Book title: Journey to Strike Frixss
Author: Neored4
Reviewed by: v-XVIII
Chapters Read: 5
Cover
The cover feels so distant from the story. It doesn't convey the same vibes as the title and what the blurb says. It also doesn't really convey the genre that you said the work is. If it's fantasy horror, give the cover more fantasy and horror vibes. Right now, I would think this is some contemporary piece about camping or something. The text also doesn't suit the background and so it doesn't feel cohesive and just looks like an image with text slapped on it.
I highly suggest getting a new cover to draw readers in. If you're not sure about your own graphic designing skills, feel free to request a cover from any Wattpad graphic store. I would even refer to our own community's graphic shop: Brilliant Brushes.
Title
The title is fine. It's functional, it tells us what the story is going to be about and gives off the idea that this story is going to be fantasy adventure type of sorts. I do think it's a bit boring because of how direct it is? And also because it doesn't exactly convey horror in my opinion. I would suggest changing it. Maybe perhaps find a theme or an important object in your book that you can use as a title. But it is functional so, if you don't have any ideas, it's fine to keep it as it is.
Blurb
The first paragraph is fine. It's a good hook and establishes the setting clearly. However, it does have a grammatical error. I would rephrase the first paragraph as:
Humanity has been forced to hide behind walls in cities to survive from the Frixss—monsters that savagely kill and devour anyone they see.
Could also be reworded like this:
Humanity has been forced to hide behind walls in cities to survive from the monsters that savagely kill and devour anyone they see: the Frixss.
Either way, just change the "have" to "has" because humanity is a singular word, not plural.
As for the second paragraph... I would say you can remove the "The story" part to make it a bit more direct? Or to make it more correct you could change it to "This story". I feel like this part in general could be rephrased to feel more immersive rather than feeling like a short summary of the setting. I would rephrase your second paragraph as such:
In the southern part of the continent lies Kranic City, a city wherein *short description of Kranic City*. Here, students are taught the use of weapons and elemental stones, *description of what elemental stones are*. And finally, once they have proven their skill, they become soldiers for the city, protecting the peace and doing various missions to help the city (*changeable to whatever you think is the point of the missions*).
By rephrasing the description as more of a "this is what this is" rather than a "They do this here, they do that there" it becomes more of an immersive blurb mainly because you refrain from the use of distant words such as "The story". If you're going for an epic adventure vibe though, using something like "This story follows" can actually work as it gives the vibe of an epic, or a folktale which are forms that many old adventure stories took.
Then for the third paragraph, the first sentence is fine. It's informative and leaves a mystery, though I do wish you gave a little hint about what was the horrifying thing? Are they monsters? Or something else? Like so: One day, they get information about there being other cities in the northern part of the continent, but the informer also tells them something else. [Monsters of unknown origins and blah blah blah have been found wandering the north.] *aka insert your description of what that horrifying thing is*
Then after that you can transition with a simple "And so *insert protagonist* and their crew journey to the north, yet it was nothing any of them expected." I changed the sentence a bit to include the protagonist because the one thing missing in your blurb is who is the protagonist.
And lastly, maybe rephrase the final sentence to be more dramatic perhaps? Maybe end the sentence with a question as a hook to the readers? Maybe ending it with a question like, "What are the Frixss?". Another way would be to do a one-liner ending such as: "So begins the journey to the north, wherein *protagonists* may just uncover the truth behind the Frixss." to give more impact and hook for the readers? There's definitely better ways to phrase the ending line than my suggestions but I'd like for you to keep them in mind!
Overall, your blurb does provide some important facts of the story. I just wish it also told a little more? Because it is missing some important information for me. In my opinion, a blurb must answer the following questions:
Who is the protagonist? What is their current position / situation in this world?
What is the setting? Fantasy? Contemporary? Sci-fi?
What is the goal of the story? What is the protagonist aiming for?
What is/are the core conflict/s of the story? What are the main obstacles that are blocking the protagonist's path to their goal?
