BFR Critiques Entry (B.C.E)

Be Fearless

Title: Be Fearless
Author: Synonymous_Boost
Reviewed by: FanminsClub

Grammatical construction: 9/10

Not bad, good even. However, in the first two chapters, sentences have been hard to understand; reformulating them would be a good option. Indeed, they are perturbed by punctuation marks placed incorrectly as well as expressions just kind of there without a specific reason or words awkwardly standing in the sentence ["Even if looks can not kill anyone, but Mrs. Olivia Collins was sure, someday going to create a history by killing someone with mere looks."] Grammatical errors also take part in making said phrase confusing. So, if I were to only review the first two chapters, I'd give this a 7/10. But I read the whole book, and it's just amazing how the author progressed so quickly. In a matter of a couple of chapters, such sentences as the one I quoted earlier have been appearing less and less. I'm sure that soon, they won't be part of the story anymore.

Grammatical errors: 9/10

Be careful with the verbs and how you conjugate them. Sometimes you forget the signature 's' at the end of a word ["This confirm..." -> "This confirms..."], and that's kind of a major concern. Apart from that, a good balance between the past and present tense is found, which I appreciate tremendously.

Easily understood: 9/10

Yes, it is. Of course there's the issue of grammatical errors and construction, combined with unadapted punctuation marks and spelling mistakes, but it's minor if you look at the book globally, without digging into the details. Since it is still ongoing, I can't say much about the plot, but it seems to be a good start. The reader doesn't get lost as everything is explained well.

Use of Vocabulary: 8/10

This includes spelling mistakes, that's why I gave your book an 8 instead of a 9. Honestly, it's pretty clear your spelling mistakes are mostly typos ["yellow balloon" when it should be "yellow balloons" etc.]. Scan every chapter at least once before posting for any typos or mistakes, it's useful advice I'm giving you. As for the vocabulary, I think you should add deeper words, so that way, your characters and the events they come across will be much more meaningful; think of it as a little piston boosting the importance of said things. It also brings a more "detail" side to the story, and I think yours is lacking in that.

Punctuation marks: 7/10

Some are unadapted - mostly exclamation marks placed instead of question marks -, some a bit too expressive when the situation isn't necessarily in need of such emotion ["Cursed me ??!!!"], and others are just forgotten ["Now, again Skyler May..." (It got fixed) -> "Now, again, Skyler May..."]. Overall, it's not bad, it just needs more attention, although the author has made great progress regarding this.

Portrait of the story in the title of book: 10/10

It's ongoing, and barely started, yet I can see the title fits really well. Indeed, everything turns around Skyler May defeating her fears. She has already defeated a major one, but it's not the end. Be Fearless clearly shows that in order to "break" the curse, Skyler has to be strong, fearless. After all, she just wants to live a normal life without fears.

Character developpment: 9/10

Skyler May is very well introduced and goes through a wonderful evolution concerning her persona. She finally decides to talk after 7 years of being practically mute, and with that, she battles with her fears, stops running away, faces them directly. The other characters are pleasantly thrown into the plot. I say thrown, because they all kind of appeared out of nowhere, and I find no problem with that. In fact, I find it an interesting choice to make, especially since it fits well with the story. Skyler May just suddenly has so many problems on her back, and just as suddenly something good happens (here, it's meeting Iris for example), and she has to adapt to it; that's what she's been doing for 7 years. Now, the characters haven't gone through any revolutionary change like Skyler did yet, so I can't give you full points.

Lessons gained: 10/10

Come on, it's obvious I gained some. The biggest one being: Overcome your fears. Skyler May is our guide regarding this; we can easily see ourselves in her, understand her, and experience everything with her. It's great seeing her face and overcome what she dreaded the most, showing us we can do that, too. Second lesson obtained: You're not alone, so don't solve everything alone. Skyler doesn't understand this at first, yet the wind, the flowers, her family, tell her she doesn't have to fight all alone, they're here too and ready to help; there is always someone to lean on. Third lesson: live. Yes, live. That might sound easy and obvious, yet so many of us don't live. We forget how to enjoy life as we are so caught up in our problems, and once again, the author recreates that perfectly in Skyler. Scared and guilty, she can't find happiness; she's not living, but surviving. And I think that's the deepest lesson of all.

Conclusion:

Be Fearless is a great book! The plot is interesting, characters very realistic and your style unique and cool (yeah I said cool, you should feel honored). It's a pity you have struggles with grammar, spelling (although it's mostly typos) and punctuation. But I think you could become a very good writer as long as you work on those things - I have no doubt you will, especially since I see you're making great efforts, thus making great progress. So, let's finish this off with some tips: re-read every text you wrote before publishing it, keep a dictionary next to you to search for synonyms or antonyms or definitions (I recommend Thesaurus.com for synonyms etc and Dictionary.com for definitions) and finally, feel inspired. There's no point in writing when you're not inspired, so don't bother.

Score: 62/10 (It's a pity you lost points because of some stupid mistakes)

THANK YOU