Intro:

The Edge Of The World was written by anOverthinkingDevil. This genre-mixed book follows main character, Bhairavi, and some of her friends, like Urvi and Aliya, as they deal with the various struggles that come their way, such as Bhairavi's father, who sets her up with a toxic man named Saurav; however, can Bhairavi escape before any harm comes her way?

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Detailed Feedback

What Worked:

I'll start with the smaller things, then make my way into the bigger ones.

For starters, I like how you incorporate the five senses into your writing and give us settings as soon as possible. For example, right off the bat in chapter 1, you set the scene within the first sentence and use a few of the five senses to do it. You stimulate the hearing sense by showing humming women, and you also give us color and specific details to give us a clear image of what's going on. And that's all in one relatively short sentence. It's not too long that it overstays its welcome, but it's not too short that we don't get any detail. You also have a good balance of vocabulary where you use more advanced words, but not to the point where it risks becoming purple prose or over-the-top writing. You follow up that opening sentence with a paragraph that has great specific detail. You specify the season and the temperature, you establish what the main character is doing, you show the baby crying, and you overall capture the feel of the setting. I can tell you have an eye for description, so great job including the five senses and making the descriptions vivid without making them over-the-top.

Another thing I like is the concept of Bhairavi being a journalist while her father is a politician. Those two careers don't always work well together, so it's interesting to see a father-daughter duo have completely different and often opposing careers. It opens the doors for many heated arguments and issues between them, so I'm glad you chose to make the careers so drastically different. I know that's a small thing, but as a reader, when I saw that, I immediately got my curiosity piqued, and it made me want to read more.

Moving more into the core elements, I liked how the characters had specific motivations and aspirations, like Bhairavi being an aspiring journalist and having the personality of a journalist. She's stubborn and takes risks like a journalist would, so I think you gave her the right personality for the job. Then there's Urvi and Aliya, who are opposites of each other where one talks a lot and the other is on the quieter side. Those are three examples of the character personalities, but every personality throughout the book feels unique.

In general, I like Bhairavi as the central protagonist. I think she works well for the story since her personality makes her a good fit for this type of ever-changing novel. The mixed genres throughout the narrative fit well with Bhairavi because she herself is mixed in terms of her personality. She has various traits that allow her to feel like she always fits in the book no matter what's happening in the plot. In simpler terms: she always feels like she belongs, and she always feels like a commanding presence directing the plot. AKA: she's an active character, not a passive one, which is what readers want in fiction.

While on the topic of Bhairavi, I like how she interacts with her father and the way she thinks about him. At first, she has a positive opinion of him and even seems to mentally defend him despite him being a politician, a career the public doesn't really approve of. Then, as the story unfolds more and more, it's far harder for her to keep the same positive opinion of him, and I can't blame her. He doesn't treat her well, so as readers, we can understand where she's coming from. I wanted to see her succeed, and as a writer myself, I found myself relating to her struggles and journey to prevail in her field. I studied journalism for a while, and I know from personal experience it's not an easy field, so I related on a personal level to her, which gave me an added layer of enjoyment.

All in all, I think the story has strong creativity in how its presented. You give us both the smaller details and the larger ones, which means the story is versatile and uses its time well. You suck the reader right in with an engaging opening and descriptions that stimulate the five senses, and you keep the reader hooked by giving us cool characters, interesting character dynamics, and a fun plot that keeps us on our toes. Overall, you did a great job with this story, and I think you should definitely keep writing!

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What Didn't Work:

My critiques are grammatical, which I think is a good thing since technical writing is the easiest to fix!

I would suggest using a free grammar editing software like Grammarly, ProWritingAid, and/or QuillBot to help with the grammar in the story. You can also try reading sentences out loud and/or plugging your text into text-to-speech (TTS) generators to have the sentences read back to you. I personally use TTS, and it helps me a lot with fixing grammar/spelling errors. I will give some grammar suggestions below, though for the long term, I'd suggest a grammar editor.

I'll start smaller then move into the more core criticisms.

There are some spelling errors throughout the story, so I'd recommend editing them. For example, in chapter 1, "Yet" is spelled as "Yer" about 1/4 into the chapter, in the paragraph that starts with "She was studying Journalism."

That leads me to my next point: capitalization. Sometimes you'll capitalize words that aren't proper nouns. Journalism is not a proper noun, so it should be lowercase there. I study film, but even though it's my field of study, I still lowercase it because it isn't a proper noun. I would capitalize my second field of study, English, because it's a proper noun, but not film because it isn't a proper noun.

The first main error I want to cover is dialogue tags (he said, she said, he asked, etc.). Dialogue tags are continuations of the dialogue, so that means they're part of the same sentence. That means when you're using a dialogue tag, the dialogue can end in anything other than a period/full stop, and the tag always needs to be lowercase unless it's a proper noun.

For example, from chapter 26: "It's Okay. By any chance have you seen Aditya?" She asked.

The "she asked" should be lowercase, not capitalized.

Also from chapter 26: "Oh, I was just exploring the place." Bhairavi replied.

It should be: "Oh, I was just exploring the place," Bhairavi replied.

Here are some random examples of good dialogue tags:

"How are you?" he asked.

"What did you do!" she shouted.

"I missed you," she said.

"Hey," Raven said.

All of those ^^ are correct tags. I hope that makes sense, but if you have any questions about tags, please let me know!

The next major error is there are times you have missing prepositions and articles when you need them. For example, from chapter 3: One couldn't say if it was black or any other dark color, sky was pitch dark. Sky is a noun, so it needs an article here. What I'd recommend: One couldn't say if it was black or any other dark color; the sky was pitch dark.

I also changed the comma to a semicolon since the comma was incorrect there. If you still want to use the comma, then this is what I recommend: One couldn't say if it was black or any other dark color, and the sky was pitch dark.

There are some comma errors where you're missing commas when you need them. Most commonly, during introductory clauses. For example: "Kicking the door out of irritation she switched her phone off and went inside." It should be: "Kicking the door out of irritation, she switched her phone off and went inside." Since the "Kicking the door out of irritation" is an introductory clause, it needs a comma.

The last grammar error I'll cover here has to do with dialogue again. I suggest giving dialogue spoken by new people its own space. Sometimes you'll put dialogue spoken by two or more people in the same paragraph. For example, from chapter 3: "What?" Bhairavi gasped. He chuckled," Don't worry, I'm here. You go back to your room, okay?"

See how two people are speaking in the same space? This is what I'd recommend:

"What?" Bhairavi gasped. 

He chuckled. "Don't worry, I'm here. You go back to your room, okay?"

It's a lot easier to read that way, so that's why I recommend it. I hope all those suggestions made sense!

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Summary:

- Nice job stimulating the five senses

- Cool concepts

- Many unique character personalities

- Bhairavi works as the central protagonist

- Dialogue tag errors

- Some missing words and commas

- Other grammar errors

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Overall:

The Edge Of The World provides a unique narrative with a plot that always feels like it's moving, but not to the point where it's hard to keep up. The characters are pushing their chess pieces to enact their plans, and every character has unique personalities and aspirations that keep them interesting. If you're someone who likes fun plots and unique characters, then this is the perfect novel for you.

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Thank you for submitting your book. If you have any questions or would like any additional reviews when the shop reopens, please let me know.

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I'm going to start leaving this new note at the end of all reviews since Wattpad removed pms.

If you would like to keep in contact with me and ask me for more feedback on your work, I have a Discord server for all readers, writers, and friends. I'll leave a link in the inline comment here for anyone who would like to join.