Cutthroat Reviews - Can You Survive the Challenge?

The South Wind

Genre: Action

Author: leelimelem0n

THE TITLE:
Sounds cool. However, it's listed as "The South Wind," but your cover says "The South Dragon." Confusing...

THE COVER:
Like I said before, the title on the cover is different from the title you have it listed under. Other than that, it's not the most exciting cover. It doesn't draw me in, but at least it's there I guess.

THE BLURB:
No. Just, no. This blurb tells me nothing about your story, other than 1.) It's inspired by Overwatch, and 2.) You don't know how to write a blurb, which scares me and makes me think you might not know how to write a story either. And what's with all the caps? Why are you yelling at me? Rude.

I know that you probably wrote this story for people that are a fan of Overwatch, but you can't just assume that fans are going to see "inspired by Overwatch" and immediately read it. I'm sure there are other Overwatch fanfics for people to choose from, so you should at least put in some effort into the blurb to try to draw people towards your particular story.

Also, as a person who doesn't play Overwatch and knows practically nothing about the game, I would pass by this story in a heartbeat if I saw this blurb. Maybe that doesn't matter to you, but shouldn't it be your goal to create a story that anyone could enjoy, not just fans of Overwatch?

My suggestion to you would be to write a real blurb—one that actually gives us a hint about what's going on in your story. You don't even have to write it yourself. If blurb-writing isn't your strong suit, I'm sure you could get a friend to help you out with it, or you could find someone on Wattpad to help you too. I also suggest that you move the part about your story being inspired by Overwatch to the end of your blurb. Oh, and don't address your audience directly, especially not in all caps.

The blurb is really important, and for a lot of readers it's going to determine whether they open up your story or skip it.

THE FIRST PART:
I read: Long Ago, Honour, Truth, and Spirits
Immediate impression: I am so confused. Like, literally lost. Am I in a coma? Is this a dream?

I'm honestly not sure where to start with this review... This story was very different than the rest I've read so far. Which was a good thing, and also a bad thing.

First of all, I read all four chapters, but that was only because each chapter was only a freaking paragraph long?! I can't quite decide how I feel about this structure—piecing the story up into very small parts almost made it feel more like a poem than a piece of prose. Was it your intention to have it structured like this? I can't tell if it was, so I'm not sure how to critique this aspect. So I'll just say this: if your intention was to just have a nice little narrative about dragons, then this structure is kind of distracting and confusing. But, if you were trying to be edgy or avant-garde  or whatever, then I guess you succeeded?

Now, on to your writing...

There were SO MANY typos. Please, get some help. Or at least proofread. When there's a misspelled word in almost every sentence, it's hard for me to actually pay attention to your story. I found myself rereading the same sentence over and over again because my brain kept getting stuck on the random misspelled words. If there's a couple typos here or there, that's understandable, but your story is saturated with mistakes and that makes it almost annoying to read, especially since it's so short. As a reader, it feels like you were too lazy and inconsiderate to even proofread your own work. Why should I read a lazily written story that's full of typos when I can move on and find one that's well-edited and polished?

Another very important thing to remember: New person speaking=new paragraph. When you include dialogue in your stories, you need to start a new paragraph every time a new person is speaking. For example:

Sam and Sally were talking to each other.

(New Paragraph) "Hello, Sam," said Sally.

(New Paragraph) "Hello, Sally," said Sam.

The end.

Okay, maybe you already knew this rule. But, based on the story I read, it seems like you aren't aware of it. But it sure is important, because readers will get real confused real fast if you have all of your dialogue mushed together in a big clumpy mess. Don't constipate peoples' brain digestion.

The ending is very...WTF. But maybe that's just because I don't know anything about Overwatch? Either way, the end (meaning the last couple sentences) doesn't seem to fit in with the rest of the story.

All that being said, there was something about your story that really intrigued me. Even with all of the typos and weird paragraphs, the voice of your story was rather captivating and fantastical. This story just felt like it was too short and rushed. I wanted you to explain what was going on between these two characters a little more. I felt like I was only getting half the story.

THE RATING: SUNK

Your story honestly had me perplexed. It was messy, but if you fix it up with editing I think it could improve a lot. Also, in my opinion, the whole story could definitely be expanded. I can tell that you have an awesome imagination—I just want to see more of it.