Dreamland Review Archive

One Night's Guest (CLO)

Title: One Night's Guest

Author: Nafisa Tabassum Rida ( nafisa_tabby_rida )

Genre: Inspirational, Emotional, Nonfiction, Short, Autobiographical

Chapters Reviewed: One Night's Guest

𝖗 𝖊 𝖛 𝖎 𝖊 𝖜 𝖊 𝖗 :  thecloudedpages

Blurb Below:

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I. Title: One Night's Guest

Love the title. Not a lot to say, just a neat title and it really allows a bit of a mysterious message for the audience to figure out who the guest is.

II. Cover

It's clean with the fonts, and the title looks easy to look at. Though I will say, I am not a fan of the moth being off-centered. I feel for a cover like this, it works if it is centered with a bit of the wings coming through (like over the title). Additionally, I am not really a fan of "A Short Inspirational Story." I feel like it could be smaller or below your name, just for aesthetic reasons.

III. Blurb

I noted this before, but I feel like now I understand. Again, I know it is a short story, but I really do think that at least a little powerful sentence or two added could bring more readers into the story. I know that it can be a bit bland if you just do "this story is about...," so that is my suggestion.

IV. First Sentences

A bit mysterious again. I know it is not really your focal point, so I guess you can take it as sort of intriguing since when you think of a guest, you wouldn't think of a moth. But I love the way you introduce it and make it come off as a friendly, casual tone.

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Shall we begin? SO. You just requested for pretty much a general look at your story so here you go!

To start us off, I did read the whole thing and have my thoughts together. This. Was. Lovely. I could not ask for a more lovely story. I adore how you even mentioned the laws of nature and how you knew the moth would not last long. I especially adore those last three paragraphs the most as I absolutely love a transition from the original storytelling to how it connects with your life. For you to open up about your mental and writing progress is a very brave thing for you to do, and I commend you for being able to speak on such matters.

I truly don't have a lot to say about the short story since it was rather... short. I can say though, I did notice a bit more than usual grammatical/wording errors within the piece. They were in random spots so I suggest you do a quick edit of the story and then it should be good. Sorry that this is so short. Please let me know when you edit if you have any questions or comments to make.

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Now for my takeaway. I like to keep these short and sweet for you to be able to come back to and just quickly see what you might want to take from this review.

1. Improvements to help:

a. Development on packing-a-punch in very crucial areas (blurb)

b. Grammatical/Wording Error (needs a quick editing to identify them)

c. Blurb feels a bit too short again. It works, but I think at least 1-2 more sentences will help it out more.

2. My personal opinions of the work:

a. I liked it! Again, I can't say I was extremely drawn to it, but I surely was looking more into it. And for a short story, it really works perfectly as it feels complete enough to work for me! The story of the moth connecting back to your life is beautiful.

And that is all I have to say. I really enjoyed my reading. If anything, you can message me through PM or through here (you will have to tag me for me to get the notification) for any additional coverage that you would like me to discuss. That is all from me for now!

Have a great day and hope you enjoy this little review of mine!