Aragons written by earlfangs

i. COVER & TITLE

Your cover is excellent. The colours, the picture, the fonts--it's all excellent. But I have some things to say. For one, your subtitle is all capitalized on the specific words, and I don't really think that looks clean. Especially since it's a full sentence, I'd recommend capitalizing the beginning letter and nothing else. When I read your first chapter, I found the very first cover you had there to be far more eye-catching and professional--even though they're both amazing. The first one just comes off a bit more polished.

Your title, although unique, doesn't really do much for me. It doesn't have me wondering what it means or really drawing me in. It's a very good title, but there's potential for it to be better and more captivating in my opinion.

ii. BLURB

It is...very difficult for me to critique this blurb. It's short, it's sweet, it's dramatic, and it wouldn't be any better if I rewrote it for you. But you are missing a comma after 'healer' there.

1 3 / 1 5

i. GRAMMAR

#1: COMMAS BEFORE CONJUNCTIONS

Conjunctions, also known as words such as 'and', 'but', 'as', etc. are powerful tools in sentences, but they have a tricky connection with commas. But it's not really all that tricky--as long as you get your information from a place that won't complicate it (That's me!). 

Put simply: When a conjunction is used to separate two clauses, no comma is placed before the conjunction if one of the clauses is dependent. If both are independent, a comma is placed before the conjunction.

A quick reminder:

An independent clause is the part of a sentence that stands alone. Independent clauses contain a subject and verb.

A dependent clause is the part of a sentence that relies on the independent clause to make sense. Dependent clauses are often missing a subject or verb that is in the independent clause.

Example from your book:

'He has fast reflexes and he seems to be aware of what I am.'

Here, both clauses contain a subject and a verb, and so both clauses are independent. Referring to the rule above, this means there should be a comma before the conjunction, like this:

'He has fast reflexes, and he seems to be aware of what I am.'

#2: THE ELLIPSIS

The ellipsis (...) is used correctly in your story, and although I'll mention formatting later, you don't have a slight issue with the lack of capitalization after the ellipsis. The rule is that if the clause following the ellipsis is independent, then you capitalize the word following the ellipsis. Example from chapter 2:

'But being Branded to a place where you weren't born...that's new to me.'

'That's new to me' is independent. So it should be capitalized, like this:

'But being Branded to a place where you weren't born...That's new to me.'

ii. FORMATTING

There are two issues with punctuation I'd like to bring to your attention. One is the ellipsis (...) and the other is the em dash (—). Starting with the ellipsis. This is how you format them:

'I can't believe I'm doing this ... this is insane.'

You have one space on either side of the ellipsis. I've seen a single space on the far side of the ellipsis--in fact, that is what most publishers do. However, two spaces make the ellipsis look really long--especially when one is reading on a phone screen. It can break up the sentence and reduce the flow. I'd recommend taking both spaces out, or at least taking the front one out.

Moving on to the dash. You format them like this:

'I can't believe I'm doing this— this is insane.'

I noticed you have a space on the far side of the dash. Again, this elongates the entire sentence and disrupts the formatting look. And unlike the ellipsis--which is often open to creative differences with the spaces--a dash is incorrect if it has spaces on either side. Remember that the em dash--the long one--is also used when dialogue is cut off.

1 3 / 1 5

i. WORD CHOICE

Don't get me wrong here, you have a beautiful, expansive vocabulary that enhances your flow greatly. But sometimes, even when you use wonderful words all in the right places, there are other problems that arise. Take your hook from chapter one here:

'Raia stands on a gabled roof of one of the half-timbered houses lining the street. She's garbed in a black hooded cloak.'

Gabled? Excellent word choice. Garbed? Another unique word. But the problem is that they sound very similar, and they are very close to each other in the paragraph. I think the flow would be better if you took one of those words and used a synonym. 

In other words: repetition in word choice is always bad--even if words only sound similar. Another example from chapter 1:

'Raia leaps up, hopping from roof to roof until she reaches the second street and settles on the ridge of a roof, a surly expression on her face.'

The problem here is not the repetition of 'roof to roof' (that's repetition in the name of creativity, not repetition in word choice) but rather in the third 'roof' at the end of the sentence, which comes off as a little choppy.

These are small things, but the rate of improvement pertaining to things like flow goes down dramatically the better you get, and these small things become increasingly important. I would recommend reading your story out loud--that is one of the only ways to find issues like this.

0 8 / 1 0

i. CHARACTERS

Your characters are unique and vivid. You mix physical description into the story so it doesn't appear in the form of info-dumping, and that works well for your flow. The only recommendation I have would be to add in just a tad bit more of the unique-type description. Things like weird habits or other original descriptions that provide depth for a character. With that being said, you already have a lovely set of characters developing.

ii. SCENES

Even in the heat of action, you manage to describe each scene in a way that works great for your story. You incorporate smell, sound and taste in a unique way. Your scenes are just excellent.

0 9 / 1 0

i. PLOT

Your story is extremely high fantasy, with tons of odd names and concepts to introduce to the reader. And even though I've read a lot of published high fantasy books, I would still conclude that your ability to ease readers into a complicated world is simply better. Everything is slow to be introduced but the action in between reminds us of the overall story and manages to keep us interested. I'm extremely impressed with the lack of confusion I had when reading the initial chapters. That being said, the third or fourth chapters did begin to get a little overwhelming, but I also read them very quickly, so I'd chalk that up to just a me problem.

ii. TONE

Your tone is a million different kinds of unique. You paint Raia out to be somewhat of an antihero--someone who doesn't struggle with violence. It's interesting to see her internal thoughts and how they come out as actions. I love your metaphors and literary devices that you've managed to incorporate deep into your story. Your tone is simply lovely and original.

1 0 / 1 0

I am so, so impressed with this story. The characters are unique, the world-building is fantastic, and the fantasy aspects are introduced expertly. You have a few things that you could clean up in the logistics section, and there is that one thing I mentioned in flow. I also do think you could use some extra unique description to enhance your characters, but your scenes are simply flawless. This is an excellent story! Since you got over fifty points, I'll add this story to my reading list.

5 3 / 6 0