Homosexually Straight written by sarcastic-mess

i. COVER & TITLE

You have a rare thing I call a perfect cover. It's clean, interesting, represents your genre but also has a hint of originality to it with the colour and style. I think it might look better with the title in white, but I'm also not sure if it would be better--it would just be slightly easier to read, is all. Other than that, perfect.

Your title is contradictory, which is a very unique way to grab attention. I have no problems here.

ii. BLURB

Main blurb problem? The length. The writing is good, it's intriguing, but it's too long to maintain a reader's attention. It's scary to readers right off the bat. We all have the urge to make our blurbs long, but try to avoid it. The problem arises when you have a really good long blurb, and you just don't know how to shorten it--because you like most of it. Luckily for you, I just finished shortening a 2k word lab discussion into 750 words. I'm in the mood for some summation.

Summation/shortening tips:

Don't use one of the blurb outlines you'll find online. Most reviewers recommend this, I don't. The whole 'name of the protagonist' does 'the action' in order to accomplish 'the goal' is boring, and it's overused. We want snappiness. Something that catches attention.

Start with a one-liner. This is easier than it looks, and you actually have a good one hidden right in your blurb already. Actually, you have a couple: "She's normal, and she tells herself it every day." and "We hide our honest feelings just to be stereotypically normal." These one-liners are excellent hooks, and they also connect to the story and the main idea in a very obvious way.

You have to part with some things you love. Most of your blurb is so fun and creative that I had a tough time parting with some of the lines. It's really sad, but it has to be done. If you want, include a longer blurb in the starting chapters if you just can't fathom getting rid of them entirely.

Make use of longer sentences, lists, and semicolons. Each new sentence requires a subject and filler words. If you take two sentences and make them one, you're immediately shortening them.

Just rewrite it. Over and over. I had to rewrite your blurb probably two or three times to get it to what I'm going to show you, and I literally write blurb-like introductions every day for school and for reviews. The blurb just needs to be reworked. It's the way it goes.

End with something that connects to the title. This is always a good idea. It gives the reader the feeling of finality. It's the perfect way to establish how good you are at making a story. Also, don't end with a question. Just don't do it. Don't. Questions aren't as final as it seems. They leave things open-ended, and believe it or not, that's not effective with blurbs. We want a story from your blurb, which means we want an ending.

Don't include last names, nor the names of anyone that isn't absolutely essential. Last names are confusing, peripheral names are just taking up valuable space in your reader's memory. We really don't need them as the reader. Just get rid of them. They don't need to be there. The ideal blurb uses only one name, near the end.

With all those things in mind, here's how I wrote your blurb, keeping in your style and only stringing and summing  up parts:

She's normal, and she tells herself it every day.

Kirlia has to take drastic measures to prove her normalcy--because the world only sees her as a weirdo for being brought up by a gay couple. Her two dads are her life, and she's forever grateful, but the arrival of puberty brought with it a jar of insecurities. And insecurities are hard to ignore, especially when her locker at school ends up trashed--covered in rainbow streamers and tons of sparkly "gay" glitters. Infuriated, Kirlia's dads collectively decide to make her switch schools--to Pride High School.

The problem? Kirlia is straight, and everyone hates straights at Pride High, a school established to provide an environment for those discriminated against for their gender preferences. Caught up in a mix of "heterophobes", it's hard to dodge them as well as a school gang named "The Scandalous Six" for their disapproval of genders. But Kirlia, being rather scandalous herself, comprises her own gang of weirdos to become her beam of sanity.

And between all the chaos of attraction and prejudices, Kirlia is starting to wonder if normalcy is really the goal.

So this blurb is shorter, more to the point, and gives only what I found to be essential. This isn't so scary by nature of length, and I also find it easier to follow. Do what you want with it, or hate it. But I would recommend following the above tips to condense and narrow your blurb.

1 3 / 1 5

i. PUNCTUATION

#1: THE DASH

One day, I will rid this platform of every single hyphen user. I will. 

