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Broken - Detailed Feedback

Introduction:

Broken is a fantasy story written by Sparky5678. It follows the protagonist, Rose, as she deals with the consequences of her actions and a journey given to her against her will. It is a great story for anyone looking for action-adventure.

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Detailed Feedback

What Worked:

The world has so many opportunities for humor, fun moments, angst, etc., and you take advantage of that. One scene I really liked was from chapter one, when Rose attempts to speak nymphala. It was a cute scene that characterized Rose and also gave a bit of levity without feeling like the story was trying to change the tone completely. It was cute, quick, and fun.

I also like how this story, in only three chapters, managed to get an emotional reaction from me. When Rose gets branded and her friends leave her, I was super angry at them. Rose did nothing wrong; sure, she made mistakes that led her to that position, but it was either get branded or die, and her friends left her for choosing to live.

Her friends leaving her was an interesting progression I was not expecting. I liked how you introduced a mini twist by chapter two. It was unique and kept me on my toes, and at the same time, it didn't feel forced. It felt like a risky move that went against the norms of what we typically see in books.

In general, I find Rose's story intriguing so far. It's a little too early in the story for me to comment on character development, but she has an engaging story, and part of that is because of what I just mentioned above about her friends leaving her. Of course, an engaging protagonist is essential for the story, and you do a good job with that.

Again, it's a little too early for me to comment on the big things like plot development and themes, but from what is released so far, the plot is moving in the right direction. I did not notice any plot holes or inconsistencies. It has a nice setup and I can tell there are a lot of mysteries that are yet to unfold, which makes it engaging.

I'm sorry I'm backtracking, but I'd like to point out that the very beginning of the story was eye-catching. It was like a mini prologue that showed us future key plot events without taking up too much time.

The introduction was short but did its job to set up the rest of the story. It got us intrigued but didn't overstay its welcome. So, in terms of openings, I'd say you did a good job hooking your audience in.

Lastly, I briefly mentioned the world before, but I did not go into detail about the world itself. I think it's an interesting world that has many layers to it. The different factions are super intriguing. My personal favorites are the nymphs and the way they act, especially with Rose and the branding. They got me invested in the characters early on in the story.

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What Didn't Work:

Let's start with the technical stuff. My main suggestion has to do with punctuation.

I would suggest using more commas. There were quite a few times throughout the story where the sentences felt too long and hard to read because of a lack of commas. Here's one example from chapter one, "Without hesitation Rose grabbed the nearest object and jammed it between the rows of razor sharp teeth causing the snake plantarian to focus more on trying to release his mouth from the object than focus on killing her."

With commas: "Without hesitation, Rose grabbed the nearest object and jammed it between the rows of razor sharp teeth, causing the snake plantarian to focus more on trying to release his mouth from the object than focus on killing her."

There are many times throughout where you use an introductory phrase but do not put a comma after it. The lack of commas is the thing I noticed most in the story, which is why it is my main suggestion.

While on the topic of punctuation, you sometimes use ellipses (...) incorrectly. When using ellipses, they can only be three dots except in rare cases where they get four. But, in general, they are three dots and three dots only. For a majority of the story, you use more than three dots.

Sometimes you do dialogue tags correctly, other times they're done incorrectly, so this error isn't consistent but it is noticeable. Sometimes you capitalize the dialogue tag. For example, from chapter one, "Not now Chiha!" He snapped. Dialogue tags are always lowercase unless they are a proper noun, so it would be, "Not now, Chiha!" he snapped.

Also remember that if you are using a dialogue tag, the dialogue cannot end in a period.

While on the topic of periods, in the text, there was no period after "snapped." There are a few times throughout the story where you forget periods to close off the sentence.

Let's move into more creative suggestions, which I don't have many of.

I would suggest trying to incorporate more of the five senses into your descriptions and consider your word choice. For example, from chapter one, "Yoko and Rose looked at each other with a confused look on their faces looking back at Chiha."

Look is used three times in that short sentence. You don't need to go overboard or too flowery with your word choice, but switching it up so the same word like "look" isn't used multiple times in the same sentence would make the writing more engaging, if that makes sense. You do the same thing in chapter two, only with the word "worry" instead. 

The main thing with this story is that it's hard to grasp because there is a lot of info to learn about the world. For future stories where you have a fantastical world, I would suggest considering adding a newbie character who doesn't know much about the world or its entities. For example, the Shadowhunters series did this with Clary.

That's one way to feed information to the audience in a more natural way than, say, exposition dumping or having characters go out of their way to explain things they should already know. 

That's just one suggestion, but there are many ways to give more natural exposition without it feeling overwhelming. I'd suggest playing around with how you give information about your world since there are countless ways to write!

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Summary:

- Nice use of humor that doesn't feel overwhelming

- Interesting characters, particularly Rose

- The plot is engaging so far

- Lots of emotion in the story already

- The world is intriguing

- Grammar errors (dialogue tags, punctuation, etc.)

- Consider incorporating more of the five senses into your descriptions

- Consider looking for more natural ways to give the audience information about the world

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Overall:

Broken is an overall solid story with interesting ideas and risky plot/character moments that make it engaging and unique. I would recommend this story to anyone looking for a fantastical read with intriguing characters along with a thought-provoking world.

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Thank you for submitting your story. I was pleasantly surprised by the character of Rose. Unfortunately, in a lot of Wattpad fantasy fics, many of them spend so much time on the world that they forget about the characters. I don't think there's any problem with that necessarily since I myself love worldbuilding, but I love characters more, and it was a breath of fresh air to read your story and see that all the characters are engaging and have unique personalities.

Please let me know if you have any questions or need any further reviews!