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My Night at the Ballet
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Author :: LilaTate21

Reviewer :: athenaxglamour_

First impression :: 9/20

I'll be honest to you, the cover didn't intrigue me at all. As far as the title is concerned, it was original and intriguing which is appreciated. The blurb was extremely rushed.

» Cover :: 2/10

I had a hard time reading the font on the cover. It was covering the picture as well. Also, the quality of the cover was extremely low. Now, I will tell you the positive aspect of your cover in the first part below.

1) explicit or direct view (the basics):
I am glad that you mentioned the title and the author's name on the cover. This is the only positive aspect of the cover so far.

2) implicit or indirect view (how this cover relates to the book?):
As far as the relevance of the cover to the plot is concerned, I could barely see what you have used as a picture because of the font. I guess they are shoes on the picture of the cover, so I would say that it has some relevance to the storyline.

↱︎Reviewer's tip :: I am not self promoting here, but you should visit the cover shop of the kpop house. They will provide you with the best and high quality covers. Also, you could order banners to increase the aesthetic appeal of your book.

» Title: 4/5

I am satisfied with the title because it summarizes your storyline in a few words. The whole storyline revolves around three friends who spent their night at the ballet and ended up experiencing something else. So, no change is required here. Good job!

» Blurb: 3/5

Although you introduced the characters and the main conflict in the blurb, I felt like it was extremely rushed because the moment I started to read, it had already ended. It doesn't mean I had no idea about the storyline after reading it. You just need to add a little bit more supporting points for your story.

↱︎Reviewer's tip: I would suggest you to add an intriguing quote from the book in the starting of the blurb. Then add conflict (the main issue) with more expansion.

Don't just tell what happened in the story. Leave the reader in a question of why it had happened too. I suggest following the following format.

Quote from the book.

The main conflict of the book with the introduction of the characters in five lines.

Ask reader questions like what could happen wrong. Involve them in the story.

Beginning of a new start :: 7/10

The first three chapters of the book set the baseline for the plotline. As far as your book is concerned, I am glad that you introduced the main characters in the first chapter of this book. You provided us with their back stories as well, indirectly. Many authors usually fail to do this, so kudos to you. But, perfection in writing is something that we could never attain, that's why I found some issues with the first three chapters.

➡ The writing style works on "telling" instead of "showing". I will explain it later in detail.
➡ Some words and sentences aren't making any sense at all.
➡ Characters lack emotions. I wasn't able to relate at all.

↱︎Reviewer's tip: Since this is over all interpretation. So if you work on characters' emotions, writing style, and grammar then it would be improved a lot.

Concept and plot :: 17/25

As you said it was an original book, yes, it was an original idea. I haven't read anything like it before. So you deserve praise in this regard. However, after the second chapters, I noticed things happening way too fast. Also, you need a lot of work in terms of the development of the plot. A few issues that you need to pay special attention to are below:

➡ The pacing of the plot is way too fast. It's because some chapters are extremely long and some are short. Some scenes are unnecessary so they sound like fillers.

➡ When it comes to the development of the plot, it needs some development too. Your book comes under the fantasy and adventure genre, so add some more strength into the development of the plot.

➡ Since it was a fantasy genre, realism doesn't matter at all. Anything can happen at any time so your story has that idealized element that we could find in a fantasy genre. Well done here.

Apart from this, I don't have much to say because the book is still going on, so no final interpretation. Keep writing. That's how you will discover yourself as a writer.

Characters and emotions :: 7/15

As I mentioned before, the storyline lacks development. So are the characters. Because of the plot, I noticed this effect on your characters too. Please notice the below mentioned point:

➡ When we are talking about the emotional depth of the characters, it is extremely important to make your readers cry with the characters in the book. Same goes for the other emotions. If your character is confused, make sure your readers are confused too. If your character fears something, make sure the reader feels that fear too. I didn't feel anything like it with any of the characters.

↱︎Reviewer's tip: Now you probably will ask how we add emotional depth in the characters. I know it's easier said than done. But give your characters flaws that make them human in the eyes of the readers. Like that, the characters will be full of emotional depth and as well as we can see the development in their personalities.

Tone and style :: 5/10

This is another area where you need to work. I can point out a few examples, so you can fix others like those as well.

➡ Usually you are in the habit of switching between points of view. It's not wrong to write in different perspectives but you are doing it in every chapter. So sometimes it was hard for me to keep up with the story. It would be better if you might have used one point of view throughout.

➡ In chapter 4, you wrote the whole perspective from Jacob's point of view in one paragraph. A normal reader needs a break and pause to read the story. In your case, it was hard to keep up with the whole thing that you were telling from Jacob's point of view. Split the paragraph into three different paragraphs. Don't write everything in one long paragraph. It makes your writing look messy.

➡ You also need to work on the descriptive language of your book. The phrases like, "he replied" and "she said" are some clues that you are just telling your readers. Don't just tell your readers what your characters are doing. Show them through words.

Grammar :: 9/20

When it comes to grammar, nobody is perfect, so am I. But, we should do it everyday in order to be a little more knowledgeable about writing. I noticed a few general grammar issues. I won't go in depth, but first of all, you need to fix the major errors.

➡ Be careful of what you are trying to convey through your words. There are a few typos in your book. An example is below:

[My sister screamed as my snowball it her square on the back of the head. She spun around, sputtering in anger as I tried fruitlessly not to laugh.]

It should be "...my snowball hit her on the back of her head..." rather than what you have written above. I suggest you read the final version of the chapter twice or ask your close friend to read it for you. It would help you deal with unnecessary errors. Sometimes, we can't spot the errors but others can see them.

➡ I also noticed extremely slippery word choices here and there. The words that weren't suitable in the context. For example:

["Happy belated birthday!" we cried in unison.] "We cried in unison" means they either cried with happiness or sadness. So make it clear why they cried in that way. Also, I personally think that you could use "scream" instead of the word "cried" in this context.

➡ Sometimes, you miss punctuation marks too. Especially when it comes to the dialogues. There is no comma or period. An example below:

["Granny said that we were supposed to dress fancy" I pointed out when I saw her outfit.]

You need to put a comma after the word "fancy" and after that, close the quotation. And if there are words like "he said" then use a comma instead of the period.

➡ There are so many sentences in a few paragraphs. Run on sentences means when you join so many phrases and clauses without period using commas. I took out a paragraph from your book which is an example of the run on sentence.

[We watched him as he continued dancing and more people noticed and started watching him until everyone in the room was watching him with rapt attention as if he was the show that they were paying to see, instead of Alice in Wonderland.] It would be better if you break this paragraph into 3 different lines.

These are all general issues that I noticed so far. I can point out more but it would take a lot of your and my time. So it would be better if you notice every other error like this on your own.

Extra words :: I noticed that it's your first real fiction, so keep on writing. You will learn a lot in this journey. Don't get discouraged by my review. Keep writing and learning. The storyline of your book is interesting and original. So well done for creating something new.

Total :: 54/100