Dreamland Review Archive

Deep Affairs (A)

Title: Deep Affairs

Author: Steph_4life

Chapters Reviewed: 1-4

Cover: It's nice but there's nothing too catchy about it. Just feels like a random couple with some text slapped on. Maybe you could play around with different fonts to make it sound out better? As it is, it's okay but it could definitely be improved with something more eye-catching. You could always try using a cover shop to help find the perfect cover for your story.

Title: I'm not sure if it's the best fit for this story, especially with it revolving around teenagers. Deep Affairs already gives me adult vibes, and from what I read, it doesn't seem to fit the theme. This could just be my own bias speaking, but I don't really see what "deep affairs" these teenagers could have. They're literally just talking about how they're feeling about school in these first few chapters.

Blurb: I have to be honest here, nothing from your blurb hooked me into your story. Also, what's with all the unnecessary ellipses "..." you have on each paragraph at the end? My suggestion would be to try being less wordy and don't give such an "outline" version of your story here. It felt more like I was reading pieces from a rough outline rather than a blurb.

The part about them having dark secrets is interesting, so I feel like that might be something you could begin with. From the blurb, you've only described two characters by their tropes: a "nerd girl" and a "boy bad" which I've seen several of here on Wattpad, so you'll really want to showcase something that makes them stand out amongst the rest. Not saying it can't be done, because I definitely believe it can, but first, I feel like you should bring your characters to life more in the blurb rather than just stating their "trope" in the blurb.

First Impression: I expected this story to focus more on their high school lives with it being teen fiction and expected to see more of that play out through the chapters I read. However, it turned out to be completely different than I anticipated with the mundane daily life routines. Overall, I feel like this story had the potential to be a nice little teen fiction story, but it fell a bit short. I think with some rewriting and taking the time to really get to learn the basics in writing a story, it could be really fun and enjoyable. 

Chapter 1: First, I just want to start off by saying that we all start somewhere on our writing journey, even if it's a little rough in the beginning. I don't tend to put a lot of focus into grammar, but a vast majority of your dialogue tags were used incorrectly or sentences weren't even punctuated. I would highly suggest you use a writing tool like Grammarly or ProWritingAid to help fix up your mistakes.

Example from story, "Vee come on dear it's time to wake up"

It should be, "Vee, come on dear. It's time to wake up."

Another thing I noticed you do frequently is add a comma after you've closed your dialogue, which again, isn't correct. And I have to admit, with all these mistakes, it made it very hard to get invested in the story. Not only that, but you start out quite similarly to how many other cliche Wattpad stories do with the main character waking up to their parents and going through their morning routine. Although, you actually do this with two characters, which isn't really recommended to do. Especially when you're using first person narrative. You want to keep each character in their own chapter to flesh them out and let readers really get to know them.

As it is, I have to be blunt and say this chapter is rather bland. You've got no descriptions and a handful of grammar mistakes. Maybe you could start off with Veronica's perspective and really dive deeper into her life, personality, and her family. Then, you could make another chapter that focuses more on Harrison.