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Review by Sunshine: The Tangled Princess

Title: The Tangled Princess

Author: nonameleftxx

Summary: 3/5

There are some great things happening in your summary! You introduce the pivotal characters, and the introduction of the world is cohesive, fluent and not at all overwhelming. Great job with that! The end of your summary is also quite impactful – I like the way you combined the two characters in that final sentence, as it follows a similar convergence structure in your story itself.

However, I found your summary a bit vague. I feel like I'm missing an overall conflict – and I'm definitely missing the stakes. You definitely have space to elaborate on some points – for example, who is this potential 'enemy'? What is the 'turmoil'? What is at stake? Make me feel invested – make me read on for the sole purpose of making sure the protagonist doesn't find themselves facing these stakes!

Also, a quick grammatical thing:

"... the crown princess of witch kingdom."

Since 'witch kingdom' is being used as a proper noun (name of a kingdom), it should be capitalised like this:

"... the crown princess of Witch Kingdom." 

Grammar: 3/5

Okay, so, overall, your grammar was pretty good! You obviously have a solid understanding of English grammar, and you've mastered the punctuation rules within dialogue – and that is something a lot of writers struggle with. Well done! However, there are definitely a few recurring mistakes throughout your story, so let's break them down:

Okay, first of all, commas. There were quite a lot of instances where you were missing commas, which ultimately led to run-on sentences as well as sentences being misinterpreted. For example, here's a clear example:

"Our goddess deemed me worthy enough to have power over four elements – water, fire, earth, and air for which I will always be eternally grateful."

In that above instance, the lack of a comma after the word 'air' makes it seem like she is only grateful for the air part. I suspect, however, that she is grateful for all of it. Therefore, you need the comma after the word 'air'.

Next: semicolons. A semicolon is used to separate two clauses that can work perfectly as sentences on their own, but are strongly intertwined. I've been told that a semicolon is even a good replacement for the word 'because' or 'so' in some instances. Now, here you have written:

"You think I'm trying to scare you?" he asked; his voice deeper than usual.

'His voice deeper than usual' is not a complete sentence. Therefore, this is an incorrect use of a semicolon.

Also, as I mentioned in the summary part, beware of nouns being used as proper nouns – especially when you're not sure when to capitalise them. Another incorrect example I found was:

"Ignore him, dad, he must be hungry."

In that example, 'dad' is being used as a proper noun. It is not 'the dad' or 'my dad' – it's just dad. Therefore, it should be:

"Ignore him, Dad. He must be hungry."

There are also some instances throughout your story where you capitalise words even though it's not necessarily a proper noun, nor is it the start of a sentence. Watch out for those.

Character Building: 4/5

I think Evanora is a fantastic main character – she's clever, smart, a little cheeky, and her narration is always engaging and always easy to connect with. Well done! I like that, despite her amazing abilities, she's not just perfectly perfect. I like seeing the training scenes – those were executed exceptionally well, as it showed the way she has to process the magic. It's not just a flick of the wrist and bam, magic. I'm glad there's complexity behind it all.