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Reviewed by: LordsSword
Book Title: Thalassophile
Author: rizalunaetic

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Title: 2/10

I would advise not having a title that readers might have to look up. Additionally, longer, more scientific words, like one ending in -phobia or -phile, simply do not carry the same impact as a simpler title would.

Tips:

If you want a single word title, I'd suggest picking one that is shorter and carries more weight. For example, I've seen a lot of books or chapters on Wattpad titled 'Philophobia', with the implication that something happened to the character to cause them to fear love. Some weightier titles for such a book could be 'Broken' or 'Defiled'. Paired with a good cover and blurb (and a genre I'm interested in), I could see a book called 'Defiled' being interesting enough for me to pick it up. Such a title holds power.

In your case, from what you have so far, your book is about an artist wizard falling in love with a werewolf. It's always a good idea to have a title related to your character, and your main one is the artist, so maybe something along the lines of 'Painted' is more what you're looking for.

There's also the question of whether or not you want a one word title. Longer titles give you more options to specify the vibe of your story. A single word can be weighty, but a phrase or a three word title can be targeted.

'Painted by Desire' signals a possible romance and 'Painted by Lies' could mean a thriller, and both can be very compelling in those specific genres. Even though your story is a fanfiction, it's a good idea to consider what other genres your story would fit in. There are unspoken rules for titles and covers for different genres, and it's a good idea to be aware of them.

Cover: 4/10 

May I just say, your cover is gorgeous. I love it. It's beautifully made, but it has a major issue/ It doesn't seem to fit in with the Harry Potter world or the genre of Harry Potter. That's my main issue with it. Secondary to that, is your title. Part of the title is cut off on the left side.

Tips:

Your cover seems to say young adult paranormal romance, whereas Harry Potter is more of a teen contemporary fantasy adventure novel. The main difference between 'paranormal' and 'contemporary fantasy' is that 'contemporary fantasy' has mythical beings (werewolves, vampires, etc.) and magic in modern scenarios, whereas 'paranormal' has weird, unnatural happenings, that aren't tied to 'magic' or myths.

Moreover, since your story is a fanfiction, it is important that you reflect that in your cover. Since your story takes place pre-Harry, including him in the cover is not a possibility.

Instead, it may be good to have your character either dressed like a school girl or in robes, and to feature a Hogwarts crest, either the school's crest or the emblem of your character's house. This could be behind the girl or the words, perhaps even instead of a letter that fits the shape or in one of the 'holes' in a letter. If you do this, you might be able to get away with leaving the background the way it is or you could make it look like the hall of a castle.

Another option, beyond the character, which you can't do, the scene, which I described possibilities for, you can mimic the art style. If you notice, the book covers are drawn and the movie covers are the characters overlaid in a background. If you don't want to make your character and cover look like it belongs to Hogwarts, you can make your cover's style look like it belongs in the Harry Potter series.

If you do either of those, especially the first, as a Hogwarts emblem sends a very clear message, and it should appeal to your audience: Harry Potter fans.

If you want to go the extra mile to match your genre, aside from fan fiction, which should be teens/young adult contemporary fantasy romance, here's some steps you can take:

For the teens part, having the cover made of drawn components rather than photos is common, but not necessary;

For the contemporary fantasy part, the background would be better as a scene, such as the woods, a house, a castle, etc. but your cover's background looks very nice right now, so I wouldn't say this is of vital importance. You also should feature the main character on the cover, which you do;

For the romance part, consider adding the male lead into the cover. More importantly if you're aiming for young adults, show flesh. Abs (practically a requirement for boys on a romance cover), a back, neck, shoulders. Doesn't need to be very lewd. As an alternative, for the girls, you can choose a nice looking outfit (points if this outfit shows skin, like arms, shoulders, back, neck).

As I've said those last steps are optional.

Blurb: 4/10

One good thing I'll say about your blurb, it portrays their starting relationship rather well.

It has problems though. For one thing, what else is there to the story? Where's the tension? It just doesn't draw in the reader as well as it could.

Tips:

I would advise starting with a tagline, which is basically a statement designed to intrigue your readers. It's sometimes put on the cover, either in addition to or instead of a tagline before your blurb starts.

Taglines serve to set the tone of the story. The style of tagline is directly related to your genre and subgenres.

It's hard to say what kind of taglines you'd need. I would advise looking up books with the vibe, genre, and subgenres you want to imply, and using it as a model.

