Buried In My Reflection

blackishfever

Initial Impression: (cover, title & blurb)

Your cover is good, but I don't feel overly drawn to it or too excited over the way it looks. I think there is room for improvement. I like that the cover represents the story, but I think adding more colour and making the title bigger could enhance the cover a bit more. I have a cover shop in my reading list that is exceptional, perhaps you should check it out.

Your title is so unique! I absolutely love it. I'm not sure how it relates to the story, but I haven't read the whole thing, so I'll leave that up to you. The only thing- 'in' in your title doesn't need a capital. It should just be: Buried in My Reflection. Other than that, I love your title!

Your blurb starts out a little generic. There are lots of Wattpad books that play off of the same 'nerdy good guy' and 'rich badboy' thing- and not that that's bad, but you should try to find a way to make your book stick out. The first sentence of your blurb is incredibly essential. Is there a line from your book you can put in there to make it a little more captivating? I've recommended one below.

Second, you have some grammatical mistakes. For starters, you have a whole bunch of capitals on that first sentence that shouldn't be there. Next, your first paragraph was a little hard to read, and the rest of your blurb was rather uninteresting. There's potential for you to make it a lot better. Let's pick out the things you want in your blurb. You want to put Elizabeth and the three guys in it, but you have so much description over their lives that I feel a little overwhelmed by the amount of information in your blurb. You also mention an 'Eli' that is previously unheard of. I'd recommend keeping your descriptions to one, simple line. That'll keep people interested.

Four lives are about to collide.

Elizabeth is a rather average teenager with high expectations and dreams of success. So at nineteen in her closing year of college, she finally decides to enjoy her last teen year in a dramatic change of heart.

Nathan is a business-minded bookworm.

Martin is the expensive taste that everyone wants.

Luke is an athlete with a knack for humour.

Which one gets the girl of their dreams?

So here I've dramatically shortened your blurb, but still kept (what I think) is the essential information. You can, of course, change whatever you'd like or use my suggestion. I just think this is a bit snappier and is free of grammatical errors.

9/15

Logistics: (grammar, spelling & dialogue)

You have some issues with grammar. Overall, you understand how to use commas and periods and sentence structure. But you often have sentences that strike me as awkward. Just read your story aloud, and if you have issues getting it out smoothly the first time, the grammar is not clear enough.

As for spelling, I don't notice any mistakes other than simple (what I'm assuming are) typos. Just make sure to go over your chapters and edit a couple of times before posting. Remember that when you have your character thinking to themselves, it should be in italics, like this I've pulled from your chapter one:

'Yes, that's unmanly, he commented in his mind.'

Here's the correction:

'Yes, that's unmanly, he commented in his mind.'

You did this properly a few times as well, so I think they were just mistakes. Watch out for those!

You have issues with your dialogue tags and punctuation. A dialogue tag is anything that describes the way something is said (ex. he screamed, she whispered, I asked). An action tag is anything that implies who is speaking by using an action (ex. he grinned, she raised an eyebrow, I blinked). Some verbs can be used as both, such as 'he groaned.' If you want to say he said something in a groan, it's a dialogue tag. If you want to say he said something and then he groaned, it's an action tag.

Now, placing these into your writing. Here are the rules:

When you have a dialogue tag following or proceeding a spoken sentence, the beginning of the spoken sentence is always capitalized and if your dialogue tag is after, then you end the spoken sentence with a comma and begin the dialogue tag with a lowercase. If the dialogue tag comes before, then you place a comma after the dialogue tag and begin the spoken sentence with a capital.

Examples:

"Hello," he said.

OR

He said, "Hello."

When you have a dialogue tag in the middle of two spoken sentences, you a) either pick a sentence and attach the dialogue tag to that using the above rules, or you b) make it all one sentence and end the dialogue tag with a comma and begin the spoke sentence with a lowercase.

Examples:

"Hello," he said. "It's nice out today."

OR

"Hello." He said, "It's nice out today."

OR

"Hello," he said, "it's nice out today."

Whenever you have an exclamation mark, question mark or a name that must be capitalized, you simply add your mark, capitalize the name and do not change any other punctuation.

Examples:

"Hello," I said.

OR

"Hello?" she asked.

When you are using action tags, you follow the regular rules of writing and end the spoken sentence with a period and begin the action tag with a capital.

Examples:

"Hello." He grinned.

He grinned. "Hello."

If you follow these rules, you shouldn't struggle with your dialogue anymore.

