Title: Echoes of Euphoria by Etaereal3012
Source (1): 🅱🅾🅱🅰 🅶🆁🅰🅽🅳 🅰🆆🅰🆁🅳 by iloveboba1stacct
Category: Best Cover
Mature: Y (alcohol use, explicit sexual content, female issues, mild violence, physical assault, religion, sexual references, strong profanity, mention of stalking)
LGBTQIAP+: N
Status: Complete

Special note (rubric): Provided by the awards organizer to the other judge (arrowgig). I pasted it below. Normally, I type feedback for each section of a rubric, but I never received the rubric from the organizer, so I used a modified version of the cover section from my "First Impressions" review when I judged these entries initially, and I typed a full paragraph of feedback from that. When I received the rubric from the other judge, I copied and pasted sections of that into corresponding sections of the new rubric.
Special note (judging): I had 7 books from this category, and arrowgig had 10 books.Score:
60/100

Source (2): Feedback request
Genre: Fanfiction
Subgenre: Romance
Random: BTS
First impressions: 29/40
Digging deeper: 69/100
Final thoughts: Complete

Clicking the "External Link" button below the "Continue to next part" button will take you straight to the book, or click the link in the inline comments here. →

*****

Rubric (🅱🅾🅱🅰 🅶🆁🅰🅽🅳 🅰🆆🅰🆁🅳):
- Visual appeal: 20
- Thematic relevance: 20
- Originality and creativity: 20
- Typography and layout: 15
- Overall impact: 15
- Judge's opinion: 10
Total: 100

*****

Total score (🅱🅾🅱🅰 🅶🆁🅰🅽🅳 🅰🆆🅰🆁🅳): 60/100

Visual appeal: 10/20
There's a bit too much going on here. I like the background image and the purple, but the girls at the bottom don't fit with the rest of the cover. See below for more.

Thematic relevance: 20/20
This feels very fanfiction, so, yup.

Originality and creativity: 15/20

Typography and layout: 5/15
The central title is good as far as font choice and color, but I think it would look better if it were larger. Getting rid of the girls at the bottom would allow you to increase the font size without a problem. As far as your name in the lower left-hand corner, you don't need "by:" and I think centering your name would look better. The light blue is also not quite in keeping with the purple. Maybe go for a more in-between shade? Or highlight the text with purple? Or go with the same black font style at the top, but highlighted in purple. That would look good, and it would tie that black font at the top in better with the rest of the cover. As far as the text in the lower right-hand corner, you don't need that at all. That just clutters the cover up, and it doesn't quite match the rest.

Overall impact: 5/15

Judge's opinion: 5/10

*****

First impressions: 29/40

Title: 10/10
When I first encountered this book, I had next to no BTS knowledge, so I just thought it was a pretty title. Now, I'm very familiar with this song (and I love it), so I like this title even more. It's intrinsically ephemeral and romantic.

Blurb/synopsis: 5/10
I can't remember if this has changed since I started reading your book, but my first general observation here is that this blurb sounds like AI-generated content. There's a very consistent style and tone I've noticed with AI, and the distant, grand-scale feeling with flowery, elaborate descriptions fits the profile here. There are also some issues with the flow and frequent, repetitive summary statements throughout. Now, I will be the first to admit that I hate writing blurbs, but if you used AI here, I would recommend rewriting this in your own words. AI-generated content is an automatic disqualification from official Wattpad and Ambassador contests, and many unofficial ones, too. Plus, the human element from an imperfect writer injecting their personal voice into the words is always so much better than AI, even if there are grammatical errors.

As far as the content of the blurb, there's a lot of filler and repetition, and there isn't really a plot conflict, so there isn't much of a hook. There's vague mention of obstacles, but those are downplayed so much in favor of emphasizing the positives of the blossoming relationships that there's a strong impression this will be an unrealistic fairy tale where everything goes right and everything is perfect. The conflict is your hook, and it gives the story purpose, so it needs to get more attention in the blurb. Also, a concise blurb has a stronger hook, so excess words can work against you in this department. And AI loves excess words.

