Open Shop: Reviews, Editing, Research

Uploader: The Symbiophage Prophecy

Author: AndrewDWallin.

Genre: Fantasy (Urban).

Chapters Reviewed: Eight.

Overall Score: 80/100.

Cover, Title, and Blurb:

-- Cover: It's interesting. I tend to like minimalist styles over some of the more... I guess extravagant ones... so the simple design doesn't bother me at all. The fact that the image of the mountain is mirrored lends well to the idea of the story, this flip world, but I feel like you could further that if the gradient lined up (if the grey ended at the line where the mountains meet). Additionally, I'd make the mountains a little bigger so that you've less space on the sides, and the font a little more noticeable. Maybe a drop shadow or metallic font or something. (I'm a sucker for metallic font, it seems...).

-- Title: It works. As the title of the actual story, there's nothing to improve on there. However-- and I say this without subtracting points, so don't worry-- adding "an urban fantasy crime thriller" to the Wattpad title just makes it too long, and it's unnecessary given the fact that you have a blurb to establish that information.

-- Blurb: And speaking of... it's make-or-break time. Reading this blurb, would I choose to pick up the book? Probably. A little more could be added to it, like more on where they're going and why: for example, if I said my heroes were travelling to a foreign kingdom to rescue a princess (cliche, but roll with it), I could give that a little more intrigue by saying that my heroes, faced with the prospect of either execution or wealth unbounded, travel to a foreign kingdom haunted by magic run amok to rescue a princess that is both the sole heir of the dying king and possibly the only one who can bring the wild magic to a halt. Maybe I'm beating around the bush... just a bit more detail and I think you'd be solid. It's got intrigue as-is, but it could have a bit more.

Score: 4/5.

Grammar:

You've a couple errors here and there, namely with commas or dialogue, but a quick edit would get all of them. There's also the occasional case where you're missing a space between two words, but beyond that, you're not missing anything here. So high marks.

Score: 14/15.

Plot and Overall Entertainment:

All right, you asked about Chapters One and Five specifically, so I'm going to spend extra time on those. Let's begin with the first, since that's only logical:

Here's the sticky situation you've got... it's a first chapter, so you've got to grab and maintain reader interest, but you're also trying to establish the pain that Dyne is causing your protagonist. I've never spent any time in Marcus's head, or with his family, so when it opens up with a phone call saying, "I've got your daughter, now do as I say", the only feeling I can get out of that is a vague dislike for Dyne because kidnapping's a scummy thing to do. Marcus and Ellen, though? Sure, I feel a little bad, but it's not very impactful since I don't know them yet. What you could do here is lengthen your first chapter: so here's normal life, right? Him, his wife, his kid, all kind of established as a family that may have a couple problems but mostly loves one another-- normal. Now here comes Dyne to screw it all up. You still have your wham ending, but there's a little more to root for here. As-is, it's kind of sudden. 

Next you asked about cliche: well, yes and no. On the one hand, getting a call from your enemy with a threat to your kid is something I think we've all seen a lot, but it's not bad if it's done right. The issue for me is what I said above-- it's just dropped on us, no time to establish characters before-hand. As for the 'no', well, getting told that you have to visit another world to get a crystal shard sounds pretty D&D, but it's unique for urban fantasy.