Title: Loyalties Lie by DragonRose25
Source: Feedback request
Genre: Romance
Mature: Y (assassination, blood, bullying, decapitation, death, loss of a loved one, murder, physical abuse, occasional strong profanity, prostitution, sexual abuse, sexual references, suicide, torture, trauma, violence)
LGBTQIAP+: N
Status: Ongoing
First impressions: 38/40
Digging deeper: 97/100
Final thoughts: pending

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*****

First impressions: 38/40

Title: 10/10
Very thought-provoking title. If you can't trust loyalty, what can you trust? This works well for a romance story, and it would work for many other genres, too—thriller, mystery, fantasy, etc.

Story description: 9/10
Overall, this is a fantastic blurb. It introduces the main characters and sets up the plot conflict without giving too much away, and it's very clean, grammatically speaking. I have a couple of suggestions, but that's all they are, so you can take or leave them as you please.

First, in the opening paragraph, I think I'd change "the growing rebellion" to "a growing rebellion," because this is the first mention of the rebellion. To me, "the" feels like I should have prior knowledge about it, but I don't. Again, that's just my impression, though, so there's nothing wrong with leaving it as is.

Second, and this is something I've been focusing on in my writing, so I see it everywhere now, the two instances of "as" in the same sentence of the third paragraph bother me. You could swap the second "as" for "while" and get rid of that repetition.

But that's really it, and that's clearly me being nitpicky. I love romance involving royalty, especially when one person is of a lower caste in society, and (this will sound weird) I enjoy all the conflict and trauma. Turbulence is good in my book. And it should be, since I write that kind of story. 😉

Cover: 10/10
I love this cover. The black and red reinforces the darkness and trust issues from the title, and the blood trickling down her hand from the rose further emphasizes how dangerous betrayal can be. The simplicity of a neat white cursive for the title and your name pops from the background but does not detract from the imagery. You could potentially bump the size of your name up just slightly, but I think it's fine the way it is. Beautiful dark, foreboding cover.

First chapter (and everything that came before it): 9/10
Ah, this prologue. I read it after finishing a batch of judging and then got more judging piled on top of me, so I reread it as a refresher. And from the first paragraph, I remembered everything about it. It's a very powerful, memorable start to a story. The series of "she loved" statements in the opening paragraph and "she hated" statements in the closing paragraph is so well done, and the in-between—well, it's just fantastic. Your transition from the happy, light Mina, who can overlook all the difficulties and see the beauty in everything, to the intruding reality of the intrinsic difficulties and inequalities commoners like her and Kirian face gives a slight but building sense of foreboding. And then it happens—that single rock which triggers trauma and tragedy. The fear and anger grows as the king torments the two kids, until the single shocking moment when—well, I don't want to spoil it for other readers. Let's just say there's a very good reason Mina hates everything at the end of the prologue.

And, as with the blurb, this is very polished and grammatically correct, with just a couple of things I'd noted previously in the inline comments. You could consider splitting some of the larger paragraphs up, since phone readers on Wattpad like shorter paragraphs, but I like the divisions the way they are.

And chapter one continues the turbulent journey into a difficult, dangerous world where there is no safety for Mina, or any other girl, for that matter. You do a good job of implying without describing in explicit detail, and that doesn't just apply to the physical activities taking place around Mina every day. That goes for her thoughts and emotions, too. She feels for the girls working at the back of the tea shop, but she doesn't go to extremes to try to help them, because she has the bigger picture in mind. A small victory there wouldn't mean much and wouldn't last, but targeting royalty and nobility in general could effect greater change.

Meanwhile, there's Magnus, living a life of sheltered privilege, idealistic and impatient for the day when he will sit on the throne and he can effect the change Mina wants. He does go out of his way to try to be kind and helpful to the lower class, and all he gets for his trouble is one assassination attempt after another. His bodyguard has to remind him of the bigger picture, the one where he can't do anything until he becomes king, and if he wants that to happen, he needs to live. And that means not trying to be nice to every servant.

I anticipate almost literal fireworks when these two cross paths.

Again, your grammar is solid. Long paragraphs are the main issue, and there are places here or there where I think splitting them up would be a good idea because of a change in topic within the paragraph, not necessarily because phone readers like shorter paragraphs.

*****

Digging deeper: 97/100

Cover & title: 10/10
See "First Impressions" feedback.

Story description: 4/5
See "First Impressions" feedback.

Grammar & voice: 18/20
I first encountered your writing through judging Just One Night, and I immediately fell in love with it. Your skill at packing every sentence and paragraph full of detail without creating info dumps or dragging the pace down to a halt is unparalleled. The sentences just flow. There's plenty of variation in structure, and repetition of common words and phrases is rare. The way you shift from perspective to perspective within a single scene is generally smooth, maximizing the third person perspective to build every character in the story. And even though this is in third person, you still pull the reader into the central character's mind and world as soon as you make the switch. It's an incredibly immersive experience. I can see, hear, smell, taste, and feel every scene.

