Secrets
Initial Impression: (cover, title & blurb)
Wow! This cover is really well done. It draws me in and makes me feel satisfied. However, it lacks colour. I think this is still a wonderful cover without adding anything, but I think colour may enhance it. Maybe the eye could have a coloured iris? Just a thought. Try to be creative with it, because black and white covers don't excel in the Wattpad world. In addition to this, it doesn't give off a mystery/dystopian vibe. Maybe adding some sort of texture to include that would be beneficial? Readers like to know what they're getting from the cover.
The title is generic, unfortunately, and quite common. But it does fit with the story. It just doesn't hold the spark of originality that a title should. It also doesn't really give off a mystery/dystopian vibe. I can't think of anything other possible titles, but I think you should make an effort to brainstorm a little.
I'm really impressed with your blurb! It's short, snappy, and it gets right to the point. I really don't have much to critique, and there weren't enough awkward sentences for me to consider re-writing it for you. The only thing I'll suggest is taking out the 'secrets-thrill-mystery' at the end of the blurb. That's pretty obvious in the blurb, and I found myself wondering if it was part of the blurb or not. I don't see a reason for it to be there, other than disrupting the flow a bit.
11/15
Logistics: (grammar, spelling & dialogue)
Your grammar is uncomplicated and clear; it works well for your style. I don't find any persistent issues pertaining to grammar.
However, you have a lot of typos. One thing I noticed that I think may be a formatting error is the extra spaces between the end of dialogue and whatever comes next. Be careful while copy/pasting from other systems. I also found a lack of spaces a few times as well. Most of these mistakes appeared to be typos rather than actual content errors. Try reading your stories through a few times to catch these.
You have problems with dialogue. Here's the dialogue tag spiel:
Ugh. The annoying dialogue tags. It took me millions of years to learn these. But here is my best explanation that seems to offer the least confusion:
- A dialogue tag is anything that describes the way something is said (ex. he screamed, she whispered, I asked).
- An action tag is anything that implies who is speaking by using an action (ex. he grinned, she raised an eyebrow, I blinked).
Some verbs can be used as both, such as 'he groaned.' If you want to say he said something in a groan, it's a dialogue tag. If you want to say he said something and then he groaned, it's an action tag.
Now, placing these into your writing. Here are the rules:
When you have a dialogue tag following or proceeding a spoken sentence, the beginning of the spoken sentence is always capitalized and if your dialogue tag is after, then you end the spoken sentence with a comma and begin the dialogue tag with a lowercase. If the dialogue tag comes before, then you place a comma after the dialogue tag and begin the spoken sentence with a capital.
Examples:
"Hello," he said.
OR
He said, "Hello."
When you have a dialogue tag in the middle of two spoken sentences, you
a) either pick a sentence and attach the dialogue tag to that using the above rules, or you
b) make it all one sentence and end the dialogue tag with a comma and begin the spoke sentence with a lowercase.
Examples:
"Hello," he said. "It's nice out today."
OR
"Hello." He said, "It's nice out today."
OR
"Hello," he said, "it's nice out today."
Whenever you have an exclamation mark, question mark or a name that must be capitalized, you simply add your mark, capitalize the name and do not change any other punctuation.
Examples:
"Hello," I said.
OR
"Hello?" she asked.
When you are using action tags, you follow the regular rules of writing and end the spoken sentence with a period and begin the action tag with a capital.
Examples:
"Hello." He grinned.
He grinned. "Hello."
If you follow these rules, you shouldn't struggle with your dialogue anymore.
Another thing I'd like to mention about your logistics: you often use italics to represent your main character thinking to themselves. However, you're writing in first person, which means every word is the main character's thoughts. Usually, italics are used to say 'I/he/she thought to themselves'. I find your italics out of place sometimes–as though they could just be regular font. Try looking them over and making this decision by yourself. Whatever you do, make a rule for when you use italics and use it all the time.
8/15
Story Flow: (transitions & pacing)
I find you have some repetition in your writing in terms of story transitions. I find you often introduce new paragraphs in very similar ways. Take these beginnings of successive paragraphs from chapter one:
'I'm holding...'
'I walk...'
'I move...'
'I take...'
Then, right after:
'His voice...'
'His body...'
