Title: Tails Will Wag by LAJoyner
Source: ELGANZA, INC. | AWARDS by TheCieloCommunity

Category: Comedy

Mature: N (rated D for doggie [aka PG]: blood, bodily waste, bullying, mild profanity, sexual references, violence)
LGBTQIAP+: N

Status: Complete
Special note (judging): I had four books in this category, and the other judge (YsmeriaGuilro) had four books.
Result: 93/100

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*****

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: 5/5
Dogs? Yes, please! What could be funnier than a story from a dog's point of view? A story from two dogs' points of view!

Cover: 3/5
I like the photo album-style cover with the bone background and brown tones, and I like the title on the bigger bone in the middle. There should be an apostrophe in "idol's" in the subtitle, though, and the text in the upper right-hand corner and lower left-hand corner is really small. I couldn't read it until I pulled up the bigger image on your profile. The award thing in the upper right-hand corner isn't that important, because the trophy is visible, and that makes it clear the blurb is something about an achievement, but I think the text in the lower left-hand corner should be a little bigger. And I'm sure Min Holly would agree. 😉

Blurb: 4/5
This is cute, nonsensical, and chaotic. I love it. In the first sentence, there are some singular/plural issues with "two dogs living" a singular "K-pup Idols life," so I'd probably change that to something like "their K-pup idol lives." Also, you capitalize "Idol" there, but it's lowercase later in the same sentence, and I think picking one way and sticking with it would be a good idea. There's a missing period after "growls Tannie," and you could consider changing "do" in the last line to "will."

But yes, I love this, and I am looking forward to Fred the Squirrel's special appearance alongside Min Holly.

Plot & storytelling: 15/15
Aw, this is really cute! It doesn't have an overarching plot, as such, since it's just following the dogs around their daily lives with their owners and friends, but there's nothing wrong with that. My only critique in this department is when Pepper shows up at the dog park. She's introduced as "the cute little Yorkshire Terrier," and in context, the "the" made me think I'd missed her introduction earlier, so then I was scrolling back up, looking for her. Changing that to "a cute little Yorkshire Terrier" would probably be better to show this is her first appearance.

Character development: 10/10
I love how you develop everybody, and not just Tannie and Ban. There's enough of the BTS members to get snapshots of their personalities, too, and then there's Fred the squirrel, of course, and the neighborhood watch cat (hilarious concept, by the way). Every character is distinct from every other character, and they're all fun and easy to relate to.

Writing style: 9/10
You have a fun, engaging writing style. This is a nice light read that's just the thing I need when I want to snuggle on the sofa with my (imaginary) dog and destress from the day.

I know you said in the blurb that the doggie dialogue would be in italics whenever they're around their humans, because humans can't understand them, and I have some observations and suggestions about that. Sometimes, even when humans are around, the doggie dialogue is in normal font, and it only switches into italics when they're talking directly to their humans, but sometimes it's in italics the whole time. It's usually in single quotation marks as well, but there's at least one place where it's in double quotation marks. I think just having the dialogue in italics whenever humans are around, regardless of who the dogs are talking to, would be helpful, and just picking one style (single or double quotation marks) would be a good idea.

Another thought I have is regarding thoughts. Those are in italics within single quotation marks, so they look just like doggie dialogue, and especially when humans are around, that gets confusing. I think leaving the quotation marks off entirely would help, so then the reader could know whenever they see italics without quotes, those are thoughts.

Grammar: 7/10
Generally pretty solid, but there are rare proofreading mistakes like a missing period here or an extra quotation mark there. There are also some incomplete sentences, like the sentence near the start of the first chapter that starts with "Scaring Tannie so much." You could fix that by merging it with the previous sentence using a comma. There are occasional run-on sentences, too, which you could fix just by swapping a comma here or there for a semicolon.

I know you said commas are the bane of your existence, but they're usually in the right places, except for dialogue tags. There are quite a few sentences ending with a comma to lead into the dialogue even though they're not dialogue tags (or the dialogue ends with a comma to lead into a sentence that isn't a dialogue tag). If the sentence before or after dialogue can stand on its own without the dialogue and doesn't directly describe who is speaking or who they're saying it (he said, she asked, they shouted), it's probably not a dialogue tag, so those commas should be periods.

Bam looks at Tannie and smirks. "I'm a good boy, and you're not."
"Keep thinking that." Tannie raises his nose in the air and prances away in a huff.
Bam follows and woofs happily, "I'm a good boy."
"You're annoying," Tannie woofed back.

Another thing with dialogue is it's sometimes split into two or three paragraphs, even when it's the same speaker. Unless there's a drastic change in tone or subject, I think it's better to put all of one speaker's dialogue in one paragraph to preserve the A B A flow to a conversation, where A is one speaker, and B is the next. That just helps prevent reader confusion about who is saying and doing what. And if there is a reason to separate the dialogue, adding a short non-dialogue paragraph between sections of dialogue, like a sentence about action or body language or whatever, would help preserve the A B A flow.

There are occasional slips into the past tense, and they're often tricky because they're around mentions of something that just happened in the past relative to the present moment in the story, so sometimes, I'm not sure if it's fine, or if it needs to change, but it just feels a little weird.

And lastly, when somebody is shouting in pain, I'd probably use "ow," "owiee," or "owee" instead of "owe" to differentiate between the word "owe" and the exclamation. Or you could use "ouch" and not have to deal with the weirdness of spelling trying to figure out how to spell that.

Originality & creativity: 10/10
Story about the dogs of BTS? Yep, that's original and creative. Check!

Emotional impact: 10/10
I can't say I formed a close emotional bond with the characters, but the friendships you portray, animal and human, are so sweet and adorable, and I love the whole dog park scenario. The way Tannie stands up for his friends using the skills Bam taught him until Bam can come to the rescue is so heartwarming, and then they talk to the bully and find out why he's so aggressive, so they end up forming a new friendship. I also love the part when Tannie has to tell Bam they're not going on tour, and Bam gets all worked up about being a bad dog. Poor pup! 😆🥺

Pacing & structure: 5/5
Well, there isn't really an overarching plot here, as it's more like small stories all tied together because of the characters and chronology, so pacing isn't really an issue. Nothing is too fast; nothing is too slow. It's perfect. And the structuring of the content in each chapter is also perfect.

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

Overall enjoyment & engagement: 10/10
This is a light, fun read. I first saw Tannie in a video a few days before reading this, and I adore Pomeranians, so I was excited to see him starring in his own story. I also used to work in veterinary medicine, so I appreciate the responsible pet ownership portrayed here. And even though I don't enjoy potty humor, these are dogs, not people, and your handling of that topic is tastefully done, so this isn't a gross read at all. Overall, I really, really enjoyed this, and I'm looking forward to reading more of your serious works at some point in the (hopefully) near future.