Dreamland Review Archive

In The Crossfire (T)

In The Crossfire

YelenaLugin

Initial Impression: (cover, title & blurb)

Your cover has most of the things I like in a cover: it's neat, your name is presented very professional and it's unique. However, it lacks colour and a spark that is needed on Wattpad. I'd recommend sending the picture you have now to a graphic designer and discussing what you can do with the cover. I have a few graphic shops in my reading list that may help!

I love your title! It's short and snappy, but very clearly original. After reading the blurb, I get the meaning behind it as well. Full points here!

So at first glace, I like your blurb. I caught one grammatical mistake but it was concise other than that. However, despite your blurb being very good, I have lots to say about ways to make it better. First off, I never recommend starting blurbs with a name, because to us readers, we really don't care about your name yet. It doesn't mean anything. And on a place like Wattpad, very few words squeeze into the limited description readers see, so make sure your words are chosen carefully, especially in the beginning.

I structure all my blurbs the same way: one standalone, dramatic sentence to begin, a paragraph or two of info, then another standalone sentence to end, hopefully one that connects to your title or overarching themes. With that in mind, I also think there's ways you could clean up the organization of your blurb by mixing things up. Below I've re-written your blurb drastically, but take notice that most of the sentences are still your original writing.

To survive is to adapt.

Sky is caught in a war between angels and hellions. She's been running all her life, leaving behind a trail of bodies while being chased by both monsters and forbidden secrets. There was no hope in her world, not when the goal was simply to survive. And yet, because of an angel, she is tempted to believe in a hope that she had long ago given up.

She is tempted to believe.

Okay so, a couple things. First off, there's room for improvement in that last sentence, I just don't know a lot about your story, so I'm unable to come up with something better. I'm sure you can. The major problem with your blurb is that it's all one big chunk. At the very least, I'd recommend splitting up the blurb you already have.

Also, I think you should add more about the general aspect of the story. Who does she meet? What exactly is she going to do. Your blurb is quite short, so don't worry about adding in extra things.

11/15

Logistics: (grammar, spelling & dialogue)

Your grammar is excellent! At first glance, I don't find anything truly disruptive to the story. However, I'm still going to mention all the things to make your grammar flow a bit better.

Starting off–I think you should use more dashes. Dashes are my best friend–why? Because they create drama–and I love drama.

Look at these sentences above, where I've very obviously overused the dash. But I want to focus on that last sentence:

'Because they create drama–and I love drama.'

You could just put a comma there instead of a dash. It would probably be clearer from an academic writer's point of view. Every time I write an essay for school, I have to go through and make sure I didn't use the dash, because professors hate them. Why? Because dashes are awesome and fun, and writing professors are neither. I'm kidding, but only partly. Academic writing is supposed to be boring. Creative writing gives you the freedom to do what you want. So, with all that inspirational dash talk in mind, let's look at one of your very first sentences from your prologue: