Essie's Critiques

Apart Yet Together | Amyra_hayes

"Maybe we were together in distance but apart at heart," I whispered, my eyes fixed on the brown ones. Trying to figure him one last time before whatever we had fell apart.

Eliana Parker, a twenty-five-year-old medical resident, had a seemingly perfect life, but she had been through a lot. From the pain of losing her parents to the constant struggles of life, Hannah stumbled across her strength.

Asher Anderson, twenty-seven-year-old surgeon who had it all -money, family, grades, lacked contentment. An event in his life changed him from his coolest version to his coldest one.

It is said that, 'Maybe, if you can't get someone out of your head, they were never meant to leave. Perhaps they were meant to help change you into the person you have been waiting to become.'

But what happens when two souls encounter each other again, but one of them is adamant on breaking the other to the extent of that? Maybe the change that it evoked was bad for them?

I also removed any repetition and incorrect punctuation. But even with this correct version of the blurb, there are still several things wrong here. First off, your structure. The structure you used is pretty common across all romance stories on Wattpad: You have an excerpt at the top, a description of the girl, then the description of the boy, then you end the blurb with a "what if?" Not only that, but your descriptions aren't very relevant to the story itself. As a reader, I don't want to know any ages or job occupations unless it's directly related to the conflict. For now, the blurb should only contain the main characters, the triggering action (the action that starts the story), the conflict, and maybe hint at some obstacles along the way. Additionally, you wrote "It is said that..." but it seems that you wrote that yourself, not that it's universally said everywhere. In that case, I suggest removing "It is said" and replace it with something else that lets your audience know it came from your head.

YOUR HOOK: (3/5) I noticed a few grammatical errors from the start of your first chapter. I'll mention those later in your chapter reviews. Additionally, I noticed you started the story off with an alarm clock, and warning bells immediately went off in my head. Starting the story with someone waking up for school is a pretty cliché start and not original enough to capture my attention. Additionally, you didn't even describe her waking up. Why start with her waking up if you're just going to move on? Perhaps instead, you should start when it's important to introduce the character. For example, she could be doing some self-reflection, or doing something she enjoyed. This helps your audience become engaged and connect with your protagonist. I noticed you have a lot of telling, not showing, so I suggest expanding upon your descriptions to hook in your audience and avoid info-dumping.

YOUR GRAMMAR: (4/10) You struggled with your punctuation and capitalization with dialogues. If your dialogue is accompanied with a dialogue tag (he said, she yelled, they shouted, describing the way someone says something), the dialogue tag is a continuation of the dialogue sentence. For example, it doesn't make sense for the clause, "She said," to be a sentence by itself. Therefore, it's part of the dialogue sentence. The dialogue should end in a comma to indicate that the sentence isn't complete, and the start of a dialogue tag is not capitalized, as it's not the start of a new sentence. The opposite goes for action tags. If your dialogue is accompanied by an action tag (she grinned/he sighed/they walked away, basically an action), the action should not be part of the dialogue sentence. The dialogue doesn't help the action tag make sense; the action tag should be a sentence by itself. Therefore, the dialogue should end in a period to signify the end of the sentence, and the start of the action tag should always be capitalized, as it's the start of a new sentence. Of course, the punctuation may vary. Exclamation marks and question marks can end a dialogue regardless of the tag accompanying it, as long as if it's a dialogue tag, the dialogue never ends in a period, and for an action tag, it never ends in a comma.