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Chryiss
ChryissLv54yr
2020-02-26 00:05

Writing Quality: Above Average Update Stability: Great Story Development: Above Average Character Design: Average World Background: Above Average Good grammar, few typos and errors overall. It might be due to you rewriting the first story though. While the writing is technically/grammatically sound, and there’s a relatively good range of vocabulary used, the prose and style feels lacking. But it lacks not because there’s now enough “stuff,” but because there’s too much. Surprisingly, for once, it feels like there’s too much self-introspection in the first person narrative. This connects a bit with the character design portion. The first story describes Margaux from her point of view too much. There’s paragraphs of how she views herself as above everyone else and being annoyed that she’s interested in a guy like John/being beaten in “popularity” and “fame” compared to her Student President Status. Even though I find her character generally unlikable, I don’t detract just because she’s not my cup of tea. In fact, there are moments when she’s quite relatable. In regards to writing her, I just simply feel like a lot could be cut about her without losing anything essential; in fact, it would make those details about her less redundant and more impactful overall. There’s also another aspect of the writing that feels off (not off as in wrong, but in that something’s missing which could elevate it to Great). The suspense and horror is generally well done, but again, due to over-focusing, like with her character, it also feels dragged out when it could be condensed to deliver a sharp more frightening impact. In short, the timing is off due to the length of the writing descriptions. More specially on character design. I was on the fence about average or above average. I settled on the former because I realized it’s about design, not depiction. The latter I touched upon in the above section in relation to writing style, while the former is about the strength, originality, and memorableness of the characters. Margaux has a strong, clear character, but it’s too generic. This might be due to the excess of details describing her and her every thought, but her whole character boils down to haughty af. I say this a little jokingly, lightheartedly. Most don’t delve into and focus on such characters, so that view was refreshing. However, the inner struggle she had wasn’t strong enough, which is why I deem her a relatively weak character. She falls too squarely into one category when it would’ve nice to give her more dimension, perhaps elaborate more on her conflicted feelings when John died. That’s the part I looked most forward too, what kind of psychological or emotional struggle would she have when he died after “meddling” with him. But instead of this being dwelled upon in the length that the previous descriptions of her character were, this crucial bit, the climax really, was lacking. This also includes how she went “crazy” when the “monster” chasing John came after her. I would’ve loved more on that. And touching lightly on John, I found him a bit more interesting, he seemed more promising with more potential, but instead he was just diminished to a simple scared prey. I understand this is the horror part, of being reduced to such a state, but it made him ultimately forgetful. Onto the plot and world background specifically, here you shined the most. It’s not common to see horror genres on here, so it was cool to see how went about creating suspense and mystery. With that said, as mentioned before, the “timing was lacking” to make the scariness even more chilling and the “monsters” more intriguing. In conclusion, I think you’re a good writer with good ideas, they just need to be refined to the next level by cutting some parts harshly out while diving more into others. The horror feelings and depictions are promising, but needs quite a bit of polishing. While I mostly focused on the first story in writing this review, I also read-

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Chryiss
ChryissLv5

(continued from Review) —I also read the second story, and the same critiques are consistent from the first story. You’re going down a cool, unique road. Continuing writing and refining, good luck!

blairehawthorne
blairehawthorneAuthor

Hello there! Thank you so much for giving such an amazing, thoughtful, and clear review of the novel! No one has ever done so to me for a very long time, so I never really had a reflection of my work based on outside critique before, only self-reflections according to my gut feeling. I really, really wish to thank you for showing my shortcomings; it really pumped me up to be better in the future, not just as a writer, but also as an editor. I also agree 100% to your thoughts on Volume 1 and 2. I have written these stories when I was at my teens and only did some minor edits to it along the way to improve the grammar, but the way those two volumes look right now does not differ much from when I wrote it when I was 17. A lot of things have happened and changed then, and I am confident enough to say that my writing has improved well enough that I can definitely make you prouder of my work based on the ones I am currently producing! But, I gotta admit, I really still need to hold back on talking about my characters a bit ahahahaha! Thank you so much! I hope you'll have a nice day!

Chenglei
ChengleiLv11

Damn! This is one helluvah review! Well done!

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