TITLE: Demon's Bride
AUTHOR: Nietelaria
Review
Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that everything in the review represents my opinion on what could make the story stand out more to who I think is your target audience. However, you know your story and your audience best, so no matter what is written here, please stay true to yourself!
Thank you for applying for my review shop! Your story has an intriguing premise with a dark, mysterious vibe to it. There's a lot of potential here, so story-wise, I think you're set! However, there is a lot to be improved in the way you write that I believe can make your story stand out even more.
Description: The first line of your description includes a really interesting question as a hook, "Can a demon desire a soul?". However, nowhere in the rest of your description talks about a demon desiring a soul. Sure, there are mentions of demons and souls, but a demon desiring a soul? I can't tell at all. So the first line just feels really random for now.
To fix this, you could (1) try to tie the rest of your description to be in line with the question, (2) tweak the question to something more appropriate, maybe, "Can you escape eternal damnation?", or (3) just not have this first line at all.
This is the rest of the description:
As an innocent victim of a bloody ritual, Camille was chosen [Descriptions are usually written in present tense regardless of the tense of your story!] as a new bride of one of the Seven Princes of Hell. Quickly, she discovered that this role would bring upon her a fate worse than eternal damnation. [These two lines can be condensed to be more impactful. I'll show an example later.]
When she had lost all hope, thanks to the unexpected aid of the demon's son, she got a chance to participate in the Great Souls Showdown of the Wicked Pandemonium Carnival - an event with the highest stakes as the prize. [What is the stake? What is the prize? What is even happening at the Carnival? Please fill your future readers in with more information!]
I wrote an example of what you could do here (but bear in mind that I am lacking a lot of information about your book, especially the last part about the Carnival):
After falling victim to a bloody ritual, Camille is chosen as the new bride of one of the Seven Princes of Hell—a fate worse than eternal damnation. But there's a chance to get out of that fate: participating in the Great Souls Showdown of the Wicked Pandemonium Carnival. In the carnival, Camille would have to learn to fight, to face the biggest fears within her, and to bet her life and everything she grows to care about on the possibility of obtaining freedom again.
I hope you can see how I condense what you already have as well as add even more information at the end! Your description should to be easy to read and have as much information as possible about the actual plot point of your story: participating in the Carnival.
Cover: The cover is quite terrifying, which is great if that's what you're going for. I do think a milder image might be more palatable for the general Wattpad readers though, so I recommend changing the image if possible. The font is not very readable: it's dark red and kinda blends into the shadow of the statue. Maybe you could brighten the color a little or make the size even bigger? Either way, your title needs to be easily readable at a glance!
Tags: Your tag choices are perfect, but you only used 23/25 tags, so there are at least 2 more tags you can add to optimize your discoverability! I wonder if fantasyromance, succubus/incubus, or darkromance could work for you?
You also have both young and new tags, which are contradicting. Reading your first chapter, your story feels more new adult, so I'd suggest getting rid of the youngadult tag.
Prologue: This was a quick glimpse into a demonic ritual that's stated in the description. It's well-written and immediately pulls the reader into the terrifying situation. I love it! If you want, I'd suggest making this longer by (1) showing even more emotions from the main character and (2) maybe having a glimpse of the perpetrator/the people doing this to her.
Another suggestion I have is for you to avoid filter words like "I felt". These are words that add unnecessary layers between readers and the characters.
I felt the ropes tightening around my wrists. -> Ropes tighten around my wrists.
I felt someone's cold hands ripping the white dress off me. -> Cold hands ripped my white dress off me.
And then, I felt a piercing pain in my chest. -> And then, a piercing pain in my chest rips my consciousness away.
Lastly, and totally optional, but I hope you can add the Latin translations at the end of your book! It's not at all necessary to follow the narrative but it's always nice to satisfy curious readers (like me hehe).
