REVIEW DONE BY : FirstNailInTheCoffin (T)

Title/cover :

The cover of the book is interesting, but I think it could use some changes. It is incredibly dark and while in some ways it could be aesthetically pleasing, this style doesn't tend to work for book covers. Book covers should be vibrant and make the reader want to read them. I also think the font used for subtitle is incredibly difficult to read and could be easily improved into a much better one. Since the sub-title is quite small, the font used should be much clearer. You don't want your readers being forced to strain their eyes when looking at the cover.

On to the title, I really like it so there isn't much to say. It's short and simple. It also is quite memorable, which allows the reader to remember the book easier. (which should always be what you want from them)

Chapter review :

Prologue :

The story had a wonderful start. The prologue wasn't too long, which is a mistake many people make when writing their story. The purpose of a prologue is to grip the reader and make them want to read on and I really think you managed that quite well.

We begin with three ladies walking side by side after being summoned somewhere. The entire prologue is just a little description about who they are. I liked how dramatic it was, but I do think there are some things that could be improved.

For starters, the sentences in the second paragraph are much too long. Long sentences are used as a tool to create a feeling of foreboding as well as making a scene long and dragged out. I highly doubt you intended this for your prologue. I recommend switching some of the commas for full-stops to vary the length and structure.

I also think the descriptions of the girls could have been better. I got the general gist of it. Hair colour and body structure as well as their height. But I've always been a sucker for descriptions and I wanted much more. I wanted to know how their faces look, is there anything distinctive about any of them. Any marks or scars?

How do they walk? I'm sure each of them has a different, very distinct way of moving. Descriptions go a long way in hooking a reader.

You managed to end the prologue in a way that just forced me to continue right away. I have always been a sucker for magical societies and councils and this hit all the right spots. You left the reader curious and wanting more which really is a wonderful achievement. Good job!

Chapter 1 :

Wonderful beginning to the chapter. You went from a dramatic and scary prologue to an almost comical chapter one. I imagined it like a scene in a movie. One thing I must say thought, is that even though I accept that you're writing in a more informal style, writing "Arrrgggggg" in a narrative sequence is plain wrong. For critics like me, it sets off a very bad vibe from the beginning of the story. Which really isn't an outcome any author wants.

Once again I noticed the sentence length. I will talk more about this in the writing style section of the review.

The sudden fourth wall break caught me off guard and if I'm being honest, put me off the story. This is the first indication of the story breaking the fourth wall, which is something I think should have been established at the start of the chapter. I believe there are much better ways to introduce a character than using fourth-wall breaking as a tool.

Speaking of the fourth-wall breaking, I think the introduction could have been done better. We basically found out the characters back story and personality in one long chunk of paragraph in which we were being told about it. From the main character's point of view. That is not a great way to engage a reader as it immediately takes the story's mystery and excitement away. What's there to predict when we already know so much about the character?

Once again, things like "argggg" or "hwooooosh" are things that should never be put in a narrative sequence.

All things considered, you once again had a wonderful ending for this chapter. Such a sudden turn of events makes the reader, once again, just thirst to know what's going to happen next. My only criticism about the last few paragraphs is that I would have liked much more detail. What exactly was the character feeling? What did they see? What did she hear? This was the perfect opportunity to engage all of the reader's senses!

Chapter 2 :

From the very opening paragraph, I noticed you were having some troubles with different tense. You kept switching from past to present, which only got confusing for the reader. You should really stick to one tense for the entire book, unless there's a specific reason for the changes. (Which I really can't imagine)

This chapter was much shorter than the previous one and you could really tell when reading it. I felt like it would have been enhanced a lot if, once again, more descriptions were added. I want to feel the tension when reading such scenes. I want the scene to absolutely drag out. Every moment, action, dialogue should be explained.

That's how you fully enthral a reader in your writing.

I don't have any other thoughts than that. The ending was good and I see you really have a thing for dramatic chapter endings. It's definitely a big thing that's pushing readers to continue the story as soon as possible.

