Where Dreams Die by MrCrowley667.

I'm gonna skip your blurb because I think it was okay enough and jump right in.

Grammar/Syntax/Punctuation: 2.25/5

Already a few paragraphs in I can tell that you're pretty comfortable with descriptions and adding figurative devices and nuance to your story. This is a sign of an experienced writer or just someone who knows what they're doing. However, when it came to punctuation and little technical elements, there were a few errors. Let's look at your opening paragraph.

(1) 'Joy' shouldn't be capitalised.
(2) Right there with the P is a chance for you to start a new paragraph. You began a different chain of ideas. If you want that to stick to the opening paragraph then you'll have to find some other way to connect it to the previous idea (inhabitants of the apartment bringing sadness). That'll be pretty difficult to do since you're introducing contrast.
(3) Comma not needed.
(4) Right there the full stop is unnecessary since the phrase following is an incomplete thought. Just putting a comma instead of a full stop will suffice, or if you're a fan for the dramatic you could also put an em dash (— alt 0151 on num pad) instead of an em dash.

The full stop after 'fire' isn't needed. Instead, it should be behind 'attacker'.

You're appealing to visual imagery here, but it would be nice if you could have added the auditory elements of that scene. Like, gunshots are pretty loud. Speak about the blaring—the continuous onslaught of shots piercing through the air, until there was nothing. 

Another thing you do often is just putting commas and full stops where they're not needed. This can get really jarring because punctuation tells someone how to read your story, and if your punctuation is disturbing the flow of reading, it'll obviously do more harm than good.

You can take a look at my "Snip Snip Writing Tips" book on my profile. In the latest chapter called ".how to grammar." I spoke about commas and other rules of punctuation. Go take a look. It feels neglected. I commented where I found a few.

k. Full stop after "heard of you", not a comma, and the repetition of 'city' can be a little jarring. A rule of thumb—don't repeat the same word in close proximity to each other unless it absolutely could not have been avoided. Instead of the second 'city', you could have used 'minds of the people' or anything shorter. This line could have been epic save for those tiny errors.

Ok! Nope, I definitely think your ending fell way flat. Let's take a look:

First off, he's choking. Let's have him seem to be choking in his dialogue too:

"I've already won," was his scratchy rasp. His throat burned, and his eyes were watering as he held them open. "The minute those people saw me I gave them hope. It shall spread across your city like a virulent plague, and soon, it won't be yours at all."

A little better.

Erm, how exactly is he laughing? Or right, Wormwood eased up his boot. Well, I doubt he's feeling true and unadulterated mirth. More like he's mocking his nemesis' folly. In that case:

"Alex cackled in defiance, his loud bursts of laughter echoing through the complex, and it settled around Wormwood like a heavy blanket. That idea haunted him to his very core, but like any other wave, it soon receded. Wormwood had the advantage here. Exactly who was it that was under his boot grasping for life? With a chilling smile yadda yadda yadda." And you end it however you like there.

Eh. This story is fun to write and you've done excellently so far. Off to chapter one.

My, this is only the second part I'm reading but I can already tell that your chapters will have a trend of anticlimactic endings.

These are the last few paragraphs before that very short and frankly, unsatisfying fight scene with Lady Luck. I genuinely wondered how that could be a chapter ending. It ended a little anticlimactically, but maybe that was just because I was so invested in it and felt a little cheated.

 I do wish you had gone into more exposition. If I completely zoom out of one of your chapters, each paragraph doesn't exceed five lines. Sometimes it looks as if you feel the need to constantly break things up into new and short paragraphs, especially where the ideas were still connected to the paragraph before. In the excerpt above, had you gone into just a little bit more visceral exposition on the little girl, or even the faint background noises, internalisations, the little tells and actions of the SWAT men when they returned—any small details that can add nuances and bring life to your story, I would have enjoyed the entire narrative even more.

 I definitely think you should work on your endings better. There's a natural arc to every chapter. It's flat like a pancake, then it swoops up gradually like a mountain. After that, it doesn't make a 5000 ft nosedive. It still gradually slopes back down, and I hope you can try to accomplish a similar effect.

Throughout chapter one, your punctuation is still disrupting the flow of reading, and you often start sentences where they don't need to be. It's alright if these GPS errors show up once in a while (we're all human) but the constant repetition of them even after you say you've edited the chapter means those revisions just weren't enough.

Still, the usual GPS errors do maintain some consistency, so that's all for this section.

In Chapter Three, 'Stranger in a Strange Land', here's another excerpt.

You wrote: "They all looked as dilapidated as the streets the walked on, buildings they passed by." But how is it that you're making a comparison between their clothes and the buildings of Limbo, when you haven't even dedicated a single paragraph to describing exactly how those buildings look? This description and comparison is kind of empty because the image you're referencing your readers to hasn't been described to begin with, and the chapter ends, too, without one paragraph dedicated to such. 

My point here, is that while your narrative so far is definitely action and vengeance-driven, you should still take the time to build up the world not only through actions (like the scene with the policemen, Agatha, her husband and children) but through the step you should have gotten to first—expostion. Description. Those presumably long paragraphs dedicated to building the world in your reader's minds—not on the scale of Tolkien's, but certainly leaving little to be desired in one resepct—the cityscape of Limbo. Paint that and paint it well, and any other references you make to it in the future will have something to attach itself to.

On to.

Story Concept: 5/5

There's nothing I can fault you for in this respect, and besides the kinda grahic parts, I really did enjoy Where Dreams Die—namely the narrative and tone it gave off, and more than the actual story itself, the city of Limbo, which you seemed to also personify in a way. No points deducted here.

Cover: 2/5

This cover was definitely made in the Wattpad Covers App, I'd know, and it doesn't do your work justice. The image quality could be better, so too could the font, and overall it's just a mess really. It's not atrocious, but I wouldn't pick up this novel of my own volition based on the cover alone. 

Character Originality: 3/5
(Ik I need to change the description, but i can't atm so just humour it, rofl)

I've already been introduced to two villains, an apartment, Alec, Helen and her daughter, and a few sides. What I like is that this didn't happen in a single chapter, but over the span of a few. Too often authors try to cram the introduction of 5+ characters in a single chapter, stating their names one after the other. 

Alec is not the hero archetype and falls into more of a morally grey zone. Helen seemed ok but in her last moments I could hardly distinguish her from Alec in the prologue, minus the child, and the same went for Lady Luck and Wormwood, except that Wormwood had some minor humanising to him. 

overall the characters so far are ok, with Alec standing out the most among them.

Writing Style: 3.75/5

I could definitely have an appreciation for how you write so far and it did make reading fun for me since I was genuinely enthralled by the world you've built so far, but the punctuation errors were a bit jarring at times and some phrases could have been worded differently. 

The gap between your strengths and weaknesses sort of bring attention to each other, especially in exposition and just general descriptions, or maybe the lack thereof, and for me, that's why you didn't receive a perfect score in this section.

Pacing/Organisation: 3/5

I'm still a little confused as to where in the actual timeline the prologue occurs, but I'm leaving that as you probably intended for it to be. At times I do think things moved a little fast because you didn't have a lot of exposition in between parts to slow down the narrative and make it move at a more gradual pace. 

Regardless, that's just my two cents in that department, and it was definitely catered to my own preferences when it comes to a story. 

Was it enjoyable? 4/5

Overall I was not completely opposed to Where Dreams Die. The city of Limbo interested me most, and the way you narrated didn't detract too much from the overall experience, save for the punctuation and other errors in GPS. Good luck and happy writing. 

Total score: 23/35
Overall rating: 6.6

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