Sapphire's Review Store 3.0

Review by Kanika: The Lone Home

Title: The Lost Home 

Author: GoldenUnseen

Reviewer: 420_feelings

Title + Blurb: 4/5

Your title perfectly represents the theme of your story and is simple and mysterious but really effective.

Moving to the blurb, it actually sums up your whole story but it didn't actually intrigue me and my suggestion will be to make it much more interesting by giving some rhetorical questions and making it suspenseful by telling the dangers they might face while the unveil the truth.

Then there were some things that needed polishing.

Eg: As days go by Ella, Emma and violet meet a family down the street.

The 'V' of Violet needs to be capitalized.

Eg: When the kids get to the house, they notice sudden change in the whether.

I think you meant 'weather' instead of 'whether'.

Grammar + Punctuation: 3/5

Your story definitely needs some work when it comes to punctuation because they were clearly visible to the eyes but your grammar was perfect.

So, coming to the punctuation, the first thing you need to remember is that after the inverted commas close, the first letter of the dialogue tag (he said, she mumbled, etc.) is not supposed to be capitalized, except when it is a name, since it is still considered to be part of the sentence.

For Eg: "Yes mom! Please! Can't we stay?" Said Emma.

Correction: "Yes, mom. Please! Can't we stay?" said Emma.

Or: 

Eg: "Emma! Ella! Come and have breakfast and then you both will have to help me clean the attic" violet said.

Correction: "Emma! Ella! Come and have breakfast and then you both will have to help me clean the attic," Violet said.

Secondly, whenever you have a dialogue tag before inverted commas you need to add a comma before the inverted commas start and the first letter in the commas need to be capitalized.

Eg: She went to her mother and asked "ma, what about our school?"

Correction: She went to her mother and asked,"Ma, what about our school?"

Or: 

Eg: Before Ella could run away, Rachel holds her hand and said "stay calm. We have seen such things before. We have experience."

Correction: Before Ella could run away, Rachel held her hand and said,"Stay calm. We have seen such things before. We have experience."

Then, whenever a dialogue is followed by an action instead of using a comma you're supposed to be using a period.

Eg: "Alright! But only for this night," Violet made her daughters sleep as she slowly patted them to sleep.

Correction: "Alright. But only for this night." Violet made her daughters sleep as she slowly patted them to sleep.

Other than these basic punctuation mistakes, there were no grammar or spelling mistakes and your vocabulary was perfect.

Description: 2.5/5

Your descriptions are really straightforward and they are lacking information and to make this story gripping and have the desired creepy feeling you need to show us more rather than telling.

For instance, when you gave the description about the house, it was coming out flat and didn't help me to imagine the scenario in my mind and to avoid that you really need to work on executing your imagery more precisely and vividly.

Another thing you need to work on is your sentence structuring because they were really short and snappy which made them look unpolished and my suggestion will be to mix them up more to make it look more furnished and presentable.

Eg: It was a big house and was very old. It was made entirely of wood. It was spooky looking. It's fence broken. It looked as if no one occupied it for years. Emma shuddered after she saw it.

Suggestion: It was a big old house and was made entirely of wood with its fence broken, which gave it a spooky feeling. It looked as if no one had occupied it for years and that thought alone made Emma shudder. 

Character Development: 2.5/5

Your dialogues were really realistic and engaging, and I was immediately hooked with your story from the start, since you packed it with action.

But unfortunately, I couldn't much invested in your characters and I felt that you need to elaborate about them by attaining a fine balance between the dialogues as well as their emotions to enable the reader's have a better understanding and connection with them.

For instance, in the first chapter you could have given an insight in Emma's or Ella's thoughts about how they felt about their parents getting divorced.

So, the only thing you need to work is on giving us some insights in their thoughts but other than that, I liked your characters with each of them having their own quirky personalities.

Plot + Originality: 3/5

Your story was really easy to follow and I was definitely invested in it from the start and I really enjoyed reading it because of the way you spiced up horror with humor. The plot was progressing in a very natural way with the perfect pace, and it was a mix of something old, something new. So, a great job here!

The only thing that I felt you need to work on is that there were some situations which were unnecessary because it wasn't carrying any significance in your story.

For instance, when Ella narrated the whole story to her mother in chapter 4, you could have just mentioned that she repeated the whole incident to her mother because reading that paragraph again was getting quite overwhelming.

Another instance is when you told about the whole process of unpacking done by Ella.

So, my suggestion is for you to make sure that each scene is purposeful in your story and helps in developing the story further.

OVERALL SCORE: 15/25