CLN's Seasonal Reviews (CLOSED)

Life Meter - by Likelilaclies

REVIEW DONE BY : DaYeon_EXO

Cover and summary :

Love the cover! It's retro and just all round pleasing. Your colour scheme is great and the title is clear. The only thing is, I wonder how much it represents your story. The setting is unclear to me in terms of time and your cover depicts an explosion which the first five chapters give no indication of there being.

The summary is amazing. Love the play on the "survival of the fittest". This summary is engaging and leaves the reader wanting to know more. You've given them enough, but not too much. Just one thing to note there: don't start sentences with "and", it's a conjunction. Other than that, well done!

Chapter One : Pharming

Nice opening line. Opening lines are so important for hooking the reader and really drawing them in. You've done that and made me want to read on. Dialogue can be a really good and easy way to hook readers. The only thing is it's not entirely clear who's speaking. When someone speaks for the first time, they need to be properly introduced. Come back and add a dialogue or action tag to clear that up.

Same goes for the line reading, "You already knew". The reader has no idea who "you" refers to or who is narrating. Make sure this is clear. You should aim to avoid ambiguities like these throughout the whole story, but especially in the opening lines and paragraph. Clarity is key. If the story isn't clear, readers will lose interest.

"...did autopsies" should be "...done autopsies".

Also, just watch your grammar: I noticed your dashes aren't em dashes. Em dashes can be represented by two dashes "--" or the actual em dash symbol "—". The other thing I noticed was the use of "or" as a sentence starter. Like "and", "or" is generally not used to start a sentence. My suggestion for this paragraph would be to take out the second em dash and replace it with a full stop. Then start the next sentence like this: "It seemed too..." take out the period before "or" and you're good to go. Of course, it's up to you in the end, but it warrants a second take.

A great way to edit, especially for grammar, is to read your story aloud. This may feel awkward, but when you read aloud, you follow the grammar that you have written and you'll likely stumble in your reading if you've made a mistake. Then you can go back and fix it. This also helps prevent your brain from autocorrecting.

Pay attention to your grammar surrounding dialogue. Commas precede dialogue tags and periods precede action tags. Follow this rule: if it's how you character said it, use a comma and follow with a lowercase letter. If it's what was done, use a full stop and follow with a capital letter.

If I notice this popping up more, I'll add some example sentences later on.

Keep an eye on syntax. "...keystrokes she were waiting for". In this sentence, "were" should be "was". Again, proofreading will catch this.

Plot: it feels a bit like the reader has been thrown in the deep end. It's good to come in with the action, but it feels a little under developed here. Try to explain things a bit more. Make it clearer. By the end of chapter one we still don't know much about Oliver and he's narrating the story.

Writing style: here I'm kind of torn. The description that you have is nice and paints a picture in my head, there just not enough of it. Show the reader how Oliver is feeling; let them inside of his head; show them what he looks like.

The dialogue is great too, however there's too much of it. Try to balance this out a bit. Ideally you want more description and less dialogue. In saying this, your dialogue for chapter one does seem realistic. Well done there.

I just wanna make a comment on psychopaths. They have been seriously misportrayed by literature, so please, please do your research. Their minds are not like computers and they are not calm, collected, methodical killers. One of the items on the PCL-R is impulsiveness. If Oliver actually is a psychopath or you're planning to use them in your novel, make sure you at least take a good look at the PCL-R. If that's not the case, then don't worry.