Golden Pear

Witto150

Initial Impression: (cover, title & blurb)

I like the uniqueness of your cover and the originality of it. I really love the depth and the detail that it has. It gives me more of a simple, contemporary vibe than the style your story runs in, but I actually kind of like that. It's different, and that's the way to go on Wattpad.

On to your title. It's again, quite unique. I don't have any problems with it, but I am confused as to why it says 'The Golden Pear' on the cover, but only 'Golden Pear' in the true title. I personally like it with the 'the', but you should consider picking one to stick with, just for cohesiveness.

I do like your blurb, but below I'm going to completely rewrite it and pretty much make it seem like I hate everything about it. I promise, I don't. I just think it needs to be reorganized to be the most effective it can be. For starters, I never recommend starting with a name in your blurb. It makes no sense to us readers yet, and you don't want to waste the limited space you have in a thumbnail blurb on anything other than captivating material. So although I like your first paragraph, I would prefer it to be a little more snappier and a tad more dramatic. Including the second part of your blurb, I find the whole description to be a bit too long. I also don't like the formatting–how you chose to split the first bit from the second. I think it just ruins the drama and the invitation to read more. Below, I've shortened your blurb and took out the info I thought was unnecessary.

The golden pear is enchanted to provide either wisdom, beauty or power. Freya chooses to throw it away.

Freya is freakish and weird–but not because her flaming red hair, green eyes or biracial heritage. It's the burnt half of her face that sets her apart—the reason she was bullied and taunted endlessly into being hardened.

But her life turns upside-down when she receives the golden pear. All she needs to do is give it to one of three guys to receive a great bargain in return: endless knowledge, everlasting beauty or unmatched strength.

But not every gift brings happiness.

Here's a list of what I did to your blurb:

- Shortened and dramatized the beginning.

- Took out non-essential descriptions or information, including Freya's last name.

- Reorganized the info.

- Reorganized the order of the words in the first sentence to match the order of the words in the second to last line.

As always, you can copy/paste this blurb, or you can change what you don't like. But I would recommend taking your current blurb and reorganize and shorten it. Your blurb was quite good, it just wasn't as snappy as I think it could be.

13/15

Logistics: (grammar, spelling & dialogue)

You have a (rather infrequent) comma problem, like pretty much everyone. You have most commas down, but the comma before 'and' gives you trouble sometimes. I think my tips will help this to never be a problem in the future.

First off, you should know what dependent and independent clauses are. PLEASE don't scroll past this part just because I used those scary words (like I would always do with reviewers before I found the bravery to figure them out). I promise, I won't make them confusing.

An independent clause refers to the part of a sentence that can stand completely apart from the rest of the sentence. It can be its own sentence.

A dependent clause is the opposite. It relies on the independent part of the sentence to make sense.

I think you understand this concept. Usually, a sentence is structured independent clause, dependent clause, in that order. Like this sentence:

I went to the store and bought bananas.

'I went to the store.' Independent – it makes sense on its own.

'bought bananas.' Dependent – it makes no sense on its own.

So. A comma ONLY goes before 'and' if the two clauses linked by the and are both independent. Examples:

'I went to the store and bought bananas.' – no comma before 'and' because (as stated above) 'bought bananas' is not independent.

'I went to the store, and I bought bananas.' – comma is included before and because both sentences are independent (I made this happen by adding the subject, 'I', to the second clause).

BUT!! I didn't find problems with your story in these situations. You almost always do it right and if you don't, it's infrequent enough to simply be a mistake.

However, some sentences are NOT structured independent clause, dependent clause. Instead, they are backwards (dependent clause, independent clause)

When this happens, sometimes we forget the comma before 'and' rules. This is a sentence from your chapter 2:

'They could have a vegetable for their face, and she wouldn't notice.'

Looking at that first clause:

'They could have a vegetable for their face.' – dependent!! This is where you make the mistake. This sentence doesn't make sense on its own. They could what?? We don't know without the second part.

So therefore, since one of the clauses is dependent, the comma before 'and' shouldn't be there.

NOTE!! This works for words like 'but' as well.

But how do you find those? I understand it's unrealistic to look for dependent and independent clauses throughout your entire book. I most definitely don't. How did I find this mistake in your book? I read through it, went, wait—something isn't right there. I just felt wrong, so then I checked the clauses. If you read through your writing and something just doesn't feel right, check that comma for the clauses. I feel as though your writing is developed enough that you will be able to find them that way. If you deal with commas enough, you'll just know eventually, and you'll never have to deal with a clause again! Unless you become a reviewer and end up explaining them all over again.

Moving on. Occasionally, I find some of your sentences need to be reordered to improve your clarity. Let me show you what I mean, from chapter 1:

'But not even now, Freya reacted.'

I think you were trying to say that Freya didn't react, but this made it seem like she did react somehow. It's just a bit confusing. I'd restructure it like this:

'But not even now did Freya react.'

That makes a lot more sense to me. However, since that sentence is a bit awkward in my head, I would write something like this:

'Still, Freya didn't react.'

They're just small things, but they really affect clarity. I noticed this a few times, but they were all easy fixes.

