Are you an undiscovered writer searching for ways to improve your work and get some recognition? Apply to have your story reviewed here and expect honest feedback, brutal critiques, and to return with a story that can't ever be forgotten.
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BLURB:
'It's Coming to an End' is a short story intentionally enveloping the reader in the exact moment that we all fear. When promises of 'forever' have now been realized to be lies; that there is no promised future together. That it's the end.
'She knew it was coming to an end when they didn't know what else to say. Embarking the inevitable finality of 'us' was the unaccustomed tension, silence, complaisance.'
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YOUR COVER: (7/10) The cover was neat, organized, and creative. I enjoyed how the title incorporated the colors of the image, and the image used represented your story and hinted at the potential surroundings of your characters. The author's name is hardly there, however, so I suggest making it bolder or placing it somewhere easier to see.
YOUR TITLE: (10/10) The title definitely hints at your story genre and plot. It's unique, interesting, and pulls me in. Your blurb referenced it, and it feels like the right fit for your story. Well done!
YOUR BLURB: (3/5) While I appreciate the conciseness and shortness of your blurb, I would have liked a direct description of your story. From your characters, the setting, and the overarching question, these all could have hinted at what your story was directly about. Instead of directly addressing the potential readers, talk about your character and the plot idea instead. A blurb is basically opening a small window to the contents of your story, and you only have a small space to hook in new readers.
YOUR HOOK: (4/5) From the first sentence, I was able to detect your writing capabilities and feel myself in your character's surroundings. You did more of listing descriptions rather than linking them all together and described the same thing several times. For readers simply looking for something to enjoy consuming, this can push them away. How can you spice up your hook more? How can you dramatize the moment without listing descriptions for the same things? Try to lend that same courtesy to other things in the character's surroundings.
YOUR GRAMMAR: (8/10) You struggled with your punctuation and capitalization with dialogues. If your dialogue is accompanied with a dialogue tag (he said, she yelled, they shouted, describing the way someone says something), the dialogue tag is a continuation of the dialogue sentence. For example, it makes little sense for the clause, "She said," to be a sentence by itself. Therefore, it's part of the dialogue sentence. The dialogue should end in a comma to show that the sentence isn't complete, and the start of a dialogue tag is not capitalized, as it's not the start of a new sentence. The opposite goes for action tags. If your dialogue is accompanied by an action tag (she grinned/he sighed/they walked away, basically an action), the action should not be part of the dialogue sentence. The dialogue doesn't help the action tag make sense; the action tag should be a sentence by itself. Therefore, the dialogue should end in a period to signify the end of the sentence, and the start of the action tag should always be capitalized, as it's the start of a new sentence. Of course, the punctuation may vary. Exclamation marks and question marks can end a dialogue regardless of the tag accompanying it, as long as if it's a dialogue tag, the dialogue never ends in a period, and for an action tag, it never ends in a comma.
