Sapphire's Review Store 3.0

Review by Sunshine: The Widow Maker

Title: The Widow Maker

Author: RobClark5

Reviewer: ray_of_sunshine9

Summary: 3.5/5

I do like a lot of things happening in this summary. In a wonderfully refined way, you introduce your protagonist and his goals, which is fantastic, and then you lead into the conflict – emphasising how important it is, and what he must do to resolve this conflict. Great work!

A few things need polishing, but let's start with the overall structure of the summary. All of it was incredibly cohesive and engaging, but then the part about the seductress came in – and it just kind of left your summary hanging. What does she have to do with anything? Who is the powerful man and why does it relate to Sir Garvais at all? Is it the Emperor? If so, why not just say so? It just feels a little random.

Also, using the name as the final line feels powerful – but only when the name has some sort of meaning. It's the first time, as a reader, I'm hearing this name in the entire summary, so it doesn't have the weight it's supposed to carry. A few more specific things:

As the emperor seizes and eliminates all that Sir Gervais holds dear to him, Sir Gervais uses all of his skills as a spymaster, assassin and knight...

How about, to make it feel as if the reader needs to join him along the way, change the tense so it's:

As the emperor seizes and eliminates all that Sir Gervais holds dear to him, Sir Gervais must use all of his skills as a spymaster, assassin and knight...

That way, it doesn't sound as if it is already over. Additionally:

...known for his deadly skills on the battlefield earned him his title The Widow Maker.

I would consider polishing it to:

...known for the deadly skills on the battlefield which earned him his title: The Widow Maker. 

Grammar: 2.5/5

I actually found this story slightly less polished than Manticore Hunter, but I think that might just be because it's longer. I mostly stopped taking notes after the first chapter, since the errors were quite consistent anyways. Let's go through them!

Dialogue and punctuation. When 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 an exclamation mark for an exclamation). For example:

"I reckon my boy will be better than his old man at archery." a soldier commented.

It should be:

"I reckon my boy will be better than his old man at archery," a soldier commented.

Also, if you have an action beat before the dialogue, make sure there is punctuation between them. For example:

He turned towards his subordinate "Who did you say failed to report to duty?

It should be:

He turned towards his subordinate. "Who did you say failed to report to duty?"

Next, contractions. You need to be careful that you are using them correctly. Here are some examples: