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Title: Born In A Storm Chapters reviewed: Prologue, 1,2 Username: SouthMarie
TITLE: It's strong. It has a personality. It mirrors your MCs personality in the book. Good job.
COVER: It’s nice. Simple and attractive. It fits the YA genre. I like the color choice. The girl in the cover directly tells us that this story is about the African Community. Nice.
BLURB: Not sure what’s happening here. Maybe the format is a glitch or something? Why they’re in a...different margin lines?
The blurb is decent. But I’m not the best at blurbs, so I’m not talking much about it. Though I can say that it’s clearly written. The issue is just the weird formatting.
PROLOGUE: So, I’ve reviewed your book before for a book club. I can’t remember much, but what I do remember is, your style... or more accurate, the formatting.
To this day, I’m not sure why you aligned the dream sequence to the center. I remember asking, but I don’t remember you answering. Do you have any reason for that? Because my opinion stands. The format is not aesthetically pleasing.
Because, 1. You have the dream sequence in italics. 2. It is in the center.
It becomes doubly unpleasant. I highly suggest you remove both of the italics and the margin you have now.
Try it first and see. You might like it. Sometimes, it’s hard to get rid of something or even change anything, but usually, the sacrifice's worth it.
Now, I loved the dream. I truly do. It’s such an intense dream. Nightmare actually. I loved how she was drowning, and searching for someone important to her. It shows how the character is not selfish and loving.
Though there is something you have to understand. When writing action, or something like you’re trying to write (the nightmare), you need to make sure you don’t make it TOO dramatic. Or else, it will read like you’re trying very hard to make it real and/or realistic.
Sadly, this is what happened. The descriptions are actually very nice and poetic, but you write too much of it. Too much of trying. Trying to make us empathize/sympathize with the character. It doesn’t work.
One of the best scenes in the prologue is how she paints her nightmare into the blank canvas as some kind of therapy. That’s a very nice idea.
I know you’re someone who likes character ddescription. But please remember that when you write in 1st POV, describing yourself WILL be an awkward thing.
Let’s take this paragraph for example. This paragraph mirrors everything about your writing. So I’ll use this one to tell you what doesn’t work.