The first and last sentences are blanket summary statements, so they feel repetitive. But you shouldn't really have a blanket summary statement anywhere in a blurb, because you need to give specific details about the story to draw a potential reader in, and telling them what will happen spoils the mystery. That's another common AI problem—it can't keep a secret. Leading a reader into the story by dropping crumbs of information and leaving plenty of blanks they can only fill in by reading is not really something AI can do, but it's the most effective way of hooking new readers.

There's a similar problem with the two "As they" and "As their" sentences. And then there's repetition of individual words, like "dreams" and "dream" both appearing in the first sentence, and "journey" appearing in the first and second sentences. That just adds to the overall feeling that there's a lot of words and little substance. So, I went through and pared this down, cutting repeated words and concepts, rearranging to improve the flow, and altering the wording a bit to emphasize the conflict more, and this is what I came up with:

Y/n and Saanvi, two inseparable friends from India, share a dream of becoming diplomats and meeting their BTS idols. After relentless hard work and sacrifice, they clear their UPSC exams and begin their international training.

But in South Korea, Y/n's life takes an unexpected turn when she accidentally meets her BTS bias, Taehyung. Meanwhile, Saanvi's path intertwines with Jungkook's, and what begins as two fans' wildest fantasies blossoms into profound love that defies cultural boundaries and personal struggles.

As their stories unfold amidst career triumphs and familial expectations, they face the ultimate tests of commitment and sacrifice. But will their dedication and love be enough to overcome the obstacles they face?

It still has the same style and tone as before, since I used the same words and sentences already present, but it's more concise with less repetition. There's still something missing, though (other than the human aspect). Adding a contrasting question that presents the possibility things won't work out would bring out the (still vague) conflict even more, strengthening the hook. Something as simple as, "Or will _____?" where the blank is the alternate outcome would do the trick.

But I still think rewriting it in your own words is the better option. It shows the readers your personality and grounds the story and the characters in reality, which means readers can actually engage and relate to what's happening. If they can't do that, they won't get immersed in the story, and they won't stay for the whole thing. So, here's an example where I take the edited version and rewrite it in my own words:

Y/n and Saanvi are best friends who dream of becoming diplomats and someday meeting their BTS idols. It takes a lot of work and sacrifice, but they successfully pass their UPSC exams and leave India to begin their international training.

They never expected they'd actually meet their BTS biases.

Suddenly, their wildest fantasies have become reality. Y/n falls in love with Taehyung, and Saavni with Jungkook. But their differing cultures cause problems for the new couples, as do the stresses and triumphs of starting their careers and balancing their families' expectations—not to mention all the difficulties of being in relationships with celebrities. If they want to stay together, they'll have to make some sacrifices and prove their commitment to each other.

But will that be enough? Is love really all they need, or will the obstacles be too great for them to overcome?

See the difference? It has a very different style and tone from the previous version. My personality is in it, my unique spin on things, so it doesn't sound generic. And you can do the same thing. All AI-generated content sounds the same, but nobody can write just like anybody else. Your voice is what sets your writing apart. Yes, the main goal of a blurb is to introduce your characters and your plot, but you should introduce yourself, too: "This is me! I'm the writer. This is what I sound like!" And that's as important as any hook.

Cover: 9/10
You've updated this cover since I judged it in the Boba Grand Awards, so I've added the new cover above, and that's the one I'm considering here. And I love it. It's a definite improvement with a more cohesive feeling than the previous cover. The individual elements blend very nicely with each other. The glowing, almost ghostly appearance of Taehyung and Jungkook's images creates an illusionary or dreamy effect, which compliments the title well, while the two girls in the foreground are solid and firmly grounded in reality. And looking back at their men, of course. The shift from pinks at the bottom with the girls to soft blues at the top with the guys is perfect, and I love the title. The font style, size, color, and placement are all spot on. Your name is clearly visible but not distracting, styled to fit the rest of the cover, and the quote at the bottom is subtle and also not distracting from the more important imagery and title.

