Title: What Lies Beyond You

Author: i-freaking-lo_ove-me

Reviewer: ray_of_sunshine9

Summary: [no score – not added to final score]

I decided not to score the summary as it's not really a traditional summary. Rather, it's very succinct – but I do love that you've immediately introduced the protagonist, the conflict, and hinted at how dangerous this conflict could be with it being potentially her worst mistake. My guess is you weren't intending to do a traditional summary that fleshes out that little structure you have there, so I figured you probably didn't want it scored.

Either way, well done at introducing the key elements in such a cohesive and intriguing way!

Grammar: 3/5

There were a few grammatical issues that were consistent throughout your story, but nothing too glaring. With a bit of polishing, I'm sure it'll be very clean; nonetheless, here are some examples.

I received a text from mum which I opened immediately.

This one is a tricky one, but basically, you need to capitalise 'mum'. Basically, when you're saying mum or dad as if it's a proper noun, it should be Mum or Dad. However, if you're saying 'my mum' or 'my dad', then there's no need to capitalise. In the example above, it should be:

I received a text from Mum which I opened immediately."

Next, let's talk about dialogue and punctuation. When dialogue is followed by a verbal dialogue tag (such as 'he said', 'she whispered', 'they 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 an exclamation mark for an exclamation). For example:

"I'll come to your house tomorrow, and Sunday." I told him.

It should be:

"I'll come to your house tomorrow, and Sunday," I told him.

Another example:

"See you tomorrow," I waved back.

Waving back is now how the words would be said, so it should be:

"See you tomorrow." I waved back.

Speaking of dialogue, if you have one character speaking a lot over multiple paragraphs, be careful with how you punctuate it. You need the opening inverted commas at the beginning of all the paragraphs, but only need the closing inverted commas at the very end. For example, you wrote:

"I know I was in the wrong by leaving you all alone every time, but honey, I had to provide for you. I had to work to provide food and money, but you didn't look at things from my perspective, you thought I wanted nothing to do with you and that's not true.

You were closer with your dad when he was alive than you were with me, but I swear on my life that I didn't love you any less. Every day when I saw your voicemails and texts, I knew I had one person who I could count on and that person is you. I love you, honey, and you come first in my life..."

It should actually be:

"I know I was in the wrong by leaving you all alone every time, but honey, I had to provide for you. I had to work to provide food and money, but you didn't look at things from my perspective, you thought I wanted nothing to do with you and that's not true.

"You were closer with your dad when he was alive than you were with me, but I swear on my life that I didn't love you any less. Every day when I saw your voicemails and texts, I knew I had one person who I could count on and that person is you. I love you, honey, and you come first in my life..."

Also, in that chapter, you sometimes wrote Lisa, and sometimes wrote Isa. One last thing about dialogue – questions! When your dialogue ends with a question mark, if you use a dialogue tag afterwards, it shouldn't start with a capital letter (unless it's a proper noun). Question marks are sort of treated like commas, in that sense. For example:

"Why did you come here?" He asked.

It should be:

"Why did you come here?" he asked.

Moving on, let's talk about semicolons. Semicolons can be used to separate longer, more complex items in a list, but also, they can be used as punctuation between two independent clauses that are closely intertwined. This means that the two clauses can be complete sentences on their own, but they also must be closely related. Here is one example from your story:

I shrugged; glancing down at my fingernails.

This is an incorrect use of the semicolon. Why? Because 'glancing down at my fingernails' is not a complete sentence on its own. Thus, I would suggest replacing the semicolon with a simple comma.

And finally, watch out for little slips in the tense. For example, from your story:

I don't want pitiful stares. I want new clothes! [want = present tense]

I wanted to scream but refrained from doing so. [wanted = past tense]

Make sure they're consistent, or that one of them is italicised to show those are her direct thoughts in the moment.

Characterisation: 4/5

Okay, so I love Daesyn. I adore her sassy response to pick-up lines, and she shows a very flawed aspect to her – which is her stubbornness. She refuses to apologise or play nice, only making cupcakes for Caelum when she's getting really desperate, but you've still made her incredible likeable with how funny her narration is and how caring she is to those she loves. It was definitely entertaining seeing her get fired up when Melanie mentioned trying to kiss Caelum – seeing her have no friends at the beginning and grow out of her shell while learning about her developing feelings was so great to read.

