Bluebell Review Chamber [CLOSED]

જ His Uncertain Love જ ☾ Helena ☽

Book: His Uncertain Love
Author: HOPE_of_LoVeE_
Reviewer: helixgro

I have read all of the chapters of your book, correcting occasional mistakes I have come across (which I'm sure you've noticed and - hopefully - edited). I have many opinions, which I shall delve into later on in the review. You have said that this is a slowburn romance, which can be very effective if written properly. However, a lot of the chapters feel like fillers and there is little progression to the plot. To solve this, I recommend including plot twists and major events that will really hook a reader and encourage them to read on. For the story to be interesting, the main pairing doesn't have to get together straight away; you can include dramatic scenes and tension between them.

The plot you have created for your story is interesting, and if explored further I believe it can be really good. You portrayed the drama and emotions of Amaya well, helping the reader understand the feelings around her divorce. You also included multiple characters, introducing new ones frequently, however you don't explore old ones enough before adding in more. As of right now, the characters feel flat and two dimensional, with no given attributes that make them seem realistic. You can include character development for them and make everyone have a flaw that will be solved in the story. I of course realise that this is hard to do with so many characters, so I suggest choosing your favourite/major characters to really flesh out and develop.

APPEARANCES

First things first, I adore the cover. I think that the background image with the main characters is brilliant and well done, working well as the cover and showing to the reader an ideal hint about the genre of the story: romance. Their melancholy expressions also represent a hint of sadness, foreshadowing that perhaps their love isn't as perfect as it seems. While the background image is perfect and I like the font too (as well as the white colour since it is still visible and presentable) a bit of the title is cut off. Clearly, the size of the canvas used was too large and a portion had to be automatically cropped. The dimensions of a Wattpad book cover are 512 × 800, so I suggest remaking the cover as it is but having the correct size this time.

I also think that the title is good because it not only features a key them in the story (love) but it also stands as a representation of the conflict within it. As for the description, the rhetorical question "is it wrong to have feelings towards your husband?" is a great hook for a book as the reader instantly begins to question the circumstances. I also have to point out that I like the tagline "a tale of a girl with secret scars" and I think it would be a good idea to include that within the cover.

However, there are mistakes within the blurb that could potentially deter a reader. For example, one of these is random capitalisation in the middle of a sentence. Words should only be capitalised if they are at the beginning of a sentence, the word "I" or a proper noun. Otherwise they should be lowercase. Furthermore, there is a lack of punctuation like full stops throughout. While you do include them within a paragraph, you don't include them at the end of a paragraph which makes your work look unedited and sloppy, even when it may not be the case.

CONTENT

Something that I can't stress enough is reading over your work again and editing it. If you don't have time for that, you can always find an editor/beta reader who can help you (many communities have editing shops). While reading, I have spotted mistakes, the most frequent being random capitalisation and mistakes surrounding dialogue. I've already talked about the capitals, so now I'll speak about dialogue.

Dialogue is speech within a novel, and there are rules surrounding it. These are:

- Punctuation must go inside the quotation marks.
- Dialogue tags should follow a comma.
- Action beats/non tags should be followed by a full stop.

These are flexible, but are the main points.

When using dialogue, you use no punctuation at all. Your writing looks something like this:

" Hello " Said Amaya

I'll point out the things that are incorrect. Since a dialogue tag (said) follows the speech, there should be a comma (or exclamation/question mark) after "hello" and the "said" should become lowercase. This can be applied to all bits of dialogue like this. While not a mistake, you include spaces between the punctuation which does mess up Wattpad's format for users on certain devices.

Another example is something like this:

" Hello " She began to walk away

In this sentence, since there isn't a dialogue tag following the speech (but instead an action beat), "hello" should have a full stop (or exclamation/question mark). "She" should also become lowercase.

Other than that, the dialogue you write is highly interesting and entertaining to read. Often there were jokes that amused me or made me laugh (such as the "spaghetti is also straight until it gets wet" joke) and eased the tension that bad built up between the characters. You introduced good foil characters, such as Aaira, that later received a redemption and became friends with Amaya. She really added spice to the story and made it all the more interesting to read.

Furthermore, I thought that adding the graphics with the chapter title at the beginning of the story was a brilliant idea. Each is different and unique to its chapter, and it makes your layout look really pleasing to the eye and aesthetic. I also like the "to be continued" graphic at the bottom of the page, as it intrigues the reader to keep reading. You've shown that you can hook a reader well, but what you need to work on is keeping the reader hooked (so like I said, try making the story slightly faster paced and include small twists) and your punctuation/grammar.

USEFUL LINKS

https://jerichowriters.com/writing-dialogue/ - Tips for writing dialogue

https://www.masterclass.com/articles/how-to-use-dialogue-tags - Using dialogue (this explains what I've said but in greater detail)