Sapphire's Review Store 2.0

Review by Sunshine: The Zodiacs and the War of the Truth

Title: The Zodiacs and the War of the Truth

Author: Fallen--Star

Summary: 3.5/5

What an adorable little summary! It introduces the protagonist, a bit of the context and who she is become, it briefly introduces the world and setting, and alludes to quite an adventure – all of this done in a quite light-hearted, succinct manner.

A few quick things:

Where Alice told Avan she was special and destined to go do great things that were wonderfully magical.

That's not a complete sentence. I think you need to link it to the previous sentence with a dash.

Next, you change tense. Your first paragraph is in past tense, and your second paragraph is in present tense. I can see you probably did it because the two paragraphs don't really flow into one another.

Which also brings up my next point: redundancy. The first paragraph tells us that Avan knows nothing of her powers, and then discovers they exist. The second paragraph essentially does the same thing, but doesn't introduce Alice; it just shows how Avan is magical. However, it doesn't quite flow cohesively.

Suggestion? Tell us she doesn't believe in magic. Then, tell us that she meets Alice. Then, introduce her real backstory without saying that she didn't know about magic (since it's already been said).

Then, finally, what is the adventure about? What type of missions do the zodiacs have? Are the missions dangerous? What are the stakes? 

Grammar: 2.5/5

Overall, your grammar could use a bit of work. I noticed that the first chapter was a lot more polished than the third (which is the latest) chapter. Either way, let's break down what I did see.

First of all, tenses. You kept flicking back and forth between past and present tense. For example:

A man, short and chubby was squeezing through the people. [was = past tense]

His red curly hair can be seen even in the midst of that hectic way. [can = present tense]

You need to keep your tenses consistent. Additionally, let's go back to that first sentence we used in the example:

A man, short and chubby was squeezing through the people.

Your comma usage could use some work. There are moments where you're missing commas, and there are moments where you have used commas where they are not necessary. In the above example, you are missing a comma. It should be:

A man, short and chubby, was squeezing through the people.

Next, I found quite a few errors when it came to dialogue. Here is an example that, I thought, broke it down perfectly.

"Hi everyone," She said with her singer like voice, "I'm Pacifica Petrophobe Victor." Such a strange name. Avan thought and her attention drifted off to the boy behind her. He stepped forward with his long legs and touched the back of his black-haired head and started talking, "Hi, I'm Swen Newlands Philip," He said smiling and his black eyes twinkled. A strange name again, like mine, Avan thought.

First of all, when more than one character is speaking, their dialogue must be shown in a new paragraph – this includes when the dialogue is interrupted for a character to think inside their head. Additionally, if the dialogue is followed by a verbal dialogue tag, you don't need to start the tag with a capital letter. It should look like this: