Playing With Fire written by june-writes

i. COVER & TITLE

Both your cover and your title are unique and representative of the story. The cover looks very professional, and it's pleasing to the eye. Your title is slightly generic, but when you relate it to the actual story, I like the double meaning behind it.

ii. BLURB

Your blurb has good bones, but it's a bit messy and a little bit long. Let's see what we can do for it.

Your blurb is less of a story and more of a list. It lists the characters, then the overarching plot. That feels like a good idea, until your blurb ends up being more academic than creative. I'd suggest merging everything into one big story. In addition, your first sentence was a run-on--the lack of commas did that to it, but also the conjunctions. Here's what I did for your blurb, and I'll discuss it after.

There's a phoenix trapped inside her body--and a wanted American werewolf knows. What could possibly go wrong?

Ember has far too many secrets--one being that she's a supernatural mythical mix of a phoenix that she is desperately trying to control. And Theo--equally secretive but far better at hiding it--seems to be from nowhere but appears everywhere. Hunters are coming for him under the claim that he brutally murdered his pack, and as much as Ember wants to stop them, she's fighting her own battles. Both Theo and Ember are playing a dangerous game with fire.

It's impossible to know who might get burned.

To start, I've quite obviously shortened the blurb. This is the ideal size for a blurb, as it's nice and small and easy to read. I cleaned up the first sentence because the hook needs to be very clear in order to get attention. I've also merged the two characters and tried to intertwine their stories more. I've also attempted a dramatic finish that relates to the title to give the readers the feeling that they have come full circle.

1 2 / 1 5

You have quite a few logistical errors, but some are less glaring than others. I've organized them into categories for easy finding, but I would recommend fixing your dialogue first, as that is what stuck out the most to me. Anyway, here we go:

i. PUNCTUATION

#1: SEMICOLONS

I found that the semicolon was by far your biggest problem in terms of punctuation. You don't often use it wrong when you do use it, but there were numerous times that you needed one and you had a comma. Just a refresher: A semicolon is used to separate two independent yet still related clauses. An independent clause contains both a subject and a verb. So, in other words, a semicolon could also be a period--the only reason we use the semicolon instead is because the clauses are related. Here are examples from your book:

'It'll be fine, what's the worst that could happen?' 

Both clauses here are independent, but they're related--hence why you chose to use a comma instead of a period. The correct way to do this is use the semicolon instead of the comma.

'That's a wonderful start, every time I look at him, I'll get a neckache.'

Again, the first comma needs to be a semicolon.

'Challis High School in Lake Oldoy, it's a town around 30 miles from here.'

Same situation, this comma should be a semicolon. You had a lot of instances even in the first chapter where you used a comma instead of the semicolon.

#2: COMMAS

You have a pretty good handle on commas, but you still make quite a few mistakes when it comes to commas before conjunctions. The rule is that a comma only goes before a conjunction if the clauses it is linking are both independent. Examples:

'How about you ask me five questions and I will answer them truthfully.'

Okay first of all, you need a question mark here. But that's not the point. Let's look at the 'and' here, linking the clauses 'how about you ask me five questions' and 'I will answer them truthfully.' Because both of those clauses are standalone--they're independent--you need a comma before the conjunction. 

#3: COLONS

A major problem in punctuation here is that you use commas where you should be using other punctuation. Sometimes you need the semicolon, sometimes you need the colon, and other times you need the dash. The colon is used to begin a list or to present something. Here's an example of a time where you needed the colon:

'I'd chosen the right thing, denim shorts, and a cute, patterned t-shirt.'

This sentence is messy for a few reasons. For one, you need a colon in place of the first comma. Second, the second comma shouldn't be there. So the correction should look like this:

'I'd chosen the right thing: denim shorts and a cute, patterned t-shirt.'

#4: DASHES

Continuing on with what I said about your punctuation, you often use commas in place of dashes. You use lots of dashes, so I know you're not avoiding them. Just remember that when you're clarifying something or interrupting your narration, you need dashes rather than commas. Here's a few examples:

'Bouncing around friendship groups as well as crushing on countless boys, none worthy of my attention, had led me to a failure of a relationship...'

Do you notice how here you're interrupting yourself in order to clarify that none of these boys are worth her attention? When that's the case, those commas on either side of that interruption need to be a dash. Dashes are mostly a stylistic choice, but the problem here is that the commas are incorrect, so you either need to use the dash or change something else. I'd recommend the dash.

'I pondered, hoping her mother, my aunt, would be there...'

Again, this is an interruption of the narration to clarify something. The commas around 'my aunt' should be dashes.

ii. FORMATTING

Your only problem with formatting is your dash. You use the EN dash rather than the EM dash, which is a common mistake. I'm going to guess that you're writing on a word document, and you type your world, you type a space, you type a hyphen, then you type another space, and then you go on with your sentence while spellcheck elongates it for you. Unfortunately, that's the wrong type of dash. Here's the correct format for the dash types.

