Title: 𝙈𝙞𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙡𝙚 by p4ge__s00bin
Source: Gardenia: A Review Shop by -Chrysalis_Realm
Genre: Romance
Subgenre: Drama
Fandom: K-pop
Mature: Y (alcohol, assassination, blood, child abuse, death, domestic abuse, human trafficking, infidelity, loss of a loved one, mental health issues, murder, PTSD, rape, self-harm, semi-explicit sexual content, sexual assault, sexual references, smoking, strong profanity, torture, violence)
LGBTQIAP+: N
Status: Ongoing
First impressions: 21/40

Digging deeper: 33/100

Final thoughts: Complete
Note: Chapter 6 was the last available chapter as of the publishing of this review.

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. → 

*****

First impressions: 21/40

Title: 10/10
"Miracle" is ambiguous and could mean almost anything and go almost any direction, but there's nothing wrong with that. There's a sense of hopefulness following pain as well, which works great with a drama.

Story description: 2/10
This is an interesting quote, but it's not a story description. I'd recommend looking into a resource like justwriteit's chapter in their 8-Chapter Challenge on writing story loglines and pitches for tips on how to write a good story description. That's what I used when I first started on this site, and I still reference this chapter just about every time I have to write one. Link in the in-line comments here. →

Cover: 2/10
The image is great, but without the book title or your name, it's just a pretty picture. If you want to give graphics a try, I'd suggest using the Canva editor on the web version of Wattpad and playing around with things. You can upload this picture and then just add text, or you can look into other features, too. Or, if you don't want to deal with graphics, you could look into graphics shops and put in an order for a cover. Even if you don't really know what you want (like me when I ordered a cover), the talented artists on Wattpad are creative enough to fill in the blanks and come up with beautiful artwork.

First chapter: 7/10
Well, this is a very hard-hitting first chapter. It's immediately clear that Ha-rin and Yeongseo are hiding from something, and the tension is palpable. You've captured the responsible, caring older sister, worried but trying to keep it together so she can keep her little sister calm and shield her from whatever is happening. And then when you reveal what is happening, the switch from fear to grief and then anger is very well-done. You show her realistic wavering between rage and self-preservation when she confronts her dad, and then she's back in older sister mode, not even allowing herself to pass out because she needs to comfort Yeongseo and get her away from the horrible scene.

So, basically, you start the reader on an emotional roller coaster right from the start, something you're only able to do effectively because of how you've written your characters and made them real and relatable.

There are some grammar errors throughout the chapter, but nothing too major, and nothing that detracts from the story. Dialogue tags are the first issue I saw. Your dialogue is natural and generally well-done, but punctuation and capitalization when you transition into the dialogue tags can be messy. It looks like you have a good grasp of what makes a dialogue tag, though. It's an often incomplete sentence that directly describes who is speaking and how they're saying it, and it's actually considered part of the dialogue. So, the first word of the dialogue tag should be lowercase (unless it's a proper noun). Also, if the dialogue would normally end in a period, change that to a comma. There's no punctuation change for exclamation marks, question marks, or ellipses (...).

"Are mum and dad okay?" A small voice asked. → "Are mum and dad okay?" a small voice asked.
"My time has come for my love." She replied, "Take my locket, keep yourselves safe and look after your sister ." → "My time has come for my love," she replied. "Take my locket, keep yourselves safe and look after your sister."

With the second example, I think counting "she replied" as a dialogue tag for the first section of dialogue makes more sense than making it the dialogue tag for the second section. You've done the punctuation correctly if that is the dialogue tag preceding the next sentence, but a reply is something that immediately follows another statement or question, so linking that with the second sentence of dialogue almost makes it sound like she's replying to the first sentence of dialogue, which isn't the case. That's why I think it would work better linked to the first sentence, because that shows her responding to Ha-rin.

