"The Risk Book"
CLOSED
All feedback contained here is pure opinion; some of these opinions have changed over time as the reviewer has since received professional training, but this book remains posted for the authors to look back on. Use discretion...
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Title The title is a bit cliché, to be honest, and it isn't specific enough to tell us how your story is unique from others. These three things—title, cover, and blurb—are detrimental to what makes a reader open up your story to read. Make a good first impression! Make it interesting and unique to your story! Tell us why we should choose to read it!
Cover The cover is very jumbled, and the composition is not designed in a way that's pleasing to the eye. I get that the message at the bottom left corner says that it's your character's self portrait and that the rest is a mess, but you should try to make your cover professional-looking and to use the elements of good design. For instance, it'd be nice if the title was centered and if the heart was smaller so we can read "love" more easily. Actually, it'd be nice if all the text was centered and not aligned to the left. It'd also be nice if there was a big focal image to the cover instead of lots of little images. That way, our eye is drawn to something that has to do with the story and tells of its identity rather than lots of images which just makes us confused. And the image would be nice to be something that isn't a cartoon—or at least a cartoon that looks professional. I'm assuming this story is supposed to be a serious one. Make your cover look like it!
Blurb Your blurb consists of a really long sentence and a question. What I believe is missing is telling us what makes your story unique and interesting. What's the main conflict?
For the title, cover, and blurb, I'm taking a point away. I know you can do better!
*since your story comes in 18 parts, I'll be reviewing three at a time, coming to around six portions of review*
Preface–Chapter 2 Okay, preface. An explanation of why you chose to write the story, a synopsis, and then a plea to enjoy and vote if enjoyed. I'd say all of it could be condensed, and I've never understood why people put their synopses inside their stories—especially since yours is the same one. Who cares if people don't look at the summary on the outside? You'll be getting reads until they realize what it's about if they're not into your plot. Let them discover. If they want to read the blurb, they can on the outside, right? Moving on.
The graphic of the bus isn't bad. However, there's hardly any way I can read the words in the windows because the letters are a bit too big—or the windows too small.
The last sentence of the first chapter is a run-on sentence, which are independent clauses connected together incorrectly. You should always connect them with a comma and a coordinating conjunction, an em-dash, or a semicolon. Otherwise, you'll have to change either clause to a participial phrase (change the verb to an -ing verb to make it a participial phrase). Either way, run-on sentences are tell-tale signs of writers who aren't quite in tune with the rules of their language. I'm here to help!
I spot a usage of "you" in the narrative voice, which is something often considered incorrect. Some authors use it, but it doesn't make sense to me because the narrator is almost never talking directly to the reader. Most of the time, this is used as a general term, a "general you", if you will. I'm speaking directly to you in my review, but you really meant Caleb when you used the narrative "you".