1. The hyphen (-) is used to link words such as 'five-year-old' or 'go-getter.'  

Example: 'He is my son-in-law.'

2. The en dash (–) is the slightly longer hyphen that is used only for stylistic things in creative writing. Otherwise, it's used in science for ranges and such. This is the dash you're using for everything. This dash shouldn't be anywhere in your writing unless it's something like a chapter name.

Example: 'Chapter 1 – Theo'

3. The em dash (—) is the long dash that is used for a few things. It is used either for clarification or interruption in narration as I stated above, but it's also used when you end dialogue due to an interruption.

Examples:

'I can't believe that Mary—someone so nice—would do this to me.'

"What did you—" Mary was cut off.

iii. DIALOGUE

You have dialogue issues. What you're currently doing is inconsistent and incorrect in terms of dialogue tags and action tags. Here's all you need to know to fix this problem:

A dialogue tag is anything that describes the way something is said (ex. he screamed, she whispered, I asked). There are special rules to use these dialogue tags.

An action tag is anything that implies who is speaking by using an action (ex. he grinned, she raised an eyebrow, I blinked). There are no special rules for an action tag--use them like a regular sentence.

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. It simply depends on the context.

Situation 1 Dialgoue tag follows or proceeds dialogue:

"Hello," he said.   OR   He said, "Hello."

For dialogue first, the dialogue ends with a comma, and the dialogue tag begins with a lowercase. For dialogue tag first, the dialogue tag ends with a comma, and the dialogue begins with a capital.

Situation 2 Dialogue tag is followed or proceeded by dialogue with special punctuation: (! or ?)

"Hello!" he said.  OR    He said, "Hello!"

For preceding dialogue, the dialogue ends with the special punctuation, and the dialogue tag begins with a lowercase. For following dialogue, the situation 1 rules apply.

Situation 3 Dialogue is followed or proceeded by a dialogue tag with a capitalized noun:

"Hello," Tari said.  OR   Tari said, "Hello."

Capitliazed nouns do not change the punctuation. Just insert the name instead of the lowercase dialogue tag.

Situation 4 Dialogue tag is place in between two lines of dialogue: (You have choices here)

Option A:  "Hello," he said, "how are you?" 

Option B:  "Hello," he said. "How are you?"  OR   "Hello." He said, "how are you?" (follows situation 1 rules)

Option C:  "Hello!" he said. "How are you?"  OR  "Hello." He said, "How are you!"(follows situation 2 rules)

Options B and C follow regular rules. But if you want your dialogue tag to be in the middle of a continuous sentence, you would follow the format of option A, to use a comma at both ends of the dialogue tag and lowercase the dialogue tag.

Situation 5 Action tag is used in between two lines of dialogue:

"Hello"—Tari waved her hand in greeting—"how are you?"

When action tags are used between  dialogue, they are separated and formatted with em dashes.

Examples from your book to get you started:

"Hi." I said.   Corrected to:   "Hi," I said.

"Great." I grimaced, "You expect me..."   Corrected to:   "Great." I grimaced. "You expect me..." (grimaced is an action tag)

0 9 / 1 5

i. PACING

In terms of flow, pacing is the biggest thing I noticed. I find that a lot happened in chapter one--without us fully knowing the main character. I find that there was a lot of information and backstory dumping to get out Ember's story. I felt like you were trying to get us to know all this stuff so that you could get to the real story. But learning Ember--her backstory, her habits, who she is--that is part of the story, and you should look into introducing all of those things a little slower and a little more naturally. Avoiding info-dumping is so, so hard--especially in fantasy. Luckily, your story follows more of a contemporary genre at first, so you can utilize a lot of things that a fantasy author wouldn't be able to. Use your peripheral characters to showcase Ember's story. Use the fact that you're in first person to tell us unique things about Ember--as they relate to the plot. Don't rush that kind of information. Have Ember's mom scold her about something instead of Ember telling us that her mom can be overbearing. Show, don't tell. Let us learn Ember slowly--we don't need to know everything at once!

In addition, consider slowing the relationship between Theo and Ember down. We learn so much about both of them in so little time, and they already seem established. I found some of the dialogue to be a little chliche-y. It's always worth thinking about how you can make your dialogue a little more unique. Is the question game maybe a little overused? What can you do to make it unique?

ii. AWKWARD SENTENCES

Awkward sentences are the death of a writer, but luckily, there are ways to find them and fix them. I found you had a few sentence I had to read again. First, h ow to find them. In order to find awkward sentences, you either need a) an editor, which is a lot of money, time and trust to put into someone else. I will never let an editor touch my story--even if that's the only way to get it published. When someone else edits your story, they edit your tone. Only you are able to rework sentences with the same style. That being said, some people want editors, and that's fine. However, you can also b) read your story out loud to find sentences that may feel fine in your head, but come out a little distorted out loud or c) get someone else to read your story out loud to you, and see what you want to be more concise. Once you've established a sentence is awkward, let's go over how to fix it. For example:

'I found myself living strongly by the rule that trust takes years to build but seconds to break and an eternity to repair—I had to learn that the hard way.' (I've fixed your dash)

So this is your hook, but it's also a run-on sentence, which is very bad. The actual content here is excellent, but the run-on saps the quality of the hook. However, this is a very easy fix. All you have to doo is recognize that you have too many conjunctions, take one out and replace it with a comma:

'I found myself living strongly by the rule that rust takes years to build, seconds to break and an eternity to repair—I had to learn that the hard way.' (I don't use the oxford comma here, but you could.)

