REVIEW DONE BY : DaYeon_EXO

Cover and Title :

The cover doesn't really tell us much about the story. Action generally calls for a bit more in the cover. Think of books by Lee Child. You can have simple action covers, but if you do you need to pay careful attention to what's in them.

The summary was a little short. It seemed more like part of a summary. You need to give the reader a sneak peek (without spoilers of course). They need to know what they're about to read. You could have started a summary or ended it with those three lines.

Prologue​ :

Okay so prologues . . . I'll admit, I'm not a fan of them. A prologue should ONLY be used if you need to explain key information that doesn't fit with the timeline of the plot. If it does not fit this, don't write a prologue.

Also, half the time prologue content can be explained through flashbacks and memories. They're pretty controversial among writers. It's probably best to steer clear.

Many readers will also skip prologues, because they're generally not all that helpful. This chapter didn't really need to be a prologue. It made reading chapter one confusing. Honestly, I'd scrap it and find a way to weave this information into your story. There are plenty of places to do it.

Revisit your opening line and the subsequent paragraphs. The first line needs to hook your reader and I didn't really feel hooked. The opening sequence felt like something that should have been in a summary.

Add some more description, make it original. So many stories start with similar opening lines. Try to make it unique.

There's no harm in drafting out heaps of first lines and then sending them to a friend and asking, "which makes you want to read on?" In fact, that's actually a really good idea.

Generally it's better to give the name or organisation in full, followed by the acronym. So just switch "the League of Advanced Compatents and Enterprise" with "LACE". Also, acronyms with the periods between them in my opinion are weird. It's a stylistic thing, so take this with a grain of salt. But the FBI is just the FBI. There aren't periods.

Also, is "compatents" a word? I don't think it is . . . Correct me if I'm wrong. Did you mean "combatants"? That's a word.

I love that things are explained. It's helpful for the reader, but you need to explain it in an interesting way. Your narrative is very matter-of-fact. It kinda sounds like you're giving character stats or have put heaps of bullet points into paragraphs.

Mix things up a little. Get rid of all your one or two sentence paragraphs. Half of those should just be one paragraph. One sentence or one word paragraphs are reserved for dramatic effect or emphasis. If you over use them, they're "incorrect" and lose their emphasis.

Plot is all right so far. It's a prologue, so there shouldn't be anything that's major for your plot and it's timeline. If it's major for the plot, it goes into an actual chapter.

Spelling :

"Bruteish" should be "brutish", "flip" should've been "flipped". "...as if she was", not "were". "Trainer", not "trainor". "Girl's", not "girls".

Please proof read. It's hard and we all mess up (I'm honestly pretty bad sometimes), but spelling is important. Some of these should have come up red underlined or autocorrect should've taken over. If you see a red line, don't ignore it.

Pay attention to the pacing. The action scene happens "within a few seconds", but the narration makes it feel more like a 30 minute thing. If it happens that quickly, you really only need to spend a paragraph on it.

Short, snappy sentences would have also helped make the action seem fast paced. There are a lot of sentences with no punctuation at all, that make up almost an entire paragraph. Those sentences are way too long (even for a lower paced scene). Commas and full stops are your friend. Break some of those really long ones. Try reading your work aloud to yourself. If you run out of breath, you need more punctuation.

Variety in sentence length needs improvement. As I said before, there are a lot of super long sentences. Break them up and use some short, some long sentences. This helps hold the reader's attention. Long sentences get boring and hard to understand fast.

Also, it's not entirely clear who the characters in the confrontation are. "He" and "she" are used way too much. Just switch some of the "she" references to "Asset 126". Make sure that you're making the subject of your sentence very clear.

There's variety in your adjectives, but heavy reliance on adverbs. You don't need that many. The verbs and adjectives should take care of that. "She landed roughly" could be "she slammed into the ground." There, you have your verb doing all the heavy lifting for you and it makes the writing cleaner.

As a result of the pacing issues, there wasn't the tension that there should've been. Vary sentence lengths, use emotive language. I covered most of this in pacing, so check back there.

