Reviewer: 08_Umm_Waraqah
Review: Mirrored In Her
Client: june_berrin
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Mirrored in Her has a beautiful cover, a really beautiful one. Unfortunately, I don't think the cover suits the story (more to the point, its timeline). This cover gives me solid historical fiction vibes (you know, the 17th, 18th century periods), what with the character's dressing and the mirror itself (even the title sounds like something from the times of Shakespeare). Then I go to your blurb, and everything about it tells me your book is Dystopian or Post Apocalyptic (wait, aren't those two genres the same?). See, there's a clash: Shakespeare era cover, end of the world era story. Without further ado, I'll strongly advise you change the cover, find something that suits your story.
However, if you decide the to keep the cover (because what do I know? I'm not a cover expert or anything), don't keep the subtitle. I have absolutely no idea what it means. In fact, I'm sure it makes no sense. The whole point of subtitles is to act as a mini blurb, to hook the readers and evoke interest in them. If your subtitle doesn't make any sense, I say a lot of readers will expect your book to not make sense as well. I implore you to sit, think of the message you want to pass with the subtitle, find a better way to pass it across (reconstruct the sentence, use new words, blah blah). And if you can't come up with something really better, I suggest you ditch the subtitle completely (they are cool and all when done right, but they're not compulsory).
I did say your title sounds like it came from the era of Shakespeare. It does. But it could also have come from the times of Trump or somebody from the future could have put it in a time machine and sent it here. Bottom line, the title is timeless, and perhaps, not restricted to a certain genre. So I believe it's okay. You can keep it, as long as it ties to your story somehow.
SYNOPSIS—which is totally not the same as a blurb, but we'll pretend it is.
Normally, in this section, I usually go on and on about the many things wrong or right with a blurb before reconstructing or not reconstructing the whole blurb. This time around, I'll just wear my helmet, snap on my gloves, carry my tools, demolish your blurb and help you build it from the ground up. (Ah, I said demolish like your blurb was so bad it needed to be razed down, nah it isn't. Just needs a little revamping).
The human race has been divided into two kinds. The Extraordinaires, with powers derived from objects. The Ordinaires, who possess great strength in their bodies. Though living together, there is no love lost between them.
Estella, an Extraordinaires with powers gotten from mirrors, was born into an Ordinaires family that believes the Extraordinaires are arrogant, self-serving people, and a threat. However, Estella always thought her family's views stemmed from jealousy. Now that she's aware of the true history behind the bloodshed and hatred, she knows she thought wrong.
To the Extraordinaires, Estella is an unskilled weakling with inferior powers. To the Ordinaires, Estella is an outcast.
I did the best I could do with the information gotten from the original blurb. Still, this blurb still needs work. I think it's all history. There are no goals, no stakes, no explicit conflict. Oh, and I stopped where I stopped because I couldn't find a way to link your last sentence to the one before it (there probably is, but I couldn't find it). I wish I had practical tips to give you on how to write a good blurb. Unfortunately, regarding blurbs, I'm still a work in progress myself.
PROLOGUE
I almost didn't read this until I took a closer look, found that the prologue isn't a chapter of quotes as I first thought but several excerpts of some of the dialogues in the book. Truth be told, I don't know how I feel about that. Or maybe I do, and the feeling is just not good.
What you've done isn't unusual. Writers do it a lot, they just don't title it a prologue. I strongly advise you don't, too. You can do something a lot of writers do here, though: title this part Chapter 00 or something like that as this isn't a prologue.
FIRST CHAPTER
Let me start by saying, I like the quote at the beginning of this chapter and I like the opening line, as well. Dialogues are usually good to start a chapter with, and yours would have done all the things it should do were it not for the comma outside of the quotation marks.
All punctuation marks, save on very special occasions, have to be within quotation marks and not outside of it. So your line should be: "Do you know her?'
Since I've started on punctuations and dialogues already, I'll just go on to say virtually every dialogue in this chapter is either not punctuated properly or not at all. Check these out:
"No Idea" I lied.
Now, there should have been a comma after IDEA. Why? 'Cause I LIED is a dialogue tag. A dialogue tag is any sentence, before or after a direct speech, that tells the reader which character is speaking. In the above excerpt I pulled from your book, I LIED tells the reader Estella is the speaker. Therefore, we should have:
"No idea," I lied. Or: I lied, "No Idea."
Look at the direct speeches above and note how the punctuation switches when the dialogue tag comes before and when it comes after the speech.
"It's okay" he begins sarcastically "You sit there and enjoy, I have got it all by myself, I am fine." He spoke as his eyes bore into mine.