If you don't want to put in the research, here are some generalizations (Do not use the examples. They're to show you how they work and are not geared for your story. They're to help you see for yourself how taglines work.):

Be vague.

Be bold.

The tagline should be a paragraph of its own.

Take your time to make the phrase.

Come up with several options.

Ask other people to double-check your tagline ideas.

You can make it a single sentence: "I was wrong." (See how that instantly makes you wonder about what the main character was wrong about? Here's a longer one:) "It was only a matter of time." (See? This one is very versatile too.)

You can make it a list: "One home. Two people. An inconsequential homicide case." (You've probably seen this one around. You can also make a twist by making the last one a question or statement instead:) "One home. Two people. Can they get out before it's too late?"

You can make it a him/her styled tagline: "She's a single mom. He's a child eating fae. Too bad he's her landlord." (You don't need a third statement, but they can be used if you need to tie them together.)

You can make it a really awesome quote from your story! Preferably a one-liner that doesn't need context to be awesome.

You can make it an incomplete phrase: "Before I knew her," ('Before I knew her,...' what is up to you.)

As for the rest of the blurb, you need to establish the characters, more than you already do.

Let's take your main character. What is her name? What does she do? What's going on in her life? It's one thing to describe their differences, but your blurb doesn't say anything about the characters.

If Remus will have a perspective in the story, I'd advise giving him a paragraph too. Otherwise, save mentioning him for the other paragraphs.

After you've answered those questions for your main character(s), you can have that comparison between them and the water and desert, if you want to, but it will need to be rewritten to fit the tone of the rest of your story. I'd also suggest that you make this comparison short, because of what comes next.

What are your stakes?

As a reader, I need to know your stakes, and it has to be now. In a good blurb, the writer would introduce the characters and caught my interest. Now, they'll have put these characters I want to know more about in danger.

If you choose to focus on Remus, you can threaten his secret, which, if it's revealed, would ruin his life. If you don't, I would advise using the fact that he's a dangerous werewolf she's starting to fall in love with to your advantage here.

In the first case, you're left without stakes for Tatia, so I suggest coming up with something that she's risking. What will happen if she falls for Remus? What will happen if she doesn't? Is there another threat in the story?

Plot/Flow: 15/20

It's hard to tell what the plot threads are from the first two chapters, which is of no surprise. In the first two chapters, it's not that important at this point in time.

That being said, it is my hope that there is more to the story than just the romance. Without a crisis beyond the relationship, the story can get stagnant.

I didn't give you as high a score as you could have gotten, because, while it's a solid beginning, it's just the beginning. Plot and flow problems would not become apparent until later, therefore, I cannot give you a perfect score. One thing I did notice was that you gave readers information that the main character doesn't know. This information would have flowed more naturally and had a bigger impression if the readers learned it at the same time as the main character.

Tips:

Like I said, nothing really of consequence yet, so these tips are for moving forward.

There needs to be problems that both characters have. Remus has his lycanthropy, but what about Tatia? If all her problems come from Remus's lycanthropy, her character and character development becomes dependent on Remus's. It's important that she has her own secrets and strife and that those problems become problems for both of them.

There needs to be an event that forces them to work together. Tatia knows his secret, but Remus doesn't know about that. The event needs to be dangerous, and how dangerous depends on the stakes in your story. If it's death, then Tatia and Remus need to get into a situation that is life-or-death. If your story has lower stakes, then your couple can be forced together by a homework project, and that particular project has a huge stake in their grades for the year. Since your story is Harry Potter, you can go either way, depending on which part of the books you want to emulate more: the dangerous event that always happens at the end of classes, or the school for witchcraft and wizardry.

Characters/Character development: 8/10

I like the way you establish your characters.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but your main character, Tatia, seems a little bit like a people pleaser. She has trouble saying no to other people. Other than that, she seems responsible, kind, and she has a good head on her shoulders.

If I'm right, then you have established Tatia well so far, and I'd like to see where she goes from here.

You've also done a good job on the other characters, and from their interactions, I can start to guess some things about a few of them. I don't know Remus as well, but it's only chapter 2 and I hope to learn more of him in the chapters to come.

One last thing. It's important to describe your characters even with the pictures at the beginning, and even if fans will already know what they look like.

I think you do an okay job at this. However, 'okay' can still be improved on. Hence your score in this category.

