Word Count: 3967

Title: His Scarred Beauty

Genre: Teen Fiction

Blurb:

All her life Valentina has been hidden behind the same old, beat down hoodies.

No one knows who she is, or even what she looks like beneath her chagrined cloak...

Valentina has always been in the background. She's the girl you bumped into. The girl who stood ahead of you in line. The girl who sits behind you in Math. The girl you never noticed.

Brendan was the total opposite. He was known by everyone. Most feared him. Some respected him. Some hated him. But everyone knew who Brendan was.

It is her last year of school, and she is determined to get by without being revealed, but within the first few weeks of school after winter break, she begins to find threats turning up at every corner. She didn't expect them to be for her, she assumed it was put in the wrong locker. But each note gets more and more specific, making her wonder who knows her this well? And why they hate her so much? But what Valentina didn't understand was why she was being noticed now? Was this just a coincidence, or was there something deeper? Will Valentina be able to get through the year hidden, or will the new interest in her lead to her finally being unmasked?

~NEW BLURB~

All of her life, Valentina has hidden behind the same old, worn down hoodies.

After a horrible accident when she was 11 left her without a hand and with terrible scars, she became a part of the background. She's the girl who stood ahead of you in line. The girl who sits behind you in Math. The girl you never noticed.

It's her last year of school, and she is determined to get by without being exposed, but within the first few weeks of school, she begins to find threats turning up in her locker. Each note is more specific than the last, but who knows her this well? And why do they hate her so much? Worse than the hate, Brendan, a boy who is everything she isn't, begins showing an interest in her, and how can she hide from that?

Will Valentina be able to get through the year with her secret hidden, or will the new interest in her lead to her finally being unmasked?

Status: Completed

~

Starting Points: 30

Cover: Bland. It is a typical teen romance cover with little to no personality, so it's expected, but the author/user name are barely visible, the fonts are...concerning, and that the subtitle is corny as hell. It could be worse to be fair, it does fit its genre, and attracts the according audience for a viable readership. In that case, I will not fault it too hard so I'll let it slide. No points off. (I'd still invest in a new one or at least some editing.)

Title: *Has war flashbacks of fanfiction.net 2012*

-Horrendous, has no personality. Kill it with fire. Consider me bored and vaguely annoyed. I'm not wasting a point on this so consider this a blessing Purple_Writer_ *narrows eyes*

Blurb: *Rubs hands together*

-Ah, finally something for me to bare my claws in!

-The original blurb is a complete mess. I verbally uttered "What?" to myself several times while reading it so it is a good thing the author took the initiative and gave it to someone else to save. There's an improvement, but I wouldn't stop there per se since its still lacking in the way that some things are stated so lifelessly, far too many rhetorical questions that become borderline overkill, and it could be condensed. It seems like a simple premise so wasting word count for no reason is unnecessary, I think.

-Also, the use of second person here is ineffective (like it is 99.9% of the time) since it's assuming that the reader doesn't notice any of these types of "faceless" people in life that may or may not be there. Second person is intrusive and even more so in a book's description. Let the readers open the book first before trying to force these accusations down their throats y'all!

-Reminder: Write out numbers that are less than three digits, people!

-Excerpt: [Worse than the hate, Brendan, a boy who is everything she isn't, begins showing an interest in her, and how can she hide from that?

Will Valentina be able to get through the year with her secret hidden, or will the new interest in her lead to her finally being unmasked?]

*Blinks* I'm making a conscious decision to ignore the comma splices.

-I know that the latter sentence is intended to be a hook, but it's failing to do so. At least for me, it is. I think what's annoying me about it is that it refuses to ask the proper question here: the question that drives this character to be the way she is and makes the choices she does and will possibly make. Instead, the question that's posed here is shallow, shortsighted, and frankly, drab and uninteresting. I wouldn't read on if it weren't for the review. On the other hand, the former sentence is structurally ugly, is using the wrong "worse/worst", and doesn't make much sense as a conflict. Although I can infer that *checks for MC's name* Valentina has low self-esteem because of this tragic accident so she exerts a lot of energy into being a wallflower, and that's understandable, but it doesn't make sense to sneak in this other character to clearly force a romance rather than elevating the audience's interest in the MC and her plight. It just seems out of place.

Overall it's not atrocious, but then again, that isn't something to congratulate. Boop.

(-2)

Plot: Anti-ableism campaign meets a high school 2004 movie? Aside from this possibility, the conflict overall seems weak but hopefully, I'll be wrong.

Opening thoughts:

-Excerpt: [Blood.