In my opinion, you're missing quite a bit of answers to these questions. For example:
Who is the protagonist? I have no idea. Who are they? I assume they're one of those soldiers that train with elemental stones and such. But I have no clear view of who the protagonist is and who they are. Not knowing who the main character is may detract readers from reading your book.
What is the setting? This was fairly well answered, I would just rephrase the way you delivered the information. I would only add details like what kind of city is Kranic City (is it peaceful? Chaotic? etc.) and what are elemental stones and what do they do.
What is the goal of the story? I get that the goal of the story is uncovering the truth about the various mysteries you've placed. However, what I don't know is what the protagonist's goal is. What's their stake in this story? Why do they want to uncover the origins of the Frixss or the cave? Knowing the protagonist's goal is important and what their stake is in this situation because that's the reason we're following them instead of other characters. Give us a reason to follow this story.
What is/are the core conflict/s of the story? I can see that the Frixss is an external conflict they have to fight. But I would like to see more? If there is an internal conflict or something? Again, it relates to the protagonist. Does the protagonist have any personal drama they're trying to resolve?
This is an example I found online for showing how to work in conflicts in your blurb:
"Tortured by grief and loss and fleeing a wrong conviction for a crime he didn't commit, Dr. Richard Kimball struggles to survive while fleeing the relentless lawman who pursues him."
In this blurb, the goal is to survive because of a wrong conviction. There are various conflicts that causes the protagonist to struggle reaching this goal such as being tortured by grief and loss and the relentless lawman. As a reader, my expectations for this story is that the main journey of the plot is him avoiding the lawman while trying to not lose to his grief as he tries to correct the wrong conviction. So, if I want that kind of plot, then I'll read the book.
Give us a goal, give us the idea of what to expect from your book. That's what blurbs should be. You don't have to be very exact and spoil the story. However, you can't be too vague either as it leads to a lack of information for the reader to want to read your story.
Creativity and Originality
There is effort in the building of the world here and I can see that. While the concept of isolated cities due to a dangerous outside is common, I do see that you attempted to make it your own and I say kudos to that. I also appreciate that you're writing more of a fantasy horror while using this trope because a lot of works that I've seen use this trope tend to lean more into dystopian fiction and such. Horror fiction based on this trope is something interesting in my opinion and I can see what you're going for.
Plot and Flow
The first chapter starts off with an interesting hook of a failure of a mission. But this hook gets ruined because the following scenes lacked the amount of emotion such a topic should have. Perhaps instead of starting with a normal day after the mission, you could've perhaps start with a normal day then the people get the news that the mission failed? Or perhaps start the chapter with the funeral? Either way, have us see the grief and disbelief that Gregory had front and center. Don't just tell us that he and his friends are sad, show us that he's sad. Make us see him in tears, make us see him in denial, in anger, going through all stages of grief. It adds more emotion and creates a better hook for the readers to follow because they care about this character now. They want this character to do something about his family's death, whether it be revenge or something else. The way this first scene is handled is too casual, making it difficult to immerse yourself in the story, and therefore it's off putting for a first scene.
Other than that, you have a tendency for info dumping exposition, which is most evident during the class scene. You should try to find a way to better incorporate the exposition of your world's elements without making it info-dumpy. Weave it into the narrative rather than listing the characteristics. For example, during your introduction of your characters, you could not mention all of a character's description the first time they speak.
"I was close to his family when we were young, so when I heard that, it deeply pained me," said Alfred, a 20-year-old boy with light brown hair, his eyes were the color of a Sable.
He had no facial hair; he liked his face without it. At a first glance, he looks tuff and strong, but he is actually a softy on the inside. He is always thoughtful and caring for his friends, and even animals. He had a dark green shirt on which has a huge badge with a hand reaching for some boxes on the back which indicated he's from the Resource division, and he had black pants on with a small fanny pack around his waist to carry his weapon, and he had black boots on that was made for combat. This outfit is worn by everyone that is in the Resource division.