Again, you're probably saying, Tari, using the wrong dash is literally just a formatting error. I really don't care.

Care. The moment an advanced reader sees you using the right dash, they go, okay, this author knows what they're doing. It's such an easy way to draw respect from your readers. And it drives me INSANE reading a story that doesn't have the right dash. ChANGE THEM. Okay, I swear that's as aggressive as I get in this review. Here's the dash rundown:

The hyphen (-) is what you currently use in place of what should be the EM dash. The hyphen is for hyphenated words only, such as long-term or father-in-law. The hyphen is just one press of the dash button.

The en dash (–) is the slightly larger dash. It is used only as formatting in chapter titles or things like that. It is not used in creative writing unless you're writing something science-based in dialogue. It is typed by typing a word, a space, a hyphen, then another space, then the next word. Programs like Word or Google Docs will then elongate it for you (Wattpad will NOT) Examples: The distillation went from 80 – 90 degrees.

The em dash (—) is the big kahuna of dashes and the one you should be using where you use the hyphen. It is used to indicate interruption of dialogue, interruption of thoughts, or to add or clarify something in creative writing. It is typed by typing a word, NO SPACE, TWO hyphens, then NO SPACE, then the next word. Word or Google Docs will then elongate it for you. Be careful--Wattpad won't, hence why my dashes on here look like they do. If you look at my actual stories, which I paste in from word, you'll see my dash look right. Change your dashes. I promise it's worth it.

#2: THE COMMA

You misplace your commas quite a bit. Sometimes, you had too many commas, which is very dangerous because it hyperventilates your readers. Other times, your lack of commas deprived them of air.

Your big problem is commas before conjunctions. Conjunctions are words such as 'and', 'but', 'as' and so forth--they link clauses. If they're used between two independent clauses, a comma goes before them. If one of the clauses is dependent, you DO NOT use a comma before the conjunction.

Examples:

"I think I like him, but I'm not sure how to tell him." (both clauses are independent, the conjunction 'but' gets a comma.)

"He's a really rude person but quite smart." (the second clause, 'quite smart' is missing a subject and is therefore dependent. Because of that, this conjunction gets no comma.

ii. RUN-ONS

Your big problem with your story is your run-on sentences, created because you have too many clauses. Look here, from chapter one:

'At first, I was too naive to understand what rumours were being circulated about me, but then it soon crashed upon me, ate me up from within because my parents had to fight off with almost everyone to stay with each other, but they never thought about the fact that I might get affected too.

That's a run-on, and it needs some editing. How to fix? Split up the sentences. That's all. Here:

'At first, I was too naive to understand what rumours were being circulated about me until it crashed upon me and ate me up from within. My parents had to fight off almost everyone to stay with each other, but they never thought about the fact that I might get affected, too.'

Easy. Just split em up and call it a day. Try avoiding more than one conjunction a sentence--I found most often you had an 'and', then a 'because' or 'as', then another 'and/but'.

iii. DIALGOUE

Most of your dialogue is right, but you still have one problem left to conquer. In the case that dialogue ends with a question mark, the dialogue tag still needs to begin with a lowercase. Here, from your book:

"So, you are straight?" He queried.

That question mark doesn't change the fact that the dialogue tag is a continuation of the sentence, and it needs to be lowercased. Correction:

"So, you are straight?" he queried.

0 8 / 1 5

i. PACING

Your pacing is fine in my opinion, and it gets moving quickly, which I like. I think the ending of the first chapter was slightly rushed, and just a tad more internal conflict would work to spread it out, but it was pretty good the way it was. As for the rest of your story, I found you moved on and transitioned pretty smoothly.

ii. SENTENCE STRUCURE

Your story doesn't flow well for one reason: the run-ons. You have too many 'as's' that are making your sentences too long and therefore confusing. Again, easy fix. Just split em up. Keep your sentences to two or possibly three clauses. 