The only suggestion I would make is regarding the quote at the bottom. I think I'd move that up a little so it doesn't look like it's cut off at the edge, and moving "neither" down to the second line would create a better balance. Maybe "and," too, but I'd start with just "neither" and see what it looks like.

First chapter (and everything that came before it): 5/10
I like your character introductions. They just list the basics instead of going into way too much detail and ruining parts of the story.

The first thing I noticed about the first chapter was the change in style and tone from when I originally read it. I checked my old comments to be sure, and it looks like you've used AI to edit and refine this since then, but it's too much. It's not fully AI-generated. I can tell that, and I'm glad you haven't used AI to rewrite this completely, but, as I said, it's too much. It doesn't sound like your voice anymore, and the characters sound exactly like all the other characters I see in AI-generated. They're flat, overly mature and wise, and too perfect to be realistic. And it's the same with the narrative. The elaborate descriptions and high-brow language create a distance between the reader and the world, as depicted here.

I think people sometimes don't realize that clicking an "edit all" button or something like that in an app doesn't just fix grammar. It rewrites everything and turns it into AI-generated content. I don't know which apps you use, but I'd recommend looking into something that's an editing tool only. ProWritingAid is the one I use, and the free version has all the editing help I need without the temptation of the rephrasing/rewriting functions in something like Grammarly. You get something like five sentences of rephrasing a day, so it's really, really hard to rewrite an entire chapter, let alone a book, with AI that way. And it teaches you, too. It underlines sections with mistakes or areas you could improve, and when you hover over those sections, it tells you what it thinks is wrong, how it thinks you can fix it, and provides links for more information, if you want that.

Anyway, moving on from that, the flow of the narrative is rather disjointed. The chapter starts with a third person perspective focused on Y/n, and then it moves into dialogue in script format (name: dialogue). I've already stated in the comments that I would recommend converting that to standard dialogue set within double quotation marks, and there are a few lines throughout this chapter where you do that, which creates a consistency issue when there's also the script format going on.

The reason I prefer dialogue in quotation marks is dialogue tags. These are so good at helping to develop your characters, and they also help your readers to visualize the scene and the speakers, as well as hear the changes in tone as the conversation progresses. You can also insert action sentences to help flesh out the conversation even more. I'll take the first section of dialogue in the story and use it to show you what I mean. I'm putting it in italics just to set it apart from the rest of my feedback.

Saanvi: Hey Y/n, have you checked your result yet?
Y/n: (frustrated) I was just about to, but then you called.
Saanvi: Oh, sorry about that. Well, go ahead and check it. I won't spoil the surprise for you.
Y/n: Surprise? What surprise? Anyway, let me see. You stay on the line, okay?
Saanvi: Sure thing, I'm here.

Other than "frustrated" in parentheses, I don't know anything about tone, facial expression, body language, volume—none of that is shown. It's like reading a text conversation, and we've all had experiences where we misunderstand somebody when we're texting because we don't get cues from tone or body language to tell us, for example, we're supposed to take something as a sarcastic comment and not an angry insult. Of course, Y/n can't see Saanvi through the phone, so you can only add audio description for her, but you can show visual details about Y/n as they talk.

"Hey Y/n, have you checked your result yet?" Saavni asked excitedly as soon as Y/n answered the phone.
Y/n rolled her eyes and sighed in frustration. "I was just about to, but then you called."
"Oh, sorry about that," Saavni said, her voice coming down in pitch slightly, although she didn't sound apologetic at all. "Well, go ahead and check it. I won't spoil the surprise for you."
Y/n raised an eyebrow. "Surprise? What surprise? Anyway, let me see. You stay on the line, okay?"
"Sure thing, I'm here."

It's not much, but adding little details helps bring the conversation to life and makes the characters more realistic and relatable. We can hear how Saavni sounds when she calls and how her voice changes throughout the conversation, and we can see Y/n's physical reactions to her friend's phone call. It just went from a 2D, black-and-white sketch to a 3D, colorful scene.