Also, side note, I think Emery might have been my favourite. She's funny, but also has this super inspirational side that makes her say the right thing at the right time (loved her philosophy of 'things won't get better, but you will get better'). Also, the way she texts? Hilarious.

In other words, I loved your characterisation. I did find that you eased into them a lot more as you progressed through your story. Towards the start, your characterisation was a bit clunky and awkward as we first met your characters, and this was because you tended to tell instead of show. For example:

On the night of the accident, I didn't lose only Father; I lost a large part of my Mother. Things weren't the same after then, and I wondered if they were ever going to return to normal.

First of all, 'mother' shouldn't be capitalised. But where characterisation is involved, I found this really stilted to read, because we just met this character. We don't know what her dynamics were with her mother to begin with. We haven't even met the mother, and because you didn't take time to elaborate in that moment, it felt just misplaced and awkward.

My suggestion is to flesh it out – show it to us. Maybe have them have a phone call, and show us curt language, and have Daesyn compare it to whatever her interactions used to be with her mother. Or since it was a text message, talk about that – talk about how, of course it was a text message, her mother doesn't seem to have time for calling her, or something that shows us how she feels without making it almost like a mini info-dump about how she lost part of her mother. Show us what is normal, and how it's different.

Writing Style: 4/5

I won't go into showing vs telling again, because I already just did that above, but otherwise, I thought your writing was great! The start was honestly hooking – it was snappy, dramatic, intriguing. And it was incredibly well attuned to the genre you're writing in; I think many teenagers can read this and relate, and there's a lot of humour and quirkiness in the writing itself.

Despite the humour, you keep it very effective in terms of storytelling. I've seen stories where they are so focused on throwing in humour that even the sensitive moments pale, but your moments of development and tension are written very well. Great work!

Also, I just want to say, the part about 'Caelum was a happy drunk' to 'Caelum was not a happy drunk' made me laugh aloud while reading. Very hard to do – well done!

Just a side note, when Daesyn calls Emery via phone, you don't need to italicise Emery's words – it's already very clear that they're on the phone.

Plot + Originality: 5/5

The start of the story had me intrigued, if not a little exasperated with the classic invitation from player to a party. However, what I liked is that it did branch away from what I expected it to be – instead of focusing on Cole, it ended up being centred around making a new friend with Emery and trying to work out if there was an ulterior motive.

Then came the prankster arc, with the accidental basketball to Caelum's head, followed by a soaked uniform and the airhorn incident. Very fun to read, and it's very easy to make the two of them want to fall in love based on their fun banter and the overall dynamic changing from enemies to lovers.

Nonetheless, there's a lot more depth to your story, which I love. We have herself and her mother become close again, with awkwardness as Brett shows up to be a slight intrusion and all her chemistry with Caelum turns into awkwardness once he rejects her (she even stopped wearing red clothes for him, which was a nice symbol). All of it just kept building up, to show Daesyn that she does need to change to be more open minded.

That moment with her mother was so powerful and important – the one where she tells Daesyn to put herself in Lisa's shoes, and tells her to stop believing she's always right. It was really heart-warming and inspiring to see Daesyn reflect on this and compare it to her currently problems, with Caelum and Emery.

And, oh my goodness, your ending stretch was so sweet! The kiss, followed by the throwback where she scares him – almost like a reminder of the airhorn incident. The plot twist that he is Aatami, her former lover, was foreshadowed so well, with her throwing aside hints and saying it was just a coincidence that what he said was something Aatami had said a while back. As the reader, it's really adorable how fate has done this to them, but of course, they fight again, and it's even more heartbreaking.

Which is perfect, because then, it makes us all the more happier when, after two months of silence, he gives her the sweetest confession of his love – the way it was written was so poetic and sweet!

Basically, I think you've got a great, cohesive storyline on your hands that's very easy to fall in love with. Well done!

OVERALL SCORE: 16/20

Overall, you've got a great story on your hands! Just make sure you work on some of the punctuation issues I spoke about earlier, and you should be good to go. I hope this review helps!