Reviewing from the review game:

I was able to imagine what the character was going through after reading the introduction. It paints a vivid image of what it would be like if you were trapped in something of your own creation.

However, after reading the flashback part, I felt it went on a bit too long for an italicized portion of the text. The flashback itself seemed a bit mundane. It's also not written like a recounting (which is what I would expect.) There's no way that the patient is narrating the flashback to the doctor. I myself would appreciate horizontal lines separating the segments in this case.

Pace: I feel like the story moves a bit too fast, I suppose that's due to lack of visual barriers separating rapid events again, but even with that, it seems to move a bit fast.

Characterization: The doctor totally expects Claire to be fine with him killing someone. Shouldn't this world have someone that can stop him? I know it's a comic book world, but still. I don't know what the doctor has to gain in having someone become a hero that can turn on him.

Ending: Why does Claire need the doctor to become a hero? What I envision a hero would do, for a start, defeating the doctor and taking him to the police? (Not that the police were effective in comic books, but still done as a formality.) What can the doctor possibly show Claire, the creator of the world?

Wowzers. I enjoyed this, good job. I have had to review other stories I didn't enjoy, but this one I certainly did! First off I will complement you on your writing, the descriptiveness and wording is good. You use a good amount of tidbits that keep this immersive. It sounds like our poor heroine Claire is schizophrenic or something of the sort. I did read a memoir of someone with schizophrenia and this reminds me of that. The amount of speculation you could make is quite varied. The fantasy option: i.e. Claire really is pulled into an alternate dimension seems highly unlikely by the time we get to the ending. I think it's possible Claire really is a talented creator who got a breakdown from stress. I also think it's possible she created nothing and simply invented this whole delusion. She was probably a fan of a real comic and started envisioning what it'd be like if she was the author and then believed she was. Absolutely everything from thought-patterns, to visual and auditory hallucinations to behaviours could be her being acutely unwell. Since you want some real criticism... hmm... that beginning part where you outline the scenes... I suppose it was cool to see them come true but when I started reading I wasn't sure how I felt about it. I actually thought it may have been a bizarre author's note. If you want this to become like a published work you'll probably need to give it paragraphs instead of the one-line stuff going on here. It does look nicer for the Fictionpress setup. Anyway sorry I can't give better critique. Your grammar and pacing and all that looks great. The theme and mood of this also seems very comprehensive.

Fantastic premise. Loved it. And the Inception like storyline of is-she-crazy-or-has-the-comic-actually-come-to-life was awesome reading.

Some issues though. Too fast. This could've been a really good 10k oneshot of Claire juggling between "I'm crazy," and "Holy sh*t my comics are coming to life!" Also, there are like five to six huge scene changes/time skips within and without the flashback, and they aren't treated well. Maybe a line break, or some filter material as a segue?

The pseudo-index at the beginning was nice and quirky. The opening was strong and not labored or drawn out. That's really good writing.

It first turned bad when I came to the flashback. Flashbacks are a big no-no. Like narration in movies, unless you can make them extremely awesome, you shouldn't have one. At least, if you have a flashback, insert things in there which can qualify as being a flashback and not just exposition dump. To give an example, in your flashback, the narrative pieces are okay, but the descriptive ones are not. You can't just put in "At first, all of it was exciting." as plaintext. And here's why: Claire's telling the *doctor* about what's happening, not just telling the readers about her life. In normal text you can do that, not in a flashback. For your purpose, a monolog would have fit better.

Another point, though this is less crucial yet easier to rectify: Please format better. Line breaks, bold titles. And treat thoughts like thoughts. If she's explicitly thinking something (like in "I have a headache, she thought."), put it in italics (or not-italics, since it's in a flashback). You've done that some places, but not all.

And now, answering the specific questions you asked on the WA forum Review thread.

1) It *is* an interesting story, author. Reasons in paragraph one.

2) Characterisation is poor, unfortunately. Up to the flashback, I thought Claire was a teenager who wrote amateur comic books as a hobby. And even after that, nothing really stuck with me except she's going through writer's block and loves her fans but is also at the end of her rope with them. Again, this premise is *brilliant* and you could do so many great things with it. You could go in detail, like— Does she think she's dreaming? Does she think this is some supernatural phenomenon? Does she think she's been drugged?

3) However unlikely it may be that you actually follow this, I would love it if you wrote a longer, cleaner oneshot first. The narrative could span *weeks* of Claire trying to figure out what's happening and dealing with the psych ward and maybe even her fans. This piece in itself is rushed and if you post a follow-up to it with similar pacing and try to draw it into a full-length fic, you'll burn through great ideas with few words and ends up midway with nowhere to go.

3.1) Another tactic you can use is treat this chapter as a prologue and write a full-length fic of Claire falling in love with Dr Frost and trying to make him into a good man.

Overall verdict: Awesome idea, would like to see more prompts/fics from you because clearly you're really creativity. Execution could be better. I think your idea and overall writing deserve people reading the story, but without proper execution, few will give it enough time.

Thanks for writing and reading.
KnightOfBurgers.

Hi – Delivering one review.

Good framing device at the beginning. Claire should have listened to that little warning voice in her head. Given the impossibility of actually being transposed to a comic book, it is perfectly plausible that she is not as wary as she should be. Bet she wishes later that she had made sweeter material, not about monsters and madmen.

At the comic con, Claire’s coming across as ungrateful. I know a creator who was reduced to tears when she couldn’t promote her comic book at a con, any yet Claire is bored and irritated because she can? Her low opinion of the fans doesn’t make her seem very likable, although maybe that is the idea. Bear in mind though that comic fans reading this will be put in mind of the sort of rubbish staff that Disney have foisted on Marvel after their takeover, who tear into fans on purpose.

Claire’s deterioration leading up to the psych ward scene follows on logically storywise. My concrit would be maybe describing the settings of both the hospital and then the wood more. The cabin in the woods could definitely use some ambience, especially as it’s leading up to a confrontation with Jack Frost.

The kiss at the end – good way to keep the reader guessing. I think that Jack Frost is the kind of monster who is as likely to kill a lady as to kiss her and that his unpredictability makes him that bit scarier.