All the mini categories have been judged, so I am moving to the main categories and will do some work on the huge categories as well. Now since the mini categories are completed, prizes will be distributed ASAP to all winners.

Congratulations to all the winners!

I copy and pasted usernames right from your forms, so if I tagged anyone wrong, please let me know so I can fix it asap! Copy and paste errors happen, so if you don't see yourself in the reviews, please let me know.

Please do not argue with me. Remember this is for fun and all personal opinion. I don't give harsh feedback, just honest feedback. You're of course entitled to your own opinion and you can disagree with everything I say if you want, but that doesn't mean you should be rude to me. Remember I'm judging by myself, so please be respectful. Ask questions and discuss, but please no hate or arguments! 

Remember I'm giving a reader's perspective. Just because something is clear to you doesn't mean it's clear to me. You're the writer, you know everything about your story. Readers don't. Keep that in mind.

The reviews are specific but not as detailed as my main reviews because best concept is one of the mini categories.

I say that but these reviews are 10k+ words long-

I did a lot of work for these reviews, so if there are any typos, please ignore them unless you genuinely can't understand what I'm saying. I'm tired man, the word count is longer than my ex-boyfri-

Anyway!

I ask that when you're reading your reviews, you read the whole thing before asking questions. Sometimes it takes me more than one paragraph to explain what I mean, so your question could be answered later in the review.

If you have any questions, please let me know! I am working on sci fi and action adventure next.

3rd Place

Initiated, Insatiable and Insecure by sweetandhotcreator

Review:

Okay, this has absolutely nothing to do with the protagonist, but I can't talk about this story without bringing this up: the title is awesome. I love it. Three I words that are emotional and pop out to a reader's eyes. They roll off the tongue nicely and clue me in perfectly to what the story is going to be about. I won't say too too much about it because this is the protagonist category, but I would be ashamed of myself if I didn't at least mention it.

Moving on, I mentioned in my short story review of Better Is Terrifying that your characters made me think a lot and I had to write and rewrite the characters section over and over. Though it's been a bit since then, I still think back to your characters here and there. I read over 30 books a week for judging and school, so the fact that I can still remember your characters says something. All of that is to say your strength as a writer is creating work people will remember. I think that is one of the strongest qualities a writer can have because it means people are becoming passionate about your work and it leaves a lasting impact on them.

The same applies to this story. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed Nathan. Nathan's internal conflict and his desire to not be viewed as a weakling was fascinating to me. He makes mistakes and falters all the time, and he even doesn't really like Zara that much but still doesn't want to appear weak. Seeing the internal side of that conflict was fun to read about and also made for an interesting character arc. Like in chapter 11 where Nathan admits he's scared. That was a powerful moment I wasn't expecting to see.

Something I also really like is how Zara is flawed and sometimes falls into the very thing she wants to destroy. There's political commentary on racism and the treatment of different skin colors in society, particularly by white people toward minorities. It's a very important topic that needs to be discussed, and I love how Zara is passionate about it and decides to stand up. It's inspiring, motivational, and genuine. That opening scene where she sees the impacts of what whites have done was heartbreaking and super effective for setting up her motivation. Not to mention the imagery and repetition of the dialogue made it feel very haunting.

Going back into Zara as a person, she falters and makes mistakes, just like Nathan. She judges Nathan based on the color of his skin despite how she doesn't want people to judge her based on her complexion. It's a small moment, but it goes to show how hatred can so easily blind others. At the same time, you keep the focus on the main commentary with those subtle sub-topics in there too. Those small moments are sprinkled throughout but make the narrative feel so complex and alive.

Zara is a great protagonist who is strong but doesn't feel over-the-top or too strong in any way. She still makes mistakes and falters, but her heart is passionate and she's genuine. I really like her character, and I also really like Nathan!

My main recommendation would be to slow down in some areas and reword certain sentences to make them more readable, that way the audience can understand what's going on and what the characters are saying. For example, the first sentence in chapter 2, "You always know that this is going to be it but then you also know that this it can never fit into your life and yet, you can't do anything about it." This sentence is very long and lacks punctuation, so it's hard to understand. Here's one alternative: "You always know this is going to be it, but you also know it can never fit into your life, and yet you can't do anything about it." Notice how much I trimmed out of that sentence and how I rearranged the punctuation. If you read sentence 1 out loud, then sentence 2, you'll notice how the trimmed words and punctuation make sentence 2 flow better.

That's just one alternative so I'm not saying go with it or listen to me blindly. I encourage you to play around with it and find what works for you and your writing style!

Considering you have a supernatural conflict, understanding is crucial for readers if they're going to cheer for the characters or not. That's why I very strongly suggest reading sentences out loud and slowing down while writing so you can see if you can split up sentences more and/or add more punctuation to help sentences flow better.

This is a nitpick but there were also some strange formatting moments where sometimes there were indents, sometimes there weren't, and sometimes dialogue was even center aligned for some reason. I would suggest being consistent with where you align your text and if you're using indents or not. It was hard on my eyes to jump back and force because of the inconsistent spacing. I would recommend not center aligning anything and removing indents since Wattpad isn't very indent-friendly. Again, that's a nitpick and not a big deal, but it did make it a bit harder to read at times. I hope that makes sense!

