Congratulations to the winners!

There will be three placement winners and two honorable mentions, so five overall winners.

If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know, though I am not tolerating disrespect or hate.

Please read your review all the way through before asking questions since I sometimes take a while to explain, so your question may be answered by the time I finish up the review.

I'm going offline for a bit after publishing this chapter, though I will be back later to answer any questions you have!

Next: I am working on best trope and best chemistry.

Don't worry, I already started best chemistry, and even did a bit of best duo, too. I'm pretty much doing all the remaining categories, though trope and chemistry are the direct next ones.

Now that the contest is almost complete, I am no longer allowing backouts.

Only four categories left!

3rd Place

A Bead in the Lost Woods by jobless_for_Bangtan

Review:

Like I've mentioned to you in the past, I really like the fact that this Y/n is an archeological student since it takes the Y/n character, someone who's been used for more cliches than I can count, and puts a unique spin on her I don't think I've seen before. Since I read your story for the first time a while ago, I haven't seen another Y/n like this one, and I appreciate that since it massively impacts the worldbuilding. She's using her knowledge to explain things to the audience, and it's also the entire reason the plot happens, so that's one thing I appreciated about the worldbuilding in this story: how unique the Y/n is and how that jumpstarts the plot.

Another thing I really liked was how you used pictures but didn't let them carry the description. You also described what was going on and how places looked without over-relying on the pictures, which was great! Like in chapter eight when you described the ancient site and also showed a picture to have them work together to create a cool scene. I thought that was a great choice that made me more invested in the writing!

The last thing I'll mention before moving to my critique is I like the blend of the modern with the ancient and how we're able to see both sides without it feeling forced or over-the-top. You keep it down-to-earth so readers can understand what's happening, but also pretty enough that we're seeing a whole new world, in a way. So I think you did an overall good job presenting your concept via the characters and the descriptions, and the blend between the ancient and modern is great.

The only critique I have is kind of like a double critique. Sometimes some of the writing choices were a bit confusing, and the semicolon placement was incorrect at times, making for some confusing moments as well. Here's an example from chapter 5:

*Rustling of bushes*

Her head pierced in the direction of the voices from behind the bushes and a wave of nervousness washed over her body. She quickly started heading backwards and lifted her foot; only to hold it in its place.

I was a little confused by the choice to put *rustling of bushes* in ** like that, since I don't think you do that later or earlier in the book, so this moment stood out to me as a bit random, if that makes sense. The second thing being that the semicolon in the description is placed incorrectly, and I would recommend a comma instead since semicolons can overcomplicate sentences and hurt the flow of your descriptions.

Overall, A Bead in the Lost Woods does a great job with its concepts and blending the modern with the ancient to form one interesting world that readers will enjoy. I had a minor critique about some writing choices and semicolons, but I otherwise overall thought it was a cool worldbuilding experience.

2nd Place

Wish A Miracle by -saffronjo

Review:

I'm typically not someone who enjoys period pieces since they tend to be boring for me, but this one was pretty dang interesting with the whole concept around Mira's curse and how she deals with it on a day-to-day basis. It was cool to see the way you went about her sickness with the coughing and blood, making it more unique than the average curse I see in stories. I also like the play on words with the title being Wish A Miracle and the main character's name being Mira, which is extremely close to it. That doesn't have anything to do with the worldbuilding, but I like pointing out things I like, so I figured I'd mention it.

(I'm struggling to contain myself and not bark over the fact that Mira is a redhead, so if I seem disoriented throughout this review, it's because I'm thinking of the red hair... for context, I'm a redhead, too, so I am immediately biased toward fellow redheads 😍😍😍😍😍)

But anywho, moving back into the story, I liked how everyone's professions felt real and impactful. Most notably, Yeonjun being a physician leads to plot points and strong character traits that align with his career choice, so those aspects of the worldbuilding are consistent and interesting to read about.

Another thing I enjoyed was the overall atmosphere and how you chose to make this your own spin on Korea during that time instead of following history beat-by-beat. It's fiction, after all, so I always encourage people to explore! I studied Korean history both in terms of its literature during the 20th century and it's overall history from the Three Kingdoms to now, so I'll admit I'm a Korean history nut, though despite me tweaking at the thought of sharing weird Korean history facts, I still really enjoyed the choice to stray away from that and make your own thing, making this story more unique, and you also did it in a respectful way, which is something I appreciate.

The last thing I'll say before moving on is I enjoyed many of the descriptions throughout. While the ones I enjoyed a lot were the emotions, especially that of Mira's, which don't really relate to the worldbuilding, I still thought the physical descriptions of the environment were mostly good, aside from one thing I'll mention below. But all in all, I thought they did a good job sucking the reader in.

The main critique I have may sound silly, but it's actually pretty important, in my opinion: semicolons. Be careful with overusing them since you have times you overuse them a lot, and beyond that, use them incorrectly, making for sentences feeling awkward and hurting the flow of the descriptions, especially during chapter 3, the first chapter we get a major glimpse at the outside world. Both semicolons you use in the paragraph starting with "The trunks of trees are uprooted..." are used incorrectly, making the sentences awkward. Since that's a major worldbuilding moment, it did pull me out of the text a bit.

For example: There's a tinge of smoke lingering in the air; coming from the chimneys of the ashen houses. I have two critiques. One, like I said before, the semicolon is wrong here. You very rarely, if ever, use semicolons before -ing verbs. The second critique is you can easily eliminate the "There's" here since you use it quite a few times (like in the sentence directly after this one), and I think you can downsize. For example, consider: A tinge of smoke lingers in the air, coming from the chimneys of the ashen houses. It's a small change, but it downsizes the sentence and helps it flow more naturally, in my opinion.