Chapter 3 :

I will say this one more time, and I promise I'm done. "hahaha" should never appear in a narrative sequence. That is in no way okay or correct.

About the actual contents of the chapter, I was very confused for a while. I once again found many parts greatly lacked detail and explanation. This scene could have been epic if only written a little bit better.

I understand that it's difficult to explain a scene in which we follow three characters whose names we don't know. I often struggle with that myself. But I'm not going to lie to you, the constant repetition of "smiling psycho" and "weapons psycho" made me rage quit on reading the chapter for a while.

You need to understand when to stop calling them a specific thing, and when to change up your descriptions.

Chapter 4 :

I'm not going to lie, I found the beginning of this chapter incredibly boring. Nothing interesting happened and it was just narration of this girls morning. I think it could be spruced up with some nicer narration. Maybe an addition of some similes or metaphors while it's done, some jokes. Anything.

Also, we met the three "psychos" again, but even in chapter 4, I have no idea what they look like. Of course, that might be cleared up later but it feels like they're going to be important to the story and I would like to know their appearance sooner rather than later. (I've already started imagining them in my own way, you really don't want this happening.)

Once the three women appeared again, I got more interested in the story although the narration really brought it down. I'll explain this more later.

Plot :

The plot of this story seems interesting. I may have only been able to read four chapters of your story but I think I got a decent idea of what's going to happen.

If I'm being frank, from what I read so far, it seems to be incredibly cliche and predictable. This isn't always a bad thing as there are many people around who love these types of stories, but it would be nice to see something that would really shock me.

I never enjoy reading books which don't give me a challenge, so do try not to spoon-feed the plot too much.

Grammar :

One quick grammar tip is: You don't put a random capital letter after a comma. Although the places in which you did that could easily be replaced by a period.

There were a few minor grammar mistakes which I pointed out in comments, but I would recommend having an editor look at it.

You also seem to have a problem with punctuation, as I often noticed misplaced commas in your piece, as well as some very wrong usages of punctuation with dialogue. I didn't want to point out every single usage, so I would once again recommend talking to an editor.

Sometimes I found sentences that were difficult to understand which could also use some re-writing.

And while we're here, there seems to be a lot of problems with tense in your story. Every sentence I read seemed to be in a different tense. Present -> past -> present -> past. In a story you must stick to one tense, unless you have a genuine reason for switching them up. It gets incredibly confusing for the reader otherwise.

Characterization :

While your characters are interesting, they certainly could have been more fleshed out. I also didn't necessarily like the main characters introduction. I already mentioned this in my chapter review, but I feel it must be mentioned again.

I personally believe that spoon-feeding a reader is one of the worst things an author could do, and that was most certainly what had occurred during the mc's introduction. I don't know what the target demographic for this story is, but such a style of introduction is a good fit for middle grade books, or even children's books.

But for books targeted towards adults or young adults, we need a bit more life to it. We don't want to learn so much in a simple chunk of one chapter. We want to slowly get to know the character as the book progresses. The more and slower we get to know her, the more we love her.

Writing style/format :

I will be honest, the writing style seems a bit too informal for my liking, but that is all about preference. What I mainly want to talk about here is your sentence structure.

There are 4 main types of sentence structure which are: simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex.
They all vary in length and should be used together as much as possible. Using only one type turns the reader off completely, especially is the length you're using is incredibly long.

There isn't even a need for such sentences in your story. Many of them should already be two or even three sentences. All that needs to be done is switching some commas out for some full-stops.

Overall :

"Valkyrie" is an example of a book with great potential, which greatly lacks in its execution. I loved the prologue, but I felt it only went downhill from there. I believe that if you fixed the grammar and structure mistakes I mentioned, as well as adding some more detailed descriptions, the quality of the book would skyrocket. I highly recommend our editors from Word Wizard: CLN's Editing shop, which you can find on our account. Other than that, I wish you all the best on your writing journey!