Title: Grindelwald's granddaughter by iryn0329
Source: Utopian Fanfiction Awards 2024 by TheHappyWriters
Category: Harry Potter fandom
Mature: N (magical violence)
LGBTQIAP+: N
Status: Ongoing
Round 1: 23/40
Round 2: 53/100, did not progress to round 3

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*****

Round 1: 23/40

Title: 9/10
I must admit that I had to Google "Grindelwald," because I've never read or watched anything past the original HP series. But even before I did, the name struck me as very HP, and the alliteration of "Gr" "Gr" speaks to me. My only complaint is with capitalization. Since this is a title, "granddaughter" should be capitalized.

Cover: 2/10
The picture is fine. My issue here is that the book title and your name aren't on the cover, which means it's just a picture.

Summary: 7/10
How did you know I love short blurbs? I've had to adapt to all the long blurbs people like to write, but short and sweet speaks to my heart. That being said, I do have a couple of suggestions here to try to enhance your hook. Emphasizing harder-sounding words and sandwiching longer sentences between short, snappy sentences would do that. Something like, "Celina Grindelwald. Grindelwald's granddaughter. She's attending Hogwarts for the first time, but what people see is not what she is. It's the opposite." And you need something else at the end. A question, maybe? Something to get the reader invested in learning the truth about Celina.

First chapter: 5/10
Well. Start this off with a little action, why don't you?

So, of course, this is fast-paced, and it should be, since it's an action scene. But it's too fast-paced. There needs to be more detail, which would also clarify who's saying what and who's doing what. It gets pretty confusing. Every piece of dialogue, including spell incantations, needs to be in quotation marks so the reader can differentiate it from the narrative. And we need more name usage. Right at the start, you call someone "Grindelwald," and in the same sentence, you use the pronoun "her." Who is this person? The reader expects Grindelwald to be Celenia's grandfather based on the book title and the blurb, so just using "Grindelwald" without a first name to identify which Grindelwald is really confusing, especially when paired with the "her" pronoun. And that happens throughout this chapter. We need the names, and if multiple people have the same last name, then we need the first name.

There are some spelling issues with names as well. It's "Azkaban" and "Kingsley."

And there are some tense issues. This chapter is overall written in past tense, but there are times when you slip into present tense. That just adds to the confusion. In the third sentence of that first big paragraph, for example, "is" should be "was."

Perspective. I didn't pinpoint it until reading through a second time, but this is another area of confusion. You start this off with Grindelwald and company flying to Azkaban to instigate a mass prison break with Aurors in hot pursuit, and then you talk about the Auror Ministry being in a panic, not sure where, and then it's back to the dark wizards. That's two perspective changes in a very short period when the reader hasn't even had time to grasp one perspective. And the perspective jumps around a lot, as does location. We're in this part of Azkaban - no, we're in this one - it's Dumbledore's thoughts - no, it's Celina's thoughts.

You know all the characters, and you know your story, but the reader doesn't, so you need to take a step back and think about how this comes across to someone completely unfamiliar with the story. Perspective changes are fine, and fast action is fine, but we need concrete details to hold on to. The names, for one. A note about someone's appearance. The sound of magic spells zinging through the air. You don't want to get so detailed that the flow of action creeps to a halt, but just little things like that can ground the reader in the setting, in the story, so they know what's going on, at least in this little corner of Azkaban. Stick with one perspective for a while before you switch. Later on, when the reader knows the characters and the story, you can make faster changes, but it's just pure chaos to someone who has no idea who to look at or what to follow. And yeah, it's a battle, so it's supposed to be chaotic, but the reader needs some guidance.

Dialogue. I already mentioned putting quotation marks around every bit of dialogue, including spells, and using names to clarify who is speaking and who they're speaking too, but punctuation can really pump this up for you. Periods are calm. These people are fighting a battle, and they're not calm. Throw some exclamation marks in there for emphasis. Not multiple exclamations in a row (!!!). Just one (!). If you don't use them often, one is enough. And use some dialogue tags. Those tell the reader how a person is speaking, so we know if Dumbledore is yelling angrily, or Grindelwald is laughing maniacally. Again, not huge, lengthy details, but just a few words here or there.