Tips:

A few hints for dealing with the future:

Accentuate Tatia's flaw. A flaw is a character trait that hinders the character. In Tatia's case, that seems to be her desire to please people. Already, it has gotten her in trouble. I suppose if you don't like this flaw, you can come up with something else. However, you've already set the story seeds for this flaw, which will make changes to her flaw seem clunky.

Introduce Remus to the audience within a couple chapters. By this, I mean give him interactions with Tatia, or other people, as long as these interactions are on screen. Readers need to know more about the male lead, and while I like that the first few chapters focus on your main character, Tatia, you only have a small window of opportunity to introduce central characters to your readers before introducing him as a main character feels intrusive and he would get a bad reception.

Onto your character descriptions! I pay extra attention to how writers I'm reviewing describe characters in fanfictions or series. If a new reader can't picture the character in their head, then you need to work on your descriptions.

An easy trap for such writers, including myself, is to rely on a reader's prior information. Now, I'm not saying to repeat absolutely everything that's happened so far, but have the characters explain ― through dialogue, internal monologue, and description ― enough information (given as it is relevant) that new readers understand the world, the characters (and their appearance), and the past.

You do better than ignore character descriptions, yet there's more you could do to help readers picture them. I'll explain that a little later, because that's important for more than just character descriptions.

Writing Style and Grammar: 4/10

I have no complaints against your writing style. Your grammar, on the other hand, needs some work.

You often use the wrong word, such as 'junk' instead of 'think', 'concerted' instead of 'concerned'. You misspell some words, such as 'scrip' instead of 'script'.

Sometimes you seem to miss some words, such as when Dumbledore says, "I won't do much talking, rather than merry Christmas and ..." This would fit better if you had written "Other then to say merry Christmas." (As you can see, there are two problems here.)

Some things are just hard to read or are in the wrong tense.

Tips:

The best thing you can do for your writing is to read it aloud before posting it. That way, you'll be able to catch spelling and grammar errors and notice when you're missing words in your sentences.

In addition, reading aloud helps you catch sentences that are hard to understand. If the sentence leaves you stumbling over your words, it's a good idea to rewrite it.

Genre relevance: 10/10

Very hard to miss the mark of fanfiction. Your story fits the genre. Try to keep in mind what other genres your story fits though. As I've said, that's important to many aspects of your cover and blurb.

Reader enjoyment and communication with the readers: 7/10

I enjoyed your story, issues and all. It was an interesting read. Communication, however, is a bit of an issue in your story. Part of that is your descriptions, which, while present, can be improved on. Another part is the understandability of your sentences, which I tackled earlier.

Tips:

Here's my advice on generating quality descriptions.

Get a picture, either a real life object, a photo, a drawing, or simply a mental image of what you want to describe.

Ask yourself questions about your reference. Get the stats straight: Face shape, eye shape/color, skin tone, hair shape/color, body shape, accessories, things of significance.

Draw comparisons between your stats and something the narrator/reader would understand. It's one thing to say someone moves gracefully, it's another to say someone 'lightly padded over, with all the grace and poise of a black panther' or 'pranced over like a ballerina, her feet barely seeming to touch the floor'. (Note: This could also be used to tell a reader what kind of character they are. The first, a dangerous, regal predator, the second, a light, airy, friendly person.)

Write multiple character descriptions using a mix between brief descriptions and flowy comparisons.

(Optional. You can instead select a description yourself, but you might not convey what you want to convey. Good idea to check with someone else that it works.)Find a neutral person or three (people who know nothing about the characters). Tell them your different character descriptions and ask them if they can picture the character, what kind of person they think they are, and what kind of person they think the narrator is.

Use the information in step 5 to figure out what description you should use, based on which one best conveys what you want to convey.

Overall: 54/100

Part of the reason you got this score was for how hard it is to judge certain pieces of your story without seeing where it's going. Since I reviewed your story without seeing it as a cohesive whole, this number may not reflect your skills perfectly.

There are some major issues, mainly with your understandability, which is an easy fix, and with the impact of your cover/title/blurb.

The most important aspect to getting someone to read your book is your title/cover/blurb combo.

For example, if your cover doesn't reflect your story's genre, your target readers (Harry Potter fans who are also romance book readers) won't know that your story is something they want to read. In addition, readers who are interested in something else might pick up your book expecting something different, only to dislike your book, not because it's bad, but because it's not what they wanted to read.

The same is true of your title and blurb. That's why keeping track of your genre is so important. Your genre represents your target audience's interests. Keep track of your genre's cover/title/blurb standards to make the biggest impact on your potential readers.