Take a close look at your grammar when using dialogue. Every piece of dialogue has a mistake. Mainly that the letter coming directly after the dialogue always had a capital letter, even when it shouldn't.

Here are some example sentences:
"English grammar is so boring," she groaned, rolling her eyes.
"I forgot my homework!" he cried.
"What did you do that for?" his best friend sighed.
If you follow the dialogue with action rather than a dialogue tag, you end the dialogue with a full stop and capitalise the letter after.
"That's mine!" She made a lunge for the sandwich.
The first part of dialogue is always capitalised, even when it comes after an action or dialogue tag.
She whispered, "You have chocolate on your face." He threw the book at the wall. "Get out!"
Follow this rule: if it's how you character said it, use a comma, and follow with a lowercase letter. If it's what was done, use a full stop and follow with a capital letter.

Characters :

We have a whole bunch of unnamed people with fancy titles. That would be okay, except that it's kinda cliché and you haven't described what the characters look like. I found it really hard to keep track of who was who because I couldn't picture the characters. They were just names on a page at that stage.

I'd love to see some description in there. You don't have to dedicate a whole paragraph to it—you can weave it into the narrative if you like—but it ​needs t​o be there. You've given the reader ages which is nice, but it's not really helpful without the rest.

Chapter One: Cheating

First off, maybe do something about the picture quality. It's an aesthetic thing that you might wanna change.

Your summary and first line of chapter one should ​not ​be the same. Yes those lines are hooking, but they're out of the timeline of your chapter. It's a little confusing and disjointed. First lines are important! If your readers skipped the prologue, you need to catch them in chapter one.

Variety is key! There are too-long sentences again. They make the narrative difficult to follow. You also need to look at sentence and paragraph starters. It's 1st person narrative, so you'll naturally use "I" a lot. But refrain from starting too many paragraphs with it. At one point there were three in a row. It makes things feel repetitive. As a general rule, don't use a sentence starter more than once per paragraph and vary your paragraph starters.

I'm super confused about "the agency" how they all fit in. Like was she caught when she was young and being caught again now? Was she just caught now? This needs to be clearer. You need to plot out your timeline in the planning stage before you write. If you don't have a planning stage, it would be a good idea to pause here and plan things. It helps a lot and I'd be more than happy to share templates or give you some tips.

Again, your action scenes need to be fast paced. Yours are currently slow and most of the description comes across matter-of-factly. Some of it you don't even need at all.

Spelling/vocab still need work. You can't be precautious, you take precautions or be cautious.
Also, I wasn't sure if you meant "bemusement" or "amusement". They're different. One is confusion, the other means you find something funny.

In your dialogue, where one character is speaking to another, a comma comes before the name/reference to the person. If you start with a name, the comma comes after the name. If the name is in the middle of the sentence, a comma is placed before and after.
Eg :
"Hey, Sam!"
"Can I help you, Mary?"
Side note: an apostrophe indicates missing letters or that two words have been smushed together. Your first line of dialogue does not need the apostrophes.
Spelling and grammar need work. Please, please, please proof read. There aren't many mistakes but there are enough that it disrupts the reading experience. "Ms.Sterling" should be "Ms Sterling".
The plot had clear direction here. It's clear what's happening in the chapter. You've started off slow, to build the tension, gave your character a sense of normality and then revealed the information bit by bit. That was really good. This chapter was much better written than the prologue.

It would've been nice to know a bit more about our MC in terms of appearance. And names... What are their names? We know our MC is Ms Sterling, but nothing more. Make sure your MC is clearly defined, because they need to stand out in the narrative. 1st person narrative makes it hard to introduce things like the name or appearance of the MC. Maybe have her walk past a window and see her reflection or something.

BUT you've managed to make your characters all unique so far, which is great! My biggest pet peeve with character is when all the characters are basically clones of each other in terms of personality. You avoided this, so well done!!!

You've left me curious, which is really good, because now I wanna know more about your characters, the second Variant (the Hybrid). You found a great place to end your chapter.

One thing about the ending: Nick Fury has claimed that line. It's probably best you don't use really popular lines from well known characters. Even if the idea was yours, it's kinda been done already...

