By A Rose ChiddyE01

Review by @renegxde

Title

I love what the name suggests as opposing to the genre of the book. It’s intriguing and definitely interesting. I do believe that you could remove the whole capitalisation of the name. Keeping it, “By A Rose.”

Cover

I definitely like the idea of mystery that is given through the cover. You have been able to show that this is not a love story, this is so much more. Through the font style and colour, all these details come to light and it’s a smart move. Great job!

However, I do believe that the cover can be a lot more attractive. The blending style and face image could be much better executed along with the name placement. I would highly suggest that you choose a graphic designer and explain the idea that you see in her head to create a wholesome book cover. I suggest Monography by themonocommittee.

I also suggest removing the face claim and focusing on the blood and rose. These two elements play hand-in-hand with title and it will show the plot perfectly.

Blurb

“Old friends and acquaintances of—“

By using these words, you have made the major plot detail too vague. I don’t understand who these people are. Since this is the first statement about the world that you have created, you need to be bold and specific about these characters. The storyline definitely begins with these murders, so who are they? Why do these ‘old friends and acquaintances’ of Ramona matter?

How do you show the importance of these characters and their deaths? 

Suggestion: “When Ramona’s three friends are murdered, she recognises that all her deaths happen the same way.”

(This is just a suggestion, I recommend using your own voice to create a sentence that showcases the importance of the three friends’ deaths and how they were killed).

“The worst happens when the murders of old reoccur in the same style as before, after five years!”

The intention of this sentence gets muddled up in the wordy form. You need to increase the efficiency the words you have chosen so that your sentences become clear even if they are short. Personally, I think that is what shows you are a bold and confident writer. I’m going to split these sentences up bit by bit to help you understand how to improve them with word building and sentence structuring.

“The worst happens when the murders of old—“

This refers to the past and hints that her life is about to get a lot more complicated.
Suggestion: “The mystery of the murders thicken—“

It’s always good to be specific with what you are talking about in the blurb. You have a limited amount of words to grip the audience to and you need to make every second of it count. 

“—reoccur in the same style as before, after five years.”

This portion of the sentence talks about the time component twice. Usually repetition intensifies the importance of some events, however, I think the sentence structure here, does not allow that. 

Suggestion: “—once again.”

I believe that you can inflect the same meaning through different vocabulary and placement of sentence structure. Sometimes when writing, there’s a lot of thoughts that happen at once which leads to sentences with a lot of wordy elements. For me, re-reading the sentences with a fresh mind helps to see if the sentence has the same impact as intended. You need to build that intuition over time and for me, that happened the more I read books, and understood the depth of grammar.

Sentence suggestion: “The mystery of the murders thicken once again.”

“Blood by drops, splatters and splashes—“

This sentence does not make sense because of the grammar and sentence structuring. “Blood by—“ sounds off. I can’t tell you why, but I do suggest taking of the “by” and continuing the sentence without it. I also believe saying that the blood splatters and splashes along with drops is off-base. It doesn’t make sense how all three of these actions are possible in this one situation. 

Drops (or drips) - slow dripping movement

Splashes - when you move blood around

Splatters - it is thrown on something

Suggestion: “The blood drips.”

Try to use either one of these verbs to describe the blood movement.

“—in the most terrible of ways.”

I believe that the sentence can do without this detail as it is implied. 

“With no idea of a suspect, she remains dismayed.”

I suggest the removal of the wordy portions.

Suggestion: “Without a suspect, she is dismayed (by it all).”

“—her only help is Wesley Stark—“

Using this phrase does not sound professional, it is the kind of sentence that you would say when you’re speaking, rather. Word building and vocabulary can really help for these situations to ripen your writing style.

Suggestion: “—her saviour is Wesley Stark—“

I suggest that you stop the sentence there with a full stop. Breaking the run-on and introducing a new train of thought with, “A survivor—“ I loved this sentence as it wraps up the three main aspects that I would expect of the book, now. Great work!

“Her temporary solution; the desperate urge to prevent new relationships of any kind. 

Her only hope; waking up every morn.“

I actually did not understand the intent of this sentence. Maybe you could let me know what it means in the inline comments instead? 

Temporary solution for? 

Relationship with who? - with Wesley Stark?

Hope for? - is it because she is traumatised from the murders?

“—waking up every morn.”

Correction: “—waking up every morning.”

“And her only clue to link past and present, the start to the trail of bloodshed ; A Rose,  A single red rose…..”

This sentence is so powerful. I love the intent of it which is why I want you to be able to express it in the correct grammatical way to nail the impact that it has on the readers. When you place ellipses, you should limit yourself to three - “…”

Sentence Structure. Suggestion: “Her only method to link past and present is the trail of bloodshed.  The path that begun with a rose. A single red rose.”

