Lunar Reviews [OPEN]

6| Rain of Winter

Title: Rain of Winter
Author: _ElizabethFoxxe_

PRAISE

Great job starting the story off with a hook! Your introduction created a mystery and drew the reader on. I liked how you took time to weave the setting into the action so that the audience didn't have to fill in the surroundings for themselves. Your characters have interesting, unique stories, and as far as I read, were very enjoyable.

TO WORK ON

The things I noticed are very common in a lot of relatively new writers' work, and were sorta sprinkled throughout the story. Y'know, the type of thing that takes a good proofread to fix.

Most obvious was the grammatical stuff. Here and there I noticed that punctuation would be missing, or a word was left out and made the sentence seem choppy, or words were repeated too often, too close together, and became repetivie. Occasionally the verb tenses switched from past to present so be on the lookout for that, as it's confusing to readers.

Another thing is, you need to be sure to start a new paragraph each time a new person speaks. When two people have dialogue in the same paragraph it can muddle things up.

Those things are pretty simple to catch, so don't worry. It may be a little time consuming but they're not to hard to handle.

I think the only thing that needs work that ISN'T technical---meaning it has more to do with your story voice---is just that: your story voice. The story itself was very interesting and new, but needed more zest. I highly suggest expanding your vocabulary so you can use the most concise, expressive words you know. Although, it is important to know when to use a simple informative word and when to use something more powerful. Too much zest can seem a little overdone or melodramatic, while too little is underwhelming. Idk if I'm making much sense so if you need any clarification, do let me know 😂

Anyway, a big way I think you can improve that is by your use of the word "was." Here's an example, using a tidbit I'm just gonna make up.

Her heart was fluttering in her chest as she ran down the sidewalk, kicking up snow. Her hair was blowing in the icy wind.

Now, revisioned...

Her heart fluttered in her chest as she dashed down the sidewalk, kicking up snow. The icy wind rushed through her hair and whistled in her ears.

Basically, sometimes when people write in the past tense, they try to emphasize that the story takes place in the past through this, or sometimes it becomes a filler word for verbs ending in -ing. (Normally without the author realizing it.) The best way to keep "was" in check is to use it only when absolutely necessary. It's not a no-no word, and neither is "said" (but I won't get into that), but when it's overused it tends to mess up the impact that the action could have. I suggest going back after writing and finding each occurrence of "was" to make sure you really want to use it there.

OVERALL VIEW

Anyway, I kinda rambled on there for a while 😂 Don't be disturbed by the length of that---it doesn't mean the problem is huge. It's just me giving as much detail as possible to help you understand, so I hope it wasn't too much 😶 just don't want to give a confusing review.

Anyway again, I really like this story. I love the setting it takes place in and the mysterious effect surrounding it all. The characters have personalities very unique to themselves, and as far as I read, the plot carries very well. Like I said earlier, the story voice just needs more zest. And editing those little grammatical stuff I mentioned before that will help a lot with that as well.

Great job. You've written a wonderful story so far with lots of imagination, and if anyone reading this is into small-town mysteries (or mysteries in general), Rain of Winter would be a great read for you.
I hope you keep writing!

If you have any questions or want clarification on anything, just let me know ♡