0 6 / 1 0

i. CHARACTERS

You write in first person--so how in the world are you supposed to describe your character in a way that is natural? You've figured this out--mirrors. Unfortunately, putting a mirror in front of your character and describing them that way is not enough. It's not natural, and we know exactly what you're doing. We don't want to know that you've now decided to describe your character, we just want to find ourselves knowing how they look.

It's a hard thing to do naturally, but as always, Tari has tips. The key to everything: misdirection in the form of comparison.

What does that mean? It means you use something already established, and compare it to what you're trying to describe. For example, I want to get across that one of my characters is really beautiful. Instead of saying "character a is beautiful', I'm going to be sneaky. I'm going to do a comparison with an established character to trick readers into thinking I'm actually throwing an insult. Take this line from my book: (for context, character a is established at this point, and we are now introducing character b)

'The rumours that character a were the most beautiful person in the world were clearly spread by those who hadn't seen character b.'

Do you notice how this seems like a dig at character a--it seems like simple storytelling. In fact, this is actually more heavily referring to character a's fans and how they view him. But that's what I want you to think. Really, I just wanted to tell you that character b is pretty.

There are other ways to use misdirection, and I can show you this with your description of Kirlia. This is what you currently have:

'I peeped at myself through the mirror on the dressing table, trying to take in how I look.

Heavily curled and tangled black hair covered my brown round face and a pair of dark brown eyes looked back at me, which were red and puffy from crying for hours.'

Now this is very obvious, right? We know you're trying to establish how Kirlia looks. Now, let's look at some ways to make it less obvious:

'I caught my gaze in the mirror on the dressing table, hating what I saw. My eyes were so puffy and red from crying that I could barely see their original round shape or their brown colour. It looked like I hadn't brushed the tangles out of my dark hair even once in my life.'

Do you notice how here we're kind of degrading her look? In fact, we're comparing it to how she usually looks. We're making readers think we want to establish that she doesn't look her best right now, but we're subtly telling them her prominent features as well. It's less obvious that this is a description and more like it's just a part of the story, right? The truth is, descriptions need to be just as much of a story as everything else--that's how they become excellent. The rest of your character descriptions were similarly obvious, so I'd go through again and see how to tackle this problem with the above tips.

ii. SCENES

Your scene description isn't bad! I like the description of the gates especially--it was unique and gave us a good feel of the way things looked. Just remember to sprinkle scene description in and don't give it to us all at once.

0 7 / 1 0

i. PLOT

I think your plot is really original. It's clear you're not being safe, and that's a good way to gather attention. I like what you're going for--you have a main character who is clearly an LGBTQ ally, but she's actually being bullied by the people she's always supported. It shows that no side is entirely faultless, a very human, very interesting concept. 

Here's the deal: I'm as straight as they come, and I naturally don't find myself reading LGBTQ books because of that. But the twist on your book--showing the nasty way teens can be teens regardless of their gender or orientation--is extremely relatable. The internal conflict your main is going through while trying desperately to retain to something concrete is what we all understand, and I can see everyone relating to some part of this book. This way, you've captured a unique audience of both LGBTQ and not. In addition, the approach you have to this whole story is so raw and simple that it's refreshing. You're not just talking about orientation, you're talking about all standards and all aspects of normalcy. 

So to answer your question, your plot will resonate with any decent person with a conscience. 

ii. TONE

Again, your approach to the conflict in this story is very unique, and it's something I haven't seen before. In addition, your tone is written so neutral and so simple that it's very easy to like it. I really enjoy your descriptive way of writing emotions, and you do a wonderful job of depicting inner conflict. Your run-ons sap your tone a little, that's all.

0 9 / 1 0

I think this story could be read very simply, but it also could be read deeper. I think it's catered to all audiences and a lot of ages. It's a fun story with an easy amount of humour and something for everyone. You should try to shorten your blurb, clean up your run-ons and a few comma errors, and try to improve your character descriptions in a way that feel more natural. Overall, this is an interesting, complex story with a lot of great characters.

4 3 / 6 0