So essentially, in the scene, they're talking about the people who died. So the detailed description on Alfred's age, facial hair, outfit, and the fact that he's in the Resource division does not matter right now. What matters more is that Alfred is deeply empathetic and that he was close to Gregory's family so you could remove the unnecessary details and describe Alfred in a later scene/paragraph. The edit could look something like this:
"It just... hurts to see them gone like this..." another boy, Alfred, responded. He was a close friend of Gregory's family when they were young. Alfred had always been an empathetic person, despite his tough looks, and now his deep brown eyes filled up with tears.
This is just a quick edit so it's not the best, but you could shorten the original work by that much. You could describe Alfred's outfit in another paragraph, perhaps when you introduce what the Resource division is, since he wears the uniform of his division. Basically, just deliver the information where and when it's needed. If it's unnecessary at that moment, it's better to just leave it out.
Other than the info dumpy exposition, there's also a tendency to go from plot point to plot point quickly? From the first chapter we have Gregory's family already dead in a paragraph then suddenly we get directed to a class then suddenly the Frixss are attacking. There's no time to breathe—to process the things happening.
Overall, this mix of exposition and not giving enough time for the story to breathe creates this weird flow of your story feeling fast yet slow at the same time. The plot feels like it's rushing through the events as it happens but the unnecessary details create padding which slows down the plot for the reader and ruins momentum.
To help fix this, I suggest firstly check on your exposition. Try to practice how and when to release information to the readers and see how that affects your plot's pacing. Researching on tips on how to better your exposition is also a good way to learn. Basically, study and practice—those are the only ways you can improve.
Characters
There's a lot of characters and not enough time to get introduced to them slowly. I feel like you should've spread out their introductions more and made each introduction distinct. Remember that first impressions are important and that when you are introducing a significant character, said introduction must make an impact. It must stick in your reader's brains and give them a basic impression of this character's well, character.
When you throw around so many names and just dump them on the reader, not a single character registers and it just ends up blurring all these characters together. It makes it confusing to know who we're supposed to follow in the narrative and who we should really care for. I feel like to help this problem, you should think of your characters' role hierarchy. Who is/are the protagonist/s? Who is/are the deuteragonist/s? Who is/are the antagonist/s? Who is part of the minor cast? Etc. etc.
I've read five chapters but I can't remember which character is who because there's just so many of them thrown onto me even in just the first chapter and we're not given any time to slowly process who these characters are. Give the plot some breathing room for the characters to develop or display their characteristics. Having a huge cast is not bad, there are many works with gigantic casts. For example, one of those long-running shounen anime like Naruto or One Piece. But even those pieces of media let there be time for the audience to process each character introduced. Screentime is appropriately given to the characters who need it.
I highly suggest drawing out first who your main characters are and then your secondary main characters and then your minor characters. Once you establish where everyone sits in this hierarchy, then you can figure out who's story to focus on first. Finding a focus point is important to make your work feel more solid and less cluttered.
Presentation (Grammar, Style, Spelling)
I had a few problems regarding the presentation. Firstly the biggest is the spacing between the paragraphs. They're too clumped together, making it difficult to read. I suggest adding another space between the paragraphs to ease the reader's eyes. A good example would be something like this *link to the fic that has decent paragraph spacing*. The spacing helps in making the work easier to read, so if the spacing of your paragraphs is bad, it can tire out the reader and make them less engaged in the work.
Other than that, I did notice a few grammatical errors here and there. The biggest one would be the lack of capitalization in some parts such as the start of sentences. Every time you start a sentence, the first letter should be capitalized. It's a mistake that can easily turn off people from reading your work. Another note is that proper nouns such as specific names must be capitalized. There's an instance where names such as Albert were not capitalized.
Another mistake is the lack of punctuation in some places. For example, you had this paragraph:
"her craziness has rubbed on you too I see" Fuyuko said jokingly.
This has various errors in capitalization and punctuation. The fixed version would be:
"Her craziness has rubbed on you too, I see," Fuyuko said jokingly.
I highly suggest getting an editor or proofreader to go through your work, or if they're not available, get a grammar checking software such as Grammarly or even just use the grammar checking of Google Docs. Everyone easily makes mistakes like these, and having a second eye, whether it be man or machine, can really help.
