Reviewer: sassy-weirdo

Author Name: yoursauther

Presentation:

Cover (2/5)

I'll be starting off with the cover because on a platform as huge as Wattpad, having an attractive cover is essential if you want to read your book. It's either that or the blurb but for now, we'll be focusing on the cover.

Anyways, to be honest, the cover does not make me go 'Ooh let me read the blurb', it makes me go 'Let's get done with this part of the review'. I am not judging your story yet but if I were not reviewing it I most definitely would have moved on to the next book and would have assumed that your writing is as bad as your cover. I'll list down a few points regarding why the cover made me shy away and how to fix these mistakes:-

i) Let's start from the top left corner. I see white lines on the first picture and it reminds me of a torn piece of plastic covering that was used to wrap a Classmate notebook.

ii) The title and subtitle do not match.

iii) The glitch effect on the title makes it look very weird and I understand that you might think it is a cool text effect but it's not.

iv) Why are there purple arrows bordering the subtitle?

vi) The collage effect looks really bad as that is most definitely not how collage covers are supposed to look like. The pictures don't blend, they look very mismatched and all in all give a very bad look to it.

vi) Don't get me started on the tint on the bottom right corner. It just doesn't blend.

vii) Where is the author's name? It is essential and albeit this not being one of the reasons behind my apparent disgust towards the cover, every cover on Wattpad and even published books have the author's name printed on them for a reason. An author's name on a cover could range from the username (which I personally do not prefer as you would be unable to change your username or risk having to change the U.N on your cover(s) too.) to your original name, from your pseudonym to just a nickname. It could be anything. But an author's name on a cover makes it easier for the reader to remember as humans have a better photographic memory i.e we as people, can remember things better that are there on pictures or the like instead of text.

I suggest that you change the cover altogether by asking another designer to make it for you or by requesting one in a community graphic shop such as ours.

Title (3/5)

The first thing that came to my mind was that it's too common, maybe not among BTS fanfics but it is in general. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind common titles but your cover really doesn't help. So my advice would be changing the cover (as said above) and people will read your story no matter how not unusual your title is.

Blurb (0/5)

The blurb is just... well Wattpad like. *smiles painfully*

I'll just list your mistakes out again-

i) One. Should. Not. Use. The. Same. Punctuations. One. After. The. Other.

Gods! This is a rule I have been screaming for such a long time but there are only so many books that have proper punctuation. The first line of your blurb goes— 'Enough !!!' The space before the punctuation is unnecessary. Also, we do not use the same punctuation twice in the same sentence, one after the other.

ii) 'donot forget jimin that you are talking with your leader RM right now.' Here, the correct sentence would be — 'Do not forget, Jimin, that you are talking with your leader, RM, right now.'

Thus, you have forgotten to capitalize the first letter of the sentence. Not to mention, there is supposed to be a space between 'do' and 'not', unless you wanted to write 'don't'.

iii) In the above example you will see that I have inserted commas before and after a name. This is a grammar rule that needs to be followed no matter what.

iv) You added the action after the dialogue i.e 'AND. THAT'S. FINAL. ( said while clenching his jaw and giving warning with index finger )'. Writing a story in dialogue form is not advisable and even if you do it, the action is not to be written in between the dialogues. Example-

Incorrect-

Jimin : huh ?? Leader my foot. ( Chuckled ) You are just a looser. A looser who is soo afraid of an attack and who is living under the burden of his own sister's death for 12 F**KING MONTHS !!!

Correct-

Jimin: Huh? Leader, my foot!

[He chuckled and continued]

Jimin: You are just a loser. A loser who is so afraid of an attack and has been living under the burden of his own sister's death for the past 12 f**king months!

In the above examples, I have corrected all the grammatical errors (in that part of the blurb) I could find. Hope you understood what I meant about the actions.

Aight, so these were the corrections to be made in the blurb, but the list continues. A few things that made your blurb worse-

i) Dumping in a few lines from the story with no grammar whatsoever. No offense, but I do not seem to care whether his sister died or who this 'I' at the end is.

ii) You have written it all in dialogue form which is very very unadvisable. Try writing in the way books are written.

iii) Some of your sentences don't make sense to me as I am unaware of the story. You want your reader to be irked, not confused.

Thus, I would suggest rewriting the blurb on the whole.

