The Untold Tales of the Golden Age of Narnia
by stringslady
Fanfiction (Chronicles of Narnia)

***This is a review of a completed book. There may be spoilers for the plot***

Cover
7/10

I want to say your cover is gorgeous! And it is -- under all the mess. You have good images, and I love the blending and fading, and Aslan's muzzle faintly visible in the foreground; I also like the idea of enclosing each Pevensie in a thin frame. The dull-gold tone is perfect for the idea of a story set in that past "Golden Age of Narnia".

But then there's the title. It's a pretty and appropriate font, yes. But you need to simplify! There are too many colours. Black, red, yellow, magenta -- far too many contrasting colours for one title, and combined with the soft tones of the graphic, it looks like a child's scribbles over Mama's wedding photo. Not to mention the fact that I can't read the first half of your name at all.

The fix is simple. Stick with one colour, or two similar colours, something that goes well with the rest of the cover but still remains visible. Use a subtler shade for the frames around the Pevensies, so that they won't interfere with the title's legibility. And your cover will be organized, harmonious, and beautiful.

Story Description/Blurb
6/10

Your summary serves its purpose, I believe, in stating the scheme of the book. You could do, however, with eliminating a lot of your passive voice and "linking verbs": is, was, were; as your summary is currently not particularly gripping and these aspects lend it a dull flavour. Take the first sentence:

The reign of the four Pevensie children over Narnia is known as the Golden Age.

On its own, it sounds fine, but combined with the rest of the paragraph, it sounds a tad dry. You could edit this into:

Narnia knew the reign of the four Pevensie children as the Golden Age.

You could also consider rewriting it altogether to give it more of a hook. However, if someone is looking for Narnia fanfiction to read, there's a fair chance they'd be interested by your summary. (I know I was!)

Other than several typos (handfull, regin), the only other thing I have to suggest is a need for quotation marks in the second paragraph. Otherwise, there is nothing to properly separate the book titles from the rest.

...book 2, the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and book 3, The Horse and His Boy.

would become:

...book 2, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe", and book 3, "The Horse and His Boy".

Make sense? Good! On we go.

General Grammar & Language Usage
5/10

Grammar

Okay. I'm going to be up-front honest here. Your grammar needs a lot of work.

A good portion of it is probably poor editing. You miss a period here, a capitalization there... and already your work is looking shoddy. But then there's other things, like careless comma placement, messed-up dialogue tags, and a lot of misspellings.

I'm not going to go in-depth into everything you need to fix here, but if you would like help improving the writing, @The-Writers-Corner has a book called The Writer's Help full of quick and easy tips on the matter of grammar. You can also search for editors, or check around for someone who would be a beta reader for you. If you want to wait a couple months, I may even be able to help you out myself. :)

Language

Your language usage has potential! You have command of a fair vocabulary; your problem is expressing it to the best, concise effect.

I'm going to give you a few tips here and now:

1. Adverbs. They usually end in -ly. I am not going to tell you how many -ly's to have on a page, but I will say that three in the same sentence is too many. With your average paragraph length, probably two in a paragraph is too many. Keep an eye out for adverbs, because they will blunt the edge of your writing.

2. Repetition. Watch for repeated words. A repeated word like "he" isn't going to cause any trouble; that's an invisible word. A repeated word like "morning"? Two "morning"s will be stale. A repeated word like "consummation"? Yowch!

3. Chopped-up sentences. I'll give you an example from the book here.

King Edmund was so engrossed in his surroundings he almost missed the passing of two fauns. Though they did not miss him.

It isn't wrong, no. The splitting up of a sentence is useful to add extra punch to your conclusion. But you use it a lot, and it starts to sound like bam! bam! bam! The reader starts to feel like he has a hammer pounding at his head.

Again, I could say more on this subject, but The Writer's Help is an excellent resource to go to for help, and I recommend you check it out.

Characters & Character Development
10/10

You really excelled in this respect. The portrayal of each Pevensie was endearing and accurate, down to the dialogue they spoke, and I loved watching them grow up in their own unique ways. Also, you showed excellent judgment in the issues you had each one deal with. Bringing us to the next part...

Plot
8/10

With four mini plots in a regulated scheme of chapters, I thought you did a quite commendable job bringing each one to a satisfactory conclusion. I enjoyed that a year or two elapsed between each one, so we got to see all the Pevensie children gradually age and mature. The plots themselves were fairly predictable, but not cliché; I was most disappointed at the climax of Peter's. I was expecting more, a closer confrontation with the dragon maybe, a tougher victory. The conflict resolved itself a little too easily. Maybe rewrite that for a more exciting crisis?...

Overall
6/10

You have a gift for writing relatable, unique voices and vivid imagery. With some grammar and writing assistance, your story can be superb. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to review your book!