CLN's Seasonal Reviews (CLOSED)

The Charms of Helse - by SydPanda5

REVIEW DONE BY : DaYeon_EXO

Cover and summary:

The cover is great and it's good to see that symbolic and key elements of your story are on it. Just from a stylistic point of view, the author name and subtitle could be clearer. They were hard to read.

Your summary is also nice. Just watch the grammar and long sentences. Other than that, it is engaging and tells the reader something without telling them too much. I would however recommend that you remove the section about Dawn coming to call for Matt. Keep that on the down-low.

Chapter One:

Nice opening line. Opening lines are super important for hooking the reader in. This one left me wanting to know who wasn't a bad guy and why.

Your description is really nice. It paints a clear picture for the reader and engages them. It's great to see more attention being paid to actually describing characters. I noticed that in Rogue in Paris too. Keep doing that!

Just keep an eye on your sentence length and structure. Variety is really important for engagement. You have a lot of very long sentences and are using too many commas. Shorten these into two or three punchy ones and mix them in with the longer ones. If you have too many long sentences all together, the narrative feels long and drawn out. It also makes it confusing to follow and harder for the readers to understand. Aim to minimise use of complex sentences.

Another issue with long sentences is they can feel unnatural. One way to check if your sentences are too long is to read your work aloud before you publish. If you run out of breath or are always needing to add commas, your sentences are too long.

A few niggly points on grammar:
You don't need an oxford comma. Oxford commas are the commas that come before perpetuates ('and' 'or' when listing). You don't need them. Just watch that. I noticed Oxford commas being used a few times within the first paragraphs of the chapter.

You also shouldn't start sentences with words like "and" or "but". Again, there can be exceptions, such as when you need to do it for emphasis. Other than that, steer clear of starting sentences with "and" or "but". These words are conjunctions and used to join sentences, rather than start them.

When you use an em dash, make sure you use the actual character, or replace it with two smaller dashes. "...there's a great war raging-a fight called the Warper War". That should really be "... there's a great war raging—a fight called the Warper War".

Other than that, your grammar seems pretty good so far. That really helps with readability and flow, so well done. Also, your dialogue grammar is really good. I haven't noticed many mistakes yet.

Also, I love how you've explained the 'reason' for the barrier. It's really helpful to have context and helps develop your plot and give the reader the necessary information. It also seems like a really interesting point in the plot and I'm keen to see it developed further.

Nice ending. The build up has left me curious to know more. . . Endings like this really hook the reader and keep them engaged in the story.

Chapter Two:

You started with dialogue again. That's all right to do sometimes, but if you do it too much it becomes repetitive. I say this to everyone, but variety is key. This goes for every aspect of the book. Mix up your sentences, paragraph and chapter starters. Use a range of vocabulary. Vary your sentence length. Variety keeps a story fresh, new and engaging.

Also, when someone speaks for the first time, make sure you state who the speaker is. Change "he" to "Matthew". It's very important to keep things like this clear. The reader always needs to know who is talking and who is doing what. Just like variety, clarity is also key.