There are some wording issues as well, often with prepositions, and my best advice here is to use an editing tool to help you clean that up. An editing tool would also point out any punctuation issues with dialogue.

But this is quite a way to start a story. I think everything I talked about would help with this, but I'd like more Celina. You start with her, and you end with her, and there are bits about her throughout, but it's like I'm seeing her out of the corner of my eye. I want a better view. She's the main character; she's a child who can fight on even footing with Aurors. Girl needs more screen time! And I can't even imagine how her attending school at Hogwarts will go, but I expect action and plenty of conflict between her and Dumbledore. And everybody else. It's hard to imagine a kid like that fitting in well with other students. You've definitely set the stage for a very interesting story here. 

*****

Rubric:
- Title: 10
- Book cover: 10
- Summary: 10
- Descriptiveness: 10
- Reader engagement: 10
- Plot uniqueness: 10
- Character development: 10
- Creativity: 10
- Writing style: 10
- Grammar/punctuation: 10
Total: 100

*****

Round 2: 53/100

Title: 9/10
See round one feedback.

Book cover: 2/10
See round one feedback.

Summary: 7/10
See round one feedback.

Descriptiveness: 2/10
It's very bare-bones. I don't know what Celina looks like, nor anybody else. There's no physical description. And there's very little description of the environment. To really get the reader into the story, you need to paint a picture for them. They need to see what you see. And not just sight. Smell, sound; all the senses are important here. Celina's not wearing normal school robes. What is she wearing? What does it look like? I know her shoulder and the tattoo are exposed, but what does the tattoo look like? What do the robes the other students are wearing look like? How does the food smell? You don't need to describe everything, but adding in details helps to ground the reader in your story.

Reader engagement: 2/10
This really goes back to the descriptions, and it ties into the rest of the points here as well. To get the reader invested in your story, you need to give them something to hold onto. That's descriptions to immerse them in your world, character development to forge a connection readers can relate to, dialogue that's easy to follow, depicting a character's emotions and thoughts - all these things grab a reader's interest and pull them into the story.

Plot uniqueness: 10/10
This is 100% unique. Grindelwald's granddaughter, a girl who could fight toe-to-toe with Aurors in a magical battle when she was ten years old, a girl who spent the last two years locked up in Azkaban for her crimes, gets bailed out by Dumbledore and sent to Hogwarts. This is not something that's been done before, not to my knowledge, anyway.

Character development: 2/10
This is really because I can't connect to Celina. She's a very flat character, but there's so much room to grow here. Play up her emotions. Don't just say she feels pain from being separated from her family; show it. Play up character interactions. Describe facial expressions. Show the fear that follows her everywhere. This is a unique girl, and she can easily become a very interesting character that reader's want more of.

Creativity: 10/10
This goes back to plot uniqueness, really. Celina is an exceptional character, and I can tell the story you have in mind is an exceptional story. It just needs a little work to get that out in text form.

Writing style: 5/10
This is basically a summary of everything else, but this is very flat right now. The characters and the world are distant, like we're watching them through a telescope a long way away, and we're just doing that because there's a commercial on the TV that's interrupting our favorite program. It's not a bad style, and it is possible to have that detached voice and still get the readers invested in the characters and immersed in the world. I think working on descriptions is your key here. Make it so this is the thing we want to see, not that TV show.

Grammar/punctuation: 4/10
Same stuff I've noted before. Punctuation, word choice, POV - chapter two in particular is confusing that way. It's written in third person, but there are occasional breaks into first person from Celina's POV. Stick with third person there. And the dialogue is hard to follow, because there are no dialogue tags telling the reader who is speaking and how they're saying whatever they're saying. The conversations in chapter two really demonstrate this. Unless a character uses another character's name in dialogue, there is little to no indication of who is speaking. This is another area you can insert description, too, because along with naming the speaker, you can say what tone of voice they're using, or what gesture they're making. That would really bring the reader into the conversation.