2nd Place

The Mandalorian and the Jedi by MDjarin17

Review:

I've been on record saying I like Star Wars, and of course, that means I've watched The Mandalorian. So I had background knowledge going into this which gave me the opportunity to really focus on Kyra. And let me say, I was pleasantly surprised. Back when I used to read Star Wars fanfics on other sites, many of them had overpowered and overly sassy female leads that were Mary Sues. However, when Kyra is introduced, I was surprised by how she made the mistake of oversleeping again. And not just oversleeping, she overslept by two nights. I know that seems like a small thing, but opening her character with her making a mistake, let alone a mistake that takes two nights away from her, is not what I expected.

You already subverted my expectations in that sense, then it's further backed up by showing her struggling with a probe. While she does destroy it, we're shown her running away and trying to get a better angle for a better attack. And, lastly, when she interacts with Mando for the first time, she's not overly sassy or trying too hard. She analyzes the situation, has clear dialogue, and approaches the situation calmly. Yes, Kyra is still sassy at times, but not to the point where it ever gets annoying or feels like she's trying too hard. Kyra is awesome so far, and I also like how she's genuinely kind and helps people, like in chapter 5. Or near the end of chapter 5 where she gives genuinely great compliments to Winta. It's refreshing to see a character who is genuinely nice and wants to help people. In the books I read in my free time, many of them have really rude characters or they're nice characters who are never actually shown being nice, so this book having a nice character and you taking the time to show us the niceness was very... nice (pun intended).

Along with that, Mando himself is very well written. Mando is meant to be almost like a blank slate for the audience. Literally cause he has no face. But despite him having not much personality to work with, you give him a lot to do, especially in the scenes with Kyra. Their dialogue feels believable and fun to read, which is an essential part of learning about the characters.

Overall, Kyra was a very pleasant surprise, and the story is far different from what I would have expected. You subvert expectations in a natural way and give both of your protagonists fantastic character work that's easy to follow and fun to read. This was an entertaining read, and I think you did a great job!

The main recommendations I have don't have too much to do with the protagonist, but it can help readers digest the story and attach themselves to what's going on. The two recommendations I have are to break up your paragraphs more and use less sentences with "as" in them. You use "as" quite frequently in your sentences, and while it isn't a big deal, diversifying your sentence structure can give the readers new structures and words to imagine and think about. For example, if you reread the prologue, you'll see a lot of sentences with "as" in them.

As (no pun intended) for the paragraphs, there's nothing wrong with large paragraphs. I myself write them, so I get it. However, there are a lot of long paragraphs back to back, and many of them are unnecessarily long. Not because the info isn't needed, but because there are times you have multiple main ideas in one paragraph, so the paragraph is more like two or three paragraphs put in one.

That was a bit of a word sandwich, so let me use an example to demonstrate. Early in the prologue, a paragraph starts with "The cantina's inhabitants whisper amongst themselves...". That paragraph can be split into two because the first part of that paragraph is about Mandalorians and the stories about them. Then, it switches to talking in detail about the armor, which is a new main idea. So, the sentence "Besides providing its wearer with almost impenetrable protection..." can start a new paragraph.

It's a minor change, but it makes it easier to read. Having several long paragraphs can take a lot out of a reader since it requires more stamina to read through.

Those are both minor things that don't impact the protagonist much, but it is still worth mentioning since it helps the readers with readability and clarity. I hope that makes sense!

1st Place

The Secrets of Ocean Shores by Gothic-Writer13

Review:

In The Secrets of Ocean Shores, the protagonist is Kella. At first, I wasn't sure how to feel about Kella. Not because there was anything wrong with her, but because she had layers I had to peel away in order to begin understanding what she was all about. As the story progressed, I learned more about Kella and began liking her and relating to her a lot more.

For example, chapter seven, where she rejects multiple boys back-to-back. Normally, I would see a moment like this and it would raise red flags. When too many people romantically like the main character, it can come off as a bit unrealistic. However, for this story, this moment fits in perfectly with the complex emotions Kella is dealing with. She spent most of the story feeling passive and powerless. For example, when she first gets to her room early in the story, it's not like her roommate is very welcoming and/or helpful. Kella has to figure things out on her own while dealing with heavy emotional trauma.

In chapter seven, she gets the chance to say no. She gets the power to reject these men, and she feels powerful about it. It gives her a surge of agency she lacked, whether it be because she was putting mental pressure on herself or society itself not allowing her to have it.

That's just one example of a moment I liked, but as the story kept going, I found more moments to enjoy.

I don't want to spoil anything because I want to encourage readers to go read this and experience it firsthand. For that reason, I'll talk about the future chapters but a bit vaguely. This narrative goes in a direction I didn't expect with Ayelet. The fact that Ayelet's storyline leads to Kella being interrogated despite being in a period of intense emotions is accurate to what I believe would happen in real life, yet it's heartbreaking all the same. It was unexpected yet realistic.

Kella goes through so much and has the emotions to back it up. The emotions are vivid, diverse, and they come and go, almost like waves. It feels very realistic and, like I just said, vivid. The emotions can be super high or super low, ranging from her feeling too tired to cry to her letting out the most tears she's ever shed in her life. Having that range of emotions while also having the more subtle ones, like the powerfulness I mentioned before, makes for a believable and realistic character with clear traits. I really like Kella, and I think you chose a fantastic protagonist to star in your chosen theme. Great job!

The main recommendation I have is to consider tightening some of the repetitiveness. Let me explain what I mean. In the first few chapters of the story, there are many times you spend a lot of time going through Kella's routine, including mentioning things we don't really need to know like her in the shower reaching for the valve (chapter 4). We don't need to see that much of her showering. I like the water imagery you used in chapter 4 so I'm not saying remove the shower scene, but a potential alternative is trimming it so instead of describing her reaching for the valve and making turning off the shower longer than it needs to be, you can shorten it to something like, "Once I finished my shower, I changed into a knitted sweater..." So now you're removing the part where she turns off the valve, gets into a towel, then comments on how she has no hoodies left.

