Bright Eyes (T)

62 2 5
                                    

Bright Eyes

_lazarein


Initial Impression: (cover, title & blurb)

So as already discussed, your cover is beautiful. It's eye-catching, exciting and extremely professional. It looks like it belongs in a bookstore—I love it! Full points here.

The title is equally cool. I see it relates to the book right at the end of the blurb, which is ideal. Again, full points.

The blurb requires a little more work, in my opinion. Right off the bat, I didn't like your first sentence just because it was a little generic. There's potential to make it cooler. Like ' I think your blurb has the right idea, but it needs some organization and cleaning up. I've rewritten it below, and I'll explain what I did after.

Welcome Ravenwood Academy, the only boarding school in the quiet, small town of Waltervere, Oregon. And just like every other high school, it has its list of stereotypes—the troublemaker, the jock, the nerd, the new kid, the outsider...

But unlike every other high school, these stereotypical moulds living separate, normal lives are dragged into a world they never knew to exist. Paths cross, and they find themselves in otherworldly chaos they can never escape. Driven by a purpose unknown and sinister, they know someone is determined to hunt them down, and they have no one to trust.

And then there is a man they call Mr. Brighteyes, who knows them more than they even know themselves.

First off, I took out the names. Why? Because they don't mean anything to the reader yet. They just clog up the blurb and put too much information in our heads. Second, I shortened the blurb and took out info I thought was unnecessary. Lastly, I separated the last sentence to make way for more drama. The blurb was good the way it was, but it definitely could use some work on organization and cleanliness, whether you want to use the one I wrote or do your own fixes.

13/15


Logistics: (grammar, spelling & dialogue)

Let's start with formatting. To start, only some of your paragraphs are indented, and they should all be the same. But second, your paragraphs should not be indented. Wattpad automatically uses the block formatting, with double spaces between paragraphs. This makes it easier to be read on a screen. However, that is not the standard formatting for a book. The standard formatting is equal spacing, with an indent every new paragraph. That's the way it should be if it gets published, and it's the way you should write it. If you write your chapters on a word document that way and then copy and paste, Wattpad will automatically change the formatting to block. Something to keep in mind.

Next, the quotes. You use double quotes when you're writing things that aren't dialogue, such as "imperfect circumstances" from chapter one. If you're from the USA, that's correct. If you're from Canada or the U.K or pretty much anywhere else (I believe, but this is a hard rule and not totally firm) then you would use only singular quotes, 'imperfect circumstances.' However, no matter where you're from, you should use singular quotes. Why? Because it makes way more sense. Because double quotations are used for dialogue, and if you use them mid sentence like America does, you cause confusion between dialogue and narration. Just don't do it, is my opinion. But whatever you do, just stay consistent, which I believe you do.

Your grammar is quite good; you have no glaring mistakes. You do have some complex comma errors, however. You overuse the comma, which is ridiculously common in writing. I found you understood the comma rules for the most part, but looking at this sentence from chapter one:

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