That's the first thing I see. Covering my body and the singed wooden floor around me. My head snaps up when I hear a creak, my eyes widening at the way the roof is torn apart, pillars of wood hanging precariously.]

*Intakes air*

-Besides from the choppy sentences throughout this paragraph, the opening sentence is one word and it's weak. It says nothing at all except for a noun that can be saying numerous amount of things so...nothing at all. One-worded opening sentences usually try to dress up as being more than they are and I think they can only be used effectively when building tension or a beat/rhythm in the story that's already there. Not to mention that it decides to lead into fragmented, uncreative exposition. This ain't it sis.

-Example: Heat, so much heat. Red fluid dribbled from my body and onto the floorboards beneath me. It was the first thing that became visible through the persistent cloak of fumes.

-Not the best, but: same premise, different execution. This opening sentence immediately infuses a picture of the character's situation into the reader's head (to create a further level of intimacy), while the sentences that come after it builds upon this image and refines it as it goes on, thus pulling the reader into the scene and showing the clear stakes and disorienting state of said character. This is one way this scene can be opened up to for the reader.

*Breathes out*

-ANYWHO, the first chapter is a prologue that sends the readers back to the traumatic experience that still haunts the MC in the present day, and for the most part, it's decent. Well, decent until the flashback becomes a "nightmare memory" and this is the second book in a row during this special that has done that. Can't we have nice things?

- So, the next chapter isn't much better since there seems to be no rhythm to any of the things happening to the character. It just seems to be...things occurring to get the readers on the MC's side I suppose and just because? I don't know but I'm uninterested with the words on my screen. Who knows though, maybe I'll change mind.

-*Update* Welp, I have not. There's a lot of missed opportunities to make this chapter somewhat engaging and every single time it's skimmed past to get to the next visiting point. I'm not sure what the point of this anymore and the pacing really needs to be looked into.

-Chapter three is also a corny snore fest.

(-4)

Characters:

-Tom. School bully because what's teen fiction without one.

-Aiden. Tina's best friend who has a Regina George character stalking him so I'm guessing he's attractive and popular? Wow, a twist! The wallflower is friends with a popular hottie! That's not expected and old! He also does things for an audience that isn't there...so I guess we're the same in that matter. That's kind of neat?

-"Tina", short for Valentina, our main character. Bullied, likes art and the color blue a toN, a burn victim (aka tragic backstory because yay she isn't privileged), deaf apparently (?), has a friend that is popular, her best friend doesn't know her schedule, she skips her classes, wears hoods because she is part of a secret society, is getting stalkeD, has never done anything illegal though (even though all of the evidence points to her being a mob boss but I'm sleep), she would never, is not the best at drawing conclusions because the plot/author tells her she can't since the chapter needs to last a couple of more minutes, is twelve but is in high school (I'm guessing)? Also, I think she is an orphan. Nice. Update: She has adopted parents so...she isn't an orphan.

-Ms. Song, Tina's art teacher who forgot to speak human: "As I said before, this is a competition. You have to wow me and the two other art teachers. You all have been in art long enough to be able to do this.The first round's theme is spooky."

*Blinks*

-Brendan Hawke. A cool smexy brah that drives a motorcycle (yes, he is in high school), of course has been to juvie TWICE, and is *gasps* Tina's new art partner for the rest of the year y'all! "With his dark hair sticking up as if he rolled out of bed, his six foot something height, and his electric blue eyes, I realized that this Brendan was the Brendan Hawke." He might as well be Ian Smolderville (the dude from Vampire Diaries aka Bootleg Twilight).

-Tom, Aiden, Jacob, Brendan are all blending together and I can't keep up. This might as well be a love tri--wait, that's not right. This might as well be a "love square" at this point and I still wouldn't care about any of them.

*Rubs eyes*

-At this point I am my own entertainment.

(-5)

Dialogue:

*Holds chest*

-Absolutely atrocious. It's filled with indiscreet exposition, incorrect dialogue tags, and not even remotely believable. No one talks like an actual teenager, let alone a human. Everyone talks like if alphabet blocks got a hold of a typewriter, read all of the fan/teen fiction from the 21st century, gained a basic consciousness from...???, and wrote out their own speech. Terrible. Blegh. (-5)

Grammar/Structuring issues:

-It's not good, and that's not the best coming from me since I try to turn my brain off when it comes to this so I won't stress myself. I didn't sign up to be a copyeditor, y'all. Speaking of a copyeditor, I'd suggest investing in one (they're crawling around in the IYW threads) with all the sentence fragments, comma splices, and tense changes having the time of their lives all up on my screen. That or the author can touch up on their grammar skills for free via help books on Wattpad, Google, local and college libraries, and blogs on the Internet. There's an endless supply of help regarding this so try to study it whenever possible.