Moving on from the dialogue, there are italicized third person paragraphs in between sections of narrative and dialogue, which act as lengthy summaries and information dumps. It's like pausing a video for somebody to explain what's happening, and then you sit there, wondering if they're ever going to stop talking so you can get back to the video. By the time you hit play again, you've lost the mood you felt when you were first watching the video, and if you want that back, you have to rewind or even start over. It's the same thing with a story. The flow is broken, which breaks the reader's concentration, too, and it's information that would be more effective if it were just incorporated into the story itself.

The first italicized paragraph interrupts Y/n and Saavni's phone conversation to say they're not just friends, but they're so close and so similar that it's like they're two halves of a whole. And it says that in as many words as possible. Later, Y/n's mother says that in her dialogue with one sentence. So, you don't even need the paragraph, because the information comes out within the story. And it's the same thing with the background information about Y/n's intended career path and her family's support. You can easily add the information about what she was studying and why to the very beginning of the story when she's pulling up results on her phone. And you can add the bits about her family's support in and around the conversation she has with her parents. The parts about her desire to study overseas would fit neatly in the last part of the chapter, when she's getting ready to leave.

As for the actual storyline, I like how your female protagonists are hard-working, driven women, instead of the flighty, impulsive protagonists I often see in BTS fanfictions. Now, it's time to get into the rest of the story and see where this goes.

*****

Digging deeper: 69/100

Cover & title: 9/10
See "First Impressions" feedback.

Blurb: 3/5
See "First Impressions" feedback.

Grammar & voice: 10/20
For the first four chapters, there's definitely a strong AI presence, so grammar isn't much of an issue. In the fifth chapter, there's no AI, so there are grammatical errors. But I prefer the style and tone of the fifth chapter so much more than the earlier chapters, even with mistakes.

I dropped inline comments where I found issues, but it was usually capitalization (missed or unnecessary), slipping out of past tense and into present tense, slipping out of third person and into second person, and punctuation errors. There was some awkward wording as well, but it wasn't too bad. And the story was still very readable.

Consistency is important to help prevent reader confusion. The first chapter is all in present tense, but every chapter after that (so far) has been in past tense. So, I'd recommend changing the first chapter into the past tense to match. Also, and I mentioned this earlier, you flip-flop from doing dialogue in the standard double quotation marks to writing it in script format (name: dialogue). That's another thing I'd recommend standardizing. Pick one way and stick with it. (And my vote is for the standard dialogue method.)

Also, you don't have too many character thoughts so far, but writing those differently from dialogue can help prevent any issues with readers thinking someone said that out loud. I like to put thoughts in italics without quotation marks.

But moving into the voice, I also talked about how AI sounds earlier, and that continues in the first four chapters. The dialogue is the least affected, so that gives the characters some personality and makes it easier for me to read, but there's an overall distant, introspective style that makes it hard for me to connect with the story. I was so relieved when there was no AI in chapter five. Suddenly, the story came to life. It became bubbly and fun, bright and silly, and just a much more engaging read. I'm hoping that continues throughout the rest of the book, because like I said, I prefer a human voice so much more than AI.

Plot & pacing: 8/10
The first two chapters feel rushed to me. There's a lot of zipping through background information, setting up a scene and only staying in it for a few paragraphs before shifting time and space elsewhere. It's those frequent scene changes that lend this a rushed feeling. There's some important information there, but a lot of irrelevant stuff, too. Why do we need a short scene of Y/n and Saanvi seeing their dorm room for the first time? That's not relevant to the plot. And most of chapter two is like that. You could probably sum it up in one or two paragraphs tacked on to the end of chapter one or the beginning of chapter three.

There's a lot of repetition within chapter two as well, with summary paragraphs giving an overall perspective on the girls leaving LBSNAA between just about every section, and that gets boring. We already know they're leaving LBSNAA. We don't know exactly what that means, because the acronym has never been spelled out, but it's pretty obvious it's an academic program of some kind. And repetition and summarizing are pretty standard for AI as well, as I've pointed out elsewhere. But you've successfully avoided another common pitfall of AI, which is that it drags the pace down to a crawl with all the repetition and elaborate descriptions.

