December 30, 2019
Hello, and thank you so much for dropping by to submit your story to be reviewed. Today's story is Forest Children by glassesdog2.
Cover & Blurb:
The cover of the story is very simple but clear, which is something that I personally like. I prefer to stay away from fancy covers with too much going on because I find them hard to look at, especially with lots of different fonts. This one could be made a bit more appealing by adding additional elements to catch the reader's eye and bring them to want to read. Right now, it does feel a bit plain with a generic photo. Plain is okay if you have something about it that intrigues the audience, and right now I'm not sure it's going to.
The blurb for the story isn't really a blurb at all, but rather a few lines that don't really tell me anything in particular about the book. I'd prefer a more traditional blurb to tell me what is in the story I'm about to open. Right now I'm a bit confused - it currently reads a little like a poem, which may mislead a reader, despite the creativity in putting it together. Perhaps it could be supplemented with more?
Content:
First of all, thanks to glassesdog2 for volunteering to be my very first review! I know that can be a little scary because you're not sure exactly what you're going to get out of the experience. I hope you find my comments helpful.
The prologue to the story has a lot of potential, and I look forward to seeing the story progress. I think the author has a good idea in store for the reader, but the execution needs a bit of assistance in order to improve. In particular, I found the chapter had a lot of 'X did X' type statements or action heavy statements without a lot of description, making it hard for the reader to envision the story in their heads. I personally would like to see the telling language filtered through with more showing statements - rather than 'Vanessa shivered' perhaps the author could describe the temperature with one of the five senses, showing her coldness rather than telling us simply that she's cold.
In that same vein, the opening needs a bit of help as well. 'Vanessa shivered' is not an overly engaging opening for a book, and it is important to remember that a reader needs to be engrossed from the beginning of the story in order to want to continue reading. I'm not sure that this one sentence provides enough of a hook for a reader.
Despite the above, I found the prologue a bit vague in the actions that were provided. There wasn't a lot of narrative provided to engage me with the story, and I felt a bit lost by the end of the prologue, as if I had been dropped into the scene without much context. After looking on to Chapter 1, I'm not sure how much the prologue currently helps with the engagement of the story.
One additional comment regarding dialogue is that occasionally I got lost with who was speaking. A dialogue or action tag would be helpful in instances with lots of back and forth dialogue.
I can definitely see this story having an interesting plot and characters, and would like to see the author use some of the above comments if they think they would be helpful in enhancing the writing and development of their abilities. It's very clear to me that the author has a deep interest in getting their ideas down on paper which I think is great - definitely continue to do so and I wish you all the best with your story going forward!
Very best wishes,
NB