None of that feels necessary since it doesn't contribute to our understanding of the plot, world, characters, etc., and by shortening it, you can move the story along faster. That was a very long way of saying consider shortening how long it takes for Kella to go through her routine and consider combining more sentences so you can move the pace along a bit faster.

Chapter 4, in general, has a lot of information that could be shortened. For example, you tell us the details about how she feels about all her classes, and that takes six paragraphs. Most of the paragraphs aren't long, but six paragraphs to tell us her feelings about all her classes was a bit much, in my opinion. I think you're doing a good job making Kella's personality, likes, and dislikes clear, all I would recommend is considering shortening those types of moments so the story can move along a bit more smoothly. I hope that makes sense!

Honorable Mentions

Kronos by Carlos_G_Peralta

Review:

As usual, your story ideas are absolutely incredible. The first chapter is wild. Going from the familiar hospital to an unfamiliar island with creatures and strange characters made for a trippy journey, and that was just the first chapter of the story. In my interpretation of the narrative, this island is being used to symbolize Taki's struggles and fears, and he's confronting these fears at the same time Penny is giving birth.

Even if my interpretation isn't correct, that doesn't take away from Taki's character. Taki is interesting and going through a very rough time. He's suddenly teleported to a new world with new creatures and environments he has to adjust to. Yikes, I'd be scared too.

One of the things I love most about Takashi is how clear his motivations are. He wants to get back to Penny. The first thing he does when he's literally teleported into a new world is try to contact Penny to apologize and reassure her he'll come back to her ASAP. He leaves a voice message despite knowing he has no signal where he is, and he hopes it'll get through later. My heart panged for him because it obviously wasn't his fault he suddenly left the hospital. Seeing his reaction to the situation he was in was heartbreaking, and I really felt for the guy.

You do a good job getting the reader invested in the world and characters, which mainly weighs on Takashi's shoulders since he's the protagonist going through a lot. However, he still has clear goals and traits that make the reader want to see him succeed. Overall, Takashi is a great character with an interesting story!

And I'll say it one more time: the concept is awesome.

My criticisms for this are the same as mine for your previous entry. You have solid character work and interesting ideas that I would love to read more of, my only critique has to do with the presentation since it leads to some stiff/unnatural dialogue and a lack of diversity in the sentence structure.

The structure is often the same where it starts then stops. Like: "I'm happy for you and Penelope. I'm also excited to be an aunt to my niece. I'm going to spoil her so badly." The sentences start then stop with no interruptions like commas, semicolons, colons, dashes, etc. I think you have more diversity in the structure in this story than the other one I judged, but it's still frequently the same structure. There's nothing wrong with using this sentence structure, even if you use it multiple times back-to-back. But it does become noticeable when it's used for a majority of the sentences in a majority of the chapters.

I brought up dialogue because this sentence structure leads to the dialogue sounding a bit robotic at times. When they're all speaking in a similar way, it makes the characters blend together sometimes. I would suggest adding more character quirks with body language, facial expressions, and speech styles, that way each character stands out more and has more to do. That's why I would recommend playing around with how you structure your sentences and dialogue, that way the characters will stand out more and have more specific quirks readers can identify and fall in love with.

Lucy in Avalon by ella_rowan

Review:

Right off the bat, Lucy stands out. In a good way, don't worry. The thing I noticed most was how clear you made her personality. Her thirst for adventure and how she thinks about the bandits made her engaging from the start. One important part about characters many authors overlook is their core personality traits and making them stand out. If the traits aren't clear, it's hard to attach ourselves to the character. You don't have this problem. Lucy feels very real in the sense that she has a solid, clear personality I can follow throughout the entire story, and I didn't notice any red flags or areas where she acted majorly out of character or anything like that, which is another good thing.

This may not seem like a huge deal, but it is. When you establish these traits, you now give justification to her future actions, like in chapter 3 where Lucy's sense for adventure leads to her running into the wilderness. Probably not the smartest decision, but that doesn't matter because you set up this decision from the very first chapter. The set up and pay off structure is vital to a reader's understanding of your narrative.

So you're already doing two things right: traits + set up and pay off. Beyond that, you also give us a clear look into Lucy's mind and emotions. We don't question Lucy's motivations or emotions because they make sense and are clearly described. That makes for a pleasant reading experience with lots of entertaining moments. Lucy, in general, is an entertaining character.

To summarize, you do a good job setting up who Lucy is then executing her thoughts and emotions. She's a balanced protagonist with a wide variety of emotions that don't feel forced/fake. Along with that, her personality is believable and established as early as chapter 1, making for a clear story. Overall, Lucy is a very strong protagonist and I think she's the perfect fit for the genre/style of the book!

My criticisms are similar to the ones for the other work of yours I read, so I will only briefly summarize instead of going as in detail. The dialogue tags are very distracting and make up way too much of the dialogue. It also leads to many moments of telling over showing. Well, dialogue tags are inherently telling over showing, but I mean beyond that, it also leads to many adverbs and moments where you tell us what the characters are feeling instead of showing it.

I don't recall if I mentioned this in my past review, but telling is fine to do as long as you aren't overdoing it or doing it unnecessarily. So I'm not saying never use adverbs or never use tags or never tell us how characters feel. No, not at all. In fact, depending on the scene, it could be necessary to tell over show. I just wanted to clarify that because I don't want to make you panic and think you have to remove every single tag and adverb and moment of telling. You don't have to at all!

