Sapphire's Review Store 3.0

Review by Sunshine: Divided We Fall

Title: The Last of the Brave: Divided We Fall

Author: CooperHChurch

Reviewer: ray_of_sunshine9

Summary: 3.5/5

A lot of really good things happening in your summary! I actually really like the exposition at the start, that explains the worldbuilding and context in a succinct but chronological way – and the way that leads into the actual crux of what the story is about is effective. Additionally, the summary introduces the protagonist, the conflict, and perfectly hints at the stakes.

I do, however, have some suggestions.

First of all, I think that final paragraph needs a little more – specifically, I think you need to show what your character must do. Like, okay, there is little hope for the crew, yes. So what do they have to do about it? How are they going to get out? Consider including a sentence such as, 'Mercer must now...' and then fill in the blank, or consider instead, 'Will Mercer be able to...' and fill in the blank. I think that will just add a bit more direction and impact to your summary.

Also watch out for grammatical issues:

After being sent to join the 13th Fleet at Drexicon IX, the largest military staging area in UEG controlled space.

That's not a complete sentence – consider rephrasing it.

In 2108, 20 years after World War III devastated the Earth, with resources becoming scarce humanity looked towards the stars...

I would add another comma for fluency purposes, so that it looks like:

In 2108, 20 years after World War III devastated the Earth, with resources becoming scarce, humanity looked towards the stars...

Grammar: 3/5

Your grammar isn't too bad – it's quite polished and refined. However, there are definitely a few recurring errors throughout your chapter. Let's go through them, shall we?

First of all, let's talk about run-on sentences. These are basically when you've got two independent clauses joined together with either a comma (making it a comma splice) or nothing at all. An independent clause, by the way, is a clause that could be a sentence on its own. So, for example:

Scorpion Fleet Shipyard was bustling with activity even in the early morning hours, the repairs on the Endurance have been continuous going twenty-four hours, seven days a week to prepare her for the long haul going forwards.

This can be split into two sentences, and it should be. In fact, that whole sentence needs a bit of revising with its commas and phrasing. I suggest:

Scorpion Fleet Shipyard was bustling with activity even in the early morning hours. The repairs on the Endurance had been continuous – twenty-four hours, seven days a week – to prepare her for the long haul going forwards.

Notice that I changed 'have' to 'had' – that's to keep the tenses consistently in past tense.

Next, dialogue and punctuation. When dialogue is followed by a verbal dialogue tag (such as 'he said', 'she whispered', 'they exclaimed – or anything referring to how the character says the words), there should be a comma before the closing inverted commas. If it's anything else, this comma should be replaced by a period (or a question mark for a question, and an exclamation mark for an exclamation). For example: