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~ Dancing in The Rain

Reviewer: flyme2them00n

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Dancing in The Rain

By awesome_author28

Ashlee Frost has been a dancer her whole life. From the Nutcracker to Swan Lake, she's there. Basking in the spotlight or watching her idol Maddie Ziegler dance. You could say dance is her life. Or was her life. Her dreams were ruined after she shattered her ankle, in a tragic snowboarding accident. Everyone has left her. Even Mia, her best friend. But when she is told she can never dance again, Ashlee puts that up to the challenge. Dancing in the Rain. A famous broadway play. The directors are determined to get Ash to play the main character, Maria. But she has to complete with her idol Maddie Ziegler, who isn't as she seems anymore. But some good times start to seep through the cracks of her damaged, broken life. Asia. This girl from the rehab center is anything BUT unhappy. Inspired to help Ashlee, she will do anything for her. But the tasks she's performing start to get a little out of hand. Will Ash be able to get the part and save her friendship? Read Dancing in the Rain to find out!

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Cover/Blurb/Title

Cover • I really like it! I think it looks great. As far as I'm concerned there's nothing wrong with it. However, I'm sure others may have a different opinion so you can ask around if you'd like.

Blurb • It sounds really interesting! I would just like to say that it could use a bit of work. For example, why has everyone left her? What kinds of tasks is Asia making Ashlee do? Why are they so crazy? If you briefly mention these things it'll make the blurb much more well-rounded and whole. There are also a few grammar errors, mainly use of too many commas in the wrong places. Reading the blurb out loud and finding those spots helps a lot.

Title • Honestly, it's a bit generic. However, it did make me think of the Broadway musical, which is part of the storyline. I don't really know how to help you though, which is horrible of me and I'm terribly sorry. I'm sure other reviewers would be glad to help you out!

Descriptions

Your descriptions are pretty good. I can easily imagine these scenes taking place. However, I think that adding just a little more to your settings will really help to imagine said scenes even more vividly. 

Characters

Overall your characters are fine. However, we don't get any information on why Ashlee loves dancing so much, why Mia decides to dump her as a friend, who Caitlin is, et cetera. I understand how the book is ongoing but adding background information helps the reader understand and connect with the story better. I would also be careful with using Maddie Ziegler and portraying her as a negative person as she is a real person and it might rub off the wrong way on her fans and make you look like a biased person. Otherwise, I really think you're going the right way with this! I love how you took the time to introduce Caitlin into the story instead of just plopping her in suddenly. Very nice job!

Plot/General Writing

With the whole 4 x 8 thing, unless Ashlee can tell exactly how long and how wide that piece of fabric is, there's no reason to include that measurement. If you decide to leave it in there, is it in inches or feet? Centimeters? You have to specify. In the third chapter take out all of the "Dr. Taylor?"'s you have. You don't need to write his name so many times. Adding a "she repeated" works fine. I'm really loving the storyline and I want to see more!

Grammar

I noticed that when you start a line with dialogue you add a space between the actual quotation mark (") and the first word. Remove that space as it'll make the whole thing flow better and it won't be as distracting. What I noticed besides the quotation mark-space thing was the fact that you use the wrong "you're / your" and the wrong "their / they're / there". You also write in stammers a lot ("l-like th-this"). While it does show that the character is stammering it's a bit jolting and even a bit annoying to read. Replacing it with something like "she stammered" after would make it better. You also seem to be missing words and parts of words altogether. Reread your chapters and edit them so every sentence makes sense. You also tend to stick commas where they shouldn't be and also leave them out in places they should be. Read your sentences out loud. If you find you're pausing too much, take out those commas. If you aren't pausing enough, add commas. All of this can be fixed with a simple thorough read-through!

Reader Engagement

The endings to your chapters do suck me in a little. I'm anxiously waiting for more updates! I was a bit disappointed to see that there wasn't any true foreshadowing to Mia dumping Ashlee as a friend. All the reader got was an author's note saying that Mia would soon leave her, which both spoiled the next chapter and made it less jarring. To me, making this event shake the reader and leave them thinking "Wow, that just happened" contributes to the story a lot and really helps it hit home with Ashlee's situation. Adding foreshadowing and stronger language will help with that a lot.

Overall

2.5 stars out of 5

Your grammar needs some work and so does your character development. However, I'm sure it'll improve as more chapters get published. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of your story!

Good luck, lollipop!