I like the idea of placing, “An intriguing premise of—“ I haven’t seen that in many wattpad book blurbs, but it definitely adds to the tone of the book. I can imagine it on the back of a hardcover.

Writing Style

I love the idea of starting the chapter with a dialogue. I usually don’t like the beginnings of, “So—“. But, in this case, it adds the tone to the story. It shows the intimidation and nervousness from the first line. I love it! Great job on the introduction.

“—this man with the acuity caused by fear was the closet person to me.“

I believe that the underlined statement does not make a lot of sense because I cannot understand the intention of the words. Maybe you can explain this to me in the inline comments so I can help you restructure this better?

“So just one—“

I loved the usage in the beginning, however, in the writing descriptions and narratives, I believe using this word takes away from your talent. You can easily start this sentence without the usage of the word and this way, your writing style will be more strong and stern. By placing “So”, it lightens the tone and serves no actual purpose other than adding bulk.

“Which gave his—“

I usually don’t recommend starting a sentence with this word. Instead, I would opt for - “It gave his—“ or remove the full stop to create one wholesome sentence with the former one. I love that you have gone into detail in his physique description, it definitely caused a good imagery.

“—but the wrinkles refused to hide themselves.”

I like that you have described her father in a 3 dimensional form. It is insightful for her character description and development. However, I did not understand the intention behind saying that his wrinkled were obvious. Did you want to highlight that he is old and wise? I recommend restructuring this sentence to be more clear of the intention.

Technicalities

“—almost dark-skinned thighs—“

I don’t understand why you wrote almost. You can, instead, describe the colour of her dark-skin by saying caramel, tan, almond or cocoa. This will give a better insight as you have intended it to.

“—morn—“

Correction: “—morning—“

“—just one man being very familiar with me—“

“—not a choice neither was it a compulsion—“

I think you need to add the tone of professionalism in your writing and this will definitely increase the impact of your style. There’s some missing links which causes confusion which I believe that you can resolve yourself. You have the ability to make good sentences that the tell the story, however, it is not always that the impact is seen. I urge you to re-read your work with fresh eyes to notice these incomplete phrases. If you need any help with this, let me know.

“Life had made it so.”

I was confused by this sentence. This is due to the sequence of previous sentences. The intention of this sentence is for it to be short and conclusive (from what was written before). But, since the two former sentences are incomplete in thought, this sentence becomes confusing. 

The next sentence saves the intention by being clear and to the point. “—I was a loner—“.

“My father though fifty three—“
Grammar Correction: “My father, though, fifty-three—“

“—when what anyone could easily see—“
Grammar Correction. I suggest removing the entire sentence between the commas. It does not add any information to the sentence and I could not understand the intention behind it.

Word Building

I love your usage of vocabulary and its positioning. All aspects of it are good. I implore you to continue this usage in your blurb. It will definitely attract more readers into the chapters. For example, “—pleats of the short black dress—“ and “—the chilling despair that came with the sour night.” These detail writing techniques make your story unique from the others and shows that you have a strong voice. 

Dialogue

In cases of dialogue, I suggest making the scene come to life to show the essences of the world created. I love divulging myself into the story, and understanding their unique personalities especially in the first scene where Wesley talks about how much he cares for Ramona. You would want to describe his physique whilst he is talking to her so that we can imagine the context. I would recommend a way to further describe and bring us (the readers) into the scene more. Firstly, the dialogue delivery can be altered. Sometimes starting with - she choked out, “(dialogue)” rather than “(dialogue)” she choked out. (example) This way you set the scene first and proceed to the speech. It allows for you to play with the timing of speech as well. Once you start a new paragraph with a dialogue, it sounds like the conversation is bouncing off the characters at a quicker pace. When you place the descriptive voice/detail first, it causes an involuntary pause to set the scene/ tone/ voice of the speaker. When you would require a great pause in between the speech of one person, it would be beneficial to describe, not only, their actions, but also, add more essence to the scene before continuing their speech. This will leave the audience craving for more character interaction and development rather than reading through dialogue itself. 

I do love the way you have showed her feelings in the inner dialogue. It allows us to glimpse into her personality and serves its purpose perfectly. It’s interesting how you have shown her inner thoughts and then gone on to write about her actual response to Wes. I believe I really enjoyed that detail!

Storyline

I believe that your plot is unique. There’s a lot of development of the characters and the scenes created really come to life with the level of detail that you have added. It shows that you have thought about every inch of the scene and want to bring us into that world. I do recommend that you refine your grammar, sentence structure and prose to be able to thoroughly engross your readers in the world you have created. With the development in these factors, you will be able to reach a different degree of professional writing which I believe you can! For editing tips, I recommend Under the Moonscape by themonocommittee. 

Keep writing, love!