Review by Gnome: A Young Witch's Journey

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Title: A Young Witch's Journey

Author: _LadyBex_

Reviewer: GnomeMercy


Summary: 3/5

To begin with, your summary is actually pretty okay! It has most of the things you'll need; your main character, the world she lives in, and what she's going to do. However, the most important thing it is missing is your dilemma! It does kind of skim over it briefly (not much information is given, though), however the focus of the blurb should be about your dilemma.

I think a great way to improve your blurb is to give some more information on why and how witches are declining in population, and why magic is weakening. As well as that, it does kind of end off a little... I can't really find the word, but it did feel as if there should have been more to it. Here is what you have:

She sets off on the journey alone mostly relying only on her book knowledge and magical powers...

I think it would be better if you added some of the things that happen on her journey (and maybe who she meets, or goes through or what she learns as a character), or, maybe change it to something along these lines, so it doesn't feel a little clunky:

She sets off on the journey alone, relying only on her knowledge and magical powers — but will that be enough for her to accomplish her mission?

In that sense, the reader can be more interested in finding out the answer to the rhetorical question — and it's a better way to close off you blurb.

Overall, I think you have a great blurb, but it does need a little fleshing out here and there. Talk a little more about your dilemma, and why it's so important for Calytrix to stop it. And maybe leave a few questions to keep your reader wondering?


Grammar: 2/5

Overall, you know some of your basics. I didn't find any non-capitalised words or anything, but you did have some problems with the more complex stuff, which is why I'm here to help!

There were times when a sentence would be a little clunky, and in need of some other punctuation instead of just a comma. Here is an example from Part I: The evil king:

The local villagers around the town weren't prosperous, they were small, people managed to get by with small farming, but the town, on the other hand, seemed to be well off, it's true source of prosperity was publicly unknown.

To begin with, I just want to go off in a tangent and say that the "it's" you used in this sentence is actually incorrect. Since you are talking about something that is not a person, the correct form should be "its". — "it's" is only used when talking about a person, but both of them mean pretty much the same thing.

Here is a way you can write that paragraph so that it is less clunky and has some other punctuation as well:

The local villagers around the town weren't prosperous; they were small, and people managed to get by with small farming. The town, on the other hand, seemed to be well off — but its true source of prosperity was publicly unknown.

I also noticed your incorrect use of verbal tags. Here is an example of what I'm talking about, and why and how you can fix that:

"Is that all you've got? I'm glad you're going on the journey to learn something because colourful flames are boring." The unkind girl spoke.

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