Title: Survive Another Day

Author: belaurent

Summary: [no score – will not be included in final score]

I decided, ultimately, not to score your summary, simply because I don't think it was your intention to write an elaborate, traditional summary. That being said, I think your summary is short, sweet and a great way to intrigue readers. It gets the point across in concise manner, so well done!

Just a warning, though: you had a few punctuation mistakes throughout it. Let's go through them, shall we?

Since Max came out of the closet three months ago his friends turned into bullies.

First of all, you're missing a comma between the words 'ago' and 'his'.

But what will happen when one day the bullies turn into real monsters.

In this above sentence, you're missing a question mark at the end (since it is a question). Additionally, you need commas separating the 'one day' from the rest of the sentence. It should look like this:

But what will happen when, one day, the bullies turn into real monsters? 

Grammar: 2/5

Alright, so as I alluded to in the previous section about the summary, your grammar needs a bit of work. That's not a huge problem – fixing up technical things is a lot easier than, let's say, dealing with plot-holes. It just takes a keen-eye and a bit of background knowledge. So, without further ado, let's launch into it, shall we?

The biggest issue I found within your story was tense. You kept darting back and forth between past and present tense, which was often disconcerting for the reader. You need to choose one tense and stick to it. For example:

"One of my friends spat at me while another one of them kicks me in the guts."

In that above sentence, you inaccurately included both past and present tense. Let's break it down further:

"My of my friends spat..." [spat = past tense]

"... one of them kicks me in the guts." [kicks = present tense]

You need to choose one of the tenses and use it throughout your entire story.

Along with tense, I also found that you had many run-on sentences. Also, you need to watch out for your homophones, such as to, two and too. For example:

"Diego was getting a little to excited."

It should be 'too', which can mean 'excessively' or 'additionally', as opposed to 'to', which is more like a preposition or infinitive marker.

The biggest issue I found throughout your story was dialogue and punctuation. If dialogue is followed by a verbal dialogue tag (such as 'he said', 'she whispered', 'she exclaimed' – or anything referring to how the character says the words), there should be a comma before the closing inverted commas. If it's anything else, this comma should be replaced by a period (or a question mark for a question and exclamation mark for an exclamation). For example:

"Diego, call an ambulance." He orders.

'He orders' directly refers to the dialogue spoken. It should be:

"Diego, call an ambulance," he orders.

Additionally, when there is dialogue from more than one character, each character should have their dialogue on a separate paragraph. Let's take this excerpt from your story:

"Stand up, we need to get away from here." Bryan orders me but I just sit there frozen. "Is this really happening or is this some type of bad joke." I ask myself.

And, now, let's enforce the rules I mentioned above:

"Stand up. We need to get away from here," Bryan orders me.

I just sit there, frozen. "Is this really happening, or is this some type of bad joke?" I ask myself.

Character Building: 2.5/5

I sympathised with Max a lot. I love how caring his he towards his parents, and I love how much he cares about not making them worry. On top of that, with all the bullying he was going through, and the way he just stomached it all – my heart hurt for him. It really did.

That being said, you did a lot of telling and not enough showing. There were a lot of moments where, instead of easing the reader into getting to know Max, it was just abrupt little statements such as, "I used to be popular and have a lot of friends." Maybe it would be more emotionally evoking if you showed this to us. When Bryan joins in for the beating, make Max remember the way they used to laugh together, watch movies together. If you use memories like these, not only will it show a bit of backstory, but it'll also make the reader sympathise even more.

I did, however, enjoy Max's voice a lot more as the chapters progressed. Good use of rhetorical question throughout the story! I loved the moment where Max sort of internally questioned himself for not keeping Olivia safe – that was a perfect way to pave the path towards character development.

Also, be careful when it comes to developing villains. I found Diego terrifying, which is fine, but almost to an unrealistic extent. You need to slow down the pace because, to an extent, the reader should be able to understand even the villains' motives. For example, when he sees the hickey on Max's neck, you need to slow the pace down and make the reader see the realisation dawn within him. Then, when you make him snap, the moment will be even more explosive. 

Writing Style: 2.5/5

Okay, so when we see the intense scene in that first chapter where the actual zombie elements of the story come to life, I thought the fast-paced nature of your writing was fantastic. It made the blood and gore even more gruesome and intense, and it certainly helped the reader gauge the horror of the situation. Well done!

However, I recommend you work on slowing down the pace a bit more in other, less action-packed moments. For one, there wasn't enough description of setting or characters to really ground the reader, and you could really use description to help set the mood. Use literary devices as tools to show the reader how eerie some moments are, or how sweet some moments are. Describe the setting and take us there – that's the best way to encapsulate the mood.

Also, as mentioned before, be aware of showing vs telling. When Max is being beaten up, don't just tell us that he cried out in pain – make us feel the pain ourselves! Describe the stings, the slaps, the agony. Not only will it contribute to richer writing, but it will make the reader's heart reach out for Max.

Plot + Uniqueness: 3.5/5

You know, now that I think about it, I haven't read a zombie book in a long time. Also, it is so refreshing to see some diversity in the writing – especially when it includes underrepresented communities. Well done on that!

The chapters were easy to follow, so again, good work there. I thoroughly enjoyed the Diego plot twist, where it turned out that he loved Max – that definitely threw me off-guard, so well done. I think it also tackled an issue that is quite prominent in modern-day bullying.

Be aware of some realism details. You have to make sure there aren't any plot-holes – even the smallest of ones – and you need to keep your manuscript as tight as possible. Even small, minute details such as Max telling the reader that the bullies broke two of his ribs, but his parents still had no idea about the bullying – how in the world did he get two broken ribs past his parents?

Also, my device usually does glitch a bit when I'm reading a story, so I thought I'd quickly mention this just in case it wasn't a glitch: in chapter one, we had the whole, 'God let this all be a nightmare' moment, and then the entire chapter repeated? Except, this time, the age changed from eighteen to seventeen. I wasn't sure what happened there, or whether I missed something. Maybe double check that? If it was just my device glitching, apologies! 

OVERALL SCORE: 10.5/20

Overall, a fast-paced story with lots of diversity and promising elements. Just work on your tense and punctuation, and you should be good to go! I hope this review helps.