The only reason I bring up the tags and telling over showing again is because it impacts Lucy. Lucy is a fun protagonist to read about and I think you did a good job with her. All I'm saying is she could be even stronger if you focused less on tags and more on mannerisms, like her body language and facial expressions while talking, and also her speech patterns. Does she stutter at all? Does she speak too fast? Does she speak slower or faster when she's excited? Does she play with her hair while talking about her emotions? Those are just hypothetical questions and not ones you have to answer, but maybe questions to consider while writing dialogue. Giving characters patterns, body language, and facial expressions is a great way to add more layers to your protagonist. And you do this to a certain extent, I'm not saying you don't. There were just many moments I felt you could have replaced dialogue tags and/or adverbs with speech patterns, body language, facial expressions, habits, etc. I hope that makes sense!

REVIEWS:

The Duke's Secret: Christmas Special 2023 by J_Lunar

Review:

I don't really have criticisms for this. It's a cute Christmas story. However, I was confused. This is definitely a book that needs to be read after reading The Duke's Secret. Since I haven't read it and only read one book by one author per category, I have to judge this based on my experience without reading the original, and it felt like I was missing something about Elizabeth.

Like I said, the story is good, well-written, and has fun moments. For a best protagonist competition though, it's hard to judge. It's a cute story about love, but I don't know anything about Elizabeth outside of her liking seeing children happy and, more prominently, her feelings for the Duke. After reading the story, I feel I don't know much more about the characters than I did when I first began.

Again, I don't think that's a bad thing since it's meant to be supplementary material to the core story, but I'm judging this on its own without the material, and even if I had knowledge of the source material, that does not change how Elizabeth isn't given much to do outside of loving the Duke.

It works for a Christmas special and I think it's fine. I'm not recommending you change anything because I don't think you need to. However, I hope it's understandable why it was hard for me to attach myself to the characters, and why it's hard to judge this protagonist. The only recommendation I can think of is maybe giving Elizabeth more to do other than love the Duke, but again, for a Christmas special I don't think that's a big deal, it just means I don't have much to judge about her.

It's overall a cute story that works well as a Christmas special. The only problem is I don't have much to judge about the protagonist since it feels like I'm missing info about her character and most of what I know about her is that she loves the Duke. I hope that makes sense!

Surreal Soulmate by dwarkaratna

Review:

Surreal Soulmate has a pretty title with an interesting premise. I like how these characters are pretty wholesome. In modern fics, many of the relationships and characters are very toxic or have fights every ten seconds. Here, the characters are refreshing and have a respectable relationship where they truly feel like equals. There was angst and hardships, but they were supportive of each other, and I liked that aspect of the story.

I would suggest using free grammar editing software such as ProWritingAid, QuillBot, or Grammarly. Grammarly is locking more services behind paywalls, so I would say ProWritingAid and QuillBot are the two better options, but Grammarly works too.

I say that because there are many word order errors and errors where you are missing words. When you have word order errors and/or missing words, it makes the sentences hard to read and understand. For example, from chapter 2, "She could lost in him, but suddenly she remembered about his inconvenience." A smoother alternative would be this: "She could get lost in him, but suddenly she remembered his inconvenience." Without "get," it makes the sentence a bit confusing, and the "about" in the second clause isn't needed.

Another example from the same chapter is, "It was Poorna who had made him recover to stand on his legs with the help of supporting stick." This sentence is very confusing and it took me a couple reads to understand what you were saying. There are many ways to rewrite this, but let me offer some alternatives. Here's one: "It was Poorna who had helped him recover enough to stand on his legs with the aid of a supporting stick." You could also split up this sentence so the information isn't as overwhelming. Like this: "It was Poorna who had helped him recover enough to stand on his legs; however, he needed the aid of a supporting stick." Or: "It was Poorna who had helped him recover enough to stand on his legs. After that, he needed a supporting stick."

Those are three possible alternatives that sound more natural, but I encourage you to play around with it and find what works for you. Personally, I think the second alternative flows the best, but that's just my personal opinion. It all depends on what you want for your story and what you think will work best for your writing style.

A common error is you forget to add articles where they're needed. In that sentence, the "a" was missing in front of "supporting stick." Articles, "the" and "a/an," are used before a noun to show whether said noun is specific or general (source: Grammarly blog on articles titled "What Are Articles in Grammar? Definition and Examples"). Articles are needed so the readers have a stronger understanding of what you're trying to say. I would recommend reading that Grammarly blog if you would like more details on English articles.

I'm bringing up the grammar because this issue translates into the dialogue, which makes the dialogue very unnatural and hard to follow, and dialogue is a huge part of understanding the protagonists. While grammar isn't the core of the protagonists, it helps us, the readers, understand their thought processes and emotions. So if we're having trouble reading the dialogue and general description, it can hurt our understanding of the protagonists, and it can also weaken the relationship between the protagonists because the dialogue feels unnatural. Their relationship is the core of the story, which is why I recommend tweaking the grammar.

I would also recommend reading sentences out loud and/or using TTS so you can hear your sentences and eliminate any areas where it feels awkward or hard to understand. I personally use TTS and it helps me a lot.