Once we get into chapter three, the pace slows appropriately as the story really begins. Because everything prior to this chapter was really just setting this up. Y/n is now living, studying, and working in South Korea, without friends or family to support her, and she gets lost while she's out and about. That's pretty normal. What's not normal but integral to this story is that she meets Taehyung, who helps her get home and gives her his phone number. And she doesn't know who he is at first, because he was in disguise.

It's at this point in the story where those summary narrative paragraphs in chapters one and two disappear, and the story splits into multiple perspectives. Y/n and Taehyung both get third person sections with their thoughts and impressions, plus first person sections within the third person, which basically allows you to show an entire paragraph of their thoughts. I've seen other stories do this, and I can't say that I really like it. It's very much like the frequent scene changes earlier, except you're not changing the setting or timeline. Just the perspectives. But that change still breaks the flow of the story. Often, there isn't time to get settled in one character's perspective before it changes again.

I have a couple of suggestions here. First, you could lengthen the scenes in each perspective so the changes don't come so frequently. That could mean having one chapter in one character's perspective, and the next chapter in another character's perspective, and so on. Or it could mean just having one or maybe two perspective changes within one chapter. The idea is to give the reader enough time in each perspective to really get into a flow and get immersed in the story.

Second, and this is probably the one I would prefer, you could discard the perspective changes and shift focus within each scene as needed. You already have the story in third person, so you can show multiple characters' thoughts and feelings within one scene. It's okay for you to describe Taehyung's thoughts while he's taking Y/n home and show her thoughts as well. If the story were in first person, you couldn't do that, but third person makes it possible. For a really great example of how to do this, check out SSears90's Meet Me at Midnight, or, if you're not comfortable with the subject matter in that story, any of their other stories would probably be good. That's just the only one I've read so far, and it has the smoothest third person perspective changes within a scene that I've ever encountered.

Moving on from that and back to plot analysis, I think Y/n gets comfortable with the idea that she knows Taehyung (and, soon after, the entirety of BTS) way too quickly. Her initial reaction when she realized it was Taehyung was great. The way she froze, and then slapped herself, and then had to touch him to make sure she wasn't dreaming—that was perfect. But then, it's like she immediately relaxes and accepts that she knows him. Yeah, she calls Saanvi and freaks out on the phone with her, but I guess I'd expect more freaking out (and freaking out longer) when she's with Taehyung. And she doesn't even freak out when she meets BTS. She's just chill with them right away.

One final note thus far is that I love when the guy starts using a term of endearment for the girl (depending on the word used), so it made my heart happy when Taehyung started calling her Princess the moment they met. Before he even knew her name. And then, when he learns her name, he keeps calling her Princess, and when she meets BTS, she finds out he's been calling her "his princess" when he talks about her—fdjsafkjdslajfdskl. 🥰

Characterization: 17/20
This is an area I often see suffer with AI usage, but your characters actually come out okay. I think you did less with the dialogue than the rest, and that's what really builds your characters. There are some bits of dialogue, especially in the first chapter, where a character gets unrealistically verbose and sounds completely different from their normal dialogue, but that decreases in frequency through chapter two and into chapter three, so it fades away and doesn't cause too much of a problem for me.

Y/n and Saanvi talk and act like bubbly best friends who have known each other forever, which they have, so that makes sense. Saanvi seems to be the more outgoing, laid back friend, and Y/n is more of the sarcastic, pretending-to-be-mad-but-not-really friend. The more serious type. So, maybe it makes sense that she doesn't go cuckoo when she finds out she knows Taehyung. She seems to take things in stride.

Unless she's drunk, in which case she loses all inhibitions, becoming clingy and loose-lipped enough to spill all her secrets. That whole scene just cracked me up. Literally jumping on Taehyung and calling him her Tae-Tae Bear? She's going to be SO embarrassed when she wakes up the next day. 😆

As for Taehyung, he doesn't really have much of a personality to me yet, other than the generic handsome nice guy who falls in love with Y/n at first sight. That contributes to why he doesn't freak out about her suddenly leaping into his arms, of course, but he also knows she's drunk and she's usually calm and level-headed, so that helps to distinguish her from the crazy fans who would do that sober.