-Writer-bra needs to also take up the art of brevity in their work (I struggle with this issue too). Excerpt: After I stuffed my books in, I was just about to slam the locker shut when a piece of paper fluttered out. Despite the pretty cursive, the words were as dark as the ink of the pen they used.

-That could have been shorten and written in a more concise manner. As is, its low key a mess and ugly to read. I'll even go as far to say to throw out the last sentence completely since it comes off like unnecessary filler.

-Another example of this: ["Whoa. Your room is so...blue." Brendan breathes walking in. He looks misplaced in my room. His dark jeans, leather jacket, and black combat boots stand out against my bright, colorful room.

Almost everything in here was blue or white. Blue was my favorite color, so I had gotten everything in different shades of blue. I love it.]

-The problem here is that saying blue is her favorite color is needless since it's obvious she admires the color enough to make her entire room blue. While the previous paragraph achieves in showing the distinct personalities of Tina and her new partner Brendan through color, environment and clothing, the repetition kind of chips away at what is done right in this scene. Also, I can see a hiccup with what's supposed to be a dialogue tag. Since the tenses are acting crazy I'll do two examples: one in present, one in past tense.

-Suggestion: ["Whoa. Your room is so...blue," Brendan breathes out as he enters. His black jeans, black jacket, and black boots stand out against my bright, colorful room. He doesn't belong.]

Or

-Different execution w/ past tense: ["Whoa. Your room is so..." his eyes roamed the dominant color scheme that opposed the dark tones adorning his body, "bright and blue."

Through lidded lashes I watch the contradiction with curiosity and grew warm at the excessiveness of it all. Maybe I over did it...]

-Anyway, when writing sentences to a paragraph to a scene and to a chapter, think of them as pieces for a larger whole that all have and hold a beat to them. Do not clumsily attach them to one another, but sync them together so a cohesive picture unfolds in the readers' mind.

(-3)

Inconsistencies (if any):

-If Tina and Aiden are these supposed "besties" he keeps on gratingly reminding the audience they are, why doesn't this moron already know where his bestie goes to hide occasionally (I'm assuming with the way its stated) during lunch? It just seems like something he should have either figured out if he caught onto her behavior and personality. Same thing goes for them stating their schedule to each other when Tina asks him to skip with her. Why wouldn't they already know that? Is this the first day of school? I doubt it's the first time these two have skipped with each other since it's mentioned so casually and they're best friends?

-Is Tina twelve? Is she human? If she's not twelve and she is indeed human then buddy do I have something to tell you!

-So we find out that Valentina is mute HALFWAY into chapter three which is beyond fucking strange. How hasn't this been brought up to my attention before this moment? Who knows!

-Besides from finding out so late that Valentina is mute, the weird icebreaker game (21 questions, I think) she and Brendan play and the fact that a shy, socially awkward girl who has anxiety invites this guy into her room because of a damn project--I can't take this ordeal seriously. As someone who has struggled with anxiety and the curse of group projects, I know that the mere thought of this would have haunted me for the rest of the school day (just kidding, for the whole year because I've never heard of a group project lasting that long so it would be the nightmare from hell), I'd put in a lot of energy into not meeting up outside of school, pretend like I didn't have a phone to limit communication, and essentially discuss everything at school only, organize who would do what, and pretend like we "worked together" at the end. I'm pretty sure this is how normal group projects turn out anyway, anxiety or not, everyone hates them and does the bare minimum. (Unless if someone really cares about the grade?)

-It just seems unlikely that she would be so okay with how all of this is playing out. Also, who plays 21 Questions like this?! Its never that serious, and the questions aren't *that* prodding? It just seems like another device for the author to give more cheap exposition and its super transparent.

-I don't have the energy to pull this entire thing apart; if I do I'll feel guilty for being too negative, so I will do everyone the favor of moving on and continue below instead. Boop!

(-4)

Likes/Dislikes:

-I like that the MC has a friend (of sorts) to lean on during this hard time of her life. Its good she has someone to be there.

-I like the effort in trying to infuse some mystery into this with the whole letter thing.

-The one scene in chapter three where it shows the difference between Brendan and Valentina through colors can be really neat with some touchups.

-That's about it.