So that was an easy fix. But what if you were simply struggling to rework your awkward sentence? Here are some tips:

Switch up the punctuation. Use a comma, place in a semicolon or use a dash. The dash will fix most awkward sentences.

Flip up your word choice and order. Utilize synonyms, put the verb out front, take away the subject or put in a subject.

Split or combine sentences. If a sentence is choppy, combine it with something else. If a run-on just won't work, split it up.

0 8 / 1 0

i. CHARACTERS

Description info-dumping is almost as hard to avoid as plot info-dumping, but it's FAR easier to fix. I find you info-dumping descriptions a bit, and you lack emotional description--that is, you don't tell us the unique aspects of your characters. Here's your first description of Theo:

'I looked at him properly this time. His eyes were a hazel-blue colour, his hair, dirty blonde, almost brown, his ears were small compared to the prominent jawlines that drastically framed his face, and he was dressed casually in jeans and a tight-fitting t-shirt.'

Disregarding the few grammar problems here, you can immediately see the info-dumping of physical description. If you want to make a big description, that's fine. But you need to remember to include emotional descriptions as well. Emotional descriptions create a character. Below, I'm going to rewrite Theo in a little bit more of an emotional, unique way:

'I looked at him properly this time. He was dressed casually, with his jeans and t-shirt implying he cared very little about his fashion. His face told a different story--striking hazel-blue eyes and a sharp, framing jawline. I wondered if he spent hours gelling his hair, or if it simply looked that effortless when he rolled out of bed in the morning.'

So although we get less physical description from this--readers won't remember more than one or two details about an initial character, anyway--we learn more about Theo as a whole. We feel like he cares very little about the way people see him; we get the sense he's beautiful, and strikingly so. We also learn a little bit about Ember--that she can't quite tell if Theo's beauty is effortless or refined. We've learned more about Theo, and we've told more of a story with description. This is perhaps the most important part of your characters--introducing them. Make sure you do it with originality!

You almost must be careful with contradictions. At times, I got the sense that Theo held himself very confident, but there were times you contradicted that, and I ended up confused as to if Theo was the confident type or the careful type. Although this doesn't seem that important, it really is--if you have readers confused over who your characters really are, we won't end up seeing them as you do. Here's what I mean:

'I looked at him: the awkward way he held himself in a uniform compared to jeans and a tee, the way he should've been disoriented but seemed comfortable, the way he...'

Do you see how you say he holds himself awkward, but then you say he seems comfortable? To me, that's contradictory. Is Theo awkward-looking right now, or is he comfortable? I sort of picture him as very sure of himself, so the awkward comment threw me a bit. Just something to watch out for.

ii. SCENES

I have no problem with the way you describe and introduce scenes--I think you're probably good to leave it exactly the way it is. However, adding a few more sensory details here and there won't hurt. I like the amount of tension you put into each scene--the things you imply and the things you leave for the reader to guess.

0 7 / 1 0

i. PLOT

Your plot isn't...that unique, especially for Wattpad. However, it does have a twist, and this is the kind of story that people on Wattpad want. It's angsty, it has a decently unique spin on something we've seen before, and we get to experience the plot with characters that we relate to and are excited and invested in. I didn't get too far into your plot, so I don't want to judge too harshly. However, I do love the subtle way you introduce Ember's...problem. I felt as though you had a master plot brewing, and perhaps this is the kind of story that comes off as your typical werewolf story, but truly does become something masterful. The hints of storytelling I saw from you imply that this plot will probably turn into something pretty good.

ii. TONE

You have the natural writing gene, but you lack a little bit of originality. I didn't see a lot of literary devices, so your tone comes off pretty simply. Again, people on Wattpad want simplicity, so I have the feeling that your story will probably do well. I like being inside Ember's head, and you've made her loveable through only a few chapters. It's easy to read your story, and it's easy to binge and get excited over!

0 8 / 1 0

So this is a shortlister! Huge congrats to you--that has to feel awesome. I was worried about discouraging you from the Wattys by pointing out all my picky critiques, so I just want to remind you that I am FAR more critical than the Wattys in terms of logistical errors and originality. It is my understanding that they care first and foremost about the actual story--of which I don't fully read in my reviews. So although you have issues to clean up in the logistical section and a few ways I think you can make your story more refined, that shouldn't affect your performance in the Wattys. This is a lovely story, and I'm rooting for you!

4 4 / 6 0