Chapter One: To be honest, since this chapter immediately follows the main character waking up after blacking out in the prologue, I think it makes more sense for this chapter to be combined with the prologue, with a scene break separating them. The reason why I think you should do that is also that your prologue has a better hook than this chapter one. Your prologue was impactful and gripping from the start, while your chapter one starts with the main character waking up, which is unfortunately a cliche.
So Camille wakes up, and after talking to Lilith, proceeds to look around and describes the other people in the room with her. I understand the need for setting up the scene but at this particular part of the chapter, it felt very information overload: just chunks and chunks of descriptions thrown at the reader. I highly suggest breaking this description-heavy section up with dialogues. Perhaps they can continue arguing with each other, and then you can sprinkle in the description as Camille looks around at whoever's speaking.
After that, the story becomes more interesting, with Devlin showing Camille around. The chapter ends with Camille being depressed about her current state, which is a good way to end the chapter. So good job there!
To further improve your story, there are some small writing mistakes that a lot of amateur writer makes. These are small fixes that can elevate your writing:
(1) Excessive use of "immediately"/"instantly": It's implied that things are instant/immediate when it's a sentence that follows the previous sentence. You should only use this word if it's actually instantaneous, e.g. when your main character is reacting way faster than normal reaction time.
I was instantly blinded by the brilliance of ornate chandeliers. -> Remove that, it's implied.
I immediately recognised him as the one who suggested waking me up. -> No need for that too. Plus you could change the sentence structure to something like, "His voice is familiar—he's the person who suggested waking me up."
Not far from Lilith, two people sat, whom I immediately recognised as siblings. -> In addition to the fact that "immediately" is not needed here, I find it hard to believe that it's possible to assume people are siblings unless they are identical twins. Have you seen the trend where people try to guess if two people are siblings or a couple? It's quite difficult to guess correctly xD
(2) Excessive adverbs use: A control+F tells me that you have about 58 adverbs in just one chapter. Adverbs are a nice addition to a sentence, but when it's done excessively, it can be quite jarring and also tell you that you haven't been using a lot of varied sentence structures in your writing. A lot of the adverbs could be removed (just like instantly or immediately), while some of them could be better incorporated into the sentence by varying your sentence structure or using stronger verbs.
A boy with eyes and hair as black as coal, stared at me enigmatically, clenching his strong jaw. -> A boy with eyes and hair as black as coal and an enigmatic aura around him. He glared at me while clenching his strong jaw. Here, I simply changed the sentence structure to incorporate the adverb. It reads more easily now too.
Tears of frustration involuntarily streamed down my cheeks. -> Tears of frustration that I was holding back streamed down my cheeks. This tells you way more info than "involuntarily".
I lowered my head and silently followed him. -> I lowered my head and followed him. The adverb is removed here because she didn't say anything, so it's implied that she followed him silently.
I propped myself up on my elbows almost immediately. -> I jolted up, propping myself up on my elbows. Getting up immediately can be replaced with a stronger verb such as jolted, jumped, or sat up with a jolt.
(3) A passive main character: At least in the first chapter, Camille seems to just be dragged around by the plot. Aka, she simply lets things happen to her.
A strong and good main character is vital to hooking your readers because you want your readers to not only sympathize and root for her, but to be interested in reading what happens to her. And that can't happen if Camille is just letting everyone push her around.
I'm not suggesting that you change what she does in the story; Camille can remain quiet and obedient on the surface since she is in an unfamiliar and scary situation after all and people do clam up in such situations. But every time she is demanded a question, have her want to say something snarky back but pull herself back because of fear. Or maybe have her constantly try to ask questions, but the other characters keep ignoring her or dismissing her, making her clam up more. Describe a lot more about how she feels and how she thinks before the "tears of frustration involuntarily" plagued her. At the end of the chapter, have her wonder if she can run away or do something about her situation, before exhaustion takes over and she decides to sleep first. Whatever it is, do not let the plot and other characters drag her around!
Anyway, that's the end of your review! Good luck with the rest of your writing journey, and I hope these notes are helpful.
Ending note: As per my rules, please share the review in your message board, tagging me (AziaElga). Thank you!