Chapter 2: custody

The semicolon.... get rid of it. Put something else there. A comma or a colon, please. Those are not two sentences. A semicolon joins closely related sentences that could be separate. It indicates a longer pause than a comma, but shorter than a period.

You've picked up in a great place. The reader has a clear picture of the surroundings as that hints at what's to come. And it's great to see better character description here. All in all, you've set the scene nicely.

I noticed a little more variety in sentence length which is nice. But more would still be nice.
Okay, schizophrenics... yeah maybe don't use them for comparisons, please. Not unless you've really done your research. Literature tends to paint them in a very unfair light and there are a crap tonne of miss understandings because of it. From a psych student, is probably best to avoid that kinda topic.
"Yeah" not "yea".

YAY we finally get to know more about LACE. Conversations between characters are great ways of communicating info to the reader. You've done that nicely here. Just make sure you don't rely on it too heavily. It doesn't look like you're going down that road, but it's something to keep in mind.

Your Australian agent is Melbourne and I'm not sure if it makes me amused or not. But I think I'm amused (in a ​good​way). And your depiction of an Aussie is accurate!

Chapter 3: the trio

The action is picking up, which is great! Just watch your descriptions. Some of them are really good, but there are others that are a little off. Some of this is because your sentences are still too long, but also because of wording.

"His powerful left hand". It could be better as, "his powerful left hook", or something along those lines.
Be really careful with your wording choice. Vocabulary can make or break a novel, it needs to sound fluid and clean. If things don't quite work/make sense, people will notice and it will distract from the book.

Here's another one that stood out for me:
"I held nothing back as I attacked my former trainer without hesitation". In that sentence, take out the "without hesitation". You've already indicated your MC isn't hesitating.

Also, where you're describing kicks, is a little weird. Don't repeat the same description all the time. Also, kicks aren't really "sly". They can be done slyly, but aren't in themselves sly.
Be aware of when you need adjectives and when you need adverbs.

Spelling is still lacking a little. There are a few words where I'm unsure of what you mean, or it takes too long for me to work out what it was you meant. Read your work aloud before you publish. If you stumble, your reader will certainly have trouble understanding.

In an action scene, you need to keep track of all your characters. You talk a lot about Artur and the MC, but not the others. They're fighting, there should be more chaos and interruption.

In terms of developing your plot, this chapter finishes in a weird place. It would be nice to see some of the aftermath in this chapter. Also, you're ending most of your chapters (so far) with a single sentence. It's losing its impact and becoming a bit same-y. Maybe think of some different ways to wrap up a paragraph.

Endings are really important for the pacing of your plot. Too many endings like this one make things feel jumpy. Kinda like a movie that constantly cuts from one scene to the next. It really disrupts the flow.

I must say, I really like the timing of your dialogue. I've seen so many wp books where they're just straight dialogue and it makes things really boring and you don't get a feel for the setting.
You have not done that, which is absolutely great! It is really good to see that you don't need to rely on dialogue and that you know enough about what is happening in your story to avoid over reliance on it.

There are still the same dialogue mistakes and grammar issues. Remember to use punctuation. There's no harm in doing a quick google if you need. Your readers will thank you.

Chapter 4: A friendly Interrogation

Please fix the quality of your images. Your descriptions should create an accurate picture of your character in the reader's mind. By that logic, you don't even need these pictures at all. That being said, character aesthetics or profiles are cool and it depends on your style. But if you're going to do them, make them good quality.

Why does L.A.C.E have the periods between it, but not DLC? As I said, you don't need the periods. Just write LACE. Honestly, this kinda gives me SHEILD vibes, especially after the chapter one ending. Just watch this.

In modern day language, no one says, "thus far". "So far" would do fine.

Your MC is beginning to come off a little like Superman. She basically gets away without a scratch and swoops in and tells the DLC agents what to do. In reality, they'd be way less trusting of her, especially because she was associated with LACE.

Her trainer should still be a much tougher match for her. He should know her technique. If he was a top agent, then he should have something to show for it.
Also, it seems a little weird that the Director of DLC is so heavily involved. Directors direct, they don't normally do the heavy lifting themselves. You don't see the director of the FBI sticking his nose into every interesting case.