I don't have a handle on the remaining members of BTS yet, but I'm sure that will change as the story progresses.

Harmony within genre: 15/15
Yep. BTS fanfiction. Check.

Originality: 7/20
This section of the review is all about how well you hook and engage your readers and how well you implement descriptive detail to bring your story to life. So, I'd say the first four chapters are pretty predictable. There's the setup for Y/n and Saanvi in the first two chapters, then the highly unlikely (but very common in fanfiction) accidental meeting with a BTS member, followed by the also unlikely (but also common) immediate attraction and interest from said BTS member. The part where this really starts to take off and stand out is chapter five. That's also where the story becomes engaging, because it's fun, realistic, and relatable. Y/n is acting like a normal girl. Many people know what it's like to have a friend who's hilarious when they're drunk.

As for descriptive detail, most of that is in the AI sections, because AI loves flowery descriptions. I still prefer your writing. And you can always work on your descriptions. I used to really struggle in this area, and a reader (my mom, actually) suggested I try to add more descriptions to my writing. So, I decided to work on it. And it was very awkward at first. I would write the descriptive equivalent of an info dump—a single paragraph describing a person's appearance in rigid, forced words. Think "blonde hair, blue eyes, white shirt," etc. It didn't come naturally to me, but it was a start. And the more I worked at it, the better I got, and the more comfortable I got doing it.

I think that's a good policy for writing in general. Pick one thing and focus on it. You don't have to work on your grammar, your descriptions, your dialogue, and everything else all at once. Trying to do that would probably be really discouraging, because it would be so ridiculously hard, and it would be really easy to give up and go to something like AI for help. But that's not going to help you learn and improve as a writer. So, just focus on one area, work on that, and when you're feeling better about it, work on something else. You don't have to be perfect. Just be you.

Chapters 6-end:
There was a point when you were getting into more emotional scenes, and you started using AI more and more frequently, which I can understand. I've seen people do that with specific scenes they're uncomfortable writing or not confident about. From then on in the story, there was a very, very strong AI presence throughout, which means there was a different style and tone to your usual writing. I would encourage you to go back and try rewriting those sections in your own words, now that you have more writing experience under your belt and, hopefully, a bit more confidence. Give it a shot, and see what happens.

I'm not sure when it happened, because it happened so gradually that I didn't notice at first, but you did transition from multiple perspective changes per chapter to one all-encompassing third person perspective, which was something I'd suggested earlier, and it worked well for you and this story. So, I would also recommend trying to rework the earlier chapters to match that whenever you feel like going back to edit this story.

I said this in the comments with the (very few) smut chapters, but it was nice to see the emphasis on the couple's emotional connection and attentiveness to each other's needs, instead of pure smut chapters that are all about the physical. To me, the physical means nothing without the emotional connection, and I appreciate the effort you made to show that. And for anybody who doesn't like to read smut, those chapters are clearly marked, and within those chapters, the sections of smut are also clearly marked, so you can skip the entire chapter if you want, or skip the smut parts within that chapter pretty easily.

*****

Final thoughts:
Wouldn't it be great if you could just accidentally bump into your celebrity crush on the street, and bam, instant attraction? It's not likely in real life, but lucky for you, here's a story that allows you to live out that fantasy. As the main character in this story, you're a hard-working, career-minded Indian girl who ends up in South Korea for her studies, and you cross paths with Taehyung. And meet the rest of BTS. And, because you can't keep this level of fangirl bliss to yourself, you introduce your best friend, Saanvi, to the group, and she and Jungkook fall in love. Now, it's not all rainbows and butterflies. You're starting a new career, navigating cultural and family expectations, and trying not to get caught by the paparazzi, but your solid relationship with Taehyung, along with the support of the rest of BTS, means this is a largely positive fantasy. So, take a break from reality, and get ready to enjoy the romance.