10/15

Story Flow: (transitions & pacing)

I find your transitions to be a little jarring- but not because of your writing, because of your perspective. I explain a lot on perspective later in the review, but I'd like to point out now that since your narration is omniscient, you have to be careful with how fast you switch thoughts and feelings and always make it painfully clear as to who you are talking about.

Your pacing is excellent! I don't feel rushed or dragged, and I was surprised with how nicely your story moved along. Great job here!

8/10

Description: (characters & scenes)

I was very impressed with your descriptions. You have a large vocabulary and an interesting tone. You've done a nice job of making each character distinct from each other and giving them all unique aspects. However, I don't see a lot of physical descriptions. I see you explain what type of guy or girl they are, but you don't do a lot of 'his blue eyes' or 'her dark hair'. I know you have a cast list at the beginning of the story, but you should definitely still include physical descriptions.

Your scenes are described very well! I feel like I'm right there with the rain in the first chapter and I really feel what your characters are feeling. Excellent job here.

8/10

Originality: (plot & tone)

Your plot is not overly unique; there's a lot of books on Wattpad like this. However, you do have something going for you: the way the tone is written.

You appear to be writing in the all-knowing perspective of a narrator such as yourself- because you say 'I' in your narration. There are not a lot of books like this.

There is a problem with that perspective of writing that I want to make you aware of. Often, that all-knowing narrator perspective is used strictly in fantasy, and here's why: when the narrator says 'I' throughout the story, we don't exactly know who is telling the story until the end, where we find out the mother of the main character is the narrator or another third party that adds shock value. Think of a movie where you have a voiceover and we find out in the end who the voiceover is.

This is tough to explain, so I'll give you an example. The movie The Polar Express (I tried to pick a movie that's very popular that you might know) is narrated by the main character in his older years- but we don't find that out until the end of the movie. This is the perspective you're writing in.

So, my question to you is: who is telling your story? When you say 'I', who is that referring to? If it's yourself, that's interesting, but it's something I don't think a lot of other readers will go for, just because it doesn't make a lot of sense. For example, you wouldn't see a movie narrated by the producer (if it's fiction), because that wouldn't really make sense. What would the producer have to do with that fictional story? You should ask yourself the same thing. Where do you, or whoever is saying 'I' fit into your story?

Definitely look into your perspective and tone that you're using and break down what you want from it. Really ask yourself who is telling this story and if we'll ever get details on them. If it's just you you're referring to when you say 'I', consider switching to simple third person and take out the 'I's'. Below, I'll explain how to make your story third person if that's what you want.

I read some of your comments, and you seem to think you're writing in third person, but you aren't. You seem to want to write in third person, so if that's what you want to do, you should go check out some stories that are written in third person to get an idea of what that's like. Basically, you just can't say 'I' when you're narrating. There are two types of third person:

1.Omniscient third person: this means the narrator understands the feelings and thoughts of all characters. They have access to the head and hearts of all characters in a situation.

2.Limited third person: this means the narrator understands the feelings and thoughts of only one character. They cannot access the heads of any other character- unless you switch perspectives between chapters or timeskips. The point being you have to pick one character or the other, until you change chapters or timeskip.

I write in limited for the most part, but sometimes I'll throw in an omniscient statement like: 'And if he had thought a little harder, he would've realized that she really meant something else.' So technically, I switch between the two. I also switch to my antagonist's perspective once in a while, but I always split that up with a timeskip or a new chapter. If you want to write from this perspective, you should check out how other people do it to make it more clear. Both chapters 14 and 19 in my book switch perspectives and will provide you with some explanation of how it works. You won't understand the plot but just look at the perspective and view of the story. It might help. I can recommend other published books written in this perspective as well.

Remember that if you want the 'I's' in there, you can keep them! I just thought I'd explain to you that you are not, actually, in third person and why. You are in some kind of cool tone you've developed that I'd call all-knowing first person. If you want to write in this, I'd recommend reading a book written from this perspective. The Eye of the Dragon by Stephen King is written in that all-knowing first person, and it's a rather easy read. Notice how he says 'I', but also has access to all the character's feelings and heads, as you do in your narration.

7/10

Final Comments:

I see this book developing quite well! You have some issues with dialogue that need to be rectified, but those are an easy fix. Your characters are coming along quite nicely, and your story develops at a wonderful pace. Keep editing and creating- and don't forget to think a little more about the perspective your story is written in.

Final score:

42/60