Essie's Critiques

He Who Whistles | Doll-E

The corner of his lips quirked upwards at his little swan's attempt to invoke sympathy in him. And she was successful, rightfully so. He sighed bitterly, then promised to himself that he'd allow this to happen only once.

"All right. But what kind of story would you like?" Her head snapped up. Her round eyes bulged slightly as his darkened purple ones stared back at her, promising only carnal desire. "One that involves a charming prince and a helpless maiden, or one that involves a big, bad demon that devours all that's innocent?"

I've tightened some of your sentences and added necessary commas, while taking out unnecessary commas as well. You definitely don't have to use this improved version; in fact, I encourage you to edit your blurb on your own. That way, your blurb is entirely yours and you can show off your writing style.

YOUR HOOK: (4/5) I was impressed! While you didn't start the story off with a bang, you were still able to introduce your character, her personality, and eased me right into the story. I've already learned so much about Odette just from your first few paragraphs, and your writing was free of any grammatical/spelling errors. Well done!

YOUR GRAMMAR: (4/10) The most concerning thing I've found was your use of commas throughout your chapter. You were either missing commas, or had unnecessary commas. The basic rule is that sentences should be separated by their "topics." For example, saying "she snarled with rage then ran away," there are two topics here. One is that she snarled with rage, and the other is that she ran away. Naturally, to avoid confusion, you need to separate them with a comma. The correction would be, "She snarled with rage, then ran away." However, the rules fluctuate and vary with more complex sentence structures, so I suggest you do more research on commas on your own, or use a writing site (ProWritingAid) that can point out these suggestions and help you learn more about commas.

The next thing I found throughout your chapter review was your misuse of punctuation and capitalization, especially with your dialogue. Keep in mind that if a dialogue has a dialogue tag after it (she said, he exclaimed, she called out, etc), the dialogue tag is not its own sentence. It's part of the dialogue sentence. That means that the sentence, "'I hate you,' she said" is one whole sentence. Because of that, you shouldn't end the dialogue in a period, because that indicates that "she said" would be its own sentence, which is inaccurate. Along with that, you shouldn't capitalize the start of your dialogue tag as I've noticed through your chapter, since it isn't the start of a new sentence. If your dialogue has an action tag after it (she ran away, he grinned, she gasped, etc), then it is its own sentence. That means the dialogue should not end in a comma, and the start of the action tag should be capitalized, as it's the start of a new sentence. An accurate representation of a dialogue with an action tag includes: "'I hate you.' She banged her fist on the table." So the basic thing to remember is that if a dialogue ends with an action tag, the punctuation of the dialogue can end in anything except a comma, and the start of the action tag should be capitalized. If a dialogue ends with a dialogue tag, the punctuation of the dialogue can end in anything except a period, and the start of the dialogue tag should never be capitalized.

I also noticed your lack of subject pronouns. Frequently throughout your story, I noticed you described things in clauses without clear subject pronouns. If you don't include subject pronouns, your reader will interpret the sentence differently. I've included and elaborated on this topic further in your chapter review.

Lastly, you seem to confuse the word "an" and "a." Keep in mind that the word "a" should only be used when the next word starts with a consonant (the opposite of the vowels), and "an" should be used when the next word starts with a vowel (a, e, i, o u, sometimes y). I've also expanded further on this in your chapter review, so be conscious about this topic in future writing.