Orient Express written by athenelar

Eleusinia Shrine written by athenelar

Note! These are two short stories. For organizational purposes, I'll assess things like story flow and plot separately, but I'll put all logistical errors together. I'll use OE for Orient Express and ES for Eleusinia Shrine. I gave separate marks for each and then averaged them.

i. COVERS & TITLES

Not all readers may agree with me here, but I love your covers. I like that they all match and follow the same format. I'm a big fan of vibrant colours on dark backgrounds, so I firmly believe that these covers are effective. I say not all may agree because they are a little simplistic. I would recommend making the subtitle more visible--I couldn't read them at all. I would send the current designs you have to an artist and see what they could do for brightening them up. I have a reading list full of artists that would love to take on this project.

The titles of your short stories are wonderful and concise. They very clearly represent the story and aren't too abstract. I have no issues with your titles.

ii. BLURBS

Both of your blurbs are super tiny little one-sentence descriptions. Although I like the mystery of them, I'd have to recommend lengthening them. You could keep what you have, then add in a divider and do a light description below. It might just make readers more likely to click on the story if they have some extra info.

OE: 1 1 / 1 5   ES: 1 1 / 1 5

Final: 1 1 / 1 5

i. GRAMMAR

You have very few grammar errors. I only found two:

PROBLEM #1: THE DASH

You do not use the dash much, but I found plenty of instances where you could, and it would enhance the flow of the story. See these explained below:

Examples from OE:

Example #1: 'On one damp morning, when his parents were out teaching in the local school, Augustus came to the conclusion that he was finally old enough to go on an adventure on his own. Just like his favourite legendary outlaw, Robin Hood.'

Suggested correction: 'One damp morning, when his parents were out teaching in the local school, Augustus came to the conclusion that he was finally old enough to go on an adventure on his own—Just like his favourite legendary outlaw, Robin Hood.'

The addition of the dash here allows the sentence to flow better. Also, I took away the 'on one damp morning' and changed it to 'one damp morning'. It's just a bit smoother that way.

Example #2: 'From what he could see from under the leather seats, one man seemed to be a meagre worker albeit a good looking one.'

Suggested correction: 'From what he could see from under the leather seats, one man seemed to be a meagre worker—albeit a good-looking one.'

This is the same as the first--it's just a bit better. Also a note: good-looking is spelt with a hyphen in the middle.

Example from ES:

'...that the dainty woman came second to none, not even to the Goddess of Spring herself.'

Correction: '...that the dainty woman came second to none—not even to the Goddess of Spring herself.'

PROBLEM #2: THE SEMICOLON

Again, you don't use the semicolon, but there are places where you need to. Remember, a semicolon is used to separate two independent but still related clauses. This means it works in place of a period.

Example from ES:

'Sure, she didn't know the first thing about him but she wanted to, she wanted to be intimate and cherish him like the flowers of her garden.'

The correction would be to add in the comma before the conjunction and put that semicolon in place of the comma:

'Sure, she didn't know the first thing about him, but she wanted to; she wanted to be intimate and cherish him like the flowers of her garden.'

ii. FORMATTING & SPELLING ERRORS

Nothing is wrong with your formatting. As for spelling, you have the occasional slip-up. As I already mentioned, 'good-looking' has a hyphen between the words, and in addition, 'breathtaking' is just one work. Those are the only errors I found--and none were simple typos. I was very impressed with the clear editing.

iii. DIALOGUE

You have one issue with dialogue, and that's the mistake of using an action tag as a dialogue tag. An action tag describes an action, but a dialogue tag describes the way the dialogue is being said.

Examples of action tags: he grinned, she grit her teeth, I took a step forward.

Examples of dialogue tags: he said, she protested, I shouted.

Example from OE:

"Shouldn't you be rotting in jail for life? But here you are, going through documents of your 'supposed' company," he clicked his tongue, walking towards the window.

'He clicked his tongue' is not a dialogue tag, it is an action tag. Therefore, the comma should be a period and 'he' should be capitalized. Correction:

"Shouldn't you be rotting in jail for life? But here you are, going through documents of your 'supposed company." He clicked his tongue.

Example from ES:

"He's home after so long. So I thought it would be nice to give my flowers," Kora turned to look at the blossoms that she put her heart and soul into.

Do you see how 'Kora turned to look...' does not describe the way the words are being spoken? That means it is an action tag, and therefore it should be treated as another sentence. That means the comma should be a period. Correction:

"He's home after so long. So I thought it would be nice to give my flowers." Kora turned to look at the blossoms that she put her heart and would into.

OE: 1 3 / 1 5   ES: 1 2 / 1 5

Final: 1 2 . 5 / 1 5

i. TRANSITIONS

The transitions of both your stories are easy to read and smooth. However, there is an aspect of story flow I'd like to put your attention on. This is a sentence from OE:

'From what he could see from under the leather seats, one man seemed to be a meagre worker albeit a good looking one.'

Do you notice how you used 'from' twice only a few words apart? That's not a good thing for flow, but it's very hard to fix. I had a lot of trouble reworking this sentence, but this is what I came up with eventually:

'His view from under the leather seats allowed him to see one man, a seemingly meagre worker—albeit a good-looking one.'

So again I added in that dash, but looking at the beginning of the sentence, I rearranged it to take out one of the 'froms'. Although it might take a minute, it's definitely a good idea to try and find stuff like this in your stories and fix them up.

ii. PACING

I really do not have anything to say for pacing. Especially for a short story, I never once felt the pacing to be rushed at all. I was extremely impressed with the way you managed to introduce characters and plotlines with only a few words and smooth transitions.

OE: 0 9 / 1 0   ES: 0 8 / 1 0

Final: 0 8 . 5 / 1 0

i. CHARACTERS & SCENES

Literally cannot find anything to critique here. If you've read any of my other reviews, you know that I usually pile this section with paragraphs of explanation and criticism. But your characters are described so beautifully and so smoothly with the little space you have to work with. I felt the vividity of the little boy from OE, and especially the girl from ES. Your description of her was just phenomenal. And again, so were your scenes. You introduced sound, smell, taste and touch. You have picture-perfect word choice. I even put both of these sections into one because I had nothing to say.

OE: 1 0 / 1 0   ES: 1 0 / 1 0

Final: 1 0 / 1 0

i. PLOT

OE:

The plot of Orient Express was well-developed, and I definitely see how readers would like it. However, I think there's potential to make it more intricate. Maybe the murderer is someone he knows? It might give us more satisfaction in the ending. Otherwise, your plot was very well-crafted.

ES:

This plot I have less to say about. I think the way you brought them together was easy and smooth, and you managed to avoid all the cringe-worthy cliches that this story could have easily become. 

ii. TONE

The tone of both these stories is vividly unique and easy to read. The word choice is broad but not overwhelming, and the descriptions are beautiful but not too much. You easily switch perspectives from character to character in ways that are satisfying to me as the reader. You write in a way that is truly lovely.

OE: 0 8 / 1 0   ES: 0 9 / 1 0

Final: 0 8 . 5 / 1 0

Both of these stories brought me satisfaction and enjoyment. The way you write is unique and beautiful in many ways. I think there are a few things to improve, such as the overall plot of Orient Express and those very minuscule errors in logistics. Overall, the structure of Orient Express was a little more developed than Eleusinia Shrine. However, both of these stories should have more reads in my opinion. Since you received a collective mark over 50 points, I'll add both these stories to my reading list!

OE: 5 1 / 6 0   ES: 5 0 / 6 0

Final: 5 0 . 5 / 6 0