Dreamland Review Archive

Shooting Star (CLO)

III. Blurb

Not bad, ngl! It isn't super complicative and does seem like many stories I have seen before, but everyone has their own story to tell. I will just say this brutally, the blurb is not getting me hooked. It could be that I am not really a "just romance or just humor" type of person but I like to stay open minded. I like that you gave us an insight to the main protagonist with a slight bit of past and current situation with questions after but like... the problem I think is again how it is still not intriguing me. I want something more, something descriptive or artistic because this just seems too linear and bland.

IV. First Sentences

I am a bit disappointed. Again, my opinion is subjective and not to be taken fully to heart. I will, however, speak about my perspective. The beginning with the "author's pov" is not bad, don't get me wrong, but grammatical errors are seriously throwing me off. Though I will say, the part in quotation marks at the very top is actually interesting. It leaves me guessing for what is to come and I like the way you let it fade out and not try to fully complete the thought!

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Shall we begin? SO. You just requested a general look at your story so I will do my best! Please remember, my opinion is subjective and only in my perspective of reading and reviewing; though as you know I would be brutally honest and here to say this stuff to help you improve, let my opinion play a role in what you do next with the story.

So off the bat, I am noticing your sense of the setting and where the character is located which is very important to make sure it comes across well. Although, an issue is coming up because the grammatical errors are coming up right away. I don't know if it has been time since you went back to editing but I strongly recommend you go back because there is quite a frequent amount of punctuation errors, words that are not used properly, issues with the past tense and present tense not colliding well with each other, and random errors that should be taken care of. Another issue I am noticing is a HUGE amount of information dumping. Like it comes out of nowhere with no context leading up to it. It is a big pet peeve of mine and I know that there are people that are fine with it; but for me, it is so pointless and just doesn't let the story flow cohesively.

I am sorry to say this but chapter one seriously did not work out for me like I hoped. The blurb also didn't help me out with what I could come to terms with, and the chapter was not well-constructive. The thing is, I can't seem to find why you kept switching POVS when it makes it so much more confusing. Besides that, the storyline wasn't moving along due to the grammatical errors affecting the plot. I like the plot lining and the plot by itself is not a boring one; but it does get redundant due to the things blocking it from progressively improving. I saw that there was someone commenting with edits for you, and I looked over them, I strongly recommend you look at what they said because I pretty much agree with what they pointed out.

Chapter two was not very bad, but it still has those grammatical errors that are in plain sight. There are some places where the punctuation just needed to be at the end, and it wasn't there. Again, the dialogue is heavily carrying the plot, which is not all a bad thing, but when it does start to defeat the purpose of allowing the setting to mold the characters, it suffers from that. Again, I did mention in my profiling that I am more in the artistic approach to writing which is through allowing setting to mold the plot and let the atmosphere affect the characters with its circumstances.

Just a quick note, you said this is in the genre of humor... I am not sure I am seeing it. Like it could be something shown later on but for a genre like humor, it has to appear really close to the beginning to truly draw in the audience you want. Romance and Humor/Comedy genres are not the same and don't fully share the exact same audience you want. Like for me, I make sure to tell people my story is a High Fantasy. Although it does have romance, it is not my targeted audience while fantasy readers are.

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Now for my takeaway. I like to keep these short and sweet for you to be able to come back to and just quickly see what you might want to take from this review.

1. Improvements to help:

a. Overall grammar (I do think it is very strongly recommended to go back and edit because it was hard for me to be attached to the plot with these errors)

b. 100% make sure to look deeply into what I noted down for you since the story does need some heavy work overall with allowing a good flow to the plot lining and letting the character coexist in the world, they are in.

c. Figure out your targeted audience.

d. Take a good look at the blurb and cover just to make improvements.

e. Look at errors with switching tenses from past tense to present tense

And that is all I have to say. If anything, you can message me through PM or through here (you will have to tag me for me to get the notification) for any additional coverage that you would like me to discuss. That is all from me for now!

Have a great day and hope you enjoy this little review of mine!