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Review by Sunshine: The Harvest

Title: The Harvest

Author: sugarbabeniall

Summary: 5/5

Short and simple, but captivating. You ended it with a dramatic flair, introduced the main character and the nature of the setting, and you even managed to keep it gripping throughout. This is a great summary – well done! Personally, I would have manipulated the sentence structure more and spaced out the sentences into separate paragraphs to really emphasise the drama, but that's just my style or writing anyways. So excellent work here. 

Grammar: 3/5

For the most part, the grammar wasn't too bad! There were some moments where you put in commas unnecessarily, but in general, the story was easy to read. There were just two bigger errors that you tended to make.

Firstly, punctuation before the end of dialogue. If dialogue is followed by a verbal tag (such as 'he said', 'she whispered', 'she exclaimed' – or anything referring to how the character says the words), there should be a comma before the closing inverted commas. If it's anything else, this comma should be replaced by a period (or a question mark for a question and exclamation mark for an exclamation). For example:

"Hi Brad," she smiled at the rock with her brother's name.

That above example is incorrect. The smile is not verbal. You can't smile your words. So a full-stop is necessary. It should be:

"Hi Brad." She smiled at the rock with her brother's name.

Another alternate option is:

"Hi Brad," she said, smiling at the rock with her brother's name.

Another thing was semicolons. Sometimes you used them correctly, other times, they felt unnecessary. A semicolon can be used to replace a conjunction, and connects two complete sentences together if they are strongly related. Let's look at an example:

"Because that's how she felt when everything was done for her at the castle; mediocre."

"Mediocre" does not work as a complete sentence. In this case, I think a colon would have been more appropriate. 

Character Building: 3.5/5

There were some great things happening here. You wove in information about the characters in a sleek, but subtle way, and you never broke away from the story to expand on characters. Well done there! Characterisation was smooth, and the way they adapted their language, dialogue and mannerisms for the setting was handled well.

There was a bit of name-dropping. In the first chapter, we heard of Lena, Brad, Trina, Amelie, Ethan, Prince Harry, Princess Alyssa, Lena's mother and her father. That's nine character names in one chapter – which can be a bit overwhelming. Try keeping the name-dropping purposeful, because it can be a struggle for readers to remember so many names at once – especially since you went on to introduce even more characters in the future chapters.

Also, there were moments where I couldn't really engage with Lena. For example, when she's with Niall and starts crying in chapter four, I genuinely could not grasp why. Like sure, the circumstances were dire, but I couldn't understand what exactly it was that triggered the tears. Whenever your main character does something, big or small, the reader should know why she reacts or does what she does. We need to see the thought process behind it, so we can engage with her and understand her. There were some moments where you could have added more depth to her character – like when she was first taken away by Prince Harry. I expected her to think more of her family, think about the consequences, think of potential escapes – just to build the drama more and show her caring side when it came to her loved ones. More on this in the next section. 

Writing Style: 3.5/5

I loved the way you altered the storytelling to suit the fantasy-esque genre. Since we are in a completely new world, I would have appreciated a bit more detail when it came to describing the settings – what exactly did the dresses in the cupboards look like? What did the castle look like on the inside? What did the place smell and sound like?

You used rhetorical question well, and there were some moments where you manipulated sentence structure nicely. The one-sentence paragraphs, such as "At least he had manners", were witty and entertaining to read.

Also, as mentioned before in the section about characters, I think you could have given us more from her – and that could be seen in the writing itself. Since she is the omniscient narrator, you can afford to give us glimpses of her thoughts without breaking out of third person. For example:

'Lena closed her eyes as the Prince walked by her, the clicking of his shoes ringing in her ears.

Just a few more seconds. Then, he would be long past her, with his hungry gaze on some other poor maiden, and she would be safe-

Lena's heart stopped as she heard Harry's footsteps cease and felt his hot breath upon her face.

Shit.'

Not my best example, but can you see how the drama is fleshed out more because we can see and feel exactly what Lena is thinking? 

Plot + Uniqueness: 4.5/5

I LOVED the idea! It's like a horrible, dark twist to The Selection. And I loved the way the story unravelled to show that it was so much more complex than the story let it out to be, and that Harry was not exactly a tyrant at all. Really creative, and really well done!

I sometimes wished that there was something Lena did to attract Harry's attention in the first place, apart from being nice to look at. Like, for example, she rolled her eyes when she first saw him and he didn't like that. Or she was dressed oddly because she couldn't find matching clothes. But that's just me always trying to find crazy ways to branch away from the expected. Overall, excellent work! 

OVERALL SCORE: 19.5/25

Overall, a pretty great story! I can't wait to see how the story ends – especially after all the unexpected little turns that have kept the story so engaging. All you need to do is work a bit on punctuation and fleshing out the setting, and you'll have an excellent story to showcase. I hope this review helps.