Sapphire's Review Store 2.0

Review by Sunshine: Make a Wish

Title: Make a Wish

Author: incrediblestories2

Summary: 4.5/5

I think this is actually a pretty beautiful summary. I love how well you've introduced Aubrey, as well as her past, the concept of the title, and where she's at now. Justin also, already, seems like an absolute sweetheart – and I love the use of rhetorical question, as well as the sense of dread that we get from the final sentence of the final paragraph. We get a vague sense of the conflict and stakes, and though I'd love more of it – like who she is protecting, and what sort of consequences you are talking about – I think you've done a fantastic job overall.

Also, quick thing:

Once Aubrey's sickening past catches up to her, she only has one goal; to protect those she loves from its consequences.

Consider changing the semicolon to a colon. 

Grammar: 3/5

Overall, your grammar was pretty polished. There were definitely a few things that needed polishing, however, and we'll go through them now.

First of all, dialogue and punctuation. If dialogue is followed by a verbal dialogue tag (such as 'he said', 'she whispered', 'they exclaimed' – or anything referring to how the character says the words), there should be a comma before the closing inverted commas. If it's anything else, this comma should be replaced by a period (or a question mark for a question and exclamation mark for an exclamation). For example:

"Yeah, I'm okay." I lie, hoping it sounds truthful.

It should be:

"Yeah, I'm okay," I lie, hoping it sounds truthful.

Next, apostrophes. Whenever you are using the possessive term, you need an apostrophe. For example:

...wrapped in my husbands muscular arms, feeling nothing.

Since it is the husband's arm (he owns the arm), it should be:

...wrapped in my husband's muscular arms, feeling nothing.

Next, capitalising proper nouns. There was a specific mistake you made, and it's a difficult one, so don't worry! First, example:

"That's not how it works, mom!"

'Mum' should be capitalised, since it is used as a proper noun in that example. As in, that is what Aubrey calls her mother. It should be:

"That's not how it works, Mom!"

Next, tense. Obviously, during flashbacks, you used past tense, and you used present tense for the present. Which is a fantastic choice and worked well in your story. However, there were some sentences where you hadn't completely decided on a tense. For example:

My breath lags, but no gasp escaped my swollen, cracked lips.

If we break it down:

My breath lags... [lags = present tense]

...but no gasp escaped my swollen, cracked lips. [escaped = past tense]

Make sure you keep to one tense. Additionally, be careful of comma placement. For example:

Once upon a time I had a life.

For fluency, consider:

Once upon a time, I had a life.