- A Young Witch's Journey by _LadyBex_ -
Cover/Blurb: First off, your cover. It's a nice cover, and I can see you put a lot of effort into drawing it, but it's kind of hard to see and understand, and it's not particularly eye catching! In the case of drawing the reader in, as much as we say "don't judge a book by its cover"- Do judge a book by its cover, at least as an author. The cover is the first thing your reader sees, and you don't have very long to make an impression on them, especially on Wattpad. I'd recommend talking to some cover designers on the forums or around Wattpad, some of them will even make covers for free!
Your blurb is pretty interesting, but I can already see that the focus of the book may be split between objectives from the get go. Consider cutting down your final sentence- People expect that your character will be finding their true path, so if that's the goal of the story, make it the point of the blurb! If her solving her world falling apart is the goal of the story, make it the point of the blurb! Right now, your blurb reads as unfocused, which may be leading to your story feeling unfocused. (But more on that later.)
What I Liked: You clearly have a passion for the story you're writing, and it definitely shows! I can see you're using Latin for all your magic related items, and as a Latin student, I do appreciate that, but I do caution you that that's a very common thing to do in fantasy stories. You might work in your own twist on it if you can!
Your prose isn't super purple, which is really good! A lot of younger, and even more experienced writers, struggle with way too much information going into very flowery descriptions. It's good to see that you have quite a bit of control over that, it's a tough skill to learn. I'm also pleased to see that your description is very well done, no trace of white room syndrome to be found. The journey Calytrix is on seems to be progressing well, if a bit messily.
What I Did Not Like: Which takes me to this.
As the story stands right now, I don't feel like I'm reading a coherent story. It comes across as more of a bunch of interconnected vignettes as opposed to having a smooth flow, and it's hard to discern what the point of the story truly is from all of them together. I'm reading more in the direction of the world falling apart, but with that it feels like Calytrix has lost some of her dimension as the story progressed. She becomes more two dimensional as the story goes on, which is increasingly harder to read. I'm becoming less interested with each chapter, even though I love the premise!
Additionally, your writing is pretty short and choppy. Work on letting the sentences flow more naturally, don't be afraid to use different punctuation! You also have a bit of an infodump tendency, though that one does get less frequent farther into the story, so well done.
I'm also not sure what's going on with the prologue and the first chapter? They're currently overlapping a lot and it's rather disorienting. As well as that, the prologue isn't a particularly strong hook into the story as of now, especially in the first few paragraphs. At this point, I would say either cut it or completely rewrite it. It's not working the way it currently is.
Finally, your title, while very to the point, feels a bit clunky to read. That may simply be my personal opinion, though.
Overall Conclusion: The premise is solid and the ideas are good, but it doesn't quite click together for me. A bit of a rewrite is in order, especially with the prologue and first chapter. I want to know more about Calytrix as a character, I want to know how she begins to grow, and I want to be able to feel her emotions, and I just wasn't finding it.
Final Rating: Ultimately, this earned a 4/10. There are a lot of very good ideas in this, but the execution needs some improvement to make better sense of the story.
