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Review by Sunshine: In The Mornin'

Review by Sunshine: In The Mornin'

Author: TheLuniToons

Summary: 3.5/5

There are some good things happening in this summary! You introduce the character and the conflict rather seamlessly, which is wonderful. You give enough away to make the reader ask questions, and leave them wanting to know more. However, you definitely need to polish the summary – there are names without capital letters, and there are sentences that are grammatically inaccurate. It should be "figures out" rather than "figure out", and Santos should begin with a capital S. Otherwise, pretty good job.

Grammar: 2.5/5

I'll be honest with you: your story needs work when it comes to grammar and punctuation. It's still pretty easy to read, so well done there, but there are some basic grammatical rules that you may need brushing up on.

First of all, whenever there is dialogue, the punctuation at the end comes before the closing inverted commas, not after. So, for example:

"Hey baby girl", my Auntie says.

That sentence above is inaccurate. It should be:

"Hey baby girl," my Auntie says.

And, speaking of punctuation, you need to work on punctuation in dialogue. If dialogue is followed by a verbal tag (such as "he said", "he murmured" or anything involving speech), the dialogue ends with a comma. If it is followed by anything else, it ends with a period. So, for example:

"I won't, but I'll just postpone the apology and give it to you another time," he winks.

Again, this is inaccurate. Winking is not a verbal tag – the wink has nothing to do with how the words came out of his mouth. So it should be:

"I won't, but I'll just postpone the apology and give it to you another time." He winks.

Another note I had was that your tenses are slightly all over the place. Please make sure you either stick with present tense or stick with past tense throughout the story. Don't keep changing it – it breaks the fluency of the writing. Make sure all your sentences begin with a capital letter, and double check that you are spelling all your words correctly. For example, you spelt "engulfs" as "englufes" and you wrote "ion" instead of "I don't". Just polish your tense, punctuation and spelling, and you'll be good to go!

Character Building: 2.5/5

Writing in first person is no easy task, and I have to say, you've done quite well! I liked the playfulness in Kalani's voice, and I like the cheeky side remarks that she makes. The "It's snacc time" made me laugh – which is great! And some of your character interactions are good. I love the dialogue; again, it's engaging and playful.

But you need to work on fleshing your characters out. I don't know much about Kalani at all, and you've introduced all these characters and I'm struggling to differentiate them. Dae is probably the only one with a really distinct voice, since he's especially cheeky with his dialogue. But the others? They felt rather bland. This is mostly because you didn't slow down the pace enough to flesh them out and properly make an impression on them. I suggest introducing less characters – only introduce them when they are relevant – and also slowing it down we can learn more about these characters.

And, another note I had about characters was that you tell rather than show. When we first meet Xavier, you blatantly stated that he is cocky. I suggest you try manipulating some literary skills – metaphor, simile, imagery, personification – to show it instead. Maybe there is a faint smile on his lips that gives that impression, or maybe his brow is arched and his arms are folded. What is it that makes him seem cocky? Show us.

Writing Style: 3/5

I'm going to start by saying that I love the narration and the conversational tone! It's really fluent and captivating, and I almost feel like Kalani is telling me all about her day. So, great job! As mentioned before, first person is no easy task.

However, I think you need to describe the setting more. I literally have no idea what her house looks like, nor do I know what the school looks like. Try weaving in some descriptions to help ground the reader. What would the place look like, smell like and sound like? Help the reader create the image in their heads so they can visualise it with clarity.

And this goes with characters, too. You described Dae quite well, but everyone else? You said they were attractive, but what made them attractive? Lean muscles? Warm skin? A cute, dimpled, lop-sided smile? What is it about them that would make the reader agree with Kalani upon their attractiveness?

And your story is very much driven by dialogue. It's not a bad thing, since you're very good at dialogue, but there is nothing to balance out all this speaking. I definitely suggest fleshing it out with some description of the setting and the characters, with showing rather than telling, and with some nice literary devices to really enhance the writing.

Plot + Originality: 2.5/5

Not an easy thing to score, since there are only three chapters up. However, I can say that this isn't the most original story I have read. It's got a lot of cliché concepts: the love triangle, the bad boys, the new girl – nothing really original is happening here. And everything escalates so quickly – it's clearly a love at first sight scenario, or at least an infatuation at first sight.

What I want is for the boys to fall for Kalani because of who she is. And, thus far, that's not happening. They just met her, and yet they already are showing an attraction and interest. It would be so much more original if it was a gradual process, if they didn't realise they were falling for her until it is too late. I want more depth.

But, that being said, it is too early to judge. You might surprise me with a few twists of your own in upcoming chapters, and I hope you do! That would be amazing.

OVERALL SCORE: 14/25

Overall, you have a good foundation of a story here! I suggest polishing up some of those grammar issues and having a look at how you can flesh out your story to make it branch away from other, similar stories. But otherwise, good work.