Secondly, there's a lot of telling over showing where you'll tell us the emotions of the characters instead of giving the readers a chance to see it. For example, you often tell us when a character is happy or sad. You'll tell us using those words specifically. This is done both in description and in dialogue. Telling over showing isn't inherently a bad thing and of course you can do it, though I caution against using it too much. I'm not saying you have to remove the words happy or sad, it's more about how often you're using them. Part of getting readers engaged is giving them a chance to figure out the emotions on their own, and that's done through showing over telling. I hope everything I said makes sense!

The Daughter of Red Moon by IfeoluwaDickson

Review:

I think you have a lot of things going on and a lot of interesting ideas. I haven't read the previous seasons because that wouldn't be fair to other participants; I only read one book per author per category. However, even without the knowledge of those seasons, I can tell you're a very ambitious and passionate author, which is something I admire and respect, and I encourage you to keep that ambition. Like I said, I think you have the ideas, my main recommendation would be to give them more organization, which is what I'll explain below.

I agree with the commenter on chapter 1. Chapter 1 isn't really a chapter, it's like a summary or a blurb that gives a lot of exposition, but it doesn't show us anything. In other words, there are no scenes, no dialogue, no actions—it's an exposition summary. For the first chapter, we don't need to know all the characters right away, especially when there are, if I counted correctly, eleven characters introduced to us. We get eleven characters introduced to us in one paragraph. Do you see why that would be way too much for readers? We can't keep track of eleven people that fast. That's nearly impossible even if we reread multiple times, which I did and I still was getting them confused, especially since some of the names are similar (like Rachel, Rose, and Raphael all having R names).

Remember you are the writer and you know everything, readers don't. So eleven people isn't hard for you to understand because you are the one planning and writing them, but readers can't catch on to all that new information all at once. It's also telling over showing. You don't give the reader a chance to learn this information naturally, you give it to them all at once with no opportunity for them to think and imagine things. For example, we don't need to know their hair color that early. That part felt unnecessary.

An alternative would be to really focus on one, two, or three characters in the beginning so we get the chance to understand who they are, their motivations, their appearances, etc. By downsizing to a handful of characters instead of 10+, it can be very beneficial to readers so they can better absorb your ideas.

Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 4 are all exposition. Then you have a summary after the first three chapters. The story doesn't really start until chapter 5, which is where we get scenes and actions. That means, in the chapter list, the story doesn't start until 9 parts in. I would very strongly recommend reorganizing how you present this story because half of the story published so far isn't the actual book. 10 out of 19 of the published chapters are either introductions, author's notes, or writing prompts, not core story parts. That makes it very difficult to judge the protagonist because I'm trying to keep up with all this information and I'm getting confused. There are interesting ideas in there, they could just benefit from some reorganization.

Grammatically, I would suggest using free grammar editing software such as Grammarly, ProWritingAid, and/or QuillBot. I say this because there are many grammar errors, with the most prominent one being run-on sentences. For example, from chapter 8, "The elderiest of them all is Victoria melinoe Santiago, but people thought that Raphael Daniel Santiago is senior or elderiest one of them, because people thought that he was the first child,but it was not so , he was the middle child,but again..." and the sentence goes on for another three lines. As you can see, there many spacing errors where you put excess spaces or no spaces (the extra space between so and the comma, or the lack of spaces between child and but both times). I would strongly recommend breaking up your sentences more so the audience has a chance to breathe and digest what you're saying.

Your common error is giving way too much info to the audience all at once and not giving them a chance to process what you're saying. That's why I recommend using grammar editing software and breaking up your sentences, that way you can give the audience information in smaller and easier to understand chunks.

I would also recommend reading sentences out loud and/or using text-to-speech so you can hear how your sentences sound. I personally use TTS and it helps me a lot. Hearing your sentences can help you identify where you can break up sentences and add punctuation. It can also help you identify spelling errors or places where you're missing words.

This is a small thing but it was noticeable, but you always say a character's full name. You don't have to say Raphael Daniel Santiago every time he's mentioned, you can just say Raphael. Same with the other characters. If you keep spelling out their full names every time they're mentioned, it can get hard to read and a bit frustrating since the readers already know who you're talking about without the last names, so there's no reason to include them.

I hope all that makes sense!

My Joonie by joonbias48

Review:

Something that stood out to me right away was the fact that you changed BTS and their typical roles. Namjoon isn't the leader in this story, it's Hoseok. That was super interesting to me. I think too many fanfic writers keep BTS in their traditional in real life roles because they feel like they have to. However, I think the best stories experiment and try new things and realize this is fiction, you don't have to follow irl. Experimenting with BTS and their typical roles is fascinating to me since they all have such unique personalities you can play around with.

In My Joonie, you play around with Namjoon's personality a lot, and I think that's the strongest part. Considering he's the protagonist, that's a great thing and a strong trait for your story to have. I think you have a great core idea with Namjoon and what you want to do with his character. You subvert expectations in a way that's natural and interesting, and it hooked me right away. I wanted to keep reading to see what you'd do with Namjoon's character. Him being this innocent boy in a world that wants to destroy innocence was super fun to read about. Okay, maybe that makes me sound insane, but you get what I mean haha. I found it entertaining to read about such an interesting topic, and I think you have great ideas!

My main recommendation would be to tighten the grammar and presentation of the story. My biggest example is emojis. I don't think you should use emojis in this story. This is a mature, serious book that covers complex topics, so the emojis being there feels inconsistent with the tone the plot has.

I would also suggest not using script format for dialogue. Everything else, like descriptions, is written in book format, but the dialogue is like a script. That makes it confusing because if readers are going back and forth between book and script format, it's hard to follow, not to mention most readers really dislike reading script format for dialogue.

