The God's Cross World written by AngusInk
i. COVER & TITLE
I can't say the cover is very good in my eyes. It's pretty bland and doesn't have a ton going for it. It doesn't look very original, but it doesn't necessarily look bad either, since everything is legible. I would consider working with a designer to get a new one that may have a bit more representation in it. What do you want people to get from your cover? Are there any important symbols that you might want to include?
The title is okay, but it doesn't really make much sense to me off the bat. Since there's no real explanation in the blurb, either, I don't think the title really makes as much of an impact as we want. I don't have any suggestions for the title as of now, but if you want to keep the title as is, I would add something into the blurb that slightly explains it or even just mentions it.
ii. BLURB
I actually kind of like the really short, really concise blurb; it works well for me! Short blurbs don't appeal to everyone, so you might want to add a little more information on the characters, the plot, this society and what is going to happen. Otherwise, I do kind of like the mystery-type aspect you've created with the very short blurb. But the lack of any substantial information in the blurb caused me some confusion later on.
0 9 / 1 5
i. GRAMMAR
#1: COMMAS
You have pretty good grammar, but you misuse the comma a bit, which can interrupt your story. For example:
'On these streets one cannot go two feet without running into an old cigarette box, or an empty syringe.'
So here, you need a comma after the introductory phrase 'on these streets'. However, that's not actually that important and most people would be just fine without that comma. The one that is more important is the comma you've used before the conjunction 'or' here. That shouldn't be there, since all of that is the same thought, and the second phrase isn't independent. So corrected:
'On these streets, one cannot go two feet without running into an old cigarette box or an empty syringe.'
#2: SEMICOLONS
The semicolon is used to separate two independent yet still related clauses. For example:
'Dady isn't this way; you said we were gonna go see him!'
You used a comma to separate these, which isn't strong enough to separate those. If you aren't sure where to put a semicolon, try putting a period. Periods and semicolons should be both grammatically correct in the same situation. Sometimes you used a semicolon where you should use a colon, and other times you used a comma where you should've used a semicolon.
ii. DIALOGUE
One thing I noticed is your dialogue tags after anything with special punctuation, like a question or exclamation marks. For example:
"I'll open my own door you incompetent twat!" She growls at the cab driver.
So even though the dialogue ends in special punctuation, you still need a lowercase on the dialogue tag. Example:
"I'll open my own door you incompetent twat!" she growls at the cab driver.
You should watch out for action tags. Action tags are sentences that indicate who is talking but they only have a description of the action, not the description of dialogue. The problem you have is sometimes you've got an action tag that is wrongfully indicating who is speaking:
"What if I tell you a cool story instead!" The small girl's eyes light up as she forgets about everything else.
So here the woman is talking, but the girl has the action tag, which technically indicates that she is speaking. So you've got some conflicting stuff here. To stop this from happening, you have to follow the focus rule, which says each new dialogue or action of a new character needs to be a new paragraph. So if you split that dialogue and the action tag up, t makes the action just action and not an action tag.
iii. TYPOS
You have a few typos that can disrupt your flow a little bit. For the most part, the errors I saw would be cleared up either by a simple spellcheck or a program like Grammarly. Or, another option is to get the text-to-speech and read the story out loud.
0 9 / 1 5
i. PACING
I don't have any real problems with your pacing. Sometimes the story moves along without a lot of detail, which can make it feel like it's moving kind of fast. That, along with the omniscient and the present tense makes the story pretty quick. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is something you should watch out for when you're trying to make something emotional. If we want to feel for any of these characters, we'll do that better if we have some time to settle into the story. Consider adding in a little bit of detail here and there. What are the characters feeling? What are they thinking? Just because you're omniscient doesn't mean you should completely pull back from the character's heads. Your chapters are also very long, and the first one has a lot of content in it. A lot of characters, a lot of storylines and a lot of worldbuilding. It was too much for me.
ii. TRANSITIONS
Omniscient narration is harder to smoothen out than third person limited or first person. Because of this, there are areas where I find something jarring. For example, after the woman died there in the first little bit, it says something like 'thirty-seven and a half seconds earlier' and nothing else. That, specifically, was a little jarring for me, because it seemed almost like that Spongebob thing with the 'five hour later' subtitle? It sort of feels like you're just telling us something and splitting the story up, especially when it moves perspectives there right after. Is there any way that can be smoothened out? Any way you might connect one scene to the other to make that transition less abrupt? Like I said in pacing, this might be easier to do if you add in a bit more detail on these characters, which I'll talk about next. My suggestion would be to make it more of a sentence, something like, 'little did she know, only thirty-seven seconds later, the god this person sat doing this'. That's a smoother transition.
0 7 / 1 0
i. CHARACTERS
I don't really feel for your characters, and I feel like I don't really know them. You don't have detail on them. You don't tell us anything about their pasts, what they're feeling, what they want, etc. You've stepped back almost completely as a narrator, leaving everything up for a debate. While that might work in a character that you want to keep mysterious, it doesn't work for everyone, because then we feel really disconnected from your characters. This woman and this child in the first chapter--I don't even know if that's her kid, or if it's somebody else's. Did she sell out her kid just because she wanted the money? If so, why did she keep her kid so long? It's not necessarily that I need more plot information, it's that I need more information on what these characters are thinking. Then we move on to this Celius for most of the chapter, which I don't understand why we didn't start with. It's almost like the woman and her child were a prologue? I'm not sure.
ii. SCENES
I think you describe enough, but sometimes you'll get into dialogue and begin to stray away from any description at all. It's not a big deal, but continuously describing the scene--what the characters look like, what the areas around them look like--as you go along can really help bring the scene to life. For example, if one character has sunlight on her face when she turns a certain way. If one character kicks a stone as he walks. Simple things like that.
0 7 / 1 0
i. PLOT
To be honest, I'm too confused with what is happening in your story to truly judge the plot. I liked the little trick with the lightning and found it interesting, but there are just so many different plotlines for me to understand what's going on in the beginning, which led to confusion in the rest of the story. I would like to know more about this woman and her kid, more about these people that took her, and less about these gods and what they're doing. I know the latter are the main characters, but then why am I never coming back to this child again? It was just a little too much for me to focus on anything. I'm confused with this feather, with who these other people are, if he meant to hit her with the lightning or not? While I do think being dramatic is all fine and good, there is a fine line between confusing us just the right amount and giving us too many characters and plotlines to follow.
ii. TONE
I like your ability to write simply; think that's a good skill. I really like how 'impartial' your narration appears, but again I think it's a little too far back. A little more detail on the characters and their emotions may make your tone slightly more intriguing, especially in the beginning.
0 6 / 1 0
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to be too specific with this review, since I was confused as to what was going on. While I could follow the story, it took me two or three reads very slowly before I could move on, and there are still a lot of parts I don't get. Omniscient is an extremely difficult narration to tackle, and I think it's the source of my confusion with this story. While I love what the premise could be, I just wish the narration didn't move around as fast and had more time on the characters, so I could enjoy the story a little more. I would try practicing omniscient a bit more, reading a little bit more up on how to do it without confusing anybody. It's a tough thing you're tackling, so it's no surprise that it might take a bit of extra work!
3 8 / 6 0