Title: Half Hope, Half Love

Author: lily97000

Reviewer: awesomeSTG

Summary: -no score-

Well, since you told me not to score your blurb, I did as instructed. However, I have some teeny tiny advice. 

Excerpts, while they are common in Wattpad, aren't really that helpful in terms of being blurbs in the professional sense. Sure, they can lure the readers in, especially if they add a hint of sexy and spice and everything hot, but have you seen excerpts on the back of the cover of an actual book? 

I've read a lot of them, and in my opinion, I don't think so. Of course, this is subjective, but if you want to know more about how to make an alluring "bluh bluh blurb," check out the half rant, half self help book that Miss ray_of_sunshine9 and I made! 

(Well, technically, it's not posted yet, but since someone already requested that we tackle this topic, I figured I'd lure some folks who might want some advice!) 

It's called...

101 Writing Tips from an Exhausted Reviewer!

(It's in Miss Sunshine's profile. We'd appreciate it if you checked it out if you have time!) 

Description: 2.5/5

Okay. First of all, my first comment on your story is that your sentences are bananas long. Seriously. I'm actually missing a certain punctuation mark called the period. 

Let's break something down, shall we? 

While compound and complex sentences are a way to show that you want to complicate things further, the lack of period actually hurts the eyes (well, I guess this might be subjective because I can't tell if anyone's eyes are hurt except for mine) and adds even more tendency for grammatical errors. It won't hurt if you shorten them a bit, right? This is heavily connected to your grammar, so I suggest you break up some of your Rapunzel's-hair-long sentences and make them simpler. This is the first step to taking a peek and examining the current stature of your story. If you break them down, it will be a whole lot easier to untangle the strings and spot all those grammatical inconsistencies.

This is just a small example. I've actually read one (I think it's on chapter 2) that is too long for me to screenshot. 

Please be reminded that "Description," also affects the score of "Grammar," which we will be tackling sooner. 

Do you notice how many "at/to me," phrases you have? Yes. This can be called redundancy because it's already repeated itself thrice in a single sentence. 

Anywho, let's go back to the rest of the discussions about descriptions. 

Next up is the way the character, Scarlett, simply narrates the entire scenario. Don't fret though! I really like the intricacy of it all, I'm glad you added their gestures and described what the two of them are doing, but this is where a part of my criticism lies. 

It's telling too much, especially about the gestures part. Remember that every moment counts as something of great importance. If what Heath or Scarlett are doing aren't that important, then it's okay if you give them time to rest. An example for this is on Chapter 1, those gestures with the hand and constant back and forth of the action. Instead, you could've given time to add life to the things around. Describe the surroundings! What did the room look like? What did it smell like? Are there pieces of dust motes on a few furniture that hadn't been used? While we're still on the first chapter, it's important that we know where we are. It's okay not to focus on Heath too much. You're giving us this impression that her life almost revolves around the man and she can't describe anything without him in the background. Show us what's going on! 

By the way, I loved the way you added that little showing of Heath's inner feelings by Scarlett's thoughts. It's a brilliant way to show how close they had become over the course of almost eight years of acquaintance.

Grammar: 2.5/5

This is probably where most of my everything adds, so buckle up! 

The grammar isn't that shabby, in fact it's actually readable and complex (I've said this in the previous corner), but there are still a lot of mistakes on the side that need to be polished. 

1. First of all, there are your sentences. They're long, right? It's like each separate sentence is a paragraph. In those are some strange words I've encountered that — in my opinion — don't exist:

*shooking

*weired

(The "weired," word is somehow kinda okay, but if I remember correctly, phrases like, "I'm so SHOOKED," are just made for fun, and that shooking word doesn't exist. Maybe you meant, "shaking"?)(The "weired," word is somehow kinda okay, but if I remember correctly, phrases like, "I'm so SHOOKED," are just made for fun, and that shooking word doesn't exist. Maybe you meant, "shaking"?) 

I really had to screenshot them long sentences. Sorry about that, but I want to point them out as clearly as possible. 

2. Take a look at the second paragraph. Yes, the figure of speech one. I still have no idea if Scarlett's into poetical words, but this doesn't sound right in a story of love and secretaries and bosses. If we're going to be talking about realism, I don't think anyone would compare themselves to the "casual" moon, either. 

In relevance to the genre, maybe you can make her thoughts more practical, like this: 

"Grabbing all my wits, I slowly turned around, my face as guarded as an experienced gambler's before tucking a lock of hair behind my ear." 

In my opinion, it sounds much befitting to the tale and it's professional vibe. What do you think? 

3. "Stop fighting." He ordered. "And squirming." 

Okay. We finally reached the verbal tag section! First of all, please replace the first period with a comma, for a verbal tag means that the sentence isn't officially over yet, hence the term, "tag". This includes the "said, muttered, whispered, thought, chipped in," and many more that show how the statement had been said. 

Also, since there's another part you've chopped off, it's completely okay to omit the second period and replace it with yet another comma, for the "ordered," can serve as a tag for the separated sentence. 

4. "... he bought a apartment for me..."

