Shut Up and Review

#22: Maskli

I'm going to start by talking about the Author's Note. I don't usually review author notes and the only reason I'm even mentioning it here is that the language sounded a little harsh.

Wattpad encourages authors' notes because it's a good way to interact with your readers. The interaction needs to be positive and welcoming though and asking someone not to read your book if they don't like (1) (2) (3) put me off the entire story immediately. I don't usually like romance either, it depends on the way the characters come together and fall in love. And most of the time it's a bit rushed. But if someone says don't read my story if you don't like romance, I'd be tempted to not read the story at all.

Moving on to the story itself, the first chapter is the most important chapter in the story. If you send your story to a publisher it's one of the only chapters they will ever read. That is why your first chapter needs to start with excitement, something that will grip your readers and make them stay.
Description, unfortunately, isn't it.

A better way to start the story would have been to start by describing the situation. Describe how in the dark, dense rain a single soldier marched down to his captain. Determined, frustrated, however be felt. This is called opening with an action scene, because an important action happens in the opening. Not a fight, something that's suspenseful. Something that immediately makes you wonder what's going to happen next.

Another important factor is to choose a POV and stick with it. In your first chapter, you hover over all the characters. While I understand it's because the soldiers aren't your protagonists, the story still has more impact if you are reading it through someone's eyes. The second chapter definitely seemed more relatable and impactful than the first one.

Utilising deep POV in the prologue would definitely have helped increase the tension in the action scenes. If you had chosen the main character of that chapter to be a soldier, for instance, you wouldn't just describe what was happening, you would describe the fear he felt. The horror.

Also, break your paragraphs into smaller one line or even one-word paragraphs in scenes where you want to invoke tension and fear in the readers.
Speaking of tense, I did also notice some tense issues. You switch from past to present tense quite often and that definitely takes away from the story. Choose one tense and stick with it. There's nothing wrong with "She only knew his name, which was Bale Dove." Was is perfectly acceptable in this scenario, even though his name hasn't changed. Sometimes a grammar correction app like Grammarly helps too.

Pop a chapter in there before publishing it, you'll notice the change.

This was a good story. It was definitely very good first draft. The story has a lot of potential, I look forward to seeing how it develops.