Self-publishing
a first novel is generally a bad idea. This week’s book, Sophia: Within, by Jordana Lizama, confirms the rule. While the
plot is interesting and even suspenseful at times, a combination of weak
characterization, poor pacing, and lack of technical skill drags the story
down. These are the marks of inexperience, which in my mind would have been
much improved if the author had written another novel prior to this one.
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| Beautiful cover art, but the shiny blue thing never happens in the book |
Seventeen
year old Sophia is a massive introvert who (despite the fact introversion and
extroversion are mostly fixed elements of the human personality) only became
that way after her father’s premature death. As winter closes in on her
hometown, it brings with it an epidemic of depression which (despite the fact
that the holidays are the most common times to experience symptoms of
depression) is decried as extremely unusual. Mysterious new boy Alec offers
Sophia an explanation for the town’s—and her mother’s—illness: a group of
ancient magical beings called the Aged Men, who’ll suck all the happiness from
her town unless Sophia gives them what they want. Turns out, our heroine has
the spirit of an ancient nymph imprisoned in her soul, a being with immense
potential for good or evil. If Sophia can’t learn to control her unwelcome
roommate, her life and everything she cares about could be destroyed.
But Sophia
herself isn’t a very interesting character. In fact, she’s a classic Mary Sue.
She’s got no flaws and no life goals. The author tells us that, even at age ten
‘She was very mature for her age, or, at least, that was what her family and
friends thought’. We see she’s ‘embarrassed by her intelligence’ and ‘possessed
an exceptional memory’. When she dances at a party, people tell her they can’t
keep their eyes off her. She is admired by almost everyone she meets, except
the villains, despite the fact her character is incredibly anti-social, and no
character honestly criticizes her once. Sophia’s perfection may make the author
happy, but it’s so fake it’ll make the readers slightly queasy.
Even though she’s seventeen, Sophia has no
thoughts about her future. Normal seventeen year old high school students think
about applying to colleges. The only hint we see as to her future goals is when
she spots her copy of Little Women and
thinks she’s like Jo (the independent girl who leaves her hometown to have a
career), but she hopes to one day be more like Beth (the daughter who dies
without accomplishing anything in her life). Since Beth is also a kind of Mary
Sue, this makes sense, although I find it disturbing that any modern girl would
actually want this. But this thread is abruptly dropped for no reason.
Poor pacing
is another problem in Sophia: Within. Chapter
Two is entirely devoted to Sophia walking home from school with her brother.
There’s tons of needless description of her neighborhood, paragraphs about why
she can’t drive yet, that could be summed up into a single line: ‘Sophia and
her brother walked home’. Sophia can’t even go to a party without having to
describe getting invited, shopping for an outfit, eating at the mall food
court, doing her nails, worrying about her outfit, talking about the party . .
. and chapters pass without anything happening.
Any scene
that doesn’t advance the plot of a story should probably be cut, but Sophia: Within is riddled by long
paragraphs of Sophia lying on her bed and conversations where she informs her
brother she’s going to the park. That conversation can be reduced to ‘Sophia
told her brother she was going to the park’. We don’t need the scene with the dialogue
unless Sophia’s brother is actively preventing her from going to the park, thus
putting another obstacle between her and success.
The best
fiction constantly puts larger and larger barriers between characters and
success. Sophia: Within does the
opposite. Alec, the romance interest, constantly assures Sophia that they’ll be
able to defeat the Aged Men invading her hometown. Alec tells Sophia not to do
any research on nymphs on her own, so she finds a website about nymphs . . .
and decides not to look at it. Even when she gets into a fight about Alec, she
decides to make up with him for no reason other than liking him too much. And
after the final climatic battle, we still get pages and pages of Sophia being
happy with her family. Twenty percent of a novel is too long for a character to
be truly happy.
Finally,
the lack of technical skill. When Sophia’s finally succeeded in controlling the
nymph, ‘She smiled; she was so proud of herself for doing it well.’ Show, don’t
tell, is a basic maxim in most creative writing classes. Here, we get sentences
telling us that Sophia’s hair was ‘neither straight nor curly’. In other words,
she had hair. Sophia looks in a mirror and, thinking about how she doesn’t look
pretty, says “Maybe my eyes are an exception.” Real people don’t do thinks like
this.
We’re told
that Alec is ‘young of age, but there was a great force inside him’, which
rings with sexual innuendo. And at the end of the prologue, we get ‘This is the
story of Sophia, a frightened and lonely girl, who is having trouble accepting
a battle she knows nothing about but has been chosen nonetheless.’ Thank you,
author, for telling me this, because I wouldn’t have gotten this in any other
way. By the end, Sophia and Alec had ‘truly begun to heal; to be young and
joyful.’ We know they’re young. We can see from the description that they’re
joyful. We don’t need to be told that the ending is happy. We want to see it
for ourselves.
Within Sophia: Within lies a potentially good
story—but the author lacks the experience to tell it well. I’d prescribe
writing classes and a complete overhaul. For YA paranormal romance, I’ll give
it two stars out of five. As a novel, one and a half.
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