Okay, the fourth will be easier. This is incorrect because you used "a," instead of "an". "An," is the proper word one should use when the word following it is a vowel [a, e, i, o, u]. If it's a consonant (all the other letters except for the earlier five), then one should use "a". 

5. "... Stop it. I'm getting nausea here." 

There are a lot of improper words scattered around the story, and this is one of it. Change this to "nauseous," because nausea is a different form. 

6. "... and ruffled my hairs..." 

Um, yes... we have a lot of hairs, but we're not talking about them by strand. We're talking about them as a whole, so the word "hair," will do just fine. 

7. "He raised his one eyebrow." 

This is also one of the things I've noticed in your story. You seriously don't have to emphasize every single thing with a repeating "my/mine/I/he/his," words because it will seriously get redundant. 

Heath can't raise Scarlett's eyebrow can he? No, he can't. So it would be already obvious if it's just stated, "he raised one eyebrow..." right? The word is unnecessary. 

8. There are a lot of typos. 

stained – strained 

*befoee

*slightly

I suggest that you check your chapter once before publishing it the next day. It does wonders, though even though you might not spot everything all at once, maybe you can let it sit idly before checking it again. You'll see so much better if you let your eyes rest from your own story.

Characterisation: 3/5

I like Heath! So far you've told it in Scarlett's point of view, but he's already piqued my interest. However, as much as I was interested in the past that your protagonist had woven for him, all the sensual fluff didn't really amuse me in the slightest. I mean, I've heard that it's plausible since the two of them had been together for more than seven years, but it's just the first three chaps! Please be reminded that this is just an opinion of mine, but since I don't know them that much yet, the pinning thing just seemed cliché and chokes me. 

My comment on Scarlett is that her voice is pretty bland and it often breaks from time to time. Such as that as casual as the moon thingy. What the character states while she's in said point if view is something that might make or break her. 

Okay, lemme give an example. 

Kihal and Fylou. Both of them are girls, yet there are completely different ways in showing their special quirks just by their usage of words and actions. Let's say Kihal is a shy and gentle girl who often tries to stop her close friend, the unruly Fylou, from exploding and getting into fights. This is a sample scenario where they look into an evil madman's physique. 

Kihal:

"Welcome, ladies," a voice purred from the deeper darkness. Almost immediately, the cold touches of dread clambered up my spine and grasped onto my weak, hammering heart. That cold sensation held it close, slowly crushing and killing it. 

When the figure finally emerged from the shadows, I caught the whiff of copper, and something sour threatened to spill out from my stomach. The man's eyes were iridescent, bright red, and as he smiled, my legs wobbled helplessly. 

Fylou:

"Welcome, ladies," greeted a sickening voice from God-knows-where he currently was. For some strange reason, something cold scrammed up my spine and grasped my thrice-accursed heart, which, had been beating as if I had run an entire marathon. 

When the bastard finally came out, I sniffed loudly and snorted at the stench of blood. Bile rose from my guts, but I held it back. The man's eyes were bloodshot, and when he did so much as a grin, my knees shook and I inwardly cursed at what a coward I was. 

[end of excerpts]

Okay! We can deduce from their narration the type of words they are most likely to use. Can you imagine Kihal using the word, "guts, bile, and bastard"? Can you imagine Fylou narrating with, "purred, or iridescent," and other fancy stuff on them? 

That's their own voice. It's their character. Now, that's what I want to feel from Scarlett, since all she did was narrate what she was doing and what Heath was doing to her. You're using sensory words alright, but you don't have to use all those similar meanings, like that one on the second screenshot's first paragraph. 

But don't worry though! I know that a character's individual voice is kinda hard to make. I've just been practicing it for like... um, maybe ever since I decided to make Ember Chasers. I really wanted to know about many ways to show personality, so I decided to ask for help and read a lot of self help Wattpad books. 

So don't fret! Practice makes a lot of difference!

Plot: 4/5

Since this is still a new story, I won't review any possible plot holes first. I'm going to review this via quality and uniqueness as a whole, and I'm not going to lie: this story is pretty... hmm, not 'that' cliché, but it also isn't rare. It's common to the point experienced romance readers might roll their eyes. 

BUT! 

It possesses its own style and twist, which, in my opinion, is tough in the romance category because there are like, tons and tons of writers who aspire their own twists. Kudos! Looking forward to what more you can dish out! 

Realism: 5/5

No qualms here! I'm really relieved that their relationship isn't one of those typical cliché boss and secretary stories, like those rushed "the MC is jobless and then the CEO suddenly takes her in and the romance begins," tropes. I'm glad you built their relationship on a long platform of more than seven years. My only suggestion here is that maybe you can grant us access to some of the things they did together in the past, either a fluffy chapter that develops personality or a trigger flag (I'm using otome game language) that caused the two to be close. 

Other than that, great job! Your characters and scenario look great! 

OVERALL SCORE: 14.5/20

First of all, I want to apologize for the delay. I don't know how long I've made you wait already, but I hope this review helped. Sorry if I was blunt, but please be reminded that most of these are subjective and may vary in the eyes of other critics. Thank you so much for putting your trust and choosing me, reviewer Painite, and choosing our store!