In My Opinion

The Wailing Woman by ObewitchedmoonlightO

Full title: The Wailing Woman by ObewitchedmoonlightO
Source: Zelicaon Awards by -Chrysalis_Realm
Category: Fantasy
Mature: Y (blood, death, suicide, swearing, violence, other heavy topics)
Status: Ongoing
Special note (judging): I had 3 books from this category, and the other judges (nkvenus7878 and dead_poet_7) had 6 and 5 books, respectively.
Result: 93/100

Clicking the "External Link" button below the "Continue to next part" button will take you straight to the book.

*****

Rubric:
- Basic introduction (cover, title, and description): 20
- First impression (first few chapters): 10
- Story mechanics (plot and characters): 30
- Grammar and vocabulary: 20
- Writing style (including pacing): 20
Total: 100

*****

Total score: 93/100

Basic introduction (cover, title, and description): 17/20
Cover: Well, this is creepy—which is what you're going for, so that's good. The purples and silvers all go together really well. Everything goes together here. It's so well-blended. The image is really intricate, with more details the more I look, and your font style, color, and placement are all great. My only suggestion would be to bump up the size of the subtitle. It's not really legible from the table of contents page, and even when I click the book on your profile to pull up a larger picture, it's still really small. I wouldn't go too big on it, though. Maybe a size or two up. But that's it. This is a creepy, fantastical cover, which works great with a creepy, fantastical story.

Title: And your title is also perfect for this story. "Wailing" has that connotation of sadness or despair, and it makes perfect sense for a banshee. So, again, creepy, fantastical, spot-on.

Description: First up, I appreciate the content warning. Everybody has their triggers or things they just don't like to read, and it's always nice to get that info right up front in the blurb. I always hate getting several chapters into a story before I come across something I can't deal with, because now I'm invested in the characters and the plot, but I can't go on. It's really frustrating.

Anyway. This is a bit long for my preference for a blurb, but I know others like long blurbs, so that's not something I dock points for. Along with the content warnings, this really gives the reader an idea of what to expect, and you tell quite a lot while leaving a lot more as a mystery that the reader can only solve by reading the book, which is good. Sometimes, people give too much away in long blurbs, but I think you have the right balance here.

There are some issues with punctuation throughout, and cleaning that up will help to polish this and really sharpen your hook. The first sentence of the first paragraph is actually two complete sentences, so the comma should be either a semicolon or a period. It's not necessary, but I think adding an em dash in the second sentence would really amp up the punch value here, emphasizing how strange it is that she saves a life: "...destined to die—and she succeeds."

In the second paragraph, no comma after "but," but you could add one after "fate."

In the third paragraph, "met" should be "meet," since this is in present tense, and a comma afterwards would be a good idea. I think changing the period to a colon and moving "a prediction" up here would work well: "...more from Nora: a prediction."

Next paragraph, "could" should be "can" to keep with the present tense. I think splitting this sentence up would improve the flow a bit. It's a little lengthy and awkward as is. I'd change the comma after "living" to a period, cut "and," and start the next sentence with "as." Then, there should be a comma after "closer" and "Nora."