BLURB:
After almost a year away from his home town, Noah Duvall is making his grand return. He left abruptly, cutting ties with his friends, and leaving things on a estranged note. Now, he's willing to do anything to fix that.
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Set in 1998, a group of boys, once in a band, have become detached with themselves and one another after an unfortunate incident that landed one of them in jail. Isolated from one another, they grow in strange ways leaving the past behind, until they're forced to come together to participate in a contest for their final performance, that will close the curtains on their fading friendship.
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YOUR COVER: (9/10) I like that I could immediately make a connection from your cover to your story. The way the title and author's name is presented is very professional and organized as well. You can definitely keep it as it is, but also think about a variety of colors and font sizes/styling.
YOUR TITLE: (10/10) I immediately got a lightbulb moment when I read your blurb and connected it to your title. It holds a significance to your story, and it was also very symbolic by itself. Well done here!
YOUR BLURB: (4/5) I appreciate that you made your blurb short and concise. It's a quick way to draw in potential readers without giving away too much irrelevant information, and I got a clear idea of the plot for your story. The only problem here is that you have one grammatical error. There shouldn't be a comma between "performance" and "that," but other than that, your blurb was clean and clear.
YOUR HOOK: (5/5) What I enjoyed about your hook is that you showed off your writing capabilities as your priority, and I was hooked immediately. I also got an idea of the setting, situation, and character for the beginning of your story. Your hook was well organized and carefully written. I can see that you put a lot of thought on your first impression, and I'm impressed!
YOUR GRAMMAR: (5/10) The most common mistake I found was with your commas. While in most reviews I've found not enough commas, in your chapter I found too many commas. Commas are used to separate several clauses within a sentence, and oftentimes, you separated sentences so there were incomplete clauses. I've left some examples down in the chapter reviews, but there are so many that are up to you to find. Since the rules for commas are complex and ever changing, I suggest using ProWritingAid; it'll point out any comma errors and explain why.
I also noticed some mistakes with your capitalization and dialogue punctuation errors. Keep in mind that if a dialogue tag (she said/he said) accompanies the dialogue, it is a continuation of the dialogue sentence. This means the dialogue should end in a comma, and the dialogue tag should never be capitalized, as it isn't the start of a new sentence. If an action tag (she sighed, he grinned, they turned away, etc) accompanies your dialogue, it is a separate sentence from the dialogue. The dialogue should end in a period, and the action tag is always capitalized (the opposite of dialogue tags). In summary, if there is a dialogue tag after the dialogue, the dialogue can end in anything except a period, and the dialogue tag should not be capitalized. If there is an action tag after the dialogue, the dialogue can end in anything except a comma, and the action tag should be capitalized. Along with that, you've missed capitalization in words such as "Mom" and "Dad." If there isn't a possessive noun in front (my/your/her/his) of "Mom" or "Dad," then they should be capitalized as referring to a specific person.
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Essie's Critiques
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