Grammatical errors are extremely rare, and I've noted them in the inline comments wherever I found them. The biggest critique or suggestion I have here is paragraph division. I'm one who naturally writes large paragraphs, too, so it's something I have to think about when posting on Wattpad, because phone readers like shorter paragraphs. But beyond the actual length, there are places here or there where the subject changes, and it feels odd when that isn't split into a new paragraph. I've noted a few of those areas as I've found them, but it's really something where I think you'd have to take the time to sit down and go through the story, figuring that out for yourself, because some of these areas are subjective, and you as the author know better than I do what impression you want to make on the reader. For me, I'm reserving that task for the next edits of the two stories where it's been pointed out to me, and I'm just paying closer attention to paragraph divisions with each new chapter I write.

A smaller critique is that you tend to under use commas. The rules for commas are tricky, and some of it is subjective, so I didn't drop too many comments about them. I'm still figuring those rules out for myself. Right now, I'm using the free version of ProWritingAid to help me find the excess commas (I tend to overuse them), and I'd recommend an editing tool like that or brushing up on comma rules (which I'll be doing shortly).

Plot & pacing: 10/10
As I said before, with the level of detail you provide, it would be easy for the pace to suffer. But it doesn't. You keep it at a steady clip, allowing your characters to drive the story and provide the detail naturally, and you use each shift in central character perspective to further advance the plot.

Which is an interesting one. I can't off the top of my head think of another story I've read where the prince was the naïve, sheltered one and the female love interest was the jaded commoner with ulterior motives, although I'm sure I have. It's just more common for the girl to play the damsel in distress role. But Mina is not a damsel in distress. And the complexity of life inside and outside the castle walls means this plot is anything but a basic royalty trope. At only five chapters in, I have a hard time distilling the plot down to a few summary sentences, so I'll just say people should read it for themselves.

Characterization: 20/20
Some authors struggle with characterization when writing in third person, but you don't. Every character is unique, believable, and, to some extent, relatable. Or at least understandable.

Mina, of course, is a very fleshed out character by the end of chapter five. Or the prologue, really. The happy, carefree girl at the beginning of the prologue is long gone by the end of it, and each new chapter shows how drastically she has changed and what the tragedy in the prologue has done to her. She's full of anger, driven by a thirst for revenge, but still compassionate toward the down-trodden. However, she's unable and unwilling to leave her chosen path long enough to do more than stick a proverbial Band-Aid over another person's raw, gushing wound, and guilt and doubt plague her just for doing that. The help she provides just results in more hurt for her, as demonstrated with Clary. Everything she chooses to do results in her suffering more hurt and abuse, which she refuses to acknowledge, so the pain comes out in other ways, such as nightmares and hair pulling.

And then there's Magnus, the prince who wants to help but can't do anything, sheltered from the outside world by his father and his bodyguard. He doesn't fully understand what the common people have to endure, so he doesn't understand why being nice to the servants isn't enough to stop assassination attempts. Still, he persists, hoping that one day, things will change, and when he becomes king, he'll fix all the wrongs his father committed. His naïve, idealistic mindset is certainly better than indifference or cruelty, but for someone like Mina, it sounds like either hollow words or an outright lie.

The side characters thus far have all been complex, as well. Kirian, Clary, Reva, Sylvan, Jia, Sophie, Micah—I could get into all of them, but I probably shouldn't take an hour typing it all out. Suffice it to say there are no flat, 2D characters here.

Harmony within genre: 15/15
This is a definite slow burn romance, which I am perfectly fine with. The two main perspectives from the two main characters create the underlying assumption they will come together at some point, and although neither has a thunderbolt, love-at-first-sight reaction when they first meet (or re-meet), the curiosity and interest is there. We already know Mina's goal is to get close enough to Magnus to kill him, and he conveniently needs a new personal maid since his last one tried to assassinate him. Now, it's a matter of waiting until he selects Mina to fill the vacancy. And then...I'm expecting plenty of inner turmoil on Mina's part as she struggles to reconcile her preconceptions about royalty with the man in front of her. I also expect her to challenge him, so he develops a backbone and stands up to his father for once. And I definitely expect this to be a very untraditional romance.

Originality: 20/20
The estimated reading time for the prologue and first chapter could be off-putting to potential readers, but the first paragraph has a strong hook that pulls them into the story and won't let them go, so that takes care of that problem. And the hook never leaves. As I said before, this story drives, and the immersive experience makes it easy to forget reality and get totally absorbed in reading. The plot and characters are completely yours, and your descriptions encompass all five senses with vivid imagery that makes it all tangible to the reader. I'm excited to get into the rest of the story and see where it goes.

*****

Final thoughts: pending