You Hung the Stars | coucoucherry2

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"He looked at her as if she had hung the stars for him."

Emily works in musical theatre. She hasn't had a job in months since the last time she was the lead in a Broadway musical. One day, her manager calls her to tell her that they want her back for a One Night Only charity show. The next day, she walks into the rehearsal studio to find out that she will be working with four other boys...one of which might become more than just a friend.

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YOUR COVER: (4/10) The photo seems to be of high quality and represents your story and genre. I noticed that there wasn't much creativity with the placement of the title and font. The font should represent your genre and should be creatively taking up space. I suggest changing the cover to meet these suggestions, or you can find a graphic designer who can do so for you.

YOUR TITLE: (8/10) This is a very whimsical sounding, poetic title. It's unique, creative, and it shows the amount of effort you put into finding the right title for your story, and the underlining message you might be spreading throughout your story. You can definitely keep it as it is. If you ever choose to change it in the future, I suggest thinking about how to make it obvious that it is a fanfiction. That way, you can gather more readers who are interested in the particular genre. This could be the name or title of a song that relates to the characters.

YOUR BLURB: (4/5) It's short, concise, and the excerpt on top shows the relevance of the title and your story. I noticed that the blurb itself was awkwardly written. You could work more on phrasing, descriptions, and removing unnecessary information. For example, the sentence, "Emily works in musical theatre," is very plain and basic. What can you add to it that will contribute to the blurb? You could say that she was into musical theatre ever since.... Or that she discovered her passion for it through... By adding more descriptions, you can show off your writing capabilities without overdoing it, as well as doing a better job at hooking in potential readers.

YOUR HOOK: (3/5) At first glance, your hook seemed appropriately free of grammar errors. However, I noticed that you started off with the background history of your character, which doesn't do a great job of bringing in readers. You shouldn't include background info unless it's absolutely necessary to the plot. If you do need to include background info, I don't suggest doing it right off the bat, as it might feel like a history lesson for some readers, who are looking to dive straight into the story. If you're choosing to include background info, do it later in the story when it really matters (to both your character and your readers), and split it up into chunks so you aren't info-dumping in one whole chapter.

YOUR GRAMMAR: (3/10) 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 doesn't make 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 indicate 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.

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