Sapphire's Review Store 3.0

Review by Faye: One Fated Night

Title: One Fated Night

Author: Crystal_0808

Reviewer: Fayesther

Title + Cover: 2/5

The title fits your story perfectly. It is simple and catchy.

I am not keen on the cover to be completely honest. I think the picture is a bit too dark and it doesn't reflect the excitement of your story. The title is a bit small, awkwardly placed and gets lost in the black background.

Description: 5/5

The description is really well written! It looks interesting on the page and it is short and straight to the point. You set up mystery and intrigue that truly spiked my interest and I couldn't wait to dive in!

Grammar: 2/5

I noticed a few recurring mistakes regarding grammar.

When your first person narrator refers to herself you tend to type a lowercase "i", which needs to be capitalised.

You use the wrong verbs here and there, which do stick out to the reader.

Example 1: "What they didn't knew was that Emily had her own secret." – "knew" should be "know"

Example 2: "He shaked his head, his bottom lip tightly fitted between his teeth." – "fitted" should be "fit" to make the sentence flow better. Also the past tense of "shake" is "shook", which leads to my next point.

I found a few instances where you have attempted to write past-tense verbs but have landed with a words that don't really work. There are many words in English that don't follow the rules (it can be such a pain!). For instance adding "ed" to a verb is the usual step to take but words such as "shake" (shook) and "freeze" is another example I found, its past tense is "froze".

In the first few chapters I noticed that you forgot to put in spaces after semi-colons and within speech.

Example: "... Dad called,"Good morning Crystal. Please, have a seat." – there should be a space between the comma after "called" and the opening speech marks beside "Good".

On the subject of speech, there were also places in earlier chapters where you didn't take a new line when a new person started speaking, which made following the dialogue a bit tricky. You fix this problem in later chapters though.

A couple more nit picks are that you swap tenses here and there and drop smaller words within sentences in places also.

I'm sorry if this section seems a bit heavy handed. Don't worry though, despite these things that I mentioned here - I could still follow your story. These are just corrections you could make to ensure your writing is a bit smoother to read.

Writing Style: 4/5

You have a very enjoyable writing style!

You start off your story with a dark, dangerous nightmare, with great description that really draws the reader in.

However in chapter one you do a lot of telling rather than showing – I understand that there's quite a bit of back story you want to get through, but it would be nice if you described a scene to showcase some of this information. Describe how one Christmas or Thanksgiving went, for example, showing how they all acted, how Crystal felt etc. This would help the reader connect more with your main character.

You make great word choices to drive home descriptions I really like it when you called dresses that Crystal "butchered" – "carcasses". That was clever. You are incredible at descriptions! I love how you describe the vampires' eyes and how different light conditions affect them. You paint a vivid picture with your words. I felt at times I was watching your story like an anime in my mind, which is really cool.

I think its really clever how you communicated Crystal's thoughts about her family when sharing her story with Alix. She seems emotionally disconnected from the cruelty, which shows that it was just what her life was and that she just had to get used to it. Its so tragic, my heart broke for her.

Finding out Vampire lore was really interesting. I liked your explanations of the rules of their world. You communicated this information very smoothly and it fit within your story seamlessly.

You finish each chapter superbly!

Characterisation: 5/5

Well! I have to say! You are an incredible character writer! Every character you included really jumped off the page!

Crystal is hopeful, young and energetic. After suffering a horribly abusive childhood in isolation she hadn't lost the spark of youth. She is instantly likeable and I was on her side right from the start!

Mrs Williams is an absolute hero!

Crystal's father and the rest of her family are awful and cold. How they treated Crystal made me so mad. Her grandparents especially angered me. I mean her father had some sort of twisted excuse but an excuse non-the-less for his actions. The grandparents however just seem blindly hateful- what because she was illegitimate? Their behaviour made me wild!

The purple-eyed man was written so mysteriously, and the gradual details you shared made me want to find out more. Other-worldly, caring, however very dangerous.

Once you introduce the vampire clan your story truly takes off regarding characterisation. You clearly thought through each and every member of this strange family- making them distinctly unique individuals with a good balance of strengths and weaknesses. Your characters grow more and more complex as the story goes on. Damien is so deep – full of love for his family, so dangerous and strong. He has his creepy moments, but he is so likeable! Michael is really interesting too!

I cannot wait to find out more!

Plot: 5/5

What a unique story! Exciting and fresh!

The nightmare in the prologue sets things off nicely!

You set up the back story giving lots of information explaining why Crystal's interactions with her family are so cold. You left nothing out and I understood completely where she stood.

The storyline is well paced and you include flashbacks with ease- building a detailed and intriguing picture. Nothing ever feels rammed in or out of place. I could smoothly read through the story and did not get lost at any point.

Subtly including the man with violet eyes in the first few chapters before he was introduced into the present day story was genius!

The storyline then shifts from human life to the supernatural and you've written the transition well. You gave background information answering various questions that help the reader to understand the new world order in an effective way.

Damien and Michael's backstory is so good! Full of tragedy and sadness that displays the dark world of vampire hierarchy really well!

OVERALL SCORE: 23/30

You have a story that I am truly excited about! I love the dark world you have created here and I cannot wait to get back in there and discover more! Please keep the chapters coming!

You have a few technical hiccups but are easily fixed if you take great care within the editing process, also don't forget there are people out there who are willing to help if you want it. The editors in this community are good.

Thank you so much for asking me to review your incredibly fascinating story! I hope my feedback is helpful.