Review by Sunshine: Vlad the Impaler

Author: TheDarkProdigy

Summary: 4/5

Your summary is pretty good! I love the way it introduces one character at a tiem, and the way you emphasise their conflicting motives. The summary has everything required – it introduces the main character, it shows us a bit of context, and it leaves us wondering what the outcome may be. It certainly doesn't give too much away, so well done there! I did, however, have a few pointers that I would consider polishing.

Firstly, your use of semicolon. You used a semicolon in the summary, but it wasn't an accurate use of one. I would have used a hyphen instead – but I'll get more into that in the grammar section of this review. Secondly, here is sentence from your summary:

"She doesn't care for fabled prophecies making her mate to the most evil tyrant to ever walk the earth which does not make sense in itself since a union between a vampire and elf will result in a curse that would wipe out both races."

That is one long sentence, especially considering there is no punctuation in the middle. I would have a comma before the word 'which'. In fact, I would consider removing the second half of that sentence entirely – I know you're trying to emphasise the stakes, but there is already enough conflict in the summary without it. That part about wiping both races could be a twist introduces in the story, perhaps?

And finally, you use rhetorical question well at the end of your summary, but please ensure that those questions end with question marks. 

Grammar: 3/5

For the most part, your grammar was pretty good! Most errors that were there were tiny things that could easily be skipped over. But, alas, I don't like to skip over these things, so here's a little breakdown on some rules that could use polishing.

Firstly, as mentioned in the summary component of this review: semicolons. A semicolon can be used to join two independent clauses that are heavily intertwined – meaning that they are very closely related. I've been told that a semicolon can even replace a conjunctive. However, the clauses must be independent. That means that if a full-stop was used instead of a semicolon, both sentences would still make sense. For example:

"Erinna gave an involuntary shudder; his very presence seeming to drop the room temperature by a few degrees."

That is in inaccurate use of a semicolon, because the clause, 'his very presence seeming to drop the room temperature by a few degrees' would not make sense as a sentence on its own. However, this if you were to change the word 'seeming' to 'seemed', it would be:

"Erinna gave an involuntary shudder; his very presence seemed to drop the room temperature by a few degrees."

That above example is accurate, because the two sentences are heavily interrelated (she shuddered because his very presence made the room temperature drop) and both clauses are independent.

Apart from that, you also have quite a lot of run-on sentences in your chapters. Another issue was dialogue and punctuation. If dialogue is followed by a verbal 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:

"And we will forever be grateful to you," bowed an elderly man.

'Bowed an elderly man' is not a verbal tag. So it should be:

"And we will forever be grateful to you," an elderly man said as he bowed.

OR:

"And we will forever be grateful to you." The elderly man bowed. 

Character Building: 3.5/5

First things first, the dialogue is excellent. I love the way you captured Dracula's timeless sense of language, and I love that Erinna actually does sound like the strong, stubborn princess that she is depicted to be. Seeing their two personalities clash was just wonderful to read, and it was also great to see the characters develop throughout the chapters – while we saw Dracula brutally tear the tongue off a man and whip him, we also saw him exhibit some kindness towards Erinna in those later chapters. Great work! I'm also glad that you highlighted those moments where he smiled instead of snarled to emphasise his development.

You did, however, do quite a lot of telling when it came to characterisation. For example, let's look at poor Toby (RIP) in the very first chapter:

"He also had a good sense of self-preservation."

You shouldn't need to tell that to the reader. Show it to us. If he had a good sense of self-preservation, why wasn't he already halfway to the door? You need to demonstrate it to us through his action, dialogue and thoughts. Another example:

"Dracula had always been a proud vampire..."

Don't tell us that! Again, let the reader work it out! Show it to us through his dialogue and actions, and we, as the reader, will be able to work it out for ourselves. 

Writing Style: 3.5/5

It was so nice seeing you flesh out your descriptions! From appearance to clothes, you really milked out every moment of description – which isn't something I find often on Wattpad, so well done!

Just a few tips: don't bombard the reader with so much description at once. At times, you have paragraph after paragraph just describing the way Erinna looked – please avoid this. Stretch it out throughout all the chapters. Maybe even consider using appearance as a source of character development? Maybe Dracula only notices some things after he gets to know her, which could symbolise his growing affection for her. But please avoid info-dumping all of that description.

Also, try using figurative language to make these descriptions richer. Right now, there are a lot of 'beautiful this' and 'beautiful that'. I counted a total of eight times in Chapter 3. That's a bit too much. Try finding other words – or, even better, don't tell us that it is beautiful. Show it to us. Compare her eyes to a forest of fronds and leaves. Compare her hair to a tide at midnight. 

Plot + Uniqueness: 4/5

There are some concepts in this story that aren't exactly original, such as the 'born with a prophecy'. But you have definitely spun your story into a rather unique little tale – elves and vampires? I don't think I've ever read a story with both of them in one. That's super cool.

I wonder whether you could introduce the readers to the prophecy as a sort of prologue? We keep hearing this and that about the prophecy throughout the chapters, but it might be cool to introduce the prophecy in a poetic form at the beginning – because there are quite a few prophecies to keep track off. It might be a nice thing to flick back to for the reader to refresh themselves.

Also, don't let your plot be too convenient. Let things happen for a reason. Better yet, foreshadows some of the things to come so that the reader doesn't sit there feeling like the scene is just too convenient. For example, when the pet dove named Hope comes along to put some hope into Erinna, I actually had to flick back to see whether we had met Hope before. Why? Because it felt convenient. We were never introduced to Hope before, but of course the dove just happened to show up when Erinna sort of needed it.

My suggestion? Introduce Hope in the same chapter that you introduced Erinna. That way, when we see Dove, the reader will already be familiar with the pet, and we'll even trust it. And, that way, we can like, 'Oh! So the dove did have a purpose!'

But otherwise, great job so far! 

OVERALL SCORE: 18/25

I'm so sorry for the delay with this review. I've tried making it up to you by making it a rather long one. Overall, you've got a promising and rather unique story to tell. I encourage you to refresh your grammar rules and work on showing rather than telling, but otherwise, you're doing a great job. I hope this review helps!