Full title: ❝Jinxed by a Crazy love ❞ || HP by JudithBoaz
Source: Utopian Fanfiction Awards 2024 by TheHappyWriters
Category: Harry Potter fandom
Mature: N (strong swearing, abuse)
Status: Complete
English usage: British
Round 1: 17/40
Round 2: 53/100, did not progress to round 3
Clicking the "External Link" button below the "Continue to next part" button will take you straight to the book.
*****
Round 1 total: 17/40
Title: 8/10
I like the words in the title. Using "jinxed" in this way is cute. But "love" is lowercase, and it should be uppercase, like you have it on the cover. As far as the quotes - well, I'm not a flowery text person, but I'm not docking points for that. That's a personal preference thing. I did notice when I copied and pasted your title into my document that there's a space between "love" and the closing quotation marks, so when I pull up the landing page for your story, those quotation marks go on a separate line from the title, and it looks weird. So, capitalize "love," remove that space, and you're set.
Cover: 4/10
Now, I'm not a graphics person, and I know how tricky it is to do graphics when that's not your thing. I think the image you're using is good, and the content of the text is good. It's just making it all work together. A frame of some sort would probably help to make this seem less like text slapped on a picture, and standardizing your font more would be a good idea, too. The three fonts are all so different. They don't have to be the same - it's boring if they are - but if they're going to be this different, there needs to be something else to make it work. I like the font for the title. I think if you bump the size up on that and shift that up to the very top of the cover, above Harry's head, that would look nice. For your name, I'd drop the tilde (~), choose a font more similar to the title, decrease the size, and shift the text down more. And maybe to the side, too. Having that sitting in a corner would add a little more dimension to this. As far as the "a Harry Potter fanfiction," again, choosing a font more similar to the others would help, and maybe adding some sort of background to the text, like a nameplate or shield or crest, something to make this less 2D and more interesting. You'd want to match that shield or whatever to a frame, too, so it all works.
Summary: 2/10
That first line of stylized text is hard to read and really doesn't make much sense. It also doesn't go with the rest of the blurb. So, I'd just cut it completely. Then, when we get into the actual blurb, you need to be careful with verb tenses. The first sentence is in past tense, and the following sentences are in present tense. It's important to pick one or the other and stick with it - although, in this case, the first sentence doesn't work with the rest of the blurb. Her first year at Hogwarts wasn't very interesting, even though it was filled with drama, betrayal, love, and heartbreak? That sounds pretty interesting to me. If you're trying to say the first year wasn't interesting, but the second year was, you need to make that clear. Or, if you're trying to say she expected that it wouldn't be interesting, but it was, you need to clarify that. The spoiler isn't necessary, since she's a different person from the three kids who make up the Golden Trio, so of course, her life differs from theirs. My best advice for deciding what information you do and don't need here in the blurb is to check out this chapter by justwriteit about writing a logline and a pitch. This really helped me get a handle on how to do this, and I think it will help you, too: https://www.wattpad.com/1357752761-8-chapter-challenge-story-logline-and-pitch
When we get to the disclaimers, I'd put a divider between this and the blurb, because this is all nice-to-know extras, and the blurb is your must-read section. I do like "the girl who loved." That's cute. The first letter in "fluffy" and "contains" should be capitalized, and making this a bulleted list would be a good idea. You can just do a hyphen and a space to make it look neater (- Fluffy). And lowercase all the letters in "swearing."
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In My Opinion
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