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Review by Sunshine: Pilferer

Title: Pilferer

Author: danielseavey_is_bae

Summary: 3/5

I like the repetitiveness of the 'she never thought she would' – that was a great, effective choice! And your final line was pretty captivating too. I suggest taking away the all-caps, though, because it feels like you're yelling at the reader and that makes a rather unprofessional first impression. Also make sure words like 'Hard' aren't capitalised unless they are at the beginning of sentences.

I think you need to add more to your summary, too. I think it should be something along the lines of:

"She never ever thought that she would find herself laughing at the lame jokes of five other boys.

But, then again, she never thought that she would fall in love with blue-eyed heartthrob, Daniel Seavey.

And she most certainly never thought that it would start with a pick-pocket."

Not my best example, but can you see how it feels like it is building? 

Grammar: 2.5/5

Okay, so there's lots of little minor slips that need polishing. You have misspelled words here and there, you have words beginning with capital letters even though they aren't proper nouns or at the beginning of sentences, and you sometimes use more than one punctuation mark at a time, which makes the writing unprofessional.

The biggest issue was punctuation at the end of dialogue. The comma comes before the quotation marks, not after. And, If dialogue is followed by a verbal tag (such as 'she said', 'she screamed', 'she whimpered' – or anything referring to how the character says the words), there should be a comma before the closing inverted commas. If it's anything else, this comma would be replaced by a period (or a question mark for a question and exclamation mark for an exclamation). For example:

"This is giving me a headache." I screamed.

That is inaccurate. The 'I screamed' is a verbal tag, as it refers to how the dialogue is spoken (it tells us that the words were screamed). So it should be:

"This is giving me a headache," I screamed.

Character Building: 2.5/5

There are some great things happening here. For one, I like Abigail's conversation tone as she narrates to the reader. It's quirky and engaging, as well as witty at times. The dialogue, too, is very engaging and even comedic at times – some of those characters might need some ice for those burns that Abigail delivered!

On a more critical note, you need to flesh out those characters. You introduced so many of them, and apart from Abigail, most of their dialogue sounded awfully similar. That, and you never slowed down the pace to introduce the characters to us properly. You introduced too many characters at once by their names, but offered minimal descriptions. For example, we meet Daniel, Abigail, Dray, Justin, Charlie, Corbyn, Zach, Jack and Jonah. That is nine names for a reader to remember, and all except one are males. Can you see how this would be difficult for a reader to remember?

That being said, this is FanFiction so I'm guessing most readers had the assumed knowledge before reading this. I, unfortunately, am not familiar with the band.

But either way, you definitely need to slow down the pace and introduce the characters as they come along. And keep all characters purposeful – if they don't have much relevance to the overall plot, don't include them. Also, you tell rather than show when it comes to characters. Don't tell us that Dray is a flirtatious prick – show us. Make him do things that makes us go, 'Damn. That guy is a flirtatious prick'. If my stories, if I have a character that is rash, I won't say he is rash. I'll make something come up and have him act rashly by jumping into that situation, or speaking before he thinks it through. Try doing something like that to show rather than tell.

Writing Style: 2.5/5

You manipulate sentence structures very nicely, and you have tuned it specifically for the genre – well done! I like the snappy and sarcastic lines from Abigail, as well as the comedic use of figurative language that she occasionally implements. Good job there.

There are definitely some things that need work. First of all, descriptions. There aren't nearly enough. I don't know what your characters look like (images aren't enough – tell us with your words), I don't know what the setting looks like, and I don't know how characters feel when things happen. You need to flesh things out. And use things like sensory imagery to help you – describe the smell of places, or the sounds of people's voices. These can help ground the reader.

Secondly, name tags. I'm glad you don't keep going, 'I said, he said, I said, he said' and rather choose to omit those dialogue tags. But be cautious with that: if you don't use a dialogue tag for a long time, it can get confusing. Make sure all your dialogue is clear and that the reader can easily identify who is talking. 

Plot + Originality: 2/5

This was a pretty hard thing to judge. I mean, for one, it's FanFiction. Most characters won't be original, and since I don't know the fandom, I don't even know if the characters are represented with integrity. And also, since the story is just beginning, I don't know the general arc of the plot. But I will say that there are some unique elements regarding this, such as the pick-pocketing and the general tone of voice for the character.

But a lot of it felt awfully familiar to other stories on Wattpad. We have the high school setting, the 'let's go on a date after a day of knowing you', and the usual song duet that everyone finds adorable.

Also, the relationship is escalating awfully quickly. Already they were out at a restaurant together singing songs, even though they sort of just met. And, again, all the characters sound the same, and I can't see any conflict or tension arising just yet. This might be because the story started, but I always suggest introducing some sort of problem that must be resolved in the future chapters. 

OVERALL SCORE: 12.5/25

Overall, you've got some great things happening with this story but also some things that need improvement. I'm sorry I couldn't have been more specific with characterisation – there's a reason why I prefer not to review FanFiction, and that's because I don't have the assumed knowledge for it. But, in general, polish up the grammar and consider slowing down the pace, and you'll be good to go!