Throne of Dragonix written by Baqkns

i. COVER & TITLE

First things first: your cover. I'm not a HUGE fan, but it has the essentials. It looks pretty professional, but it is lacking. The main problem is the massive subtitle. I like the meaning, but is just too big; it takes away from the cover. I recognized this cover, because I think you got it made by Natt Kuznetsov, a graphic designer who is not only incredibly talented but also a friend of mine! Since I recognized the cover, I went back to that chapter in the cover shop to look at the other covers that were offered. I think the two last covers are your best bet, or the blue/green cover with the circle and the dragon in the middle. Those ones are far more eye-catching and less cluttered because of that subtitle. Again, the one you have is still pretty good.

your title brings up no criticisms in my mind. It represents the genre and is pretty unique. No problems there!

ii. BLURB

The big issue with your blurb is the size. It is very long, and that's a problem. Readers get overwhelmed by that chunk, even if all the info in it is written beautifully. So you should try to pick out the absolutely essential parts of the blurb and scrap the rest.

Another idea I have is to take away the quote part of the quote. Since that makes no sense, I'll elaborate. I think you should write it without the quotes and the person who said the quote. Take out the quote part and just make it a sentence. It's more powerful that way because we're not trying to figure out who Dragneel Bloom is, we're only focusing on the meaning of the quote. That's one option, but I personally would take out the quote all together, because it is a bit confusing. It's a cool piece of writing, but the problem is, readers have to think for a moment to understand it. Readers don't want to do that--not on the first line of a potential book blurb. It should be kept simple in the beginning, if that makes sense.

Rewritten below:

The darkest day in Dragonix's history: the self-sacrifice of the Emperor to stop the war of Dragon Cry. Nine throne candidates from the Dragon Clans rose to compete for the position of Emperor. But, to everyone's surprise, a tenth competition appeared: the Great Aide's Ace.

Dragonix faces the danger of another rising rebellion. Out emerges two Dragon Frontiers each with their own objectives. But amongst the chaos, a third party appears.

Dragneel Bloom, a wandering warrior with unknown origins, is summoned by the Great Aide to adhere to the origin of the third party with him as its pillar.

A rebellion is bound to happen.

So actually, I didn't take any info out really. I just streamlined the sentences. This makes the blurb shorter and more concise. Also, I put the blurb in present tense, because blurbs should always be in present tense. Why? Because present tense is more 'happening now' and in-your-face kind of style. I don't know. I just think it's better. I also just fixed up two comma errors.

Now, I don't think the first chapter of your book is a good idea. Why? Because it is a massive info dump, and it also contains a list of terms. If you want to name the clans and the terms, that's fine. But that history explanation in the beginning isn't showing us your ability to draw us into this world and make us understand it slowly. That info should be introduced throughout the book.

1 1 / 1 5

i. COMMAS :)

You are good at commas very good I promise but I am so picky I found one singular comma problem wow that was a run-on sentence. Anyway. Here's your comma problem: you introduce a name with a comma before, that's fine , but then you forget the comma after the title of the person. See below:

"Your husband, Igneous, the Emperor of Dragonix shall die on this very day after five hundred and fifty years.'

So you need a comma after the title there. Why? I don't know. I could be wrong but my comma instincts are pretty good and although I don't have an academic rule to prove this, I'm pretty sure you need the comma. I looked it up but everybody says something different, so I'm trying my sixth sense, also known as my comma sense. The writing in this review is not a good example of my talent for commas. I just had a lot of coffee so everything is being typed extremely fast. I made the mistake of not taking my usual notes as I read your book so I could remember the things I wanted to talk about when I write the review. Unfortunately that means I'm doing it all from memory and therefore trying to get it out fast before I forget. Anyway. I could be wrong about this correction below, but I think it's the best way to go. In addition, I would take out the first comma. I also don't know one hundred percent if that's completely proper. But here's the correction I believe is correct:

"Your husband Igneous, the Emperor of Dragonix, shall die on this very day after five hundred and fifty years.'

Your second comma problem is the issue of a comma before an introductory sentence. For example, the comma before 'so'. Example below:

"So, you are against me no matter what?" Ignia asked.

Yes, that is correct. But I hate it. Because when you read that out loud it sounds so weird. It's like weird. Nobody says that out loud with a pause. They say, "So you are against me no matter what?" Get rid of the comma. Grammarly will tell you it is wrong but Grammarly is an academic tool and we are creative writers. Screw Grammarly. I have a bone to pick with it. Yes, I use it. But I don't like how aggressive it is with those suggestions. To sum up, there's nothing wrong with your commas after the introductory phrase. But I think you should scrap them to sound better. Read it out loud and see what you think.

ii. DIALOGUE

If you think you can hide a minuscule dialogue error from me, you are mistaken. I will hunt them down and I will find them. I can smell them. Granted, it took me a very extended period of time to find one in your writing, but I found it. Here it is, from the prologue:

"Dragonix," Unrecorded shouted, "The period when you shall be under the peaceful turbulence is about to start."

The capital on 'the' after the comma should be lowercase because it is a continuation of the first word of dialogue. If that comma after 'shouted' were a period, then you'd be correct in putting the capital there. But if you keep the comma, it should be lowercase. This was an error you made a few times.

But other than that, your dialogue is beautiful. I love the switching of the dialogue tags from the front to the back of the sentence, which helps the dialogue flow. In addition, you have a clear understanding of dialogue and action tags, and you never seem to confuse them, which is the most common dialogue mistake I've seen at the advanced level. Just fix up that one mistake you often make.

ii. TYPOS

You have the occasional typo. Quite rare. But I found a few. For example, in the first chapter, you write "No," in dialogue but you put a comma instead of a period. Little things. You also forget a comma here and there but I think they are typos and not a lack of understanding. But a lack of commas is better than the overuse of them. At least in my opinion.

1 1 / 1 5

i. CONTRACTIONS

Contractions are a powerful thing. But there's a simple rule for using them. In formal writing, you don't use them. In slang/casual, you do. So looking at this line from the prologue:

"Look at the earth of Dragonix, it's really angry."

First of all, that comma should be a semicolon, because both clauses are completely independent. But more importantly, look at the contraction. This strikes me as a formal, important sentence. I think it would come off better that way without the contraction, and saying 'it is' instead.

ii. ITALICS VS. CAPITALS

Italics > capitals. Always. Italics are used to provide emphasis on one word, whereas capitals are used to SAY IT VERY LOUD. Capitals are far less professional and just give a weird yelling vibe to your tone. I have written four books totalling 500k words and I have never used capitals ever. This is a personal preference, but I hate the use of capitals. I think it messes with the flow. If you want to indicate that someone is shouting, use an exclamation mark! and then the dialogue tag of 'shouted' or 'yelled'. It just works in favour of flow better.

iii. PACING

I found your pacing a little slow in the first chapter. There was a lot of dialogue and a lot to absorb. But I don't really care. Your writing is good enough not to let the pacing defer people from reading. I just thought I would mention it if you were interested in making the beginning of your book more appealing.

0 9 / 1 0

i. CHARACTERS

Your characters are quite vivid, and I see you avoid info-dumping descriptions. Yay! But as always, there is room for improvement. I see the potential for you to add more emotional description to your characters. That is the concept of super unique aspects that make a character real. You can also streamline your descriptions so you get more character from less words. Look at this description about me:

Most people who met Tari in real life were immediately terrified of her. Perhaps they were intimidated by her height--or perhaps her narrowed almond eyes gave the illusion of judgement. But no matter the reasons, people usually thought Tari was someone to fear. Little did they know, she provided a burial for every bird that died from running into the massive bay window in her house, crying tears every time. 

Think very carefully about what you get from this description about me:

- You know I'm tall. I don't specify my exact height, but instead I say people are intimidated by it. This implies I'm probably over average for a woman. Your brain will automatically put me somewhere around five-ten.

- You know I have almond eyes that are naturally narrowed. You can probably picture how judgemental eyes look. Even though the only thing I described were the shape of my eyes, you might be able to put more of my features together from that alone.

- You know people are usually scared of me when they meet me.

- You know I'm actually pretty nice.

- You know I like birds/animals.

- Your brain may unconsciously put together that I'm decently wealthy because I have a big bay window in my house. In my experience, readers that pay attention might even assume that I live on my own from the wording of that sentence. This will also put my age (probably) over eighteen.

Do you see how much info--detailed info--you got from that? It's a well-rounded description and it's not too long. You can get both obvious and subtle information from it. And furthermore, it's unique. You shouldn't see another description that is anything like that.

So that was a very long-winded way to say you have room to grown in the area of streamlining your descriptions and making them more unique. You're very good at it already. But the above example is quite advanced, and I believe you're at that level.

(Disclaimer--this information about me may or may not be correct. I could be a five-foot-tall diva who looks really nice but actually laughs when birds hit the window of tiny shack I live in with my entire family. I like to remain mysterious.)

ii. SCENES

I think it's pretty good. You paint a pretty good scene. You could add in more unique things, just like with characters. Nobody wants to hear that the colour of the house was a sunny yellow. We want to hear that it is the same yellow as the middle of a raging fire. Dramatics, if you will. But you're pretty good at it already.

0 8 / 1 0

i. PLOT

Your plot is intricate, unique and well-crafted. You throw us right into it, and it was exciting in the same way as it was deep. I've never heard of anything like this concept. The problem? It is heavy in the area of names, places and titles. I really had to concentrate to understand what was going on. But it's also 1am and I've had more than a litre of coffee. Organic chemistry will do that to you. Anyway. Despite my stimulated state, I do believe your plot requires focus to read, so you'll lose lazy readers. But that's not a huge problem. We don't want them anyway. The best books out there--Game of Thrones, for example--literally required me to re-read every paragraph to follow the plot. So although it isn't a big problem, it is something you have to be wary of when thinking of your audience. Your complicated plot paired with your advanced vocabulary creates high-level reading.

ii. TONE

Tone is lovely. You have a unique, flowy narrative that is absolutely entrancing to read. 

1 0 / 1 0

I was impressed with your lack of errors, and I found your tone absolutely beautiful. I notice people in your comments feel the same way. There is the occasional logistic thing to fix up and a few ways you could improve your flow and description. But all these critiques are only polishing up your lovely story. I wish you all the luck with completing it.

4 9 / 6 0

(This mark is sucky because it's one below my reading list requirement. I make the marks individually and then calculate it all after, so I promise I have no clue what the mark will be before I add it up, and I make a rule not to change it because of what I think about the overall impression. With that being said, I did really enjoy the concept of your book, so I'm adding it to a different reading list of mine :))