Essie's Critiques

Guard My Heart, Dear Goblin | ScarBeauty

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After the rejection of her ex-mate, Elise threw herself into her newly promoted work of being an Elite Guardian. Ironically, her first mission was to protect the Goblin King, but her world fell apart when she learned they were fated to be together. Learning to navigate growing feelings and dangerous thoughts, Elise thought she had it handled.

But it turned out the Goblin King wasn't the only one to watch out for.

This isn't my best writing, but you can roughly see how I've centered the blurb around one principle idea and built around it. Along with that, keep in mind that "vampire" shouldn't be capitalized, as it isn't a unique concept or referring to a specific person. I've done some restructuring here and cleaned up your tense slip-ups. This doesn't mean you should copy and paste my blurb as yours (sadly, it's happened before) (it also doesn't mean you should take my blurb and tweak a few parts and call it your own either), mainly because I don't know your story as well as you do. It should be up to you to decide which parts you should or shouldn't include, and build your own blurb with that, with your own writing voice.

YOUR HOOK: (4/5) What I enjoy is that you threw me right into the story with no hesitance or nonsense. It's intriguing and pulled me right in. A suggestion I have is when writing, replace the bold words with italics, because to a reader it may not feel like part of the writing, but that the author is addressing them directly. It can break them away from the flow of the story and can be distracting. Along with that, you're incorporated two tenses in your first sentence, so make sure to correct this tense slip-up and stick to the main tense of your story (I'll address this later in your chapter review).

YOUR GRAMMAR: (5/10) The main issue I've found with your grammar is that you struggle with conjugating words in the right context. You can do more research of this on your own, but I've pointed out a few of these mistakes and explained them to you in your chapter review. Along with that, you often misused commas, whether they were unnecessary or necessary. Keep in mind that commas are used to separate the different "topics" of a sentence, as a way to not confuse your readers. However, some more complex sentence structures often are exempt and have their own rules for commas. Since it's hard to keep track of where a comma is needed, I suggest you get a helpful writing site that will suggest where commas are needed (such as ProWritingAid).

Additionally, there were a lot of tense slip-ups. Your story is set in past tense, and it should stay that way. If you see any phrases written as though describing this moment, right now, it's in present tense and should be converted to past tense.

I've also noticed that you confuse your conjunctions at the end of a sentence, mainly dialogue sentences. Keep in mind that your dialogue can end in any punctuation except a period if there's a dialogue tag afterwards (she/he said), or it can end in any punctuation except a comma if there's an action tag afterwards (she ran away, he grinned, etc). A dialogue sentence with an action tag are two separate sentences, while a dialogue sentence with a dialogue tag is one complete sentence. Example of a dialogue sentence + action tag: "'Let's eat breakfast.' she reached over to grab some plates." Example of a dialogue sentence + dialogue tag: "'Let's eat breakfast,' she said."

YOUR SPELLING ERRORS: (4/5) Well done here! I found no spelling mistakes. There were a few confused switch ups with some words here and there, but these can be easily fixed with some proof-reading, editing, and AI help (writing site). I've pointed out a few examples of these in your chapter review.

YOUR PLOT: (20/20) While I've seen stories with vampire mates, an overwhelming amount of books with werewolf mates, this is the first I've seen where you've mashed together vampires, werewolves, and goblin kings. It's a fresh and unique idea, and I was extremely excited about your story plot! I love how you've layered several problems on top of each other, such as the fact that Elise gets rejected, then she finds her new mate, but she's also in danger! And all the tiny details in between only enhances your story.