Along with that, script format is telling over showing because you're telling us who is speaking and how they're speaking instead of giving the audience engaging sentences to work with. So, for example, here's a line from chapter 14:

Jin:(cold) hobi explain the situation or you are not going anywhere tomorrow

Here's one alternative to show that Jin's being cold instead of telling us he is: Jin's voice lowered, and his hooded eyes fell on Hoseok. "Hobi, explain the situation or you're not going anywhere tomorrow."

That's a small change, and I'm not saying it's the best one, but do you notice how the reader has more to work with there? Instead of being told Jin is cold, we're shown his voice dropping and the position of his eyes. His body language and voice now clue the reader into his emotions.

I call it this the 2 + 2 = 4 equation of creative writing. It's unofficial and it's not a real rule, but it's a piece of advice you may find helpful. Readers want to solve equations when they read a book. By that I mean, they want to imagine places, imagine emotions, imagine facial expressions, etc. If you're telling the readers what to feel and think, then it takes away a core part of their engagement to the story.

Telling is the 4 in the equation. If you give the audience 4, they don't have to imagine anything. It's just 4. However, if you give them 2 + 2, now they have to work to solve for 4. Even if the answer to the equation is simple, like 4, they're still doing the work to imagine it. How does this relate to your story? Well, in this case, the 4 in the equation is you telling the audience that Jin is cold. The 2 + 2 would be the alternative that shows Jin's voice lowering and his eyes being hooded. The 4 tells the reader the emotions. The 2 + 2 shows it and gives the audience a chance to solve the equation and find out that Jin is being cold.

I know that was a lot of information, so to put it more simply, telling, is when you're telling the audience the emotions they should feel. Like, if you say Jin is happy. That's telling the audience his emotions. If you show Jin smiling, the audience has to figure out he's happy. It isn't hard to figure out he's happy based on a smile, but it still gives the readers more engagement and more to do with their mind. So in the equation, 2 + 2 is showing, and 4 is telling. If you give the audience 4, like Jin being cold, you're telling. If you give the audience 2 + 2, like Jin's low voice and hooded eyes, you're showing. That's why I recommend giving the audience 2 + 2, not 4.

If you want more information on the show don't tell rule of writing, then I would recommend the ProWritingAid blog titled "Show Don't Tell: Showing vs Telling in Writing (With Examples)." In general, I would recommend using ProWritingAid because it has many helpful blogs and articles, and it also has a good (and, more importantly, free) grammar checker.

So that's why I recommend not using script format and instead using book format for dialogue. It allows you to use more showing over telling, and it's not hard to read. Script format can be hard to read. By eliminating emojis and focusing on doing more showing over telling, I think your work will be even stronger! I hope all that makes sense, I know that was a lot haha. Please let me know if you have questions!

Mafia's Sweetheart by yours_tae

Review:

The aesthetics in the story caught my eye and made me intrigued. While that doesn't have to do with the protagonist, I still think it's worth mentioning how pretty the banners and character introduction are. The banners are very aesthetic and have well-chosen pictures along with cute font/text that are visually pleasing. In the character introduction, the character pictures are also well-chosen and seem like they fit the genre you're writing in.

Speaking of characters, I was surprised by Emily. I know she's dramatic and everything, but I was expecting her to be a lot meaner than she was. Her dedication to David in the beginning was surprising to say the least, but in a good way because it subverted my expectations to the typical "spoiled rich girl" character I'm used to seeing. She has a lot more personality than I would expect from a character that's spoiled, but again, that's a good thing because it means she subverted my expectations and made for a more interesting read. In general, Emily is probably my favorite character because she has such an interesting personality that's very easy to identify.

Out of the entire cast, I'd say Emily is the easiest to identify through her dialogue and actions because her traits and personality are very clear, so the audience has an easier time attaching themselves to her and wanting to read more about her. Her relationship with David was fun and even cute at times, so I really liked reading about that.

I have some constructive criticisms, most of which are about the technical writing. I would strongly recommend using free grammar editing software such as ProWritingAid or QuillBot. Grammarly works too but I believe in the most recent update they are putting more and more features behind a paywall, so ProWritingAid and QuillBot have the most free features as of now.

I say that because there are many grammar errors like proper nouns not being capitalized, frequent spelling errors, word order errors where words are put in the wrong place, no end punctuation when there needs to be end punctuation, comma errors, etc. More importantly, the dialogue is formatted incorrectly. You are writing in a hybrid between script and book format.

What I mean by that is you have descriptions like a book, but the dialogue, and only the dialogue, is formatted like a script. That makes it hard to read and get invested in, especially when it's formatted wrong. I would very strongly suggest not writing in script format, but if you really want to keep using script format for dialogue, do not use dialogue tags. They're unnecessary.

So, you write the dialogue like this:

Emily: hello mr Jeon (she said with a fake smile)

The "she said" part is the tag. If you are already identifying who is speaking using the script format, there is no reason to use the dialogue tag, making it hard to read and, again, unnecessary. It also makes me wonder why use script format if you're going to use dialogue tags. It'd be easier to eliminate the script format and simply say: "Hello, Mr. Jeon," she said with a fake smile.

It's far easier to read when it's written like that, and the vast majority of readers don't like reading script format.

I'm bringing up the grammar and dialogue because dialogue is essential to understanding the protagonist. It shows us the protagonist's quirks, speech style, and general mannerisms. Script format is telling over showing; that's what it's designed to do. That's why I don't recommend it for books: you're taking away reader engagement and now telling the reader everything instead of showing them.

Moving away from grammar and more into Y/n, the reason she accepted the proposal didn't make sense to me. She said she's dealt with all kinds of people and since she's never dealt with a mafia before, that's why she said yes. As a psychologist, she of all people should know how harmful and dangerous the mafia is. I asked my mom, a psychologist, about this, and she said her first reaction would be to offer support to Emily because she would assume Emily is in a very dangerous situation where Jungkook has blackmail. She said she would never accept that proposal, especially not just to get experience with the mafia.

I don't understand why Y/n thinks she needs to marry a mafia to understand them, and why she would think that's a good idea when she should know better than anyone how bad of an idea that is. If she's really dealt with people from all walks of life like she claims, then she's definitely dealt with people impacted by gangs and mafias. She should have firsthand experience of the horrors they cause, so there's no reason for her to get married based on that explanation.

I feel a more believable explanation would be to amp up Y/n's selflessness. If Y/n was so selfless she didn't want Emily to get with a bad man, it would give the audience a better reason to cheer for Y/n. Instead of having the current reason that's really hard to believe, now you're giving the character more personal investment since it's her character trait that's driving her, not her just wanting to see what a mafia is like.

I'm not saying that's the perfect solution, but it's a bit stronger than Y/n simply wanting to know what the mafia is like when she should already know. She's an adult in her mid-twenties and a psychologist, there's no reason she shouldn't already know what the mafia is like. Most people know about the horrors of the mafia by 15 if not through education then through the abundance of representation the mafia has in media. So that's why it's unbelievable and unrealistic that a 25 y/o would want to marry a mafia because she wants to learn about them.

I have a couple of recommendations, but it's your story so please only take them into consideration if you feel they match your style and goal with the narrative.

The first potential recommendation would be to change Y/n's career. It's very unrealistic that she would be a psychologist based on her actions, so a career change could make her more believable. Maybe a career where she's more isolated from people and doesn't go out much, which can maybe make her reason for accepting the proposal more believable.

A second potential recommendation would be to tweak the reason she agrees to the proposal. Maybe she's super selfless to the point where it burdens her, and she feels like she can't say no to people, including Emily. Now you have a character arc for her where she'll have to learn to stand up for herself. It can also explain why she's a psychologist and her passion for it: she enjoys helping people. That would make her personality match her chosen career. You're killing two birds with one stone because now you're giving her career more depth and you're also creating a more natural reason why she'd accept the proposal.

My last recommendation, and this is a general recommendation, would be to incorporate more descriptions. In chapter 16, that commenter asking about how a nudge made Y/n bleed is 100% correct. There is nothing in the text that indicates she fell to the ground or hit the table. It says "I did pushed her but i forget that she is shorter and lighter in weight than me and i pushed her a bit but according to her that was forceful. I looked at her she was lying unconscious on the ground and there was blood and the moment i looked up i realized it. Jungkook: shit..!! the dinning table is made up of marble shit..."

Do you see how nothing there actually describes her hitting the marble? We have to take Jungkook's word for it. This is also why I strongly suggest grammar editing software because those three sentences are extremely hard to understand due to the wording and frequent spelling errors. So the commenter was right. You didn't make it clear Y/n hit the table, leading to confusion.

Remember you are the writer. You see everything clearly in your head because you wrote and imagined the story. Readers don't have that luxury; we only know what you show us, and you didn't show Y/n's head hitting the ground, which means even though you know it happened, we don't, and we have no way of knowing without asking you. So keep in mind while writing that you know everything while readers don't, and if they don't understand, it's probably because you see it in your head, but the text doesn't match what you see. It's a common mistake many writers make because writing your book comes so natural to you while to the readers, we're reading something new. A new world, new characters, new ideas, etc. That's why I recommend using more description to be more clear about what's happening in the scenes.

If you take more time to describe what's happening, not only will the scenes be far clearer and you won't have to answer as many questions in the comments, but it'll also strengthen the entire story, including the protagonists, because we now understand their actions, appearances, body language, etc. Even adding one line to say she hit the table would prevent confusion. Jungkook's dialogue isn't enough because it's contradictory to what was described. We didn't get the process of her hitting her head described, which means we didn't know it happened. Jungkook's dialogue is talking about an event we weren't shown, leading to confusion. If you have characters talking about events not shown, the readers aren't going to understand.

Also, Jungkook's dialogue is unnatural. He already knows the table is marble, so there's no reason for him to repeat it. It's strictly for the audience's benefit, which makes it expository and unnatural dialogue. That's why I recommend describing the marble table with description instead of dialogue, that way it's more natural, eliminates confusion, and gives the readers a chance to process what's happening. You may even notice readers having stronger reactions because now they can imagine the scenes and have more intense reactions to what's going on.

Remember the show don't tell rule of creative writing. I would strongly recommend reading ProWritingAid's blog on it. I will leave a link to it in the inline comment here.

I hope all that makes sense!

She Saw Red by m25_bookworm

Review:

There were many elements in this story I found enjoyable. As a TMR fan, this is exactly the kind of book I would look for. The opening sequence where Thea is trying to come to terms with her situation and determine her surroundings was very well done. In general, the writing is strong and I didn't notice any major and/or consistent grammar and spelling errors.

I think you do a good job capturing the personalities of some of the Gladers. Although Newt hasn't been in it much so far, I can tell he's very Newt and acts the way I would expect him to both through his dialogue and the way he carries himself. More prominently, you write Gally well. He has that arrogance and bully-like nature that makes him stand out, and the way he carries himself, like with Newt, is similar to how I'd expect him to act.

