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Review by Sunshine: The Electra in Me

Title: The Electra in Me

Author: Originaljaime

Summary: 4.5/5

What a beautifully crafted summary! I love the way you've written it like one, giant metaphor, and it's very obvious that there will be musical symbolism underlying the entire story. Overall, your summary has all the right things: it introduces the two main character, it shows their dilemma, and it hints at how their lives may converge. Well done!

I found, however, three uses of comma that didn't feel right. The first two were in the following sentences:

"His interesting tall height and observant blue eyes, search for the one component missing to his song. Electra Sparks, offers a surprisingly perfect resolution with her own melodious beauty."

You don't need any of the commas in those above sentences. Read it aloud – you'll see that it all flows into each other, without the need for a pause. It should be:

"His interesting tall height and observant blue eyes search for the one component missing to his song. Electra Sparks offers a surprisingly perfect resolution with her own melodious beauty."

The last one was in the following sentence:

"Read as the portrayal of this book, comes to life through it's limn picturesque descriptions and feelings."

Again, I don't think the comma in necessary. 

Grammar: 3/5

As I mentioned above, your use of commas wasn't always accurate. I found several run-on sentences here and there, but most of all, I found that there were commas in sentences even though they weren't necessary. I suggest that you read your story aloud and take note of where you need to include your pauses, and that is where I suggest you add some form of punctuation.

Next, punctuation and 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:

"Dad, you're not old," I rolled my eyes.

That is inaccurate. "I rolled my eyes" is not a verbal tag. Therefore, it should be:

"Dad, you're not old." I rolled my eyes.

Alternately, it can also be:

"Dad, you're not old," I said, rolling my eyes.

Finally, tense. I found that, while you were mostly in past tense, you often fluctuated between past and present tense. For example, let's look at the following paragraph:

"I completed his sentence, gaining a high-five from Valeria. Even though I have high-fived her, we still need to sort out our previous banter."

In that example, you've changed tense. Let's break it down further, shall we?

"I completed his sentence..." [completed = past tense]

"... we still need to sort out our previous banter." [need = present tense]

Character Building: 3/5

There were definitely some good things happening with characters here. For example, I adore Valeria – she is absolutely hilarious. Her banter with Electra was eternally entertaining, and I think her interactions with Killian are comedic but also quite cute.

I also found Matt rather adorable, and I liked the way you adapted his internal monologue and dialogue to make it sound like he was stumbling over his words. However, make sure you keep this consistent – there were often times where his narration and Electra's narration carried a similar tone, and considering how different they are in terms of age, that's not something we want. I recommend checking out a book called "A Dog's Purpose" by W. Bruce Cameron. It's told entirely from a dog's perspective, and the quirkiness of the narration is consistent and cute. I think that would be a good example to refer to when you're writing chapters from Matt's perspective.

And while I thought Electra was a pretty fascinating main character, I just found that I couldn't connect with her. Not because of her personality or anything – in fact, I was hoping I really would connect with her because of our shared love for music.

The problem was that you told, instead of showed. When you write a story in first-person, the story should be character-driven, and so we need internal monologue. We need to know why the main character is acting as she is acting. When she feels tears coming into her eyes, we want to feel her sadness. We can't just know that she's tearing up without feeling anything – it can be disconnecting.

In your story, I found it was a lot of, "I did this, I did that, he said this, she said that". I didn't find a lot of Electra's thoughts splayed across the page. And when it was there, it was told, and not shown. For example:

"I would miss the home in which I spent my childhood."

That is an example of telling. Show it to us! What does she feel? Does her stomach churn? Maybe she's seeing glimpses of memories – running around the kitchen with flour on her hand, singing and dancing on her bed. Show us why she feels this melancholy, and make us feel it with her. 

Writing Style: 3/5

Okay, so, a few great things happening here. I think some of the narration is witty and quirky, and the endings and beginnings of your chapters are always either amusing or impactful – that's a great way to keep readers going, so well done!

However, I found that your writing itself did not quite match up with the summary. There was all this grandeur and sophistication in the summary, but the writing itself felt like it paled in comparison. All the metaphor, simile, figurative language – I couldn't find it anymore. You had some lovely moments, such as comparing a smile to a row of tombstones, so I encourage you to keep that up and help readers really visualise every moment!

Also watch out for redundant writing. I often found that you had short little tags that weren't necessary. For example:

"Electra," my father began, interrupting my thoughts, "it's time to leave. You don't want to miss your flight and stay with your old man forever, do you?" my dad asked.

The additional "my dad asked" is entirely unnecessary. We already know he is talking because of the previous dialogue tag. It should be:

"Electra," my father began, interrupting my thoughts. "It's time to leave. You don't want to miss your flight and stay with your old man forever, do you?" 

Plot + Uniqueness: 3/5

Okay, so it's a little hard to judge the plot with only nine chapters available. I do think the story started out in a pretty straightforward fool-proof direction – nothing too wild, but nothing uncommon either. I'm glad you're not rushing the romance, which is great for the realism and integrity of the story. Keep that up! And make sure you keep each scene purposeful – you need to make sure each moment will contribute to the overall plot.

I'll admit, there are definitely moments of cliché – falling on Brayden in the plane ride, for example. However, there were some glorious moments where those cliché moments were counteracted by little amusing moments – such as having him snap at Electra, but then going on to realise that she didn't do it on purpose (after a few chapters). Keep these little surprises up! They'll help your story remain engaging and unique. 

OVERALL SCORE: 16.5/25

Overall, a pretty solid start to a story! Just work on our dialogue and punctuation a bit more, as well as your showing instead of telling, and you should be good to go. I hope this review helps!