Archaic Critiques

Finding Asteri

Story: Finding Asteri

By: JCDelaCruz

Link: http://www.wattpad.com/2650996

Genre: Fantasy / Adventure

Average Score: 4.9/10

     Plot 2/10

It's a cliche. The problem of an arranged marriage is not by itself a cliche, but when combined with the rebellious princess character it creates a major problem with your plot. There is an immense amount of princesses running from arranged marriages that your book offers no appeal to the reader. You need that unique twist to your characters, plot, world, and (possibly) magic to make this better.

     Setting 5/10

The magical setting of the story seems fully traditional fantasy. Make sure to add your own touches to the regular Medieval-esque fantasy world. Personalize the geography, magic system, politics, and try and think up a colorful history. Your world is very similar to a character in fantasy--it needs to be deep and well thought out.

The magic system is highly important, as even is you just use typical spells and wizards, you'll need to work out how these spells are used, how much it takes to cast them, who can cast them, and such. Of course, if there's not magic system, then there's not need for this (but I highly doubt you've forgone this part of fantasy)

As for politics, you'll want to stray from the regular Monarchy. He best think to do is think of your own system of government. You can base it on a monarchy if you like (such as a constitutional or partial monarch), or try a different type of movement, like oligarchies or republics. You'll want to plan out the social stations and types of government officials.

Remember, your story takes place in a post colonial, early modern, time period. Don't let it sound like a medieval/Victorian period. Try to add things about the time period so your reader knows what this historical time period is like. And that means, research.

Wikipedia is useful for something like this, at least. if you don't want to fix this problem you could also change the time period this is in. The arranged marriage and most of the plot so far would make more sense in a more victorian or industrial time. Try for the 1800s. Furthermore, remember that england had a constitutional monarchy at this point in time.

     Characters 3/10

Maria has shown little to no depth. She is the typical "rebellious princess"--though she's not royalty, she is a member of a rich family and she's run away instead of marrying the arranged lord.

Meanwhile, Lord Demitri is shallow in the other way. Though he is only a minor character, he is obviously an antagonist. He's ugly, foul, boring--but for no reason. For minor characters, its okay to state parts of their background if you don't wish to make a big deal of it, since they're minor. But they still need a backstory to at least partially explain their actions.

Also, Dustan is very obviously the love interest. Handsome, muscular, holds himself like a prince, rescuing the main character when she is on the verge of being raped while you subtly compare Maria's assulters' brutality to his civility. Read that over.

He's not a Mary Sue (look that term up if you don't recognize it) yet from what I've seen of the first chapter, but you need to make sure he has a good backstory and detailed personality so he is a deep character. Finally, having a cast of all male characters and but one female is not usually a good idea. I saw them on that picture you have to the side, but the arrangement usually leads to love triangles and annoying, shallow romances you'll wish to avoid.

     Pacing 6/10

This may be my personal opinion, but I think the story is going way too fast. To fix this, you can try writing a plot line. Just write a sequence of events that you need to happen in your story and just go back and plan all of your characterization, filler, and plot development. By doing this you will be able to plan all that happens in your story and help it go slower. And don't forget filler chapters-- they are important! You can use them to further develop characters and world and slow down your plot by adding them.

      Flow 5/10

There is nothing particularly good or bad in the flow of the story. Though, I would suggest starting less sentences with I, and to vary your sentence structure. Also, this needs more description.

     Tone 2/10

The tone is not fitting to the setting. The titles such as "lord" and the arranged marriage aspect of the story makes the reader think its set in Medieval or Victorian time period; this is further encouraged by the summary, which states the story is set in England, which is a popular setting for Victorian Fantasy.

However, the dialogue is thoroughly modern as well as unsophisticated. The narration sounds as if a regular person is telling the story, rather than a writer, and while this is in first person, that needs to change. Hyperbole can make a story sound childish. Cancer was not a known illness in the supposed time period of this story, they would refer to is simply as illness or a wasting disease of sorts--but they would not have a name for it.

Furthermore, the second to last line of the first part of the first chapter (oooh, the prepositions~) "I was beautiful, my plan failed." is not only grammatically incorrect (two independent clauses need a conjunction or a semicolon), but is so striking immature and foolish I cringe when I read it.

     Originality 7/10

While I haven't seen this plot before, the setting is a typical traditional fantasy. Heed my warning above and make sure to add your own little touches to the magic, geography, and politics and try to plan out a colorful history.

     Visual Appeal 9.5/10

I saw nothing wrong here.