"The Risk Book"
CLOSED
All feedback contained here is pure opinion; some of these opinions have changed over time as the reviewer has since received professional training, but this book remains posted for the authors to look back on. Use discretion...
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Genre: Fantasy
Title Your title is a bit eccentric and long for me. It's also very general. What makes your story different from all of the other fantasies out there? What will make the readers' eyes instantly drawn to your story and not anyone else's? I personally think you should make your title simpler. However, no points given or taken for it.
Cover Your cover, to me, doesn't make me interested. You don't include your full title, or your name on there! How am I supposed to know it was by you by the cover? Also, the picture reminds me of more of a horror story than a fantasy, and the title isn't in the middle of the cover, either My eyes are instantly drawn towards the empty, black space in the middle!
I don't know what program you use for covers, but I use Canva.com. I highly recommend it. If you ever want a cover from me, head on over to my cover shop and make a request!
Blurb I quite like your blurb, actually! It is a nice summary. Short enough to keep interest, and long enough to include the right amount of information that doesn't give too much away. Well done! I'm giving you a point for that. You're at one!
Tip: when you connect two independent clauses in a sentence, not only do you have to separate the clauses with commas, but you also have to add a coordinating conjunction ("and," "but," or "or").
Moving forward. *since your story comes in five parts, I'll be judging each chapter separately*
Chapter 1: The Beginning I do like your insight into the main character's past. Nice work integrating that from the start, but no points given or taken for it.
An error I've seen throughout your whole story is that when writing ellipses (the dot-dot-dot like this...), you tend to put a space after the last dot and capitalize the next word. However, it should look like this...and then that. You see? No points given or taken because it's a minor error that didn't affect my reading.
Chapter 2: The Meet and Greet The word "blank" in Jack's dream doesn't need to be bolded, nor italicized. It doesn't strike me as that important in this point of the story. For that matter, none of the words in your story should be bolded except for author's notes (and occasionally some outliers).
Also, I think that the entire dream should be italicized. Instead of trying to describe it all, since it seems lengthy, I would just change it to make the scene into the dream. Without this, you write as if in past tense when you should be using 'had' with your verbs (i.e. 'had realized). Either change all of your verbs, or make the dream italicized (starting with the actual start of the dream, not the introduction of the main character telling the readers he had a dream). For this, I'll have to take a point away. Sorry, but you're breaking even.
None of your words should be all capitals unless it's a title that is all capitals. I understand that you mean to convey a sense of urgency and emphasis, but it's really not needed (and incorrect). If it really is supposed to be important, italicize the word.
The description of the demon was nice. It was scary, as a demon should be. I finally know why your story's title has demons in it! Just what I've been waiting for.
I like the closing line of that chapter! Well done. One point for that. I enjoyed it!
Chapter 3 I found myself wondering why Jack didn't tell all of his friends that he thought that the dream had something to do with real life. If he really had a conviction about it, he should have told them, yet he didn't. Maybe there's a good reason for this, so no points given or taken for it. However, if there's an answer, do tell! If not, consider changing it.
Chapter 4: Arrival to Memories and Nightmares I think that throughout your story, you misuse semicolons. Semicolons, when used to join two ideas or more, show that those ideas are equal in position or rank (importance, quality, etc.). They're also used in between two independent clauses that are connected by conjunctive adverbs (i.e. hence, accordingly, however, nevertheless, etc.) or transitional phrases (i.e. after all, as well as, generally speaking, etc.). The semicolons you use should probably all be replaced by periods (make two sentences out of the one). No points given or taken because semicolons are no one's friend.
Another error I see is that when there's not a question mark or exclamation point in your dialogue, you don't put any punctuation marks. Yet, you still need either a comma or a period (the rules on when to do either are too long to post here and unnecessary—look them up for clarification). Because I have a hard time with dialogue myself, no points given or taken for it.
Also, how did Rose know that they had arrived? I thought that the whole trip was a surprise destination that only Jack knew. Sure, she could look at the GPS, but didn't the girls at least think that something had been a glitch with the time change since Jack hadn't told them about his dream?
You have consistently pleased me with the endings to your chapters, making me want to continue reading. Nice work on that! Suspense is one of the keys to a good story.
Chapter 5: "Lilly Isn't Just a Flower" The introduction of the bear creature was a bit of a comical moment for me. I felt like I was reading a totally different story that didn't have anything to do with demons.
What Margaret says to Lilly shouldn't make her cry. I wouldn't cry from that. Consider changing the dialogue to make Lilly's motivation for crying more realistic, or change the dialogue tags (the words after the quotation marks that are telling who said the dialogue, how they said it, what it sounded like, his/her reaction, etc.).
Woah, there! Scratch out what I said about Margaret—we're back with the demons. I see what you did there with Lilly crying...I suppose that was very much intended. My apologies for not realizing it at first. For that matter, with the crying part, I think you should put in some suspicion on Jack's part. Wouldn't he wonder why Lilly was crying from words that shouldn't have hurt that bad? He could have been suspicious from then, making the readers uneasy about Margaret in the first place.
So, overall, Demonic-Kat got one point! I like your writing style, and it seems like you have a lot of this story planned out. That's a good thing. Most of the errors were grammatical, so good job on the actual plot! I enjoyed reading (although I'm still wondering why this is a fantasy story and not a horror or paranormal story).