Outside of the grammatical errors, I would say my main problem regarding the work's writing is the repetition in some parts. You tend to use what I would call, ""Dialogue here," name said." format and it gets really repetitive to read sentence after sentence. More variation in dialogue tags would help as well as just not using dialogue tags at all. You can use actions instead of dialogue tags to help the readers know who is speaking. For example:
"Her craziness has rubbed on you too, I see," Fuyuko said jokingly.
"Anyways, me and Alfred have to go pick up his little brother and sister from school," Gregory said to everyone sitting in the restaurant as he got up out of his chair, picked up his scabbard and black gloves, and pushed the chair back.
"Yeah, we have to go now, bye everyone," said Alfred as he got up out of his chair, grabbed his black panama hat and put it on his head, and he grabbed his brown leather jacket which was resting on his chair and put it on, then pushed his chair back.
You can easily remove the "Gregory said" part and just keep the action sequences. Or even rephrase the said part in order to add more variety. You could also tone down the specificness of their actions because it's not important information. Focus only on showing what you need to show. The information that they pushed their chair back is needless. The reader already can assume that once they left the scene, they pushed their chairs back.
I would edit this part as such:
"Her craziness has rubbed on you too, I see," Fuyuko said jokingly.
"Anyways, me and Alfred have to go pick up his little brother and sister from school." As he said that, Gregory stood up from his chair, picking up his scabbard and black gloves.
"Yeah, we have to go now. Bye everyone!" Alfred stood up as well and grabbed his black panama hat and put it on his head. He also picked up the brown leather jacket that rested on his chair and wore it, the jacket covering the large badge on his shirt.
As you can see, it's more varied in form and words, with instead of having them all go "[name] said." format. Words that got repetitive were also changed, with me using grabbed and picked in the third paragraph instead of just repeating grabbed twice. Removing the redundancy of some of the words helps in making the text more dynamic and interesting to read.
There's also a bit of a problem in your descriptions as well. I would say the biggest example of this is the way you described the characters in chapter 1. You list out a bunch of the character's physical traits. It's boring to read and repeating the structure for every character is repetitive. It would be good to add again, more sentence structure variety in your work, to help in making the text interesting and engaging to read. Also, incorporate your description with the narrative. Weave it in with emotion and actions of the characters.
For example, instead of just saying:
"It was so sudden, the way everything happened, and just like that, I lost my family, all in one day," said Gregory, a 20 year old boy, blonde short hair, black eyes, and he had a bandage around his right arm.
You could add more spice to that description as well as emotion by adding more description of what he was doing, what he was feeling, and then also spread out his physical attributes there. Like so:
"It was so sudden... The way everything happened..." Gregory choked out. "Just like that, I lost my family." His black eyes were tearing up as he frustratedly clenched his blond hair. "All of them... all in one day...!"
That's not really the best description I could do, but you get the point? There's more variety in the sentences and the punctuations help in conveying the emotion of anger and grief that Gregory feels. At the same time, we get the gist of his appearance. He has blond hair and black eyes. You can further mention the bandage around his right arm in another part perhaps. Maybe he later clutches it when remembering the pain of the past, or something. You could also mention stuff like maybe his clothes were unkempt with grief and such. Basically, weave it into the narrative. It is part of the story. Don't just throw out the information, make it mean something. Because just throwing it all around in a big infodump leads to throwing your readers out of their immersion.
All in all, here's a tip that I follow to make my sentences more interesting, which I think would also benefit you:
Lastly, to note, your writing isn't bad. There's just some things that it could do better and I can't wait to see what you could write once you get past some of the things I mentioned here. There's always something new to learn about writing and I hope that this review helps you in that.
Overall
Overall, I can see the potential in your work. There is a story here you want to tell and you definitely put in the effort in worldbuilding and such. However, the presentation of the work is a bit clumsy and could be done better. I highly suggest getting an editor or proofreader to help in polishing your work. Using tools such as spelling correctors or grammar correctors can also be helpful in improving the presentation of your work. All in all, it wasn't that bad, but it could be better.
Thank you very much for choosing me as your reviewer! Please DM me for any further questions and I wish you the best of luck in writing!