Also in that example, there was an extra space before the last period. Generally, you do spacing with punctuation correctly, but there are slip-ups here or there. Most of the time, punctuation should touch a word on one side (usually the left) and have a space on the other (usually the right). Opening quotation marks and opening parentheses are an exception, and for those, you just flip it around: space on the left and word on the right. Another exception is with closing quotation marks (and sometimes closing parentheses), where you'll have word, ending punctuation, ending quotation mark (or parenthesis), space.

Another punctuation thing is the trailing periods. These actually have their own set punctuation mark called an ellipsis, which is a group of three (...). So, when you use trailing periods, stick to that. No more; no less.

There are occasional incorrect or odd prepositions, like when Ha-rin gives the headphones to Yeongseo. The sentence says Yeongseo "placed them in her ears." Since they're headphones and not earbuds, it would be more appropriate to say she placed them "on" her ears.

I found a few run-on sentences, but not too many, and I think you could fix most of them just by changing a comma for a semi-colon or a period, like here: "My eyes stung again, I ran towards her." Also, earlier in this same paragraph, you used the word "stang," which should be "stung," as you did here.

There are some phrasing issues here or there as well, where altering word order or word choice could make the meaning clearer, most notably with the very last sentence: "No seven year old had to see all that." Unfortunately, Yeongseo did see all that, but I know what you really mean here. It's "No seven-year-old should have to see all that." Also, I hyphenated "seven-year-old," because that's the usual practice with ages when they're listed that way.

You're usually good about sticking to past tense, but there's an occasional slip into present tense, so keep an eye out for that. As far as headings go, the first one is fine, but you don't need the heading that just says "Hall" when Ha-rin leaves the room.

Lastly, I don't think you need to make the dialogue uppercase when Ha-rin is shouting at her dad. I prefer showing things like shouting, screaming, and intense emotions in the dialogue tags, because the uppercase text can be harder to read sometimes, and adding more detail into your dialogue tags helps with character development. Plus, an exclamation mark means a lot when you don't use it too often, and you don't, so I don't think you need the extra emphasis here. You could say something like "I yelled angrily, my hands balled into fists at my sides." Details like that give more information than uppercase text by showing her anger in her body language.

But if this is where your story starts, well, I'm intrigued to see where you take it from here. I have a feeling this may be more of a prologue than a first chapter, but I'll reassess that after reading more.

*****

Digging deeper: 33/100

Cover & title: 3/10
See "First Impressions" feedback.

Story description: 2/5
See "First Impressions" feedback.

Grammar & voice: 6/20
The errors I noted in "First Impressions" continue throughout, with an increase in run-on sentences. I think that might be an issue with misunderstanding compound sentences, as sentence structure is generally run-on or fairly basic sentences that start with "I." Of course, not every sentence starts with "I," but sentences that do are very common, and those sentences also tend to be shorter sentences as well. I'd recommend looking into an editing tool, if you're not using one already, to help you catch where compound sentences turn into run-on sentences. The one I use, the free version of ProWritingAid, also has a report that examines variations in sentence length so you can see if you're too heavy on short sentences or too heavy on long sentences. Having plenty of variation makes the reading more interesting for the reader. Just be careful not to use rephrasing/rewriting functions in an editing tool, as that's not editing anymore. It's the tool rewriting your content completely, which then makes it AI-generated content.

As far as your writing voice, I feel like it's rather clipped here. There was more depth and emotion in the first chapter (which I would definitely classify as a prologue, by the way), and I'm guessing that's because you took the most time to write and edit that before you published the book for the first time. Once the story gets going, it's easy to get caught up in the story in your head and write quickly. And that's fine. This is just a first draft. If you're stuck in the writing process, going back to the beginning to edit and flesh out the story would really bring your voice out and maybe get your creative juices flowing, too.

Plot & pacing: 2/10
Way, way, way, way, way too fast. But this goes back to what I was saying about fleshing out the story and adding details. There are no transitions beyond unnecessary headings. You don't need to announce the room she walks into. That's information you can incorporate into the story, and it's the same with changes in time. Working on showing the story instead of telling it would really help you out here.