Uncovering the Story:

First (Chapter) Impression (4/10)

I liked how you touched people's emotions using the dialogues but the grammatical errors are very distracting. I would recommend editing the story or requesting an editor (there are many shops available on Wattpad) to revise your draft. Some things to keep in mind while you're editing:-

i) The first few paragraphs of a story are considered as it's hook. The audience usually reads the first few paragraphs and decides whether to proceed or move on from it (the story). I think that it would be a better hook if the opening scene contains the description of the fight between the guards and the three boys, which is mentioned later on in the chapter. This would help in catching the attention of your audience.

ii) There is a dialogue by Hobi which states that there were ten guards and three of 'them' and yet they got caught. I was extremely confused here as to why the boys would not get caught considering that they were outnumbered.

iii) There seems to be too much information which currently seems unnecessary. The reader does not need to know whether or not Namjoon has cried in the past year. Try adding more arcs. You do not have to make him all tough and nothing-affects-me kind of guy. Try giving more depth to your characters, don't make them two dimensional, flat or the-usual-mafia-character like. I will explain more later on in the review.

iv) Last but not least, you're hiding too much from the audience. I want to know what actually happened, how Soora died? I want to know about Mr. Kim, I want to know about this company they have. Too many questions is not good, especially when the reader has just read the first chapter. Thus, adding some more information would make the chapter better.

v) You have described mundane matters, and I appreciate it but without proper punctuation and articles, the sentences seem meaningless; so, look out for the sentences.

Character Development (4/10)

So... you see the male mcs (main characters i.e the BTS boys) seem very flat. I understand that it is difficult to show mass development in just the first five chapters, and it would not look good either if you do that. But, all I understood about the boys is that they missed their sister, are part of a mafia and are currently students in respective colleges. It was extremely confusing as to how they were managing to run errands and still study. You have to go in depth. Try narrating more of their thoughts and describing them more. I know how they look but still, it would help in character development.

Now, coming to Shruti, there are a few things I would like to address-

i) Since Shruti is a Hindu I would suggest you to not capitalize the word 'god' as Hindus have numerous gods while Christians have only one god. I would suggest stating the name of the god Shruti's parents are telling her to pray to rather than just telling her to pray to 'God'.

I understand what Shruti means but you have to make it clearer. The audience would not want to just randomly take a guess at the words of the character. It would be better if Shrut says that she does not believe in praying to lifeless statues and instead sees god in her parents.

— Chapter 3 reference (beginning)

ii) Suru seems really stupid considering the fact that she did not even bother asking about the exam she gave.

— Chapter 3 reference (beginning)

iii) Now, she looks even dumber since she is sitting in front of the guy who was molesting her? She should be calling the police.

— Chapter 5 reference

iv) Shruti seems to be either diagnosed with DID or my eyes are lying to me because no normal person would act so calmly in front of her rapist.

— Chapter 5 reference

v) Shruti's development was quite nicely written. I could understand that she was the kind of girl who liked wearing baggy jeans (cliche but relatable) and was very respectful and sweet. Her thought process after Kabir had left (I still think she should have called the police no matter how much she knew martial arts) was very touching.

Writing Style, Grammar, and Vocabulary (0/10)

The vocabulary is pretty low and so is the grammar, though, I am happy to say that there are very few spelling mistakes. I would suggest proofreading through the draft and editing it. A few things to keep in mind while revising-

i) Articles. Keep in mind to use the articles, 'a', 'an' and 'the'. 'A' or 'an' is used when the subject is common or not particular or already mentioned, while 'the' is used when there is a specific subject or it (the subject) has been mentioned previously. Eg-

a) Lily ate an apple.

b) Lily ate the apple on the table.

In both these cases, the subject is eating an apple but in the first sentence, we are not giving any specifics and thus, the article 'an' is used. In the second sentence, I have specified what apple is being eaten i.e the one on the table; so, the article 'the' is used.

Articles are an essential part of the English language as they provide certain information about the noun they precede. For example, the sentence 'Children know way home', may raise questions in our mind such as— Which children? All children? Specific children? All ways home? Any? On the other hand, the sentence, 'The children know the way home', clears the doubt. We know that it's a specific set of children and a specific way.

ii) The first letter of names is usually capitalized.

iii) As I mentioned in the blurb, keep in mind to not give spaces before punctuations and to not use the same punctuation mark twice.

iv) As I said earlier, try switching to the story writing format. The dialogue form that is used is difficult to maintain when you want to add thoughts and actions.

v) If you think of continuing to use the same style then here are a few things to keep in mind-

Do not use brackets in between a dialogue, to signify what action is being done by them. In this style of writing, the action is usually mentioned right beside the name or just before the dialogue is said. Eg-

In case 1-

Person A: I take it, you are Person B?

Person B [nods]: Yes, I am.

In case 2-

Person A: I take it, you are Person B?

[The man nodded.]

Person B: Yes, I am.

If you write thoughts then I would recommend writing '[thinks]' beside the name (see case 1, above). I liked how you italicized the thoughts so that it is easy for people to differentiate between dialogues and thoughts. Kudos on that :)

There are no paragraphs to be separated in between a person's dialogue. Eg-

Wrong-

Joe: Valentine's Day is a day to celebrate love. It is celebrated every year on 14th of February. It is mainly celebrated in the United States of America, United Kingdom, France, Canada, Mexico, Italy, Denmark and Australia.

