Title: Roommates by somaacharya
Source: Utopian Fanfiction Awards 2024 by TheHappyWriters
Category: Harry Potter fandom
Mature: Y (abuse, sexual innuendo, strong profanity, underage drinking, violence)
LGBTQIAP+: Y (LG)
Status: Complete
Round 1: 34/40
Round 2: 78/100
Round 3: 86/100, did not progress to round 4

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. →

*****

Round 1: 34/40

Title: 10/10
The forced proximity trope? Yes. Yes, please. 😉

Cover: 9/10
This is cute. Did you do the artwork yourself? I love how Draco looks so snarky, and he's definitely pestering Hermoine, and she's just trying so hard to ignore him. The gray-scale really goes well here, too, emphasizing Draco's light hair and her dark hair. My only complaint is with the title. The white "S" kind of disappears in that white window. If you could add a black outline or highlight to add more definition so it's easier to see, that would be ideal, because at first glance, it looks like the title is "ROOMMATE."

Also, side note, I think I've seen one other person who included the @ before their name on a book cover, and it's an interesting choice. I approve.

Summary: 8/10
Only issue here is punctuation. You should actually use commas in all the places you've used hyphens, and dependent clauses like "the Gryffindor princess" and "the Slytherin prince" should be set apart with commas, before and after ("Hermione, the Gryffindor princess, and"). I think I'd throw a comma in after "Hogwarts" in the third sentence, and in the last sentence, a hyphen would work really well after "chaos" to emphasize the contrasting outcomes.

First chapter (and everything that came before it): 7/10
Author's note: Um...I feel really awkward pointing this out, but the colon after "professional" should be a comma, and the comma after "writing" should be a period. 😅 Then, in the line below the gif, there's an accidental space between "comment" and the comma and a missing space between the comma and "vote." (And I also live for Wattpad comments.)

Prologue: Well, this is a nice little background info scene. Narcissa Malfoy and Minerva McGonagall meeting to discuss Draco's future. I approve.

So, you may not be a professional, but you write really well. The sneak peek into McGonagall's thoughts is well done, and the dialogue flows naturally. Your most common issue is the same as it was the blurb and the author's note - commas. And they can be tricky. My best recommendation here would be to use an editing tool to help you add them where they need to be and remove them where they don't. And take out those extra spaces you sometimes put in before or after a comma.

As far as suggestions with specific lines, I think I'd rephrase the first sentence of the second paragraph to something like, "Not that she was surprised." That aligns better with her exclamation about a "wonderful surprise" previously. In the fourth paragraph, you slip into present tense in the last sentence, so you should swap the present-tense verbs for their past-tense counterparts. When Narcissa first speaks, "reprimanded" is probably not the word you want to use. That would mean she's scolding or correcting McGonagall, and that's not what she's doing here. "Silently" doesn't work either, because she's not silent. The next time she speaks, you should close that dialogue out with a period and capitalize "she," because that's the start of a new, complete sentence, separate from the dialogue. You only use lowercase when there's a dialogue tag, which means the words immediately following the dialogue are incomplete on their own and directly describe how the dialogue is spoken. Later, when you want the trailing off effect, you should use a full ellipsis of three periods (...).

Also, I'm reading another Dramione fanfic right now, and if you're about to make Draco and Hermoine the Head Boy and Head Girl - well, I don't know what I'll do. But I'll do something. 😉

Chapter 1: YOU'RE KILLING RON????? O_O

Ahem. Moving on.

"The Boy Who Just Wouldn't Die." 🤣 Now I'm dying!

So, this is good. Not as clean as the prologue, which makes me think you just haven't gone back to proofread it, but that's fine. No major errors here. Yeah, the commas, and some dialogue punctuation stuff. There are some really, really long sentences you could split up. The very first sentence, actually. If I'd been reading that aloud, I would have had to stop and take a breath before I finished, and shorter sentences right at the start hook the reader better than longer sentences. Longer sentences are good once you've already got the reader's attention. There's one place where Ron is called "Ronald," which feels weird, especially since he was just called "Ron" the paragraph before that. Your characterization of Ron and Harry is...less than flattering, but amusing, and I approve. And I love the instant sparks between Draco and Hermione, and also her inner thoughts. "Ferrety ferrety ferrety!" 🤣

It may be a tumultuous year for you, Hermione, but I expect to gain much entertainment at your expense. 😁

*****

Rubric:
- Title: 10
- Book cover: 10
- Summary: 10
- Descriptiveness: 10
- Reader engagement: 10
- Plot uniqueness: 10
- Character development: 10
- Creativity: 10
- Writing style: 10
- Grammar/punctuation: 10
Total: 100

*****

Round 2: 78/100

Title: 10/10
See round one feedback.