The events in the plot are very jumpy, sudden, and they often don't make sense, at least, not with the information currently available to the reader. I'm guessing this is where you have more of the story in your head than what's expressed within the text. Ha-rin waking up after TXT captures her is a great example of this. They knocked her out, captured her, and tied her up in a cell with torture implements on display. So, they're clearly not interested in walking into the room and having a friendly conversation. It doesn't make sense that she can just say, "I want to work with you," and that would be enough to make them say, "Okay. Let's show you your room." They're mafia, and so is she, and they're from two rival groups. They wouldn't trust her immediately, and they certainly wouldn't be smiling and friendly and playing a game of chess within twenty-four hours.

The details about how she got involved with the mafia do make sense, as do the mistreatment she and the other girls have been receiving from the boss. I put a comment in the story, but this should definitely be marked as "Mature." Anything with even a mention of suicide or self-harm has to be marked "Mature" according to Wattpad, as do graphic depictions of violence and explicit sex. There's been nothing explicit yet, but the depictions of Ha-rin's past sexual assault and rape are borderline semi-explicit, I think. There's nothing wrong with how you're handling these topics, though. You're not glorifying the abuse she's suffered at all, which is good. But if you haven't checked out Wattpad's Content Guidelines, I'd recommend doing that, since this is a story with heavy topics, just to make sure you don't accidentally violate any guidelines. Link in the in-line comments. →

I would also like to point out that the age of consent on Wattpad is 18. So, if Ha-rin is going to have a (consenting) sexual relationship with Beogmyu, you can reference it, but you can't show it if she's still younger than 18. Link in the in-line comments for more info about age of consent. → https://www.wattpad.com/1436342697-news-updates-upgrading-our-moderation-capabilities

Characterization: 3/20
This is basically the same thing I've been saying throughout this section of the review. It's just too fast-paced, with not enough detail. The connection with Ha-rin in chapter one vanishes, and not just because her personality has changed to meet the demands she's facing. She's a very flat character, and there's a lot of telling who she is but not showing it. Expanding dialogue, descriptions of facial expressions and body language, and adding thoughts would help deepen her character, and all the others as well. Right now, their words and actions often don't make sense, and that's really because there are gaps in reader knowledge. Fill those in, and the characters will become more realistic and relatable.

Harmony within genre: 7/15
The romantic aspect is leaning toward dark romance, but I'd actually say this is more of a drama at this point. Although Ha-rin and Beomgyu have met, their interactions don't really make sense. Why are they playing chess on her bed? Why are they playing chess at all? As I mentioned earlier, there's no reason for him to trust her or want to spend time with her yet. Then there's the description of their physical interactions. Animosity and disdain are the emotions mentioned here, neither of which lend themselves to physical attraction, especially with Ha-rin's background of being sexually abused by men. He should repel her more than anything else, but they almost kiss. It's kind of weird.

Originality: 10/20
This has great potential, but it's a pretty skeletal story at this point. Which is fine, since it's a first draft. If you're anything like me, you don't plan before you write. You just write, and whatever happens, happens. So, details are lacking. For me, that's something I go back through and add in after I finish the story, once I know where I'm going and how I want to get there. Or, if I'm stuck, going back to the beginning to flesh things out can be just what I need to get more inspiration to keep going. You have the pieces of a good story here, with good characters, good background story, probably some idea of where you want the plot to go, and there's nothing wrong with just getting it all typed up and posted now. That will give you more time to get reader feedback, too, which you can use when you go back through to edit later.

*****

Final thoughts:
Ha-rin wants two things: revenge on her father, and to protect her little sister. To do the first, she joins the mafia, only to find out she's put her sister in danger. So, she takes on additional abuse and pain, just to keep Yeongseo safe, and she adds her new boss to the list of people on whom she wants revenge. When a job goes wrong and she ends up in the hands of a rival mafia, she knows what will happen to her sister. It's time to change sides and get revenge on her father, her boss—everybody who's hurt her. Then she can finally rescue her sister. But what if her new allies actually care about her? What if she meets a man who knows what pain feels like and doesn't want to hurt her? Is that even possible? Can she finally start to heal?