Sonata is about a pianist seeking revenge for the murder of his wife, Jane, and his daughter, Mary. The scenes switched between a concert and the murders of Jane and Mary, and the revenge-murder of Braemin and his gang.
The plot of this story hooked me and kept me reading, wanting to know what would happen. For instance, I particularly enjoyed the twist during the first scene, where it is stated that he killed the wrong man. From a music standpoint, I appreciated the fact that the main character begins as a benign pianist, then transforms into a ruthless revenge-seeker. I think I would have liked to see a little more of this transformation, though. It seems slightly unbelievable that there could be a man so kind that could turn so ruthless.
On a formatting note, the capitalization of 'Him,' 'He,' etc. was rather distracting to me. While I understand there was a religious current throughout the piece, this just really distracted me from the plot of the story. I noticed quite a few fragments and wording issues, but those can be fixed easily enough.
There were also some really great chances for imagery and sensory detail that were missed. For example, at the beginning of the second scene, the main character is playing the piano. I think there are many, many chances for sensory details here, from the image and feeling of hands on a piano to the sounds of the low and high registers of the piano being played. What music is he playing? Chopin? Bach?
However, there were some nice descriptions throughout the piece. "When time reaped its harvest," was a description of death that I was very intrigued by. Another one I liked was describing the Virgin Mary statue as once "ripe with color."
There was one section of the story by which I was very confused. Why would Jane, a God-loving woman, be near a saloon instead of at her husband's concert? That struck me as very odd.
I think this story has potential; I'm curious to see what it turns out to be after a revision.
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