It's a dark romance. Jenny the younger sister is happy with her life but too many things she does not understand. Like, why does her sister Christine has no lover when she is almost 30, or what's the problem between Christine and her best friend Adam. Adam is one of the sweetest person, who has feelings for Christine, Jenny can easily read them but Adam will never make a move not even when he is sad about it. Jenny can feel they hide things from her.
And then she can also feel someone is keeping an eye on them, something that is not good, always gives her creppy feeling
This review has spoilers from chapters 1-5.
Dear Sidratulmonteher,
Thank you for the submission! I must admit, I was very surprised to see that your story is already 23 parts long, since I made it quite clear that I have a preference for shorter works that are in early development. But a story is a story, and I love to read! That being said, there are many issues with this work and this will be a very blunt critique. I hope that my bluntness does not come across as harsh or mean. This is meant to be constructive criticism!
Grammar
There are two main points to make regarding grammar.
First, this story has some basic spelling mistakes peppered throughout—even in the description you submitted, you wrote "creppy feeling" instead of "creepy feeling." I'm not sure what device you're writing on, but I highly recommend that you revisit your chapters on the desktop site if possible, because you will be able to see the red underline which indicates that there is a spelling error. At the end of chapter 1, for example, you wrote "bycycle" instead of "bicycle."
Here's an example of the red underline that will show up as you're typing:
If you click on it, you will be given suggestions to fix the word.
Second, the tense you use is... odd, from a reader's perspective. While admissible from a technical standpoint, fiction is typically written in the past tense, not the present tense (which is what you used). Here is a sample from chapter 1:
Present tense (what you wrote): "She kisses the ring.and gets out of her house.brings out a bycycle. she rides to her office.looking at her surroundings she smiles again. Feeling happy"
Past tense (what is more natural for the reader): "She kissed the ring.and got out of her house.brought out a bycycle. she rode to her office.looking at her surroundings she smiled again. Feeling happy"
Perhaps this is just your writing style. Again, it is technically correct! But it took me off guard and I felt the need to point it out since it is unusual.
Formatting and Punctuation
The formatting and punctuation make the story very difficult to read, the most prominent issues being the lack of spacing between words and periods/commas, periods in inappropriate places, and frequent capitalization errors. I will use a passage from chapter 2 this time to illustrate my point, and give corrections:
Incorrect punctuation: ""my poor beautiful baby sister! " christine laughs. Calling jenny from time to time is a must for her, no matter how busy she is,how much work she is doing. if she forgets to call then jenny will call being angry why christine has not called. this keeps on happening through out the day. seeing them no one would believe that this two sisters actually live together!"
Correct punctuation: ""My poor beautiful baby sister! " Christine laughs. Calling Jenny from time to time is a must for her, no matter how busy she is, how much work she is doing. If she forgets to call then Jenny will call being angry why Christine has not called. This keeps on happening through out the day. Seeing them no one would believe that this two sisters actually live together!"
The frequent punctuations also make it very stop-and-start when you read it, and the reader is constantly "pausing" in their head when there's a period or comma. There are also a considerable amount of times when periods and commas get mixed up. From chapter 4:
Frequent periods: "yes. sadly that's true. also i love the burger here.even though it's a coffee shop."
Corrected periods, spacing, and punctuation: "Yes, sadly that's true. Also I love the burgers here, even though it's a coffee shop."
The formatting is mixed. While you're good at starting a new line when someone speaks and there are no walls of text, there are numerous spacing inconsistencies throughout. These are mostly related to not pressing the space bar when you put a period or comma after a word, but I also noticed that there are paragraph breaks in the middle of sentences. I recommend that you be careful when pressing the spacebar/enter key, and again, make sure to look out for those red underlines. The red underline will show that there is an error for you to double check!
I'm not sure if English is your second language or if you are very young, but either way, I think you would benefit from getting a beta reader. A beta reader is someone who will read your draft and give suggestions and edits before you publish your chapter. If you know someone in your life that has a good grasp on English grammar and punctuation, it wouldn't hurt to ask them to review your work :)
Story and Characters
I'd like to note that I'm not going to be discussing chapter 5 since it was very short and included two unnamed, unknown characters that will clearly be expanded upon in later chapters. I will instead focus on chapters 1-4, where we can see the most plot development and character establishment.
The story is fast-paced and jumps around quite quickly, almost too fast, mostly due to the story lacking any "padding" (i.e., descriptions of surroundings, characters' actions, and other things that are not just dialogue). The plot is simple and easy to follow, but it's unclear what the characters' motivations are for their actions. In writing, where the characters go is determined by their needs/wants and at this point in time, they just seem to be passively drifting from location to location.
