Amaryllis | REVIEW SHOP [ CLOSED ]

《Maria》The Royal Maid

Reviewer: marshaa1306
Written by: Amelia-Law

Title/Cover - 9/10
Your title is catchy and got me thinking. I saw it and wondered why in the world a maid was the main character of this story. It set your book apart from others, as I hadnt read a story told from the point of view of a palace maid.
Your cover reminds me a soft, fluffy blanket. The colors are warm and inviting, the girl pictured has an innocent beauty, and the whole thing just looks nice. My only critique is that it is difficult to see the author’s name. It blends in with the background too well.

Pace - 10/10
The pacing in this story is nicely done. There are some faster paced moments with slower paced ones in between to let the reader catch their breath. Good work!

Grammar, Punctuation, Syntax & Diction - 2/10
There are a lot of errors here, and I mean A LOT. I’m going to tackle the most prevalent ones below, but I highly recommend that you find a good editor for your story.

First of all, you have a lot of run-on sentences, super long sentences, and compound sentences that are missing commas. For the run-on sentences, I would go through and proofread your work. If you come across a sentence that looks like two put together or a sentence that has two subjects but no punctuation, either separate it into two sentences, or add a conjunction and a comma to make it a proper compound sentence. For the super long sentences, I would chop those up into bite-sized chunks that are more easily digestible for your readers. As for the compound sentences without commas, those can be trickier to spot. A general rule for these is this: If you join two sentences with a conjunction (and, but, or, so, etc.), there must be a comma before that conjunction. This sentence that you are currently reading is a proper compound sentence, so you can read it over again if you like.

Second of all, your dialogue is pretty messed up. You put a period after every piece of dialogue, even if it already has an ending punctuation inside the quotation marks.

Here are some examples of your incorrect dialogue:
“I’m done, love”. Mother said with a fake smile
“I’m cool, where’s Michael?”. I asked.

Here is how they should be corrected:
“I’m done, love,” Mother said with a fake smile.
“I’m cool. Where’s Michael?” I asked.

As you can see, there is not a period directly after the quotation marks in either of the correct examples. If the sentence inside the quotation marks should end with a period, there should be a comma instead. If the sentences ends with a question mark or exclamation point, then simply put the second set of quotation marks after the punctuation and leave it at that.
Third of all, you may never, never, never use emojis in your writing. The one exception to this rule is if you are writing a texting scene where your characters use emojis. Otherwise, they are unacceptable. They look unprofessional, they are unnecessary, and they don’t belong in literature.
Fourth and finally, there are a lot of instances where you use the wrong tense of a word or use a word in the wrong context. These occurrences make your writing sound like it’s stuttering. I advise reading your work aloud before publishing it. Your ears will catch a lot of these blips where simply reading through them may not.

Characters - 12/15
I think your characters have good foundations that need to be expounded upon. Each character has a set of basic traits and a little bit of personality, but none of them seem very human, if you get my meaning. They all seem like robots because they don’t show a lot of emotion and it’s difficult to get a read on them. To make your characters come to life, you have to get to know them yourself. Look at each character individually and ask questions about them. For example, take Aria and just start asking questions about her character (e.g. What color is her hair? How tall is she? Is she introverted or extroverted? What does she value most? What is her goal in life (if she has a particular goal)? How does she form connections with people? What does she love? What does she hate?). When you ask all these questions, you’ll start to get to know them as if they were real people. That feeling of familiarity with your characters will translate over to how you write about them, and they will become much more life-like.

Overall Enjoyment - 13/15
This story was quite an interesting read. It was rather unique. However, I don’t think I could enjoy it fully in the state that it is in. Where the plotline was as solid as a rock, the grammar and characters were like shifting sand. The combination of those two negative factors affected the amount of overall enjoyment I received from reading. That being said, fixing both of these things is a very attainable feat. I think when you accomplish it, I will be able to come back and read your story while reaping its full benefits.

Total Score: 72/100