Sapphire's Review Store 2.0

Review by Nathan: Down the Rabbit Hole

Title: Down the Rabbit Hole

Author: KayoriStrawberry

Reviewer: NathanRound

Summary: 3/5

I love the short summary. I believe you wanted to have a more unique summary as opposed to the traditional ones that are common here on Wattpad. It is literally a small excerpt from a future chapter and is quite a fitting and captivating one also. Well done! However, there a few things that really mess with the flow of the summary, which is unfortunate.

Now when writing dialogue, you must start a new line with every new speaker. So, if two individuals are conversing, each should get a paragraph of their own, and once the other starts speaking then you must start a new line. Furthermore, you seem to neglect adding a space after your commas, which sort of makes your summary appear clunky. Below I will show you what your summary should look like when these changes are made.

'Little Alice fell into a hole, but she didn't wake up in Wonderland.

"Where am I?" little Alice asks.

"You're down in Neverland," the doctor answers as he holds her hand tightly. it's terribly dangerous to be alone in the dark. "And once you're down here, you can never go back up again."

♠ Down the rabbit hole it goes. ♠'

I corrected some of the spelling mistakes, and I also changed the wording slightly in this example, to make it a lot smoother. You can use this example if you'd like.

Grammar: 2/5

Now your grammar, as a whole, needs some work. Now the same errors made in your summary still apply. You need to start a new line for every new speaker, and provide a space after every punctuation mark.

What really threw me off were your tenses. You seem to shift from present to past and then back to present again. You need to pick one tense and stick to it. Below is an example of how you shifted between tenses.

'When little Alice woke up, it was pitch black.

Opening her eyes she couldn't see anything but darkness. The air was filled with a smell that wasn't anything near dirt or earth. Everything was silent, beside a little whimper next to her. She runs her hands over the floor, the ground feels wet and mushy, until soft fur strokes against her hand. It hug, the warmth made her feel less scared in the dark.'

Now in this paragraph, you go from the past to the present tense. (It was pitch black [Past], she couldn't see anything [Past], She runs her hands [Present], fur strokes against her hand [Present].) As I said before, you must pick one tense and stick with it throughout the entirety of your story.

May I suggest you use the past tense; it is a lot easier to write in the past tense without shifting between tenses. But I know that may be an inconvenience to you as your prologue is in the present tense, meaning that you'd have to change it. Choose whatever tense works for you.

Furthermore, every now and again, I happen to come across small spelling mistakes. 'Trough' should be 'through' in many cases and 'wich' should be 'which.'

And last but not least, punctuation in dialogue. Now all dialogue should end in punctuation before the inverted commas, and if that punctuation is not a question mark or an exclamation mark (for questions and exclamations) then it must be a comma when followed by a verbal tag.

'"Let me tell you a tale little Alice" the doctor says as he glances down at her.'

This is incorrect, and since 'the doctor says' is a verbal tag, then it should be:

'"Let me tell you a tale little Alice," the doctor says as he glances down at her.'

Writing Style: 4/5

I love your writing style. You handle imagery extremely well, describing many things in detail. I love how uncanny everything is, from the dialogue, the scenery and setting, to the characters themselves and their appearances. Everything is so odd and peculiar; it definitely gives off a sense of uneasiness and tension. Despite the story being told through the third person perspective, it definitely feels that we are exploring the world through Alice's eyes. The description emphasises the wonder Alice feels at times, as well as the lack of her understanding of death (as shown how she doesn't react to the dead bunny and the blood on her clothes) truly puts forth the fact that this story is being told from the perspective of a little girl. Well done! Unfortunately, it does fall short on all the grammar mistakes discussed previously.

Plot + Uniqueness: 4/5

I love the retelling of the Alice In Wonderland tale, only with a disturbing and horrific twist. You took a very unique twist on the story, ruining most of our childhoods in the process. There isn't much to judge on with only five chapters, but so far you are on a very good start.

Character Building: 4/5

Again, it is hard to judge your character building with only five chapters. But so far everything is great! Alice is a very naive and innocent character, fitting well with her age. She also has a very diverse voice to the other characters which is a must, and the formal language fits very well with the world and time period your story is set in. I would have liked for you to show us how she appears to be frightened in some situations however, not just telling us Alice was scared at that moment in time.

I love how very uncanny The Doctors speech pattern is, it's very polite and moderate, despite his creepy and unsettling appearance and nature. 

OVERALL SCORE: 17/25

Overall, you have a pretty good story coming along. Just remember to fix those grammatical errors as well as sorting out your tenses. I hope this review proved useful.