For example, Christine needs to go to her office because she's an employee at the company. That's obvious, and you don't need to explain or justify anything there. But... why did they go to the art gallery specifically? As the reader, I know it's a way to get Christine and Adam to spend time together, but nobody in the trio expresses that they're particularly passionate about art, so there's very little reason for them to go to the exhibit. In fact, in chapter 3 you mention that Jenny does not like art galleries! They could have gone to a park, to a mall, or anywhere really, and it would have the same (lack of) impact on the story. It just seemed very random.
An alternate (stronger) scenario could be that Jenny is an artist, and Christine wants to go to the exhibit to see her sister's work so she brings Adam along to keep her company. That would be a clear motivation for going to the art gallery, and it would give Adam and Christine time together. But as it stands, they just went there for... no real reason except to drive the plot forward. Remember, characters drive the plot, the plot does not drive the characters.
From: reverie-lavellan on tumblr. It's still very early in the story so your plot has probably moved forward, but this might help you (or anyone else reading this) to understand the relationship between the characters, plot, and world of a story. Link to the full post: https://nightfeather6.tumblr.com/post/659563105264812032
Let's move onto the characters. I only read the first five chapters, so I am assuming that Jenny's preoccupation with Christine's relationship status will come to light later on. Its very normal to not date have a long term partner in your early 30s, so it could be interesting to explore where and why Jenny acquired the belief that her sister is weird for not dating.
I think you did a fantastic job establishing Jenny's personality—she's quite rambunctious! Very bubbly, bright, and full of energy, which is a nice contrast to Christine's calmer demeanour. I found Jenny's obsessive need for frequent calls and her excessive dependence on Christine to be genuinely intriguing, since some authors can be afraid to show negative personality traits early on in the stories for fear of making their protagonist(s) unlikable. Volunteering this information about a character so early is not something I see often so I commend you for that. Plus, it adds a lot of depth to Jenny's personality. Great work!
Even though you said it in the description you provided, you did a good job conveying that Adam is interested in Christine and that she sees him as nothing more than a friend. The body language you describe when he's around her is makes his interest in her very obvious, and her dismissal of his blatant advances was quite comedic.
Style
Apart from the issues covered in the first two sections, I sometimes struggled to figure out who was talking. When Adam, Christine, and Jenny went to the art exhibit in chapter 4, I would have really liked to see more indications of who was speaking. For example, "Adam said" would be helpful to denote which lines are his. There is a lot of stigma around the word "said", and many teachers insist that it should be avoided at all costs. I disagree. While using "said" in every line of dialogue can hurt your work, not stating who is speaking at all can make it difficult to keep track of the conversation.
Another thing is that while you have some fun descriptions about a characters' actions (in chapter 1 you said Jenny got out of bed at the "speed of a bullet train", which I found to be very original!), it's hard to imagine the world the characters inhabit. I would love to see more description of their surroundings.
For example, what does Christine's office look like? Are there many people there? What colour are the walls? What sounds does she hear? It's okay to let your readers use their imagination, but giving zero descriptions makes the writing very lacklustre. I'm not sure what you are picturing in your head when you envision her office space, but I am thinking of an open concept space similar to the 2004 Catwoman movie. When you're writing, try to place yourself in the scene and imagine the characters' surroundings... and then write those details into the story! :)
I also recommend that you use different sentence lengths. Using a lot of short sentences in succession can be very choppy (which I found to happen often, especially with the punctuation issues), but frequently using run-sentences can leave you mentally winded, so to speak. You want to find a balance of short sentences, medium sentences, and longer sentences. It'll keep the reader engaged in your writing! Look at the shorter sentences and see if they can be combined through the use of a comma.
Positives
"But god has decided not to listen to her prayers long ago." was a pretty epic line from chapter 2! I liked that one. The dynamic between Christine and Jenny is very chaotic, and I liked that aspect a lot!
Overall review ★☆☆☆☆
While I think the dynamic between the sisters was funny, the sheer number of writing errors made this story difficult to read and I struggled to stay engaged with what was going on. I hope that in the future you will revise your work and check for mistakes before publishing it.
Please do NOT let this negative review discourage you! Going back and editing everything would probably take a long time, so keep writing your story, but consider taking my notes into account for the remainder of "Secrets" or for future books that you write. There is always room for improvement and I would be horrified if my review stunted someone's growth or made someone quit. It needs a lot of work, but everyone starts somewhere! Even the greatest authors of all time needed many edits before their works could be published. You will get better the more you write, so keep on practicing and never give up :)
Best of luck!
-NF6