Another example, from chapter 2:

'It didn't take an hour, and they gained a nickname.' Another example here of that comma before 'and' scenario. The first clause is dependent (it didn't take an hour), so no comma there. Below I make the sentence independent and add the comma.

That sentence is slightly confusing. I'd fix it like this:

'It had only been an hour, and yet they'd gained a new nickname.'

Moving on to the last issue. We know double quotation marks are "", and single quotation marks are ''. Double quotations are used for dialogue, and single quotations are used for dialogue in dialogue, such as:

She said, "And then he told me he 'didn't have the time' to go out tomorrow."

The above rules are agreed upon by the whole world. But when we're writing words that should be in quotations but are not dialogue, such as "Pushing Freaka Around" from chapter 2, the world does not agree on what type to use. I've done so much research and I cannot figure out what to do about these quotations. But as I understand it, for the phrase above, Canada and the UK would use single quotes, and America would use double.

However, the Canadian method is preferable to me. Why? Because if you use single quotes for that phrase, readers will never be confused if it's dialogue or not. It's just a way to avoid that problem. However, both work. Just be consistent with what you do, which you are. I just thought I'd bring it to your attention.

Despite taking a lot of words and space to explain your logistical issues, you have hardly any. You have no spelling errors that I could find, and your dialogue is near perfect.

The one issue I found was when your dialogue ends with either an exclamation mark or a question mark, such as this from chapter three:

"Select mule...What?" Their youngest brother asked.

When dialogue ends with a question mark, the dialogue tag still starts with a lowercase unless it's a name. So the correction would be:

"Select mule...what?" their youngest brother asked.

I'm not sure if you made this mistake because you were confused about the question mark or because you didn't realize that 'their youngest brother asked' was still a dialogue tag. It is! But it's a bit of a weird case, I'll admit, and you barely ever had another situation like this.

Extra note: that 'what' shouldn't be capitalized. If it were an entire new sentence after those three dots, it would be. But if it's just the word, it stays as a lowercase.

12/15

Story Flow: (transitions & pacing)

Your transitions are slightly abrupt. Only slightly. It's really not a problem. But I didn't really like the timeskip in the first chapter right before it ended. It just threw me off a bit. So I'd take away the timeskip. The way you ended the chapter was fine, and the way you began the second was well done. But that one transition was a little weird. Then again, the second chapter ended slightly abruptly as well. It could've been done slightly smoother and more finalistic. I have no problems with the beginnings of your chapters, only the ends.

However, it was an isolated issue in flow. Your story flows like you've brushed all the kinks out of it. The pacing is perfect—the way we get to meet the boys in the first chapter and then they show up again in the second in a way that was really well-crafted.

Your pacing moves along at an ideal pace—I don't feel overwhelmed but enough is happening that I'm not bored. I was really excited with the pacing here.

9/10

Description: (characters & scenes)

I have nothing but praise for this section. Nothing, and I really went back to your descriptions to see if there was anything I could pick apart about them. There isn't. Your creation of Freya is incredibly vivid. You describe characters physically and emotionally, and you add in unique descriptions that just made me squeal with joy. Ueno's description especially was brief and quick, but it gave us everything we needed to make a fresh new character.

Again, with scenes, you give us everything that is necessary. Nothing less, nothing more. I'm the most dramatically descriptive person ever, but you write scenes beautifully and dramatically like it's effortless.

10/10

Originality: (plot & tone)

Your plot is quite obviously ridiculously unique and original; I'm not going to waste words telling you that. It's super cool.

But talking about tone, I have to wonder what perspective your story is in. Quick rundown of the types, just in case you're not familiar:

- Third person (limited)—telling the story from a narrative point of view, but only accesses one character's head.

- Third person (omniscient)—telling the story from a narrative point of view, with accesses to all character's heads.

So I'm a bit confused as to which third person you land in. Your story appears to be in limited, switching between Freya's POV and the boys' between chapters. But the following sentences lead me to believe it's omniscient (meaning you switch POV's in the middle of chapters instead of after a timeskip or chapter end):

'However, if she would spare one more glance to the sky, she might see white puffs turning black as lighting enveloped them.'

The above line is not told from Freya's point of view, like the rest of the chapter. Ex. 2:

'The boys' heartbeat sped up, expecting the decisive moment to hit them any second now.'

Again, not told from Freya's point of view. So these things lead me to believe you're in omniscient. However, you access the other character's heads so infrequently that I'm wondering if you didn't realize you did it at all. If you didn't realize—that's fine. You can keep it the way it is. It might confuse or be weird for some readers, but it's not too bad. Or you can take those parts out and rewrite them to make the perspective strictly limited to Freya.

Or, if you do know you're in omniscient, I think you could do more with it. Get into more character's heads. It's pretty tough to write that way, but it's really rewarding. I'd just think about it a bit and figure out what's going on. Again, your story works just fine the way it is, I just thought I would bring attention to it.

Your tone is lovely and original. It's exciting and refreshing. I have nothing but praise for the way you write.

10/10

Final Comments:

This story is unique and original, written with an advanced style and a beautiful tone. I fell in love with Freya and sympathized with her problems. There are very minuscule things to fix with your logistics and blurb, but they pale in comparison to your lovely writing. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to review this book. Since you got over fifty points, I'll add this story to my reading list!

Final score:

54/60