Dreamland Review Archive

Sincerely, Sarah Miller (T)

Now, placing these into your writing. Here are the rules:

When you have a dialogue tag following or before a spoken sentence, the beginning of the spoken sentence is always capitalized. If your dialogue tag is after, then you end the spoken sentence with a comma and begin the dialogue tag with a lowercase. If the dialogue tag comes before, then you place a comma after the dialogue tag and begin the spoken sentence with a capital.

Examples:

"Hello," he said.

OR

He said, "Hello."

When you have a dialogue tag in the middle of two spoken sentences, you a) either pick a sentence and attach the dialogue tag to that using the above rules, or you b) make it all one sentence and end the dialogue tag with a comma and begin the spoke sentence with a lowercase.

Examples:

"Hello," he said. "It's nice out today."

OR

"Hello." He said, "It's nice out today."

OR

"Hello," he said, "it's nice out today."

Whenever you have an exclamation mark, question mark or a name that must be capitalized, you simply add your mark, capitalize the name and do not change any other punctuation.

Examples:

"Hello," I said.

OR

"Hello?" she asked.

When you are using action tags, you follow the regular rules of writing and end the spoken sentence with a period and begin the action tag with a capital.

Examples:

"Hello." He grinned.

He grinned. "Hello."

If you follow these rules, you shouldn't struggle with your dialogue anymore.

8/15

Story Flow: (transitions & pacing)

I don't have any issues with your transitions, but I find your first three chapters rushed a little. You don't go into detail on Avery's feelings or her thought processes. She gets the letters, reads the letters, we meet Nick, we are introduced to Sarah's situation, she flies to Sarah's home, meets her parents, and has an appointment with the police all in (I'm guessing) about four thousand to five thousand words. That's too fast. Slow it down a little. Have Avery tell us about an experience she has in the airport or something that reminds her of Sarah. Give us a little more insight into her thoughts and feelings. You're in first person, so you can really tell us about what she's thinking. I think you have the ability to do better in terms of pacing, especially because you seem to have a rather complicated plot. I think you'll get to the end and find your book isn't very long- or maybe a little rushed.

7/10

Description: (characters & scenes)

I find your character descriptions a little vague in terms of personality, and a little overwhelming in terms of physical description. You tell us what Nick looks like, but you don't really tell us much about how he acts. Is he kind? Is he a little mean? He sometimes talks like he's both. Why? Does he sometimes switch up moods really fast? Try answering some of these questions in your descriptions. As for your physical description, I think you have too much at once. I'm a big advocate for the writing idea of 'show, don't tell.' What I mean by this is show us how Nick ruffles his brown hair in one scene and in the next paragraph say he blinked his green eyes. This eases us into your characters a little better and doesn't info-dump on us so much. It also increases the chances of your character descriptions sticking in the minds of your readers, and it feels more natural.

Your scenes lack description. A good book allows you to picture what's happening, and I don't see that with your story. Tell us how the airplane seat felt, what colour the lock screen on her phone was. Tell us how hot it is outside compared to her hometown in California. What does the street look like? What does the house look like? Your descriptions aren't bad, I just think you should expand on them; they're just a little too small. I think you have the ability to improve in this section as well.

6/10

Originality: (plot & tone)

Your plot is quite original, and I can tell it's going to come together quite nicely since you seem to know what you're doing when it comes to creating a good story. I truly don't know what will happen to Avery, her relationship with Nick, or what actually happened to Sarah. It's a very strong plot in my eyes, and if you fix your logistical mistakes, you'll have a good story on your hands.

I find your tone- for lack of a better word- boring. You tell us what you need to tell us and not much else. Since you're in first person, you have a lot of room to work with thoughts and feelings of your main character. I see you doing this a little, but not enough. Now, I'm not here to tell you what you're doing wrong and move along. I'm here to offer my opinions on how you can fix it. 

So how do I think you can fix it? This might come out a little biased for a girl nicknamed metaphor girl, but...metaphors. You can make your tone much more interesting with writing devices. Throw in the metaphors, pile up the similes, be absolutely outrageous with your exaggeration and humour. Nobody thinks of the same metaphors, and that's why if everyone used them, they would still be unique. Coming up with metaphors can be a little difficult when you force them, though, so I'll share with you how I come up with mine.

I only am able to come up with metaphors because I know my characters extremely well. I know them so well because I think about them ALL the time. Even before writing my book, I was thinking of them. What would they do in this situation? What would they do if someone said this to them? You should do this too. And, if you really want to go all-in, write up some random situations of them. When you know your characters like your best friends, you'll be able to think like them. And when you can think like them, you can imagine how they'd see the world. Now, this is all very abstract, so I'll give you an example. Let's say Avery likes photography. And because she likes photography, she often compares things to it. When she sees something pretty, she imagines how it might look like with a camera in front of it. When Nick looks shocked or out of place, you can write: 'he looked like the subject of a photo that had been taken a little too quickly.' Is that a little dramatic? Yes. Might you want to tone it down? Perhaps. But the idea still remains: think like your characters, and write as they see the world.

Now, if you want a more academic style of writing and not as abstract, then you might not want to use metaphors. I simply suggest it because I find writing like that to be inspiring and interesting- and I think most readers do as well. If you don't want to go for a creative tone, try cleaning up your writing. Tone is an extremely difficult thing to change because it writes your entire story, so it takes effort to change it. If you want to go for a cleaner, less metaphorical read, I'd suggest reading other books that contain that type of tone to get some ideas. A suggestion would be The Sphere by Michael Crichton. It's a complicated story with a complicated plot, but he does a beautiful job of writing it so clearly and simply. Your story has similar mystery-aspects, so that would be a good book to read to grasp that concept.

If you don't want to shoot for a specific tone, then try doing some writing exercises to better understand how you can make yours more interesting. You've got a lot of options here, so I think you could end up really improving your story to make it one of those mysteries you just can't put down.

7/10

Final Comments:

I can see the creativity in your story, and I'm incredibly excited to see where your plot goes. I have a feeling it's going to be quite unique. Try to fix up your grammatical errors because unfortunately, people will click off your book as soon as they see them no matter how cool your plot is. Your creativity deserves a narrative that matches it, so try your best to improve as much as you can. Overall, your book has a lot of potential to become something really good. Good luck with your writing!

Final score:

37/60