╭⋟───────────────╮
Mirrored World: The last guardian
╰───────────────⋞╯

Author :: agust-bangtan

Reviewer :: bykhongjoong

First Impression :: 17/20

Cover :: 10/10
The cover is absolutely gorgeous. The mystical purple theme tells me that I should be expecting a fantasy concept right off the bat, and Taehyung’s picture matches the theme nicely, too. The fonts used fit the theme and it all complements each other really well.

Title :: 5/5
The title is precise and to the point, it’s genre-appropriate, and it’s unique, too. Your title matches your story, and it reflects on the blurb, intro, and prologue, the first things that readers usually see before diving into the story. You chose your title well. Good job!

Blurb :: 2/5
It’s not a bad blurb. But, in my opinion, it’s quite lengthy. A blurb’s preferred length is between 130-160 words, but yours is above 200. It’s not wrong to have longer blurbs, it’s just that they get boring very easily, and from personal experience as both a reader and a writer, I have seen how people on Wattpad seem to avoid books with lengthy story descriptions. Your blurb should be written in a way that hooks your reader in from the very first sentence. Do not bore them with so much detail. Keep it short and to the point. It should have enough detail to give readers an idea of what they should expect, but not so much that it would bore them halfway through. I think if you revised it, you could make the blurb a little shorter. 

But the reason I gave only 2 points for the description is because of the grammatical mistakes and some questionable sentences. Let’s use the first sentence as an example.

“When a threatening dark force spews upon the two realms of the human race, the royal hierarchy is thrown into a turmoil.”

This sentence is unnecessarily wordy, you used the wrong article before a noun, and some of the words and phrases are honestly out of place or could be written in a much simpler way. For example, the first phrase, ‘…a threatening dark force…’, could be written as, ‘…a dark force threatens to…’. It makes the sentence simpler and easier for the words following it to be arranged.  You used the word ‘spew’ to show the dark force’s arrival. Spew, in its simplest form, means vomit, which is completely out of context here. Not to mention, your whole book description is quite grand, so a word like spew feels out of place here. You can replace it with ‘spread’ instead, or ‘to be cast across...’. Another word that feels a little out of place is ‘hierarchy’. Usually, a group of royals residing together in the palace is called ‘royal court’, so consider changing ‘hierarchy’ to ‘court’. You also used ‘a’ before the word turmoil at the end of the sentence. In this context, using ‘a’ before the noun is wrong.

This is only the first sentence, there are so many more errors all over the blurb. Some of the words you used feel as if you are putting just anything to make it look… fancy. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, it just ruins the flow, so try to be consistent with the type of words you are using for describing. There are also misplacements of comma, apostrophes, colons, hyphens, wrong usage of verbs’ participle forms in a continuous complex sentence, and more.

I suggest you go through the summary again and try to shorten it and work on your grammar.

Beginning of a new start :: 7/10
Again, there were grammatical errors and questionable sentences, but if we look past it all, it’s quite intriguing. I was pleasantly surprised by the character and terms index chapter as it’s rare to see these in any sci-fi or fantasy fan-fiction. However, I do have lots of qualms over the prologue. The arrangement is not smooth at all and it’s quite confusing, and I do not mean the content of that chapter. The grammatical errors and some of the sentences just ruin the flow of it. I assure you, if you just work on the grammar and arrange it all a bit better, that would be one sick prologue. 

The majority of chapter one was filled with inconsistent use of tenses. You switch from past tense to present tense within a single paragraph, and once again, some of the words are out of place and do not make any sense whatsoever. There are also sentences constructed poorly, be it because of grammar or word choices.

But other than that, a lot is happening within the first few chapters as we get a glimpse of Zeila’s life, and the minor conflicts are also being introduced within the first three chapters, so I’m pleased with that.

Concept & Plot :: 15/25
I’m a big fan of fantasies, and I’ve read quite a lot of it, but Mirror World’s concept feels like a breath of fresh air. It’s very intriguing and unique. As for the plot, the flow is smooth and it’s slowly unraveling everything. I understand that there’s still more to come, but I wish you introduced more characters or worked to build the ones you’ve already introduced. 16 chapters in and so far, only 4 characters have been introduced, and there isn’t much character development, either.

Characters & Emotions :: 10/15
As I mentioned, there are only a few characters introduced so far, so there isn’t much to say here. You should have already started introducing them a lot earlier. At this point, most of your characters should have been solidified, but it’s only Zeila and Taehyung till now. But the emotions are executed well, you described emotions like fear, anger, and frustration pleasantly. Good job on that. There is, however, something that does feel a little awkward, and that is Zeila’s reaction upon seeing Taehyung. When you suddenly come face to face with someone you care about so deeply after watching them pass away right in front of you, no matter how cool or nonchalant your character is, you usually don’t act like how Zeila does. Sure, there’s a little outburst from her side, but honestly, I was expecting a more… violent reaction from her, given how she thinks of him. 

Tone & Style :: 5/10
This might feel unjustified, given that you have a really good vocabulary and you have described scenes vividly, but I’ll explain the reason for my marking. Like I mentioned in the ‘Beginning of a new start’ category, there are lots of questionable sentences all over that kill the flow and make them feel awkward to read because they’re confusing. There are also misused words that make no sense in these sentences. So, really, what’s the use of using a wide range of vocabulary if they’re misused? Don’t worry, I’ll give examples for you to understand what I’m talking about.

In your summary, there’s a sentence, “A turmoil of tragic events will ultimately lead to doomsday.” Turmoil means a state of anxiety or chaos, which makes no sense for it to be in this sentence. The right word you’re looking for here is ‘series’ or ‘sequence’, to show that several events together lead up to something bigger.

Another one is, “the starlight incriminated the sky…” Incriminate means accuse, which means, in this particular sentence, you’re saying that starlight is accusing the sky, and that makes no sense.

“6000° turn” is both mathematically and literally wrong. 6000 degrees does not make a circle, and in English, it’s either 180 degrees or 360. The symbol (°), in English, is usually written in words.

As for sentences, take a look at this particular one. 

“…someone who’d stink of caged coldness, and yet be the one who’d not hesitate punch you right in the face if you dived against her or argued that mint chocolate and toothpaste are the same.” Someone cold means they are not a warm-hearted or loving person, and they are usually mean to people. Here, you’re using ‘and yet’ to connect two similar situations, because either way, it’s describing that the person is mean and violent. ‘And yet’ is a connective used for opposite situations.

“…a spec of glimmer attacking her insides…” ‘A spec of glimmer’ does not make sense because spec and glimmer usually mean the same thing, depending on the context.

There are so many more throughout the story that if I mention them all here, my review will have 3000+ words. I suggest you go through your chapters and make the necessary changes. 

Grammar :: 7/20
There are just too many that I cannot point out every single one of them, so I will list out the most common ones.

– inconsistent tenses in the first chapter
– unclear sentences
– missing question marks at the end of questions
– misplacements of commas and periods
– wrong usage of commas and periods in action beats and dialogue tags
– missing prepositions in some sentences
– comma splice
– unnecessary use of semicolons
– wrong usage of colons
– wrong usage of defective nouns (singular/plural words)
– over-using ‘and’ as a conjunction
– misused words
– unnecessary repetition of words with similar meaning

Extra Note :: I hope you do not let the lower marks in some of the categories demotivate you and you take this positively. You have an amazing story and you still have time to work on your book to make it better. Just work on everything that I have pointed out, and let me know if you have any questions.

Total :: 61/100