| | Indefinite Hiatus | |
I hope to return to this project someday, but it isn't feasible with my current health issues and life circumstances. I have to cut things from my workload so I can breathe. However, I still intend to complete my current li...
Title: THE CURSED FANTASY by EtherealMoon2kx Source: Review Shop by TheBlossomCommunity_ Genre: Fantasy Mature: N (child abandonment, child abuse, death, execution, physical abuse, rare mild profanity) LGBTQIAPK+: N Status: Ongoing First impressions: 29/40 Digging deeper: 53/100 Final thoughts: Complete Note: Chapter 15 was the last available chapter as of the publishing of this review.
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First impressions: 29/40
Title: 9/10
Mention of a curse is always a good tip-off to expect a fantasy book, and if that isn't enough, you include the word "fantasy" in the title. That adds another layer of intrigue, because it gets me thinking this may be a dream or a situation where it's hard to tell reality from fantasy. My only nitpicky critique here is the same as it was for The Silent Voice. I prefer titles to be written that way, with only the first letters of each word capitalized instead of every letter capitalized.
Story description: 5/10
My first recommendation here would be to get rid of the emojis. They create the impression or expectation that this story will be written in an informal or casual script format, like text messages, and that can be off-putting for readers looking for a more standard, serious story. Also, every paragraph is composed of a single sentence, and that adds to the informal feeling. Grouping sentences with a common subject into larger paragraphs would help eliminate that, and that would also allow you to emphasize certain sentences more by making them stand out when they're set apart in their own paragraph. You lose that effect if all the paragraphs are single sentences.
Two other overall observations are capitalization and punctuation. Every sentence must start with the first letter of the first word capitalized, and every sentence must end with a final punctuation mark. Punctuation marks that can end sentences are periods, exclamation marks, question marks, and ellipses (...). In rare cases, colons (:) and dashes (—) can be used as well, but for this blurb, I would go with periods for the missing ending punctuation marks.
Now, I'll get into the specifics, starting with the first sentence. This works well as a logline, or a summary sentence meant to catch a potential reader's attention in the blurb preview, so they read the rest of the blurb, but it needs some tweaking. I'd change "The" to "A," because "the" is specific and gives the impression the reader should already know about this mage. "A" shows this is the first time the reader is hearing about him. Also, the two mentions of him being a prince are repetitive, so I'd recommend condensing that. You could do something like this: "A once powerful mage was reincarnated as the abandoned third prince of the Atlas Empire."
