Book title: The Elf Prince

Author: petty013

Review:

1. Cover- Most people would object to this statement, but one always judges a book by its cover. That's how you know what the book is called and who wrote it, and there's often even plot synopsis on the back. Whether there's a picture of a pirate clutching a girl with their blouses blowing in the wind, or a knight confronting a fire-breathing dragon in the cover illustration, you're going to get a fairly accurate impression of the genre.

The font of the title, the size of the print, the kind of binding, the review quotes, all of these things are deliberately chosen to give you information about the style of the content within. There's a wealth of information right on the cover with which you can make a pretty good judgment of a book.

The question now arises, as to create a cover that can only win you browny points. There was only one fault I could find in your cover, it was the absence of your pen name/ username. I'd suggest that you add it to the mix. Other than that, the cover pretty much explained the gist of the story's main theme/ genre.

I will be talking about the title here only since there is not much to say. The title, according to me, suits the story perfectly and you have managed to express the essence of the book in two mere words. So, kudos on that.

2. Description- Your summary is very to the point but I did notice some grammatical errors. Like in the line, " His father Aleko rather lays a curse on his son, which might turn Lacian into stone, so the humankind will be safe from him," can mean either of the following two things:

a) His father Aleko would rather lay a curse on him, which might turn Lacian into stone than endanger the humankind with the hell he can release.

b) His father Aleko lays a curse on him, which might turn Lacian into stone, but ensure that the humankind will be safe from him.

I'm hoping you got my point and would amend accordingly. From what I see, the limited length of the description was aimed at being crisp and catchy. Here, while you did manage to make it crisp, the catchy part was a bit lagging. So, I suggest you add a little something to it and make it more descriptive. Also, you missed the second part of the book, after the time skip. You should try to dedicate a few lines of the summary to that time as well.

3. Character Building: Now the characters, let's start with Lacian. Honestly, I am a bit confused about his character. I felt that you moved on with the storyline before explaining what and how he was as a person. All I know about him is that he is an elf, he is 200 years old, he hates humans because of his mother's death, and that's pretty much about it. What I mean to say is, you must spend some time describing both his physical and emotional attributes. The character is met with a huge blow in the first chapter and gets injured. So, here you must focus on his injuries and pain, and try to describe where he is mentally at that point in time. Now, while describing such things, there are various factors that we need to focus on. Some are; he is used to fighting, so his skill and valor prevent him from contracting many injuries, or he has been hurt so many times that he is numb to the pain which comes with these wounds, or he is hurt and he feels pain but refuses to show it due to some sort of wall he has built around himself. All these are scenarios that I simply created off the top of my head, and they may or may not apply to the Lacian you made up in your mind. Thus, my point here is that to create a character you must bring in some attributes, and please do remember to add in some faults as well, to not make the character too perfect. Next, I would like to talk about Alecko as well, I did not fully understand his need to put a curse on his son, and the fact that everyone was pretty much okay with that idea. I'd suggest you look upon that.

4. Plot: Finally, I've been waiting to jump onto this part! Okay, so the basic storyline according to me is, there is an elf called Lacian, his father tells him that his mother died because of a human, and so he hates all humans. His father fears that this might potentially be a reason for the destruction of the human race by his hands and so places a curse on him, which may turn him into a statue. Then, Lacian, according to his father's wishes takes the curse, turns into a shell of who he was. Later when Alecko is killed by the humans, Lacian turns himself into stone by activating the curse to protect his people. And the story goes on...

Now, my view of the story might be a whole lot different than what you imagined, so just stick with me in this yeah? In this story, I found the plot to be quite intriguing, I've honestly never read something like this, so congratulations you passed the first step in writing an awesome story, that is breaking apart from the redundancy.

Next, let's work upon the pace and plot holes we see in the story, see I understand the thrill in just wanting to move onto the next interesting part of the story. Believe me, whenever I write, I end up skipping some of the minor but important parts of the timeline. But, we cannot skip it, unfortunately, so what I'm trying to say is that you need to write about things like, the view, the setting where the characters are at, the clothes they are wearing, the weather outside, what the characters are seeing, how is what they are talking about related to the place where they are at and to the thoughts in their mind. In this, you have an advantage, since you have chosen to write in 1st person P.O.V, so you don't need to talk about what's going on in anyone else's mind, but this also means that you need to focus on the ongoings of Lacian's mind. You must relate everything with his thought process.

Keeping this in mind, I would suggest you add a few scenes like,

In the 1st chapter, the hunt scene can be improvised by adding the sounds Lacian hears, the actual fight, the hits he is faced with, like trying to add in some moves before the entry of Olivia in the scene, it might help in improvising the character trait as a fighter. If you need help in writing fighting scenes, I could recommend some techniques. Next, you could elaborate a bit about his injuries, while focusing on the impact they have on him.

And the ending line, instead of writing what he should do now, you should probably end with a mystery or a catchy line, which will ensure that the reader becomes interested in what is to come next.

Similarly, you can add things in other chapters as well.

5. Grammar: The basic English errors were not observed, I only saw some minor errors in this. But, they were significant enough to affect the plot of the story due to the presence of plot holes. let's look at the first paragraph:

"Deep rainy night, me and my men are on a hunt. What are we after at this time, may you ask? Let me tell you, it's a wild beast. With my bud Auden crouching in the dirt behind the bushes, so do our comrades. Three on the right and two on the left."

There are numerous mistakes in this, for example, you started by explaining the surroundings but then immediately jumped upon the setting, while this is not a grammatical error, it does affect the plot a bit. So, try to lead with that.

Next, 'I' and 'me' are both pronouns that we use to refer to ourselves. Use "I" when it is the subject of the verb, and use "me" when it is the object of the verb or follow a preposition (with me, after us, etc). Remember that "I" is always written as a capital letter. People most often make mistakes using "I" and "me" when they are talking about more than one person. For example:

My friend and I are going on vacation to Hawaii. (correct)

My friend and me are going on vacation to Hawaii. (incorrect)

Also, we always mention the other person(s) first. In the above sentence, we can't say "I and my husband", so similarly in your case it must be edited as well.

Then, the phrase "May you" isn't automatically incorrect. "May you live in interesting times," expresses the wish that the person being addressed live in interesting times. But this is not usually what people mean when they say, may you? 'May you' is usually used in the sense of may I, but may I is asking for permission. You don't generally ask someone else's permission for their behavior. Instead, you ask whether they would be willing to perform the behavior which would take the form of would you... or could you... But in your case, it must be put as "you may ask?"

You can edit it like,

"The dark sky is dominated by tumbling greys, smoky and silver. Trickles of water hit the top of my head with as much force as a bullet. A sense of cleanliness caresses the atmosphere, washing away all impurities. A dense earthly sweet smell rises from the ground, enveloping everything within its soft embrace. A piercing gust of wind shook the trees above my head, as I look ahead, my men and I are on a hunt. What are we after, you may ask? The answer is simple, a wild beast. I wipe the water from my eyes and look at my surroundings, Auden and the rest are crouching in the dirt behind the bushes. There is a mood of determination in their eyes as they wait, three on my right and two on the left."

Or something like that. This is just a suggestion, you can take the help of this site: https://www.descriptionari.com/

Similarly, for other such mistakes, you can try out Grammarly site for better insights.

Note: I liked the idea of this story, so if you ever need any help while editing it, please do hit me up with a private message. I'd love to help out.

P.S. If you want the other chapters to be reviewed please fill the form again.

If you want any improvisations in the review comment here:

~theloner