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Full title:Thousand ways by quirkyshortdumbo11 Source: Blossom Awards 2024 Category: Science Fiction Mature: N (swearing) Status: Complete Round 1: 18/40 Round 2: Judging now
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*****
Round 1 total: 18/40
Title: 7/10 Both words should be capitalized, and adding "a" (A Thousand Ways) would make this feel more natural. But this is interesting, and I want to know what the thousand ways are, so I think this is a good title.
Blurb/synopsis: 1/10 I like short blurbs, but this is way too short. It doesn't give me any indication of what to expect from this book. I don't know who the girl on the cover is; I don't know what the thousand ways are or what that refers to; I don't know what genre to expect without looking at the tags - it needs more. Check out the 8-Chapter Challenge on justwriteit for tips on this (https://www.wattpad.com/1357752761-8-chapter-challenge-story-logline-and-pitch).
Cover: 5/10 I like the artwork. The colors, shading, style; it just works together. I especially like the girl's glowing eyes and the overall feel that she is glowing or illuminated by a bright light. The white background feels off, though. I don't know what color would work best, but nothing dark. It needs to be light enough so it doesn't detract from the girl. The biggest problem with this cover is that it's missing the book title and your name. Without those, it just looks like a nice picture. You'll have to be careful adding those in so they're visible and obvious but don't interfere with the girl, but if you do that right, this might not even need a background.
First chapter: 5/10 The italics and underlined text are hard to read. Italics should only be used to offset a small section of the text, and underlines should only be used on very rare occasions. I think you could italicize "This belongs to" and the date, or use bold-faced text instead, but the rest should be in normal text. The "thousand ways" doesn't fit in with the story yet, so I think you should leave that out.
But the chapter is obviously supposed to be a journal entry, and it does read that way. There are a few lines that don't quite fit with the journal style, though. They read more like her thoughts at the moment she was being chased, not her reflections about something that happened in the past (the biggest area of concern for that is "Tears leaked out of my eyes" to the second "Oh my god"). Try to reread the text and think of it this way: If this happened to me, and I'm sitting down to write about it later, what will I write?
Also, the smiley face at the end of the last sentence is really out of place. She's freaked out about being chased and bitten by a zombie. A cutesy smiley face changes the tone to one that's light and makes it seem like she suddenly thinks it's not a big deal, and this is definitely a big deal to her. I do think you have a good concept here, and, although there is plenty of room for improvement, you could really work on this and develop into a great story.
*****
Round 2: Judging now
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