Sapphire's Review Store 3.0

Review by Gnome: Are You Crazy?

Title: Are you Crazy? 

Author: JokeWasOnMe

Reviewer: GnomeMercy

Summary: 4/5

A good summary, with all the right things: characters, setting, stakes, dilemma. I only had one problem and that was a redundant sentence.

Redundancy is basically the repetition of a word/phrase in something from a sentence to a paragraph. Redundancy is also repeating something that doesn't need to be repeated. In your summary, it says:

...involving gun shots and a car chase between two cars.

You don't need "between two cars" as it's obvious that in a car chase there are already cars.

I think this was a typo:

Little does she know that the two men, in the car chase, would change her life.

I think you meant "and the car chase" or you were trying to say the two men took part in the car chase. "And the car chase" can still imply that, but, otherwise, you can rephrase it a bit as it's a bit informal and doesn't make much sense.

Other than that, a very good summary! I was excited to read on.

Grammar: 3/5

Overall, you definitely knew your basics when it came to grammar. There were a few typos (so I recommend doing a quick reread and edit). There were only a handful of recurring errors, which I'll talk about now.

Firstly, dialogue. This is pretty complicated, and I've reviewed many books making similar mistakes—so you're not alone. The first thing you need to know about is verbal tags. That's basically anything like "he said", "she replied", "I welcomed"—those kind of stuff. Now, technically speaking verbal tags are a part of the dialogue sentence, so putting a period and a verbal tag (anything else that is unrelated to speech is fine though) after is wrong. You had a decent understanding with that, so well done! However, there is no need to capitalise your verbal tags after ? and !. Here's a random example that I just made up:

"Are you okay?" They asked.

This is wrong. It should be:

"Are you okay?" they asked.

Back to verbal tags. You had a habit of capitalising them after a comma. There's no need to do that. Here's an example from your story, and I'll correct it.

"I'm sorry," The brunette said...

It should be:

"I'm sorry," the brunette said.

Another error I noticed was using this: ?!. I've seen a lot of books using this—even published ones—but it's actually grammatically incorrect. If you want to show emphasis, try to describe it in the verbal tag, for example. You could use all capitals, too, but that ruins the professionality of it and can be quite jarring to read.

There was also a consistency error with the spelling of Sidney's name. When first mentioned, it was spelled "Sydney" and not Sidney, so try to fix that.

Lastly, when it comes to novels, it's always better to write "seven" instead of "7". There are some exceptions (for example, the AK-15 assault rifle would still be written with the numerical form instead of writing out "fifteen").

Other than these things, you had a pretty clean story! Well done.

Characters: [no score - will not be added to final score]

In terms of characterisation, you did a decent job if I take in all current chapters. As the real climax hasn't happened yet, I don't think I can properly judged your characters.

However, I could definitely understand Sage's personality, and I liked Elijah and Charles's, too. The main problem I had will be explained in more detail in the writing style section of this review, but I will explain some things here, too.

I found it hard to really believe these character traits. For example, Sage told the readers that she was insensitive without really showing any proof beforehand. I found it hard to believe as she hadn't really did anything "insensitive" yet (she did act a little insensitive after, but for the sake of this example let's ignore that part). It makes it more realistic and easier for your readers to understand if you show their personality rather than telling it. There'll be more on this in writing style.

There was also not much development. They've only known each other a few days, and she agrees immediately on the plan to blow up Wither Gate? It juxtaposed with her personality as well. She seems to be quite practical and pragmatic.

Other than that, I think you had nice characters with differing personalities. Sorry there's not much here. Remember that character motivations are also extremely important, as well as their ambitions and dreams!

Writing Style: 3.5/5

Overall, you had quite a good writing style. There was good transition between the scenes, and a good use of dashes and ellipses. However, there a few problems I noticed.

Firstly, redundancy. This happened a handful of times, not too much however. Redundancy is basically when a word/phrase is repeated multiple times in a sentence, or maybe even a paragraph. It can make the writing sound a bit stilted and awkward. To solve this, you can either rephrase the sentence or use synonyms.

Secondly, telling and showing. I spoke about this a bit in characterisation, but I'd like to go a bit more in-depth here. It's a common thing that a lot of writers do, so don't worry. Basically, "telling" is when you "tell" your readers things—such as a character's emotions, personality, even description. An example of the latter is by saying "the tree was tall", for example. Don't tell me the tree is tall, show it to me! You can say "it loomed over me" or "it looked as if it could touch the sky"—that way, I'm "showing" you the tree was tall and it sounds more believable because the audience because they can infer it themselves. It also takes your writing to a whole other level.

Other than these problems, I liked your writing style and the no-nonsense viewpoint of Sage! There's a bit to work on, however, but it's a great start.

Plot: 3.5/5

In terms of plot, I really liked the fact while this was an apocalyptic story, the main focus was not on killing the zombies but on something else completely. It was nice to have a refreshing point of view. The general plot sounds amazing, and I was excited to see what happened.

I don't have many problems, but I do have one big one: there wasn't enough development. I mentioned this a bit in characters, but I think there should have been more time between Sage, Elijah, and Charles. They didn't really have enough time to bond as much as they realistically would and should, especially since you can't really trust people in a world like theirs, either.

OVERALL SCORE: 14/20

A really interesting apocalyptic story, but there are a few things to work on. Hope this review helps!