Ah, there's a peculiar case. You have a speech/dialogue tag between two direct speeches. In this case, the punctuation often depends on the first part of the speech. In your case: It's okay. Since IT'S OKAY is a full sentence, you consider it and the tag after it a separate direct speech. When you do that, you have:
"It's okay," he begins sarcastically. "You sit there and enjoy. I have got it all by myself. I am fine," he spoke as his bore into mine.
You should note I ended the second part of the speech with a comma. That is because the tag that comes after it (he spoke...) is a dialogue tag. I also changed the capital H in He to lower case. Why? Because the dialogue tag and the dialogue itself make up a full sentence, and you don't have upper cased word in the middle of a sentence.
If the first part of the speech was not a clause/ meaningful sentence, then you'd have something like this:
"Okay," he begins sarcastically, "you sit there and enjoy. I have got it all by myself. I am fine," he spoke as his eyes bore into mine.
You'd note that I changed some of the commas within the dialogue (the second part) to periods. And that brings me to another issue with your grammar. Comma splice.
Comma splice basically occurs when two independent clauses are separated only with a comma. Exactly what you have in this: I have got it all by myself, I am fine...
I HAVE GOT IT ALL BY MYSELF, AND I AM FINE are two independent clauses. Therefore they can only be separated by a period (see my fixed version above) or a comma and a conjunction (I have got it all by myself, and I am fine.)
That dialogue, again, brings me to another issue with your dialogues. They're often unrealistic.
"I have got it all by myself. I am fine."
"They have pasted it on almost every wall..."
"Children, it is very late now..."
"I am fine, Mrs. Chelsea."
The lack of contractions ( I'm, I've, They've) in the above direct speeches does not make your dialogue formal (if it's what you're gunning for). It makes it unrealistic. Why? Nobody speaks like that (unless they're from the 17th century or so), or their British (I'm not sure though). Bottom line, use as many contractions in your dialogue and even the narrative (since you're writing in first person) as much as you can, so your characters sound more like people and not robots. Asides the contractions, try to run your characters' dialogues against real people conversations. This is so they can be more authentic.
By the time I'm 20...
First, it should be: by the time I was 20. I also think the 20 should be written in words. Then, I'm wondering, could a person's features have changed so much in five years that they wouldn't be recognised at all. I didn't want to mention this but it bugs me. By fifteen, most, if not everyone, already have their adult face. It's kinda impossible for the face to change as much as you've made it out to be. Perhaps, instead of telling us her facial features have changed, why not show us how.
Show us the subtle differences between the then features and the now ones. Maybe she was chubby then with puffy cheeks, and her cheeks are sunken now or something like that. This not only helps us to picture the significant changes her body has undergone. It also makes us curious as to the story behind it. Pointing this out is probably nitpick-ey of me,but what am I if not nit-pick-ey.
My voice was dry and strong, and my eyes were blank as I tried to conceal any emotion beneath my cold mask.
First of all, I don't see how a person's voice can be dry. I think you meant ROUGH or RASPY. And if I'm right, a person's voice can't be RASPY (or dry) and be strong at the same time. So you've got to choose one.
Another thing is the BLANK EYES. There's something I recently learner about writing in the first person. You can't describe anything the narrator can't see, feel, hear, touch, or smell. (All right, I'm certain you knew that before). But what I'm concerned about is the sight aspect. A first person narrator can't see that her eyes are blank, so she can't narrate that. Just like she can't tell us her eyes are red, etc etc. I suggest instead of her telling us her eyes are blank, you can just say she tried to conceal her emotions (though I'd like to know what emotions exactly. Fear, dread, excitement, thrill, resentment, impatience, e.t.c Any of those emotions could surface in this situation, so you'd do well to point out which one does surface).
Lastly, that sentence made complete sense until you added the COLD MASk thingy. My suggestion is to scrape it off.
The white blanket of snow-covered everywhere: the ground, the trees, and the houses. There is a crunching sound coming from my boots on the snow. Pine trees smelling damp filled the air with a fresh, clean scent.
You describe in a nice, simple, easy to follow manner, which I absolutely love and prefer in writings. The only problem, and that's why I've pulled out that excerpt, is your less than stellar grammar spoils it. First, there's the improper use of punctuation (I don't know why there's an an en dash in the first sentence. And an em dash would better suit that same sentence instead of the colon you have there). You switched tense (is instead of was). And I'm not exactly sure about the damp smell of pine trees.
In the excerpt, and in many of your descriptions, you manage make us see, hear, and smell. And I absolutely love it. Unfortunately, I can't say the same when it comes to emotions. I barely know how these characters feel, what emotions drive their statements or actions, e.t.c When you do try to describe how the characters feel, you either botch it by telling rather than showing or your sentence structure does that, and this makes your emotional description come out less than authentic and engaging. Take the part where Estella felt she was being watched as example.