So there is absolutely no problem with starting sentences this way, but it's a problem when you do it paragraph after paragraph. You very frequently use the subject then a verb to start all paragraphs. Basically, you need to shake up your sentence structure, because right now it's very boring. Not simple. Simple can be good. This is repetitive. Here's some different styles to try:
1. put the verb first
Instead of: 'I move to the kitchen and grab a piece of bread.'
Write: 'Moving to the kitchen, I grab a piece of bread.'
2. skip the verb
Instead of: 'I move to the kitchen and grab a piece of bread.'
Write: 'In the kitchen, I grab a piece of grab.'
3. avoid the verb, but still imply it
Instead of: 'I move to the kitchen and grab a piece of bread.'
Write: 'I find myself in the kitchen, grabbing a piece of bread.'
So these are a few ways to scramble up your sentence structure. You'll have to rework the surrounding sentences as well, but it should make your story flow better and obtain betterinvolved interest.
Your formatting is confusing and inconsistent. Sometimes you have double paragraph spacing, and sometimes you don't. This tells me you probably type all of your chapters here on Wattpad. What I would recommend is typing your chapters on a word document with NO extra paragraph spacing and a 1pt indent. When you paste this into Wattpad, it will automatically convert to the Wattpad format. That is ideal, but if you don't want to do that, be careful about when you're pressing that enter/return button. Press it twice, or none at all. Never press it once. You shouldn't have half-paragraphs. That's Wattpad's fault.
Your pacing drags a little, but I actually don't mind it too much. You managed to keep me interested with the short chapters. But not too much really happens in the first few chapters, and you don't highlight the interesting things that happen.
A big pacing tip: change your pacing. This is something I've been using for years, and I find it works really well. In interesting, cool situations, the writing expands and highlights and is extra descriptive. Then, the more boring parts are skipped a bit more, less descriptive. I find you move through every event at the same pace, no matter if it's interesting or not.
5/10
Description: (characters & scenes)
You don't have a lot of character description. I don't really see any, actually. As far as I can tell, I don't know the dad's eye colour, hair colour or most other physical descriptions from the first chapter when we meet him. Now, your writing style is very simple, so I'm reluctant to tell you to mess that up. It's a good aspect of your story. So try to just toss something in there, a colour or something. I think it will help.
The scenes are described better, again, I don't see as much description as I like in a story, but I definitely think it suits your story specifically. I'd think about it a bit. There are other issues I'd focus on for now, but perhaps in your final editing rounds, you could try to add a bit more.
7/10
Originality: (plot & tone)
Your plot seems to be typical sci-fi, but I'm always reluctant to judge plots when I don't fully know where they're going. But so far, the dynamic between father-daughter is relatively unique to me. I'm very happy with the plot that I've seen.
Moving on to tone. Tense is a part of tone. You write in present tense, which means everything is happening as we read (I say, Dad does this, I see this, rather than I said, Dad did this, I saw that) but you slip up occasionally. Take example from chapter three:
'Her food smells so amazing, I could already taste the food just by inhaling the strong aroma.'
For starters, that comma should be a semicolon. Second, the 'could' should be 'can', since you're in present tense. It can be super hard to catch these, so I'll tell you the way I find them in my own writing. I'll re-read a sentence, and something will feel...wrong. I'll try to rework it, but I find it's quite clear. Usually, most writers would just move on at that point. Don't move on. If you can't figure out what the problem is, it's probably the tense. Check that before moving on.
I've done a lot of criticizing. I know that it's what people ask of me, but I also sometimes forget to tell writers the good things they do. Keep in mind I'm only mentioning the things I don't like. That does not mean your story consists of only bad things. You do a lot of good things. Take this sentence from chapter one:
'I nod, trying to avoid contact with his eyes. I keep my eyes focused on a vase mom and I made three years ago.'
This is a really, really good story sentence. It makes me feel like I'm there. It provides insight to her relationship with her mother. It's emotional and personal, bringing up abstract details. You have really golden sentences like this a lot. It's very hard to learn how to write like this. It's more of a talent, and you definitely have it. I see it everywhere.
6/10
Final Comments:
I really did enjoy reviewing this story. The clear tone of your writing is refreshing. You have some logistical and formatting errors to clear up, but you truly have a good story to work with. Try to work on those main things I pointed out: the description, the repetition and the story flow. All the best in editing and such!
Final score:
37/60