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Review by Sunshine: While Her Lips Are Still Red

Title: While Her Lips Are Still Red

Author: Fayesther

Summary: [no score – will not be included in final score]

I decided not to score your summary, simply because it's not a traditional summary and it's a little hard to score it. However, I think this is a fantastic way to show what your story is about. I absolutely love the little poem of warning, and the start telling the reader to beware was incredibly gripping. While it may not follow the traditional summary, I still this is a perfect way to introduce the reader to your story. Well done! 

Grammar: 3.5/5

For the most part, you have a very clear grasp on grammar – amazing work! Most chapters were completely polished, and if I wasn't such a grammar-freak, I probably wouldn't have picked anything up. Alas, I am a grammar-freak, so I did notice a few things.

The biggest thing that kept coming up was use of commas. Sometimes, you used commas to separate to clauses that, really, should have been their own sentence. The comma wasn't strong enough to support both clauses as one. For example:

"Rosie leaned against her closed front door, her chest heaved as she tried her hardest to catch her breath."

Those two clauses, really, should just be their own sentence. It should be:

"Rosie leaned against her closed front door, her chest heaved as she tried her hardest to catch her breath."

An alternative, if you wanted to spice up your sentence structure, is:

"Rosie leaned against her closed front door, her chest heaving as she tried her hardest to catch her breath."

Let's go through another example:

"Thank you," Rosie said, her confusion failed to hide itself within her response.

Again, similar to the first example, the comma after 'said' should be a full-stop. That, or you can change the 'failed' to 'failing' to make it flow better.

Next: semicolons. For the most part, you used them correctly. However, there were some instances where the semicolon wasn't quite in an appropriate spot. A semicolon is used to separate two clauses that can work perfectly as sentences on their own, but are strongly interrelated. Let's look at an example you wrote:

"When it came to the opportune time for her to apply her lipstick; Rosie was in her mid-thirties..."

The problem with the above sentence is that the first clause, "When it came to the opportune time for her to apply her lipstick" is not a complete sentence. It is incomplete, and, in fact, requires the part after the semicolon to make it complete. Therefore, it should be:

"When it came to the opportune time for her to apply her lipstick, Rosie was in her mid-thirties..."

Also, be careful when you have punctuation before the dialogue. For example:

Henry's words shook Rosie's insides and her eyebrows slammed down, "move forward," she mimicked him.

The comma before the dialogue isn't quite appropriate, since the clause before it is a completely separate sentence. It should be:

Henry's words shook Rosie's insides, and her eyebrows slammed down. "Move forward," she mimicked him.

Additionally, you had some minor typos. For example, in chapter six, you wrote: