Im SOOOOOO stoked!  My novella, The Gunslingers Lullaby, has made it to the top of the charts!  Please everyone check it out and give me some comments!

Congrats on hitting the top, and thanks for bringing this to my attention since I almost never read the serializations.

The good news is that you write well and tell an enjoyable story.  Chapter one is very nice and has me wanting more.  Good premise, interesting character, and realism out the wazoo.  Bravo!

However, there are a number of minor errors throughout, such as using "peaked" when you mean "peeked", "then" instead of "than", and "your" instead of "you're".  These are certainly survivable and don't detract much from the story, yet they are things you should easily come to grips with and fix as you continue writing.

The bad news is that the quality of your writing is inconsistent.  I've only read as far as chapter three, but am starting to think that you put the most time into chapter one and the others have not been as well thought out.

In chapter two, Chen's run to the smoothy shop is just boring and doesn't advance the story.  He finally has his directive, wakes up ready to work, and then spends a page or more doing something else.  Amusingly, at the point that his dog gets bored, I was yawning.

The end of chapter three could use a thorough re-write, in my opinion.  It is difficult in first-person narrative to get away from overusing "I", but as Chen rifles through Michael's things, almost every sentence starts with "I".  It's completely out of hand and definitely distracting.

From a realism point, why didn't Chen get Michael's address and vehicle info for free from Rose instead of spending $50?  

So, bottom line is that I'm glad to be reading your story.  You have a lot of talent and imagination.  My guess is that it will take you far.

However, this piece could use a fair amount of improvement, in my opinion.  Good luck with it.

I appreciate the input!

Thanks for the compliments, I really appreciate the time you took to read and carefully arrange some helpful and encouraging thoughts.  The realism is something I strived hard to work on.

I know I have some of those spelling errors throughout, and I intend to fix them ASAP.  But I appreciate you bringing that to my attention, so I remember to edit for grammer as well as content in my re-writes!

As for the episodes, I know it starts slow but the point was to familiarize the reader with the type of person Chen is.  Regimented, trained, physical, disciplined.  I am hoping it gives the reader a bit of insight into him as a day to day person.  I felt it gave a bit of that realism to his setting also, showing that he lives a life, and has habits outside of his work.  But I will take your comments under advisement and see what I can do about that area.

The end of episode 3 is something that I have planned to re-work but havent had a chance to.  Thank you for reminding me!  

I feel that the whole first section of the story is actually slower and more plodding then the second.  So I promise if you are able to continue, you will be rewarded.  The goal is that you learn to really like Chen, and his friends.  I hope you continue, and get to see how his adventure progresses.

Really am looking forward to more of your comments!  Thank you so much.  Hurrah for you!

Oh I also forgot to mention that I neglected to break down my story into actual chapters, and thus, the episodes were just arbitrarily selected starting and stopping points.  I apologize if it makes the story a bit uneven as far as immediate pacing.