Sapphire's Review Store 2.0

Review by Sunshine: Amazing Gracie

Title: Amazing Gracie

Author: dayandnight122

Summary: 3.5/5

Overall, your summary is pretty good! It introduces the protagonist and hints at her current emotional state. We also get a hint of what is to come, and I'm excited to see where her drunken plot for revenge takes her.

If we were talking about a professional summary at the back of a book, then you're almost there! You'd just need to elaborate a bit more on what the divine intervention is, or at least the unexpected surprise, and then tie that back into the stakes.

Otherwise, good work here! I do also think you could maybe reconsider your punctuation choice in the following sentence:

When she craves revenge on a drunken whim- She falls victim to divine intervention...

Maybe just change it to:

When she craves revenge on a drunken whim, she falls victim to divine intervention...

Grammar: 3/5

For the most part, your story was very easy to read and follow, so well done! There are, definitely, some grammatical rules that need revising, but don't worry – we're here to discuss those.

First of all, you're changing tenses throughout your story. You're mostly in present tense, but occasionally, you'll fall back into past – and sometimes this happened within a single paragraph. For example:

I softly closed my eyes in embarrassment. [closed = past tense]

I hear Aunt phone in the back of my mind. [hear = present tense]

You need to make sure that your tenses are consistent throughout your entire story.

Next, let's talk about dialogue. If dialogue is followed by a verbal dialogue tag (such as 'he said', 'she whispered', 'she exclaimed' – or anything referring to how the character says the words), there should be a comma before the closing inverted commas. If it's anything else, this comma should be replaced by a period (or a question mark for a question and exclamation mark for an exclamation). For example:

"I'm here for you Alex" I roll my eyes.

You must have punctuation before the closing inverted commas. Since 'I rolled my eyes' does not refer to how the words are spoken (it's not verbal), it should be:

"I'm here for you, Alex." I roll my eyes.

Another example:

"Oh." He says.

Since 'he says' refers directly to the words being spoken, it should be:

"Oh," he says.

Furthermore, if you have two characters or more speaking, their dialogue should be separated into separate paragraphs. For example:

"I can drive." I offer, but Nick declines, "No it's fine. We aren't too far anyway."

Not only is that above example incorrect because there are two pieces of dialogue from different characters in a single paragraph, but you have also incorrectly punctuated it. It should be:

"I can drive," I offer, but Nick shakes his head.

"We aren't too far, anyway."

Furthermore, the dialogue should always be on the same line as the dialogue tag that is accompanying it. For example: