For the next installment of our series on the Helix Review, we spoke with Jack Gunthridge, author of the romance novel Broken Hearts Damaged Goods, about his experiences with the Helix Review.
Broken Hearts Damaged Goods
The most dangerous romances are those when two friends agree to not fall in love and commit to not be committed to each other. When Jack and Liselle find themselves alone after having been cheated on, they decide to use each other to help get over the pain and heartache. Their plan was to make sure there would be no collateral damage as they tried to learn to love again. As they start to develop feelings for each other, they must come to term with their past and all of the damages their former relationships have done to them. With broken hearts and mixed emotions, they try to make themselves a lover that somebody else would want. Will they be able to heal themselves in enough time to admit their feelings for each other, or will their pasts destroy the best thing to ever happen to them?
When Jack and Liselle find themselves having been cheated on, they decide to use each other to get over the heartache. They would be each others rebound so that nobody else would get hurt.
My writing style is very natural and conversational. I want the readers to feel the experiences of the people in the book. With a romance, I want the women to identify with the female lead and to fall in love with the male lead.
Since I am a male author writing romance novels, I wanted to see how I compared to the more traditionally published female authors. I wanted to see how I was similar and how I could set myself apart.
The Helix Review allowed me to see the normal range of the pacing of the genre I am working in. Given this information, I can better determine if I am on track with other authors, or if I might want to increase my pacing.
I plan on looking at my books more and dissecting it differently than I would with normal editing where I look at spelling, grammar, punctuation, and making sure the ideas are presented clearly. I can now look at making my works fit more into the genre. I can also balance this with what makes me unique as a writer.
It is definitely worth the money. It lets you know where you are as an author. Are your sentences too long? Are they too short? Where do you fit in with other authors? How are you different? It helped to answer a lot of these questions.
The very heart of your writing while appearing reasonable initially, did not really sit well with me personally after some time. Somewhere within the paragraphs you were able to make me a believer unfortunately only for a very short while. I nevertheless have got a problem with your leaps in logic and one might do well to help fill in those gaps. When you actually can accomplish that, I will certainly end up being amazed.