liking her imprisonment, even though it is a reality she has to deal with and it eventually leads to something good. What was done to her was wrong and it’s treated that way.

(Yes. My own story, Lost and Found, is about a group of isolationist, however the system they use is shown as an obstacle and is openly questioned by the end, some even outright asking if it should done away with.)