Falling Skies

giki18

Initial Impression: (cover, title & blurb)

Your cover is awesome! It's exactly the kind of book I'd pick up in the bookstore, and I believe it could be quite successful on Wattpad as well. Only thing is that the title is a little hidden. I like it. But that is something to keep in mind.

Your title makes sense. It's a little common, but it seems to fit your book so well that I wouldn't change it. I think you've done a good job here.

Your blurb is...almost perfect. I like the small paragraphs to maintain interest and I really like the repetition and the drama, but I do think it can be edited a bit. First off, I always recommend a short snappy sentence to begin, but I like your whole first paragraph. With that being said, as cool as 'Sky Fall' sounds, it doesn't actually mean anything to us quite yet. I would try restructuring that sentence just to make it alluring to all audiences. Maybe something like this:

No one expected the stars to disappear.

See that is a sentence that captures attention, and it makes sense to everyone. Other than that, your blurb has really good bones. I don't want to minimize that. But there are some awkward sentences, like 'and no one expected what the Sky Fall would bring with it'. You could probably rework that so the 'with it' gets crossed out. It would just sound cleaner. And lastly, I don't like ending blurbs with a question. BUT I really like the way you end yours, so I am impressed with that.

Here, I've edited your blurb by reworking some sentences I thought were wonky and shortening it as much as I can:

No one expected the stars to disappear. No one expected them to crash into Earth and render it useless.

No one expected humanity to survive the burning blasts by rebuilding itself and fighting with strength only the human race has.

And no one expected what the Sky Fall would bring: an opening to a new world, a doorway allowing unspeakable creates to finally cross their way onto Earth.

Haven- a corporate laboratory created to expect the unexpected- has one purpose: to reverse the effects of the Sky Fall and close the doorway for good.

But how far are you willing to go to do the right thing? How do you destroy a monster without becoming one?

So here I've just tried to clean up some sentences, but perhaps you still like yours better, that's okay. I realize I never quite explained Sky Fall, but I think the name itself combined with the beginning sentences is self-explanatory.

12/15

Logistics: (grammar, spelling & dialogue)

You have a few grammar issues. Nothing huge, but I do notice some awkward sentences. Let's look at a sentence from chapter one:

'There's a familiarity in it, a warm flooding through his veins that one gets when thinking about their childhood home or Christmas dinner with their parents.'

Okay, so that's an awesome comparison and shows how good of a writer you are. But it took me a couple tries to get through that sentence. It's not really clear enough- at least not for a super picky reader like me. You have a few instances like this. Here's another from chapter two that I thought was choppy:

'The hallway is too bright, a hand instinctively coming up to shield him from its onslaught as he makes his way straight down the hall, passing a few glass windows and doors on the way.'

There's just something about the tenses you use here and the comma use that I find confusing, and I think other readers might agree. Reworking awkward sentences is mostly just an experience thing and a matter of vigorous editing. I reworked both of these sentences so you can compare and see if you find mine easier to read:

'There's a familiarity in it; warm floods through his veins in a way one gets when thinking about their childhood home or Christmas dinner with their parents.'

'The hallway is too bright- so bright a hand instinctively comes up to shield him from its onslaught as he makes his way straight down the hall, passing a few glass windows and doors on the way.'

So the main thing here is switching up your punctuation as well as using words like 'comes up' instead of 'coming up' because they fit your story tense better.

You have a few common mistakes you make as for spelling. For one, you have to remember that 'it's' is a combination of the words 'it' and 'is', and 'its' is the possessive form, so when you use it in this way in chapter one:

'it's glass is slightly cracked'

You should use 'its' there (without the '). If you ever get confused with this rule, just read it out loud. 'It is glass is slightly cracked' wouldn't make sense, and you would probably see that as soon as you read it that way.

I...think you have problems with your dialogue tags but I'm not really sure because you don't use them a lot and it's difficult to tell between your action tags and dialogue tags since you say 'groaned' a lot and 'growls' and those can be both. I'm not going to give you my big dialogue tag spiel because I think you might know about that already? If you're unsure, please go to one of my other reviews- the second and third ones- I explain dialogue tags thoroughly.