I also don't see much in the way of physical description in this chapter. Mrs. Chelsea, Violet, Estella, the brother, could as well be one person with different names. How much you want to describe of your characters' features is completely up to you, and your readers. You can't do too little that they won't be able tell your characters apart and you can't do too much that the knowledge begins to choke them.
Despite the chapter being a mishmash of present and past tense (I won't bring out excerpts for this as 1) they're too many 2) I believe you can easily and successfully fix those errors yourself once you start editing), it's quite good. You have a wide variety of amazing words in your vocabulary, and you use them well, too. The characters, though there are little to no physical descriptions of them, still manage to stand out (though I think you can absolutely do better).
I especially love the interaction between Estella and her brother. Chelsea's mother hen personality, as well. Estella also seems badass-ey (though I think the dialogue that showcased this (specifically the part where she asked if the stalker was scared of a little girl like her) could have been done better. A little more realistic. A little less awkward).
The chapter ends in a cliffhanger. Grand. I'll suggest you write that last sentence in normal font rather than italics.
SECOND CHAPTER
Did I talk about the quote in the first chapter? Well, I love the one here.
The PALE crescent moon GLEAMED like SILVERY CLAWS In the darkness of the night.
Em... I don't think something PALE can GLEAM. So, to the best of my knowledge that description is contradictory. And I'm pretty sure even if an object, in this case, claws, were gold, it wouldn't gleam in the darkness unless light from the moon or another source bounces off it. It's also slightly unbelievable that Estella would be concerned about the moon and the BLANKET OF STARS during a face-off with her stalker
Now, I'm not saying this description should be scrapped. No. In fact, I love the idea behind it—or what I think is the idea behind it. But instead of Estella taking time off to describe the moon, why doesn't she notices it on her rapier (I'll assume it's metallic). So you have something like:
Moonlight gleamed off my rapier (okay, this is crappy! But I hope you get what I mean).
Or if you must use SILVERY CLAWS:. My rapier gleamed like silvery claws under the moonlight.
Just find a way to blend that description with the action that's about to happen or is already happening.
The fight scene isn't disappointing, but it disappoints me. I was expecting (mostly because of the last sentence of the first chapter) about half a chapter on the fight, and I get just one paragraph of summary. I feel like it should have gone on for much longer (at least, two or three paragraphs). One, to make the scene (and the chapter) a little more exciting. Two, you can use it as an opportunity to show us more of these characters (through their dialogue (if any), their movements, even the way they deliver and dodge blows could say more about them than a whole page of descriptions, and the scene).
Ooh, I didn't see the kinda shape-shifting thingy coming. A nice twist that is.
By the time I read this chapter, I'd completely forgotten about the Ordinaires/ Extraordinaires thingy and was sorta surprised when Estella said her secret had been found out. I wonder why she didn't change back to normal before the villagers came out (and where the villagers themselves came from as there was no mention of neighbouring houses or people prior to this scene. I'd assumed Mrs. Chelsea had a house in the middle of nowhere). It's a bit odd that she's kept her secret for so long (about five years, at least, judging by that photo in the first chapter) and such a not-so-extraordinary event exposed her.
And it's like you've got a thing for italicised ending.
So this chapter, is much more like the first in terms of grammatical errors, punctuations, awkward sentencing, and all that. I won't be pointing these out as it could take a thousand more words to do that. And the review is already too long as it is. I'll tell you though, that I felt this chapter was rushed, and I think this is because instead of showing, you told most of the events in the chapter.
CHARACTERISATION
I only read two chapters, and since they are short, and the interactions between characters are minimal, I have nothing but a vague idea of your characters. And the fact that there's barely any physical description of them doesn't help. What I know about them now (Chelsea: kind. Violet: Estella: bold Her brother: sarcastic) only puts them in the category of one-dimensional characters, at best.
It's okay if you don't want to give physical descriptions of your character (you may want to leave that to the imagination of your readers). However, this only works if their traits, quirks, habits, etcetera are described well. Otherwise, your characters will just seem like moving, talking, vacuum.
PLOT
From what I gleaned in the blurb, the premise of the book is not entirely unique or new. And since I'm not a fan of this genre, I can't say for certain if you've added your own touch to the trope you used. But I'm confident of this were better written, I'd have enjoyed it.
PARTING WORDS:
I won't be scoring this, because putting a score to each section will take much more time (I always want to make sure the scores perfectly fit the sections), and I've spent more than a few weeks on this review already (absolutely no fault of yours). On that note, I'll end this review by apologising for taking such a long time to complete it. I could say I've been swamped with school work, but really there are no excuses for this. I hope this review was worth the wait and that you find it helpful.