Obviously it's fanfic so you don't need to write the personalities identical or even similar to the source material. That's the point of fanfic, after all: you get to experiment and make your own work. However, I still think it's worth praising how you bring the Glade to life and make it so similar to the source material. Not only in the way it is described, but also how it interacts with the characters. The environments are used for a purpose, like the sparring match being muddy and impacting the character appearances, and the cell Thea is thrown in.

I know this is a best protagonist contest and none of that really has to do with Thea, but I still think it's worth mentioning for a number of reasons. One, I enjoyed it and I'm going to mention the things I enjoy. Two, it actually helps the protagonist's image because readers can clearly imagine what she's up against and where she is, adding another layer to the conflict and what we're seeing.

All of that is to say that so far I think you have a strong start for everything around Thea, though I do have some criticisms for Thea. It's early in the story, so maybe your plans for her are going to alleviate my concerns, but for now I have to judge based on what I've read so far (up to chapter 8, which is the most recently published chapter at the time of writing this review).

Let's get into it. There were times Thea came off as very overpowered and unrealistic. I can take an overpowered character, but not if the power is shown in an unrealistic way that causes OOC moments. Most notably with Minho. It feels like them being enemies was very forced and hard to believe. I can buy her getting the jump on Gally in the beginning. Maybe I can buy her beating Gally in a fight, but that's still a stretch and I warn you to be careful about that because she beat a 6'3 muscular man and experienced survivor with ease. And it wasn't because she used his worst traits against him or used her wits, it was just a straight hand-to-hand fight. That's why it was a stretch. She beat him with raw strength, which is hard to believe when she's described as "skinny but muscular." She's still skinny. So having her go up against someone so intimidating and winning with no difficulty was a bit hard to believe, but I can write it off as not knowing her backstory yet.

What I can't buy is her in the cell getting the jump on Minho, a character who is known for his fast reflexes, strength, and intelligence. And this isn't just going off of my knowledge of TMR, this is shown to us in your book too. One of Minho's biggest scenes so far is him wiping the floor with the Gladers in fights. We're shown his strength and quick thinking, like when he analyzes the Thea situation when she enters the maze then makes the quick and smart decision to get her out ASAP.

So we're shown him being smart and strong. So why does Minho get close enough to Thea to allow her to smash his face? He was informed that she violently assaulted Gally, and in that scene, she's antagonizing him. Why would Minho, an intelligent person with quick reflexes, get close to someone openly antagonizing him who is known to be violent? Even if he made this mistake, which I don't believe he would, how did he not break himself free immediately and why did he need help to break himself free?

This may not seem like a big deal, but it leads to a larger problem where Thea feels Mary Sue-like at times with her having a lot of great traits and only two flaws I can currently identify, and one of those flaws (her arrogance) mostly aids her in the story that's published so far. She can back up her arrogance with great fighting. She can take down a 6'3 man with little to no difficulty. She's also smart, pretty, sassy, strong, observant, self-confident, fearless, smells like coconut despite being in two fights and thrown in a cell for a while, admired and feared by all the men there, etc. She has a lot of great traits.

Her two flaws I've identified are arrogance and stubbornness. Not bad flaws to have, but like I said, her arrogance led to her scaring all the men and becoming almost like an alpha they're intimidated by, so the flaw hasn't really brought her down much. Her stubbornness has in the most recent chapter where she refused to leave the maze, so that's good, though it's still hard to ignore how she strolled into the Glade and adjusted to it within minutes, became bored of it after a fight, and beat up Gally twice and Minho once.

If there are other flaws you have for her, I would recommend making them more clear as I did not pick up on them.

Back to the good traits, those traits, in isolation, aren't bad. In fact, even having many of those traits isn't bad. The problem becomes when the characters around her start to bend and do things I don't believe they'd do all in the name of making her appear more powerful, like Minho getting close to someone who is actively antagonizing him and who is known to be violent. Or her easily beating Gally in a hand-to-hand fight. Or her being able to hold Minho, a very strong person, in place for long enough that he needs help getting her off. Long story short, when a bunch of good traits are combined with moments like those, it becomes hard to see Thea as a believable character.

When I break it down like that, I hope it makes sense why she comes off as a bit overpowered at times. I don't feel any tension because I know she's going to win every fight she's in, probably without much difficulty. I know she'll make it through any emotional turmoil because she handled being thrown into a mysterious place with a bunch of men with no memory of her past life without batting an eye.

I'm sure there's a backstory for her that you're setting up, but keep in mind I don't know it, I only know what's been published so far, so that's what I'm judging based on.

The story is overall good and I think you have a great start. Thea isn't a bad character by any means, she's just a bit hard to follow, in my opinion. At times it did feel like you were going overboard in pursuit of making her seem more like a girl boss, and I'm fine with girl bosses as long as it's done in a way that's believable. So what I'd recommend is making her flaws more apparent/detrimental and trying to avoid OOC moments from people like Minho where he does things he otherwise wouldn't just to make Thea look more powerful/strong. I think with those tweaks, Thea would be a much stronger protagonist. As is, she's fine, and it's also very early in the story, so my opinion could completely change by chapter 9 or 10. 

It's a good story with interesting elements. All I recommend is making sure Thea doesn't go too overboard and becomes so powerful that no one feels any tension anymore. I hope all that makes sense!

That wraps up my reviews. Sci-fi and action adventure are currently being judged. I've made more progress on sci-fi so that'll probably be next.