Although I think you understand dialogue tags, you don't use them correctly all the time. For example, from chapter three:

"Am I next?" He whispers, voice choking on the words halfway through his short speech.

So what I think went wrong here is that you understand dialogue tags for the most part, and you simply forgot/didn't know that even if the dialogue ends with something other than a period (question mark, exclamation mark), the dialogue tag should still start with a lowercase. Here's the correction:

"Am I next?" he whispered, voice choking on the words halfway through his short speech.

So maybe familiarize yourself with the rules once more just to be sure. Overall, your logistics is pretty good. The biggest thing is those awkward sentences.

11/15

Story Flow: (transitions & pacing)

I think your transitions are a little odd. For example, your first and second chapters are split up even though I don't find that they really need to be. As a writer, you should end a chapter because it feels natural, not for any other reason. Yes, Wattpad is a scary place and people don't want to read long chapters. But if we're being honest, if your story is edited thoroughly and your chapters are long but your plot is good, people will read your story. What matters is that the writing and the development are written in a way that makes sense for the story- not because of Wattpad's algorithm. Of course it's important but it's not what's most important. To give you some comparison, an average book chapter length out in the real world is about 3000-4000 words. I usually find mine averaging at about 3500, but I have some that are only 300 words and some that top 5000. This ends up happening because certain events just end up being shorter and certain events end up being longer. It's natural for that to happen and it also keeps readers interested.

So with that being said: here's my suggestion. Make your first and second chapter the same one. Your second chapter ends very naturally- I liked that. So you can definitely end it there. Try to hold your transitions to a standard that fits your story. A story like yours should be read by people who really want to read it because of the incredible writing and plot. Not because they're too lazy to read a long chapter.

Your pacing in the first chapter is a little slow- but most books are like that. It's very hard to not do that. But as I'm writing this I'm also thinking that there was lots of action in the first chapter, so maybe I don't agree with what I just said. I thought it was at first. Now I'm confused. Anyway, if it was a little slow, it wasn't too bad. I think you've done a good job of pacing- especially in the second and third chapters.

7/10

Description: (characters & scenes)

Your scene description is INCREDIBLE. So much sensory detail it's amazing! I'm in love with it. You incorporate taste and smell and sight in the most beautiful metaphors. As a fellow metaphor-er, I was in love with your writing. Maybe even a little jealous?

Your character description isn't as cool. You don't have much. I think this is just an oversight because I know you can describe very well (see praise above) but you just don't do it with characters. That's not saying your character development and personality isn't vivd- because it is. Correct me if I missed it somehow, but I just don't see a lot of eye colour or hair colour or face shape or anything. That's very important. Perhaps go back and add some of that to make your story even better.

7/10

Originality: (plot & tone)

So obviously your plot is incredible. It's unique. It reminds me a bit of the Andromeda Strain by Micheal Chrichton but written better (I REALLY like Micheal Chrichton so I hope you understand how big that praise was). You have a beautiful way of writing in a dramatic, sensory-stimulating way. You obviously know where your plot is going and you develop really vivid characters (other than physical description). What I like about your plot is that it starts off so simple. The worst thing is reading the blurb and knowing the plot will be good but having to get through all that confusing stuff in the beginning. But I can tell your plot might get more complicated as it goes, which is honestly the best kind of plot.

I think your tone is unique. It's dramatic and well-developed. Very good tone. Only thing is those awkward sentences take away from it.

9/10

Final Comments:

This plot is very unique. You've done a phenomenal job of creating something so beautifully unique and yet also rather simple to understand. You have some issues with dialogue and grammar and you have the occasional spelling mistake. But those things are fixed rather easily. The really important and influential things- the plot, tone and originality- are very well done. Try reworking some sentences and fixing up your logistics in order to make this book even more appealing. I'm excited to see where this book goes!

Final score:

46/60