Title: Broken promises by wordenchanter
Source: ELGANZA, INC. | AWARDS by TheCieloCommunity
Category: Short Stories

Mature: N (bullying, mention of rape, mild profanity, slut shaming)
LGBTQIAP+: N

Status: Complete
Special note (judging): I had five books in this category, and the other judges (BANGTANHOLIC_FICS and Lunatic_Twilight) had five books each.
Result: 93/100

Clicking the "External Link" button below the "Continue to next part" button will take you straight to the book, or click the link in the inline comments here. → 

*****

Rubric:
- Title: 5
- Book cover: 5
- Description (blurb): 5
- Plot & storytelling: 15
- Character development: 10
- Writing style: 10
- Grammar: 10
- Originality & creativity: 10
- Emotional impact: 10
- Pacing & structure: 5
- Accuracy (if non-fiction): 5
- Overall enjoyment & engagement: 10
Total: 100

*****

Total: 93/100

Title: 4/5
Good title, but I prefer capitalization of all words in the title (Broken Promises).

Cover: 3/5
I like the cover, but it's missing a very important piece of information: your name. You're the author, and you need to give yourself credit. That's more important than a label stating "Wattpad." I'd cut that out completely, because it's unnecessary, and put your name there instead. Also, I wouldn't just change the text and leave it at that. The font style and color don't match the rest of the cover, so I'd change to something that blends better with the rest of it. Also, "self-respect" should be hyphenated. But otherwise, the background imagery is beautiful, and your choice of font style, color, size, and placement are all perfect for the title and subtitle.

Blurb: 4/5
There's very limited space in the blurb preview before a potential reader decides to click/tap on a book or pass it by, so I'd definitely cut the first line about which trope this story uses. I wouldn't include that in the blurb at all, actually. You could put it as a tag, though. That way, people who are looking specifically for books using that trope could find this. I'd also cut "Story Description:" because that's what the blurb is. You don't need to restate that, and again, it's taking up valuable space.

As for the blurb itself, the content is good, and your grammar is perfect. My only suggestion would be to add spaces on either side of the hyphen ( - ), because as is, it looks like an incorrect compound word.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to a story about friendship.

Plot & storytelling: 14/15
I really like how you told this story. From the blurb and other stories with broken friendships, I thought there may be a reconciliation, but when you revealed what Prithvi did to Kirti, I didn't want a reconciliation to happen. He wasn't just insensitive and oblivious. He was purposefully cruel, going out of his way to bully her and destroy her reputation, so for me, the ending was a happy ending. She deserved much better than him, and finding her inner peace and moving on was the best thing for her.

The way you unfold the story through a combination of present-day events punctuated by flashbacks was really effective. My only critique here is how you lead into and out of flashbacks. Just having headings that say "Flashback" and "Flashback Ended" is kind of jarring. It breaks the flow of the story, and I think it would be better to try to show the scene/time change in another way. Using section dividers before and after, like when you have a scene change in the present, might do it on its own. It can be as simple as three or five asterisks (***, *****), or you can get fancy with a custom section divider. I think that would be enough, but if you want to go further to ensure the reader knows this is not in the same timeline, you could also italicize the flashback. That way, whenever the reader sees a section divider and text in italics, they would know at a glance the story is moving in a flashback.

There's one place where you use a heading to show a scene/time change in the present day, and it has a similar effect for me as a heading saying "Flashback." It feels clunky. Putting a simple section divider there would be smoother, I think, and you don't have to do anything more than that, because context tells the reader what changed.

Character development: 9/10
Kirti's character gets the most attention, of course, since she's the main character, and there's a definite progression from the simple, trusting girl who befriends Prithvi to the strong, confident woman in the epilogue. We see her go through the pain of betrayal and the insecurities brought on by bullying, and we see her perspective change as she works through the accusations until she's able to put her foot down, take a stand for herself, and give Prithvi and Prash the chewing out they so richly deserve. Her reaction to them at the reunion in the epilogue is perfect. She isn't cruel or mean; she simply dismisses them as a part of her past that she has no desire to revisit. They broke the friendship, not her, and they've done nothing to redeem themselves, so there's no reason for her to bother with them.

My only complaint in this department is Prithvi's character before he breaks their friendship. I feel like there wasn't enough shown of his previous behavior toward her to lay the groundwork for why his behavior hurts her so much. We're told they were best friends and had a strong relationship, and there's a brief glimpse of them meeting for the first time, and then him comforting her after she loses two friends because of him, but I feel like those are two points on a timeline more than detailed descriptions of their friendship. There's a much clearer picture of him post-friendship, of course. It made no sense for him to react that violently toward a simple joke, but then again, it hit her out of nowhere, too, so maybe showing more of his character when they were friends wouldn't explain that. Prash's reaction is equally irrational, and it's just shocking when they realize how much they hurt her. Did they really think physically bullying her and slut shaming her wouldn't hurt her that badly? All I can say about them is good riddance to bad company.

I really like Devi's character. She sticks by Kirti throughout, giving her a shoulder to cry on, a listening ear to work through her pain and help her find her way forward, and the way she follows up Kirti's angry explosion with a cool, rational, "You did this to yourself" for Prithvi and Prash was great. And she's still Kirti's friend years later. That's a true friend.

Writing style: 10/10
You have a very clear, engaging writing style. There's no confusion about what you mean or what's going on in the story. You lay everything out nicely, and you draw the reader into Kirti's world very effectively.

Grammar: 9/10
Within the story, your grammar is solid. There are two instances where you're missing opening quotation marks, one instance where you forgot to make the first letter of the dialogue tag lowercase, and one instance where you slip into present tense. There's also a scene in chapter six where you refer to Prash with he/him/his pronouns, which got confusing.

You have a couple of sections with extended dialogue, both from Kirti, I think, when she chews out Prithvi, and you split the dialogue into two or so paragraphs. In one of those sections, there's a dialogue tag at the end of one paragraph, so that splits the dialogue up along with the paragraph break, but in another place, there is no dialogue tag in between. If you do that, the rule is actually to have opening quotation marks at the beginning of each paragraph of that extended dialogue and only one set of closing quotation marks at the end of it:

"Blah blah blah
"Blah blah blah
"Blah blah blah."

Or you could just add a dialogue tag at the end of one paragraph, like you did before. I think it's only two paragraphs long in both sections.

There is a misspelling in the chapter title for the character chapter. "Aesthatics" should be "aesthetics." And in the final quote, there should be an "a" before "happy ending" and again before "ending," and it looks like there's an extra space before the last period. That could just be an optical illusion from the italics, though.

Originality & creativity: 10/10
As I said before, I've seen broken friendship stories that end with a reconciliation, so in a sense, this is not a completely new concept. But your story takes the refreshing tactic of not reconciling the pair, and your characters, situations, details, and writing style are all completely yours, so this is definitely your original, creative story, trope use notwithstanding.

Emotional impact: 10/10
It was really easy for me to connect with Kirti right away, which meant her pain felt real and so did her anger. That outburst was so satisfying to read. And, as I said, I didn't want reconciliation with Prithvi because of what he'd done, so the ending was perfect for me.

Pacing & structure: 5/5
Not too fast, not too slow, and the alternating present-day and flashback sections told the story very well.

Accuracy (if non-fiction): 5/5
Free points. Yay! 🙂

Overall enjoyment & engagement: 10/10
It's not the sweet, happy friendship story I was expecting, but I really enjoyed it for its realism. And there is a good, solid friendship that comes out of this: Kirti and Devi. You told the story really well and made the characters believe and the content engaging. Great job.