"So be it" is also old language and this feels like a modern book. Change this to something like "whatever" or "fine". Maybe even "fine, whatever".
The bit about the vascular muscle veins was also kind of off. Take out the "vascular muscle" part. Half your readers might not even know what that is. Just say, "his veins bulged as he buckled against his restraints", or something to that meaning.

Again with the repetition. You've said that Artur spat and then said small drops of spittle escaped his mouth in the same sentence. That's what spitting is. You essentially said "Artur spat as he spat". That's how it comes across, so just be careful there. Go for one or the other, but not both.

"I replied simply without malice". This sentence also needs some work. First off, you need a comma after simply, second. If you say something simply or plainly, there's no malice or other emotion, so you don't need the second clause.

Did she shift her hand from his forehead to his temples? And how is she touching his temples (plural) with only one hand, when they're on opposite sides of his head? Small inconsistencies such as this, need to be dealt with.
If Artur is brain dead, then he's not doing anything at all. End of story.

Fix the section with en dashes. They aren't used like that. An en dash is for an interruption in the narrative.

One thing you wanted me to focus on was character. Belting out character profiles is not how you develop character. Spend some time making them individuals. That would've been good stuff to have in dialogue.

You've developed your MC, but the other characters aren't really getting the attention they deserve. It feels a little like it's Ms Sterling and the others. That's something you really need to look out for with 1st person narrative.

Your plot is taking some time to get up and running. It would've been nice if you'd timed the confrontation with the LACE agents a little better so that there was a clear reason for it to happen. This whole confrontation was also a little cliché. Having an event like this where your MC isn't trusted but is needed to save the day is done too much in action these days.

Chapter five: Fantastic Five

Fantastic Four...? This is adding to the marvel vibes that I'm getting. Be careful that you're not using what other people have come up with. The combination of subtle similarities and the genre of your novel all add to this. It might just be me, but do watch out.

All this character introduction should've come in back in chapter 2. If it's not a dramatic "Luke, I am your father" moment, then the readers need to know it when the characters first come into play or very very shortly after. Because I've now spent two or three chapters with certain characters in my head and it turns out they're not that at all.
As a good rule of thumb: if your readers need to know it, tell them. If it doesn't need to be hidden, don't leave it out.

Australia does not have a Marine Corp (or maybe it's Corps, idk). How was Melbourne an ex Marine? Is he a US citizen or resident? Make this clearer.
Royce and his doctorates... that would never happen. There are two types of medical PhDs in the US: MD and DO. Also, no one could learn to be a neurosurgeon in a few weeks. It takes a ​long ​time to become a doctor (as in to get the degree), then you have your residency years and then all the years it takes for you to study further to specialise in your chosen area. He's smart, but no one is that smart. Make logical comparisons.

And technically, a surgeon is a doctor, but not all doctors are surgeons. Keep that in mind too.
What are the CIA doing? If it's on American soil, the CIA doesn't have jurisdiction (as far as I know).

Overall :

Okay, so I've tried to focus on elements relating to plot, character and dialogue throughout, but some general notes:

1. You'll notice I blabbed on and on about variety. This really needs some attention. Sentence length, sentence structure, chapter endings, sentence starters, vocabulary etc. This all needs work.

2. Grammar and spelling needs work, especially surrounding dialogue. I gave you some starters for dialogue when talking about your prologue, so check them out. Also, you could hop on over to the editing shop and have one of our editors take a closer look for you.

3. Your plot is generally okay, but pay attention to how you want it to develop and pay careful attention to your timing.

4. Characters actually tie in with the plot. Things happen because of what your characters do, not because the plot says so. Your MC has a clear personality, but the rest of the team doesn't get much glory. We don't even know much about them until chapter five, when they came in back at the end of chapter one.

Pay attention to the flow of your writing. It's a great concept, but seems to lack individuality in some areas. Work also needs to be done on holding the reader's attention and clarity could be improved.
It was really great to see that you didn't need to rely on dialogue to carry your story. You'd be surprised and how much writers rely on dialogue. With a few tweaks, this story has potential.