Book cover: 9/10
See round one feedback.

Summary: 8/10
See round one feedback.

Descriptiveness: 7/10
Pretty good. Descriptions of Draco and Hermione are the most vivid, of course, but it would be nice to get more visual descriptions of other characters and the world, and engage some other senses, too - smell, sound, that kind of thing. But the picture is pretty clear to the reader.

Reader engagement: 10/10
Simply going by inline comments - yes. But that's because you're giving the people what they came for. Forced proximity trope? Check. Intense awkwardness and attraction? Yes. Hermione ogling Draco, and vice versa? Yep. And the details you throw in that are absolutely not realistic but so hilarious - sharing a bed. They have to share a bed. Really? We're really doing this? Yes. Yes, we are, and the teachers may or may not be placing bets on how long it takes Hermione and Draco to get together. Engaging, funny, shorter chapters packed with humor - all good here.

Plot uniqueness: 6/10
I mean, it's been done. Dramione is a whole thing. Forced proximity and the same bed trope are tropes for a reason. That doesn't mean this isn't fun, and you can make it more unique by fleshing everything out more.

Character development: 6/10
You talk about character development, but you don't show it much, if that makes sense. We're told the Houses are getting along. We're told Draco and Hermione are getting closer. The scene in chapter five shows how far the flirting and teasing have gone, but I'd like more on-the-way stuff so it's not such a leap.

Creativity: 8/10
Again, it's been done before, but your way of doing it is so fun.

Writing style: 8/10
It's fun, it's lively, it's funny, it's cute, it's hot - I like it. Judging by the comments, other people do, too. The "time skip" thing is unnecessary. You're already describing the length of time and transition in the following paragraph, so you don't need the actual words "time skip" at all, especially since this is the start of a new chapter. And the side commentary that breaks the fourth wall is better pushed down to an author's note instead of breaking up the narrative.

Grammar/punctuation: 6/10
Same stuff as before. I think it's probably something that happened when you copied and pasted into Wattpad, but there are a lot of places where there are no spaces following punctuation. Chapter two is like that all the way through. But yeah, punctuation is your biggest area for improvement. This is still very readable, but a clean-up would be nice.

*****

Round 3: 86/100

Title: 10/10
See round one feedback.

Cover: 9/10
See round one feedback.

Summary: 8/10
See round one feedback.

Descriptiveness: 7/10
See round one feedback.

Reader engagement: 10/10
Well, when your comments are full of readers cheering, booing, fangirling, placing bets, etc., I'd say you pulled this off pretty well. ;)

Plot uniqueness: 10/10
I retract my previous score and am bumping it up to the top. The heartfelt gift to Ron, the way he absolutely destroyed his relationship with Hermione and rubbed that gift in her face, her mental breakdown and decision to rebel—layered heavily with Draco (and reader) expectations that she's setting her sights on him—only for you to trick us while you send her into a rebound relationship with another guy who then attacks her, giving Draco the perfect opportunity to swoop in and save her—

Well. It's unique. And it's yours. Here are your points. 🙂

Character development: 8/10
Want some more points? You can have them. Chapters 6-10 are nothing but character development, and while it could be fleshed out more, it's definitely, obviously there.

Creativity: 10/10
But do you need more points? Here, take them. And see all the above for the reasons you should have them. 🙂

Writing style: 8/10
I am keeping this score the same, for similar reasons noted last round. The flashback could be better incorporated into the text, and I'd recommend putting the author's notes all at the bottom of each chapter in a dedicated section for that, but your style is still very fun and engaging.

Grammar/punctuation: 6/10
See round one feedback.