People believe that Valentine's Day began in Rome. The day holds a strong and exciting historical importance. Besides that, every year we celebrate this day by showing the people around us how much we love and care for them. It is a day when we all show our love for the one we care for and for the one who is very special to us.

Right-

Joe: Valentine's Day is a day to celebrate love. It is celebrated every year on 14th of February. It is mainly celebrated in the United States of America, United Kingdom, France, Canada, Mexico, Italy, Denmark and Australia. People believe that Valentine's Day began in Rome. The day holds a strong and exciting historical importance. Besides that, every year we celebrate this day by showing the people around us how much we love and care for them. It is a day when we all show our love for the one we care for and for the one who is very special to us.

In the above example you can see that there is only one paragraph. This is how it is to be written.

If you want to show a whole new action then writing a fresh dialogue instead of using the same one would be better. Eg-

Person A: I hate you.

[She slaps her sister playfully on the arm.]

Person A: Just because we are siblings doesn't mean you can steal my cookies.

While narrating, it should be made clear that the narrator is narrating the story as people might confuse the narration with dialogues if only the paragraph is changed. You can achieve this by following the same pattern as the dialogues i.e Narrator: *insert narrative*. Hope I was able to make you understand ^^

Well, I hope you change the style as it would be more of a play than a story if written this way. Not to mention, this format has many restrictions. But you are free to continue, just make sure to follow the format in which things are to be done (or written).

vi) Do not use '1st', but instead, use 'first'. Writing in words instead of numbers unless it is a three digit number, in which case you can take some liberty and use numbers. But do not write positions in numbers i.e '42nd' should be written as 'forty second'.

vii) The lack of commas should be looked into. Commas help in joining two sentences, just like a conjunction. You have used full stops in place of commas or no commas at all. A common mistake related to commas that I have noticed throughout is that you have missed the commas that are to be used before a name. Eg- What are you doing, Person A?

viii) A repeated mistake that I have noticed is the repeated use of 'donot' which is not even a word. The correct word is 'do not' or you could use the short form, 'don't'.

ix) Do not switch so much between POVs. It disrupts the flow of the reader. Not to mention, it is better to stick to one perspective in a chapter, maximum two. Also, I have observed that you switch between POVs with warning. One such example is in chapter two; at the end, you have said that the perspective of that part is of Mrs. Kim's but you have mentioned 'Mom' as one of the characters. This should be replaced by Mrs.Kim as it is in her POV that we are experiencing the scene.

x) At the beginning of chapter 2, you have mentioned 'Mom' and 'Dad' as characters in the scene; but, saying the name of Shruti's parents instead of 'Papa' would make it easier for the reader to read the story.

xi) Do not use 'I' as a narrative while using the author's POV.

xii) If you're writing in the author's POV then you should not write the characters' thoughts but instead, narrate them.

xiii) Do not write things like 'aish', 'yee' etc which are used while texting.

xiv) Changing paragraphs after each sentence is not necessary. A paragraph usually contains at least five to six lines.

xv) You're using ellipses (...) too much.

I suggest requesting an editor or editing yourself. Not to mention, try proofreading or use apps such as Grammarly or Google Docs so as to avoid grammatical or spelling errors.

Plot and Pacing (4/10)

There were a few plot holes and you have stretched the story too much. You could have just finished all this in two chapters maximum instead of taking five. A few plot holes-

i) At the beginning we saw Mr.Shah and Mr.Pathak talking but I did not see any introduction of Mr.Shah and thus, have no idea who he is.

— Chapter 3 reference

ii) After Shruti and Mrs.Pathak's fight, no lines stated or hinted previously that she knew how to play instruments. Adding that would help remove the plot hole.

— Chapter 4 reference

iii) We see Namjoon spouting out names of countries which seem pretty random. This disrupts the flow of the reader.

— Chapter 5 reference

iv) No mentions of Shruti knowing how to fight in previous chapters. We just see her abruptly punching him which seems impossible since the guy was molesting her and she would be too nervous to fight, much less break his bones. Not to mention, if Shruti could not move her hand while Kabir had held her wrists then it seems unlikely that she would be able to beat the crap out of him.

— Chapter 5 reference

v) There were no hints given that Kabir had sexually assaulted Shruti. It was only said that she engaged him in talks.

— Chapter 5 reference

Genre Relevance (5/5)

Pretty relevant that it's a fanfic, lol.

Communication with Readers (5/5)

You interact with the reader which many authors on Wattpad do not do. Kudos to you :)

Overall Enjoyment (1/5)

The plot holes, pacing, spelling and grammatical errors were continuously distracting me. Not to mention, I was unable to find anything appealing about the story in the first five chapters. As mentioned above, you have stretched things a lot and the sexual assault scene seemed unnecesary thought it might not be later on in the story. I hope my feedback would help you improve. Keep writing ^^

Overall: 28/70