Title: Star Stuff

Author: drarrylarryharry

Reviewer: NathanRound

Summary: 4/5

Your summary is short, snappy, and to the point which is key. You introduced the protagonist, the conflicts at hand, and I like how you don't give too much away. Some writers fall victim to giving too much information here on Wattpad so it's good that you kept an element of mystery in your summary.

Writing Style: 2/5

Your writing style is quite a mixture of things. I like the way Kaylee's thoughts seep into the writing and her rambles flow naturally in the narrative. These rambles work very well as they don't seem to affect the flow of your story in a negative way, you immediately return back to your narrative from where you left off which is a great thing to see. The way Kaylee wonders off topic now and again truly captures her wild and out of control imagination, it puts forth some deep and pondering topics which is great to see.

However, at times your story can be a little confusing and I don't mean the plot. One thing that stood out to me was how you changed from setting to setting during chapters, which felt a little jarring at times. One instance was chapter one. Kaylee was wondering down the alley to catch her bus and then whoosh, she's at school. It felt very confusing and it didn't become apparent that the setting changed until Kaylee herself literally states that. I myself would advise that these quick setting changes and time jumps happen in between chapters instead of during one single chapter. It just makes your story flow that much better and takes away the confusion.

At times your repetition can come off a little weak and underwhelming. Now don't get me wrong, in many cases you intentionally used repetition beautifully and it works very well. But I believe that there are instances where you unintentionally repeated certain words and it just comes off as unprofessional. One example of this was your prologue. 

'Joshua was, in one word, tired. So, So tired. So, so, so, so, so tired.

He was tired of people and family members that shared sympathetic glances with each other instead of with him. He was tired of waking up in the morning cold without another body to warm the sheets beside him. He was tired of having cereal for breakfast because he never bothered to learn how to cook and it seemed as though that was all Sam did. He was tired of this.'

Now I understand you wanted to put forth how tired Joshua felt, how fed up he was about the situations at hand, but there are other ways to do it. The second paragraph used repetition very well, but your first sentence did not. I feel that, being as though that is the first sentence your reader will see, it needs to be a lot stronger. Let's tidy it up a little, shall we?

'Exhaustion bared down heavily on Joshua's weary shoulders. It made his body feel numb both physically and mentally, for he was at the end of his rope.

Yes, Joshua was tired. Tired of all the sympathetic glances his family members cashed out to complete strangers yet not himself, tired of waking up to the morning coldness without another warm body to cling onto and fight it away, tired of putting up with cereal for breakfast because he never bothered to learn how to cook; though it seemed that was all Sam did. He hated, truly hated this with a passion.' 

Now isn't that just a little bit stronger for an opening. You can use this example if you wish or you create something completely different. Whatever suits you.

You tend to repeat certain words in a similar way as if to emphasise certain situations ('awkward awkward awkward' is one example.) Again, it can often become a little underwhelming so I advise you stray away from this. Show us how the situation was awkward instead of telling us, showing works so much better and you can even play around with it.

The shift from past to present tense was also a little confusing but I won't focus too much on that. 

Grammar: 3/5

Some good things here, not many grammatical errors stood out and your work can be read fairly smoothly as they generally go unnoticed. Your work is still in need of editing however and I presume that this is just an initial draft. Below I will discuss a some small grammatical error to give you an idea of things you need to look out for while editing. 

Opening of Chapter 8: God's Work:

"It bleeds freely as search for my trailer, and I'm lucky I know this place as well as I do because my home is hidden in the center of the maze."

I've corrected this for you here: 

"It bleeds freely as I search for my trailer. I'm lucky I know this place as well as I do, because my home is hidden in the center of the maze."

I feel splitting this into two sentences makes it flow just a little bit better also. 

You seem to go a little overboard with your commas as well, let me elaborate. I think of commas as a cue for a reader to breath. Commas themselves serve to break up sentences to help with its fluidity. I believe that you use commas a little too much. I would like to have seen other forms of punctuation in your novelisation. It can be a little daunting to try new forms of punctuation; this is especially true for new writers. But if you would like to use semicolons, colons and hyphens then I can explain their purposes below, and provide some examples.

The purpose of a semicolon is to connect two independent clauses that are strongly intertwined. A semicolon provides a closer relationship than the one provided by a period (full stop). 

Example: 'The dog was chocolate-brown; it was also very old.'

A colon typically has three main uses. Firstly, a colon can be used after a word introduces a quotation, an example, or to list. 

Example: 'There were four subjects that I needed to study for: Maths, Biology, Physics, and Computer Science.'

The second use of a colon is strikingly similar to that of a semicolon, in which it can be placed between two independent clauses in the event that the second clause elaborates on the first. 

Example: 'A sound like thunder filled the air and he hit the ground in an instant: she shot him.'

The third use is for emphasis, which may serve as a replacement for your repetition at times. 

Example: 'there was only one thing she loved more in the world than him: the guy who lived across the street.'

Hyphens can be used instead of parentheses, which is often used to contain further thoughts or qualifying remarks. 

Which brings me to my next point.

'"Joshua?" She asked. He nodded in response and she smiled even wider (not thought possible) before gesturing for him to follow her into the church.' 

Now the parentheses in this sentence seem a little awkward and mess with its fluidity. Below I will show an example of how you could fix it.

'"Joshua?" She asked. He nodded in response and her smile grew even wider than before (such a smile seemed impossible to Josh), before gesturing for him to follow her into the church.'" 

You could also replace the parentheses with hyphens to achieve the same goal. 

'"Joshua?" She asked. He nodded in response and her smile grew even wider than before -such a smile seemed impossible to Josh- before gesturing for him to follow her into the church.'"

Character Building: 2/5

Kaylee is a very peculiar character. You put forth her quirks, superstitions and her incredible imagination very well. Her emotions are very real and heightened, and I like her unfamiliarity with love. Hats off to you there.

I like the playfulness between Kaylee and Catherine. They both have very diverse voices and their quirks are both similar in a way that makes them compatible as well as different to separate the two characters. However, all the other characters, in my opinion, just mashed together. They were just names and they did not differ from each other at all. Every character should have their own uniqueness, but to me they were just background noise. 

Your first chapter included way too many characters also. I myself felt a little overwhelmed at the amount of characters being introduced. Their names simply left my mind and that shouldn't happen in a narrative. None of them seemed unique in the slightest, all their actions and personalities blended together because they all felt the same. Minimise the amount of characters in that first chapter, for it can become a little stressful for readers to keep track of all these characters, to the point that they just forget them all together.

Plot + Uniqueness: 4/5

Your plot is unlike anything I have encountered before. It's an interesting concept, which reminds me of 'Where the Wild Things Are" (in the fact that both stories revolve around figments of the characters imagination that seem to challenge their perception of reality). It's whacky, creative, bizarre and trippy at times and it definitely stands out from the crowd. Unfortunately, the underwhelming characters and bizarre time jumps do work against this.

OVERALL SCORE: 15/25