Sapphire's Review Store 💙

Review by Sunshine: Be Still, My Heart

Title: Be Still, My Heart

Author: ihavenowheretobe

Summary: [no score – will not be added to final score]

I decided not to score your summary, simply because it isn't exactly a traditional summary and that makes it a little hard to discuss. However, I do like the use of binary disposition – with the 'one is this, one is that', and I love how you end it with the two contrasting people colliding. I think that this type of summary would draw in a lot of readers, so well done!

Grammar: 2/5

Alright, so, there were quite a few grammatical issues I found in the story, and I think most of them come from just not knowing the rules (which is fine – I've noticed that the specific grammar rules in writing aren't really taught in schools that much anymore). So, I thought I'd break them down for you.

First of all, let's talk dialogue. When your characters are talking, whenever a new character talks, their dialogue must be in a new paragraph. For example, you have written:

"Have you been experiencing any chest pain?" She gives me a second to think. Yes, I did felt some but I would just brush it off because most of the time they subside. "Yes, occasionally."

In that example, you have two separate characters talking – the doctor, and Belle. Also, 'I did felt' doesn't make grammatical sense. If we rewrite the sentence accurately, it should be:

"Have you been experience any chest pain?" She gives me a second to think.

Yes, I did feel some, but I would just brush it off because, most of the time, they subsided.

"Yes," I answer. "Occasionally."

Since we're already talking about dialogue, let's talk about dialogue and punctuation. If dialogue is followed by a verbal dialogue tag (such as 'he said', 'she whispered', 'she exclaimed' – 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 should be replaced by a period (or a question mark for a question and exclamation mark for an exclamation). For example:

"Hodor" I whispered with a sigh.

There must be some form of punctuation before the closing inverted commas. Since 'I whispered' refers directly to the dialogue being spoken, it should be:

"Hodor," I whispered with a sigh.

Another example:

"Two dollars cheap." I said playfully.

Again, since the 'I said' refers directly to the words being spoken, it should be:

"Two dollars cheap," I said playfully.

Next, let's talk about tense. You kept switching back and forth between past and present tense, and this sometimes even happened in a single paragraph. You need to choose one and keep it consistent. For example, in one chapter, within a few paragraphs, these were two sentences:

"I just shrug it off," I answered. [answered = past tense]

"Call me Belle," I interrupt. [interrupt = present tense]

You need to choose one and stick to it.

Additionally, you tend to have quite a few run-on sentences. Along with this, when you do use commas, your commas tend to be sticking to the wrong word. Let's look at an example: