Title: Alternate

Author: CryoPyxel

Genre: Scifi Fantasy

Rating: PG-13 // YoungAdult

# of Chapters: 8 [Ongoing]

# of Chapters I read: 3 

Summary/Blurb

Eden Lyre couldn't describe her life.

She could describe her lives.

A look at one's reflection shows them an entire new world. They aren't looking at themselves. They are looking at a flipped version, a stranger in disguise.

Rerum Auctor

Her life was wrenched open and broken apart when her brother was taken.

He was only taken because he was different.

Because he could do something that half the population couldn't

Not being able to forgive herself for allowing one person to slip through her fingers.

What about when she lets another?

Realities that stretch into infinity.

Six different people, each with their own struggle.

Their prologue has ended.

Their story has begun.

Review:

Cover:

Purple. A lot of purple. I wonder if this is because you were trying to match the colour scheme to the "written in action" sticker or if it's just a coincidence. Maybe purple is your favorite color?

I notice that you drew this cover yourself, but because I'm not an art critic, I won't go into proportions etc., to each their own. I just wonder what the cover has to do with the title and blurb—we have a girl falling into an abyss of darkness, whilst in the blurb there is a mention of different realities...the two things are disconnected.

Also, the title on the cover is cut off on either side, meaning that you didn't get the dimensions right. 

Blurb:

The plot of this story sounds interesting. When you look in the mirror there is a sort of parallel universe—where everything is kind of the same...or is it? There are a few things that didn't quite make sense, so I'll just go through it (almost) sentence by sentence.

"Eden Lyre couldn't describe her life. She could describe her lives."—Okay, this implies that she has more than one life like she died and got reincarnated into someone else. (You know how some people get deja vu from their past lives?) I don't think it works in this context because it seems like her reflection is a different being from herself. Like her reflection is her but at the same time is someone else.

"A look at one's reflection shows them an entirely new world. They aren't looking at themselves. They are looking at a flipped version, a stranger in disguise."—With reference to my previous statement, this further shows that it doesn't make sense that Eden could describe her 'lives' when here you say that the person in the reflection isn't yourself, but someone else. So it's contradictory. "A flipped version" makes me think that the image is upside down when in reality I think you meant "laterally inverted" or "mirrored".

The name of the next person, Rerum Auctor, just seems to come out of nowhere. Her relation with the first girl isn't mentioned—instead, it's like her life is completely disconnected from the first person's. It's like they have no relation to one another. If this is the case, this needs to be mentioned, somehow, but if it isn't, you need to make it clear that these two know each other.

"Her life was wrenched open and broken apart when her brother was taken."—I think wrenched open is unnecessary in this sentence. It would be better if you just said, "torn apart".

A kid being different from half of the population doesn't sound very special to me, especially if the other half is like her brother.

"Six different people, each with their own struggles."—There are only five people mentioned in the blurb, who is the sixth?

I don't really like the ending: "Their prologue has ended. Their story has begun." The prologue is part of the story. 

First Impression:

Welp, we meet all six protagonists in the extended summary. Oh wait, it's not an extended summary, it's supposed to be some kind of prologue. Now I understand where you got "Their prologue has ended. Their story has begun."

This is not a prologue, as it doesn't serve the purpose of one. There is basically a summary of the role of each character in the story, but that doesn't make it a prologue. The role of one is to establish the setting and give background details which would later tie in with the rest of the story (it's done in a compelling way—rather than dumping the information into paragraphs, mundane conversation, etc. it gives us all the main info in one section, and then the minor stuff is added in later). As I said earlier, what I'm given here are 'character sheets', in a way. I suggest moving this extended blurb to where it's actually supposed to be underneath the cover), and either remove this part altogether or write an actual prologue. 

I'm given a little more of that 'artistic' side of you through the font at the end, but I don't see what purpose it has other than that.

I'm really not a fan of adding multimedia midway through chapters, I find that it hinders the flow of the story rather than help it out. Plus, you didn't add any pictures above the chapter title, so I think you should move the ones you have in the chapter to the spot over there.

So both Eden's parents and grandmother unexplainably disappeared, leaving an eight-year-old girl with an even younger sibling alone in a house. I find it a little unbelievable that the two girls are able to survive on their own like that, without the police investigating into the matter. Without a form of income, no one would be able to pay the bills or buy groceries, so the children wouldn't survive long on their own. (It says that "Eden had been alone in this house for five years", but it's impossible.)

I'm under the impression that all the guardians "mysteriously disappeared without a trace" to give the protagonist leeway to do whatever she wants.

There is also no explanation as to why she didn't climb up to the top floor for a while or why she has purple hair and eyes, why she behaves so normally in this alternate universe type thing...I could go on, but I'm finding everything weird and hard to believe. There are so many plot holes and inconsistencies (like Eden falls forwards and breaks her nose or something??) that I spent the majority of the time wondering how the things that happen would fit in the realm of possibility instead of enjoying the story itself. I think that the overarching plot (alternate universes, creepy mirror reflections, etc) sounds cool, but it's not executed as well as it could be. If the rest of the story is like this (there is no logical explanation behind the events that occur; they happen just for the sake of getting to the points you want them to get to) then I don't want to read on.

Writing Style:

There are a lot of grammatical mistakes. For example, there were dependent clauses (which express an incomplete thought) that stood alone. E.g. "Keeping her balance as she was very clumsy" / "Keeping her hands in the threshold of her pockets to keep any more accidents from happening". There wasn't a lot of variety in the sentence length (which explains why there were so many dependent clauses which were made into their own sentence—rather than joined with another by a conjunction), and there wasn't any figurative or emotive language used, making the writing sound a little dry. The setting was barely described, there wasn't a lot of depth to the character (other than she's conveniently clumsy) and there were some switched in the POV, from the third person limited to the second person, but this was sporadic.

Characters:

Eden—One of the six protagonists. Her hair and eyes are naturally purple (how?), she's an orphan, and conveniently clumsy (her age is variable—one chapter she's 13, the next 18, all in the same day). Wait, clumsy doesn't really fit her—in the first chapter she hurts herself thrice and by the second she's so banged up that she passes out. This is all stuff which she does to herself btw. There is a mention in the first chapter, in a note written by herself to herself, about her having to take pills. It makes me think that this entire story is just a figment of her imagination—like everything that happens is a weird hallucination of some sort.

Rosen— A robot.

The King— Eden's alter.

Diamond rating ♢ (1—10): 4

Although the overarching plot idea is good, it's not executed very well. Half of the time, I was confused about what was going on and it was hard for me to picture the setting and relate to the characters. This story needs a lot of work, but if you're willing to put the effort, then it should be able to reach its full potential. 

Good luck!