Open Shop: Reviews, Editing, Research

Count Your Blessings

Author: afterlifeinbooks.

Genre: Teen Fiction.

Chapters Reviewed: Three.

Overall Score: 76/100.

Cover, Title, and Blurb:

-- Cover: The image quality could be better, but given how small the thumbnails are on Wattpad (even on desktop version), I don't feel that this is a very pressing issue. Both fonts are legible, and the contrast between the two lends nicely to the overall image; however, I would recommend making the author's name larger and possibly add something like a drop shadow since it is a little difficult to see at present. It also may help to align the solid text with the cursive: the beginning of 'Count' is to the left of the beginning of 'Blessings', and the end of 'Your' is to the right of the end of 'Blessings'. The image itself has a certain intrigue, what with the masks and the clear distance between the man and the woman. I don't often find myself searching this genre, but if I did, I would probably click on this story.

-- Title: There's not much to say here. Simple, intriguing, and it works well given the nature of your story.

-- Blurb: This, unfortunately, is where I might have left the book. I'm someone who absolutely fixates on grammar, to the point where I cannot read the story if it has grammar issues, regardless of premise-- a shame, since your premise is unique and interesting. The first thing I noticed is "He took a sip of his glass" rather than "He took a sip from his glass". The next was the issues with commas and punctuation: since "He opened the black suitcase" contains no dialogue tag, there is a period rather than a comma between the sentence and the dialogue.

          He opened the black suitcase. "One. You rely on your words to do the trick."

The inverse is true with "He whispered". That's a dialogue tag, so a comma is needed in dialogue and "He" needs to be lowercase.

          "So what's it going to be?" he whispered as he cocked the gun.

I'm also not entirely sure why it's spaced the way it is, with dialogue separated from action, but it reads a little oddly to me. On to the part below: this might be personal opinion, but I feel that "and that's the case for many people" weakens the impact of that statement. Beyond that, I think it's fine.

Score: 3/5.

Grammar:

Grammar is kind of a consistent issue throughout, so here are the aspects that need the most focus.

-- Dialogue: As above, dialogue lacks commas where they are needed. When tags (like "she said", "he mumbled") are used, the dialogue has a comma in place of a period, and the speaker is in lowercase unless it's a proper noun.

          "I wish," she muttered.

          "I hope you're happy," said Mr. Burke.

          "Can you believe it? He lied to me," Alex said.

The lowercase pronoun is still used when the dialogue ends with a question mark or exclamation point. Thoughts follow the same rules as dialogue, even if they are not in quotations-- although I do recommend distinguishing it from the rest of the text; usually, this is done with italics.

          You've got to be kidding me, Layla thought.

-- Commas: This is also something that stood out to me. I recommend an editor for this one, since it's rather difficult to go over every place where commas are needed, but here are a couple examples of where commas are needed.