Today we see that frequent inconsistencies combine to erode the reader’s confidence in the author.
What I gleaned about the stories: Self-destructing media are a powerful inspiration for an author.
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Note: This is a short story collection, so the rules are slightly different from standard Immerse or Die: instead of reading on every time I lose immersion, I stop reading that story and move on to the next one. As usual, I stop reading after the third WTF.
Analysis: The title and author showed up in my ereader library as stated above. As soon as I saw it, the colon niggled at me; was it deliberate (which suggested the author was wont to experiment with punctuation) or was it an accident (which suggested there might be proofing issues).
When I opened the book, the cover displayed the title without the colon or the capitals on the Other Dark Tales; and displayed the author as JW Allen. This significant lack of consistency raised the question: if the author’s name—potentially one of the things a person is both most familiar with and most invested in—varies, then will other things have been checked for consistency.
Had either of these two things occurred on their own, I might have glossed over them; however, multiple issues with the metadata gave a sense of a slapdash job, so I scored a WTF.
Analysis: Several paragraphs into the introduction, the author lists the first publication of the stories collected. This opens with:
“The Sun Also Rises” was shortlisted in the Writelink 2010 Short Story Xmas Chillers competition.
“Grave Clouds” – was published as “The Difference” by Ink Pantry in 2013.
The difference in formatting hooked my eye. At almost the same moment, I stumbled over how to parse the hyphen: was it intended? If so, what did it mean? There seemed to be no meaningful information conveyed, but it seemed an odd typo to make.
Fully in editorial mode, I moved on.
Analysis: The book opens with an introduction set with a single line between paragraphs and no indent; while this is traditionally a non-fiction style, it is still a standard style so didn’t interfere with my saccade. However, when I flicked to the first story, I discovered it was set in the usual fiction style of no space between paragraphs and a slight indent; although this—obviously—wouldn’t have been an issue normally, I had internalised the rhythm of the previous style, so the change resulted in a slight hitch as my eyes overshot.
Setting aside my speculation over whether the use of a different style for the introduction was deliberate, I pulled the plug.
Take the Pepsi Challenge: Want to know if my own writing measures up? Download one of these free short stories, in the format of your choice, and decide for yourself.
