Intro:
This feedback is for the book Forgotten Love by DasiaTR. This chapter will be dedicated to the author. Forgotten Love is a fun story that knows when to hit its emotional beats. There are some heavy themes displayed through the wide variety of characters.
P.S. to author: Apparently Wattpad is aware of the message glitch. I had no idea it was a thing so I went to look it up and it's a known issue at Wattpad. My apologies for the confusion, that's a very weird glitch and I hope they get it sorted out soon.
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Detailed Feedback
What Worked:
You do a great job at building intrigue right from the beginning. Creatively, the story has an interesting idea and equally interesting characters that keep it going. After reading chapter 1, I wanted to read more because I was invested in Ciara's character.
There are some fun moments in the dialogue. Along with that, I like how you're able to describe things using dialogue. For example, in chapter two: "'Smells just how I somewhat remember: bad cologne and too much perfume'." It's a small thing, but being able to describe places and people through dialogue in a natural and fun way adds more engagement to the story. I personally chuckled at that line.
Elijah is great. I loved his intro chapter and my heart broke at the part where... y'know, with the name. I got emotionally attached to him very quickly because of that. As the story progressed, I enjoyed his character even more and sympathized with him a lot.
I love the overall aesthetic of the book. As I kept reading, I found myself more immersed due to the graphics you used. They were really nice and they're one of the reasons why I enjoy reading on Wattpad. I enjoy seeing what authors do with their aesthetics and how they incorporate visuals into their story. It's nice to see. As much as I love actual physical books, Wattpad is special because it gives you opportunities to do stuff like this.
I enjoyed Ciara and Tia's characters. There are a lot of characters so I cannot touch on all of them otherwise this review will be longer than all of the reviews so far combined lol, but the characters all had their unique role in the story and I enjoyed how you weaved them throughout the plot.
This is a small thing, but I enjoyed the way you gave fresh life to high school. I haven't been to high school in years and it's definitely nostalgic. Sure, I'm not that old, but it's still a great feeling to see high school described again. I normally don't read stories set in high schools (or on Earth, for that matter), so this was refreshing and the way you brought the high school to life was very entertaining.
The story has plenty of emotional beats that allow us to get into it. Like the whole blood test storyline in the middle. The way you're able to bring emotional beats into the story without making it feel forced is great, and I enjoy that.
Another small thing, but the romance is handled pretty well. The couples are cute and I'm very happy for them. It's nice to have couples to cheer for while reading, especially since they're written in a cute way.
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What Didn't Work:
Dialogue, let's talk about it. The dialogue in itself is fine, it's just how it's formatted. There are unnecessary periods at the end of dialogue as well as (occasional) extra spaces at the start of dialogue.
For example:
" How are you?." he said.
The period and the extra space are not necessary.
"How are you?" he said.
That's the correct way of formatting dialogue.
I'm not quite sure what happened, but the font changes when looking into a character's mind. I saw your response to another commenter saying it was italics, but it didn't look like italics. I don't know if it's a glitch on my end, but if you are using a different font that isn't the built-in italics like this, I would suggest changing it to the normal font with built-in italics. I personally don't have anything against authors using different fonts, but just keep in mind that there is a huge community on Wattpad that uses screen readers or tts and tts/screen readers cannot pick up on those fonts. You are entitled to write the story with whatever fonts you want, but I just thought I'd throw that out there in case you didn't know tts can't pick that up. If I'm glitching and you are using italics, then completely disregard what I just said.
This is a side note, not criticism. I wanted to put it here since it applies: you're entitled to write your story however you want, so if you wanna make different fonts, use photos, use unique chapter names, use videos and songs, etc., feel free to do so. If I or others tell you what you should and shouldn't write/use or says "I'd do it this way...", I would recommend ignoring it. It's not about what they would do, it's about what you would do since you're the writer.
Too many writers tell other writers how to write, and I have been guilty of this in the past too. They, including myself, need to look at it like a reader instead of a writer. So if you want to keep using fonts, I'm not saying don't do that. Use whatever you want, it's Wattpad, experiment with your style. No matter what you do, some readers will love it and some readers will hate it. Don't let another writer step on your writing style. It's one thing if it's grammar cause y'know, there is a right and wrong there. But creatively, do what you want. Experiment. Please be creative, I found your story very beautiful when it came to the formatting of how you used different medias to make it come to life. Don't let myself or another writer tell you what you should or shouldn't do creatively. They're likely thinking about how they'd write it, not how you'd write it. So write how you want.
Sorry that was a rambling and it wasn't even constructive criticism lol. I just really want to encourage creativity because it's Wattpad; no matter what people say, it's not that serious. And again, no matter what you do, some readers will love it, and some will hate it. Doesn't make it objectively wrong! Experiment with how you tell/present your story!
Back to regularly scheduled programming!
Watch word choice. You overuse certain words. For example, you use words like sigh and scoff multiple times per chapter. You also use expressions like "rolling eyes" way too often.
The person in your comments talking about the punctuation with commas and periods is correct. You have punctuation issues where there are run-on sentences and areas where the sentences should have ended. I would suggest hiring an experienced editor or using editing software. I've said it before in this book but I'll say it again here: I never recommend Grammarly for creative writing since it sucks with it, but for your situation, I would recommend using it just until you become more comfortable with how sentences flow and where you should put commas and periods.
I would suggest not using all caps. It comes off as overdramatic and hard to read. It feels like you're yelling at the reader instead of the characters yelling at each other. There are other ways to heighten the tension of a scene without resorting to all caps. Try to avoid it.
Watch adverbs. You use too many of them and they take away from the otherwise solid description of the story. Most of the adverbs are unnecessary or repeated. For example, you use "pleadingly" twice within two sentences in chapter 15.
Lastly, remember every piece of dialogue spoken by a different person should have its own paragraph. You do this most of the time, but you don't enough times that I feel the need to point it out.
Example:
"Hi," Raven said.
"Hey," Jimin replied.
Not:
"Hi," Raven said. "Hey," Jimin replied.
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Summary:
- Great job at building intrigue
- Ciara is an interesting character I was invested in
- Elijah 💜
- The couples are cute and well-written
- Some great description in the story
- The setting is great
- Nice job using dialogue to describe things
- Grammar issues (watch punctuation)
- Dialogue formatting
- Line breaks/paragraph breaks for dialogue
- Potential font glitch?
- Try to avoid all caps and adverbs
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Overall:
Forgotten Love is an intriguing story that makes you asks questions by the beginning of the first chapter. The mystery sprinkled in throughout the chapters gives the readers engagement and a reason to keep reading. I personally got sucked in and I would recommend this to anyone looking for a fic that will keep them reading. After fixing the grammar errors (particularly with punctuation), Forgotten Love has potential to becoming a fantastic all-around story!
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Thank you for submitting your story. I hope this review was helpful and I hope you continue to write the story. I can't wait to see more works from you, and please let me know if you need anything else!
More reviews coming soon. Sorry I'm a bit behind, I got swamped with work this week and I wasn't expecting it. I wasn't even able to update most of my stories. I'll get back on track this week!