Lunar Reviews [OPEN]

1 | whatever it takes

Title: Whatever it Takes
Author: Royally14

PRAISE

First off, great job bringing out the personality in your characters through their dialogue! Your plot is very unique, which is a good thing to find on Wattpad (or anywhere, really, but you get my point.) Your characters' backstories were interesting and realistic.

Also, before you read ahead don't feel bummed out when you see that the "to work on" section is bigger than the praise section. That's only because I go into more detail about your weak areas. This does not at all mean your book was bad.

TO WORK ON

Most of the weak areas I noticed were grammatical, so they're an easy fix, though maybe a bit time consuming. Don't be overwhelmed of it seems like there's a lot! It's all small stuff, but nevertheless, important stuff.

I'll just go over those things in some bullet points to save time.

1. I noticed you often switch between verb tenses. I'll be reading, Zara grabbed a chair and sat down in the corner, then suddenly it's, Zara points to the window, where a bird is perched, looking in. This is confusing to a reader, so make sure that once you know what tense your story is going to be in, you stick to it!

2. A looooot of run on sentences and missing commas, periods, and other punctuation.

3. I noticed a lot of incorrect quotations in your dialogue right off the bat. There would be spaces between quotations marks, missing commas or punctuation, no capitalization, or something else. Be careful about this! There's a lot of little things that go into that so instead of talking about it all here, I'll leave a link to a short article that gives the details on how to correctly write quotations.

https://beginnerswrite.home.blog/2019/03/15/dialogue/

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Okay, so that's the gist of the grammatical stuff. There's only one more thing I'm going to mention that I think needs a little work, and this one is a bit more involved. It is IMAGERY.

I felt that a lot of the action in your story was told and not shown, and in some areas breezed past too quickly. Don't be afraid to emphasize and really express what happened, not by simply telling the reader that this happened, but by showing them---through the characters' body language, reactions, decisions, expressions, and emotions.

I'm going to take an excerpt from your story as an example, but you don't have to rewrite it the way I will at all. You as the author should choose how you like it to be written best. This is simply an example suggestion!

I head downstairs to see Rich strangling my mother.

She collapses.
I take her place and he starts beating me.

Punch.
Slap.
Kick.
Punch.

I hear sirens in the distance. At first I think it must be a dream, but as the sound gets close and Rich's face morphs into on of confusion, then shock and anger when we hear a knock on the door.

••• now, with more showing and expressive imagery. (I'm going to start this with the assumption that Sophia is running downstairs after hearing shouts, concerned about what's going on. This doesn't have to be the way it goes. I'm also going to do it in past tense simply because I'm not very good at writing in present tense xD but you do whatever)

I barreled downstairs and came to a skidding halt in the kitchen. My heart dropped.

Rich's hands were wrapped around mother's neck. Her eyes bugged out of their sockets, and her face was flushed a sickening shade of blue. She grappled at his arms, but in his outrage, he barely noticed. He still even hadn't noticed me.

I couldn't watch any longer.

Desperate, I launched myself forward and seized him by the arm. Had he not been caught off guard, I would never have been able to tear his hands from Mom's neck. He stumbled into the counter, stunned. Mom sucked in a shuddering gasp and sank to the floor.

"You little..." Dad spat.

Before I could move, his fist pummeled me in the chest. The air rushed from my lungs. But he wasn't done. In one quick movement, he shoved me out of his way. My legs knocked into each other, and I went down hard. My head cracked against the floor, sending jabs of pain down my neck.

And I'll just stop there.

Writing expressive imagery does take longer, but this actually helps. This way the reader won't be rushed through without enough information. In a scene like this, use the most powerful, evocative words you can to show the readers Sophia's fear and pain, her mother's peril, and her father's rage.

At the same time, don't forget to let the readers know where they are. Describe your characters' environment (but don't info dump!) in a way that's concise but makes them feel as if they are there.

OVERALL VIEW

I really think people will enjoy this story, especially if they like dramas. It's not perfect, but I did enjoy reading it and seeing what went on in Sophia's life. And like I said before, you did a wonderful job at introducing the characters!

Well done, and I definitely hope you keep writing ❤