-There's a repetitious cycle in the prose and writing style that reaps the words on my screen of any life. For this reason, it makes it easy to drown out whatever is happening. A way to combat this problem is to attempt to reduce the times "I" is used, or rewrite this in Limited Third Person. Sure, that's a lot of work to convert this entire book to Third Person but a common trend that I've noticed is writers with low experience struggle in executing proper first person but remain adamant on using it the most. It's weird as hell. We're used to telling stories in the first person, so I can get the comfort, but that comfort usually leads inexperienced writers astray.

-To me, Third Person can help the author excel (when fully understood) in creating a story that isn't one they experienced but one they're showing through the eyes of another less daunting, I think? But if writer-bro isn't willing to commit to learning Limited Third Person, try to fix the structuring of the sentences instead.

-The pacing is jagged and off-putting.

-The way that chapter one ends is painful. To anyone whose curious it's not one, not two, not three, but FOUR rhetorical questions pertaining to a stale, predictable, and ashy event that occurs in the chapter (that the reader probably already told themselves they didn't care about the second they read those musty words). I'm kind of mad I read it in a way. Huh.

-Really what makes it so bad is that it fails to capture the readers' attention, repeats the weak conflict that it just guesses the readers forgot, and as hook it's so naked to such a degree that it's sort of pitiful but shameless in its efforts because no one is quite sure if it knows it or not. *Winces*

-Excerpt: [You think you're hidden,

But you're really not.

So I shall say good riddance,

Get ready for your mugshot.

;) ]

*Blinks one good blink for three hours*

*Exhales for another three*

-Kind of wanna throw out the towel at this point...but, but I won't. I'm nice. *Stares into the camera*

-Any who, I ain't sure what I just read but what I do know is that I never want to read it again. I also want to let everyone know that I'm concerned...concerned for the confused reason for adding this in.

-Wait, I just realized that that excerpt is supposed to be the "threats" the summary alludes to as an external conflict and I can't help but feel like I've been hit with a handful of Bamboozle because the sheer ridiculous nonsense-ness of this note has been upped to another level. I'm so confused that my own confusion is becoming funny to me. Lord.

-I hate the explicit mass of exposition that's thrown around without any care to how it can be taken by the audience, or if the audience even cares. There just seems to be a rampant disregard to the audience's experience of what they will be reading. For example, adding randomly that Tina has Selective Mutism is done horribly. Its kind of inexcusable though because I can think of three different ways that it could have been implied and even blatantly stated in a much more natural way rather than so matter-o-flatly in the middle of the narration just for the sake of letting the readers know...because we care, of course.

-A better idea (even though it's a cliché) is to maybe open the book with the very moment she gets diagnosed with the disorder rather than the burning house scene. It'll force the author's hand to push themselves out their comfort zone by taking on the voices of authority, fear, claustrophobia, confusion, and/or the feelings of inadequacy etc that probably surrounded her during that moment.

-Even a simple scene starting with the character reading a prescribed bottle, or picking up her refill at a nearby pharmacy etc would've sufficed. Its far more intimate and gets the reader to empathize with the character on a deeper level rather than the basic survival angle (which can be effective, but more difficult to achieve I think). The burning house scene can come later since it's a reoccurring dream, but it can easily be included briefly during the same scene. This is just a suggestion of course.

-Funny thing is, I accidentally skipped chapter two and only realized upon finishing chapter three. It had zero impact on my understanding of the "plot". It added nothing. That's a problem yo.

-I'm not even counting how many points are left to take off anymore because I'm trying to find something fair and helpful to say and it's so difficult.

-I've left an external link below to a Google docs filled with some sources that can help out with the main problems I spotted throughout these chapters.

(-7)

My Takeaway:

-There's not enough being done here for this to be counted as memorable or anything I'd go back to check up on again even out of guilt. Everything about this lacks authenticity. I think what the writer needs to realize first is what they want to achieve when they take the effort into typing words out onto their screen, whether if that story has been told already, and if it has, figure out how can they bring something new to the table for themselves, and understand know why its necessary for them to do that. Their needs to be at least a vague understanding of a story or the story we set out to write falls apart and/or is devoid of life.

-It's clear the writer is a bit of an amateur, and while that's alright because there's ALWAYS room for improvement if we want/decide to make room, I'm so underwhelmed that I'm not sure what I'm exactly underwhelmed about anymore. Just know that I'm underwhelmed. *Crosses arms and opens a bag of chips*

Why/When I stopped reading: I called it quits at the end of chapter three. Although I am pretty sure the points ran out by the beginning of chapter two.

Gummy Bears or Dust: You get.....................................

*Drum roll*

A BUCKET OF SAND since I couldn't find a bucket of dust!