The next sentence is this: There's no flowers in the gardens as far as my eyes can travel; only black moths feasting on dead butterflies on soil. What I'd recommend: There are no flowers in the gardens as far as my eyes can travel, only black moths feasting on dead butterflies on the soil. That's an alternative that's the closest to your original sentence, but a more out-there alternative would be: No flowers bless the shattered gardens, only black moths devouring dead butterflies on the soil. It's a more out-there alternative that may or may not work for the scene depending on what you want to do with it, but I'm mostly including it so you can see different ways to take the sentence. I didn't feel the "as far as my eyes can travel" was necessary and felt like filler in the sentence, so that's why I removed it from that second alternative. I only bring the alternative up to help show ways to remove the word there's. Not that it's a bad word or one to avoid, though it could lead to awkward agreement issues or awkward sentences depending on how it's used, so that's why I suggest playing around with it!

Overall, Wish A Miracle effectively conveys a new world set in 1930s Korea, featuring cool elements like unique professions that impact the plot/world, interesting descriptions, and awesome concepts that keep the story moving. I had a critique for how some of the descriptions were presented, but otherwise enjoyed the worldbuilding.

1st Place

Hell's Hottest Delivery by HennyKugz

Review:

You're in your slay era.

This is a very interesting story. Perhaps that's too simple of a way to say it, but I really don't know how else to describe it, and sometimes simple is better than trying to be all fancy, especially when my reviews are meant to be casual. I was immediately hooked in by the cool title, stylistic cover, and interesting blurb, but that intrigue remained when I first clicked on the book and got to experience the fun and vibrance the story has, matched with awesome gif banners and dividers that make the whole thing look super aesthetically pleasing. While that doesn't have much, if anything, to do with the worldbuilding, I still want to appreciate the areas that I liked, even if it's unrelated, so let's move a little more into the world itself.

The writing style is so much fun, and you really hooked us on the story with so much creativity. It makes the world fun to learn about and immediately immerses us in the moment. The premise of this story is immediately cool: a half-human half-demon makes deliveries between the human world and the underworld, but ends up getting trapped in Hell. Um, hello, do I need to explain why that premise is cool? No, I don't think I do, I think we can feel the slay just oozing off of it. The whole concept of demons and half-demons is handled really well and presented in a way that's not overwhelming but also not spoonfed to us, so we have room to make our own theories and see the demon world ourselves instead of having you just tell us everything.

The descriptions are good of both the characters and the world, focusing on smaller details like chapped lips or the smell of bleach. You implement the five senses well to create a well-rounded descriptive experience without overdoing it or ever risking purple prose. So you nailed the concept and descriptions, and gave us an awesome worldbuilding experience.

Honestly, this is something I'd probably read in my free time. It's so stylistic and experiments a lot, incorporating humor without overdoing or forcing it, and it has fun just dripping from it. You'd have to try to not have a good time while reading this.

In summary: I fear you ate.

In terms of critiques, I really don't got much, especially when it comes to worldbuilding. I only have two minor critiques that there are some editing errors throughout that can be a little confusing at times. By editing errors, I mean errors I'm guessing slipped by in the editing process, so they're minor, inconsistent errors, but still noticeable. Like in chapter 8, there's this: He cocked a brow and looked my way with a curious "What do you...". See how the "curious" part immediately jumps into the dialogue without finishing that sentence first? That's what I mean by editing errors: small errors that aren't big deals, but are still noticeable.

As for the second, this is also minor, but there were times you'd use a lot of introductory clauses to start paragraphs, like 3 or 4 in close proximity to each other, if not more, and sometimes even within the paragraphs themselves you'd use quite a few in close proximity to one another. Again, not a big deal, but it can make sentence structure a bit repetitive at times if overused, if that makes sense. Still, neither of those things impact the world much aside from flow and maybe some comprehension of the world, so it's not a big deal.

Overall, Hell's Hottest Delivery delivers (pun intended) on an interesting concept with so much entertainment value present with memorable lines and plot elements. I think this is a great story both from a worldbuilding perspective and just a general story perspective, and I can't wait to read it again in the near future!

Honorable Mention

Blank Slates by DragonRose25

Review:

Right from the start, I was intrigued. I'll just be transparent about this: I love dystopian novels. I will eat them up for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, so this book is something I would read in my free time and not just for a review, which immediately made me giddy. So I acknowledge I am biased about the dystopian part of it, but I still think that you did a good job with the dystopian world.

At first, I thought the characters (namely 101505B) were robots. Like, actually. Mostly because of 101505B's appearance and the timing made me think they were robots or there were robotic elements, but they're humans! And I'm mentioning that because I think that's a good thing: the entire point of the book is to make the humans robot-like with no mistakes, perfect posture, no complaints, etc. So the fact that I immediately thought they were robots was great, and also an important part of worldbuilding since I'm talking about the first impression of the world, which is crucial for hooking your readers in.

But anywho, moving away from that, I think the dystopian world itself is really interesting and unique from the others I've seen, and I've seen a lot. You do a good job building tension by using the world we don't know yet against us, like generating mystery surrounding Room 126 without immediately telling us what it is. You don't exposition dump us with exactly what that is and instead allow us to feel the tension and mystery as we wonder what it could possibly be, which I think was awesome! I liked how you focused on the emotional toll it was taking on the entire class, not just our main character, and made it so impactful. That immediately sucked me in, so you did a great job with that.

The last thing I'll mention for this part of the review is I like how you don't shy away from the brutality within this world. You do a good job showing the fear and the way the characters have to hide it to avoid punishment. I'd say their struggles to hide their true emotions are some of the most interesting and impactful parts of the novel, so yet again, you did a great job!

I only have a handful of critiques. As I always like to do with my reviews, I'll start on the smaller scale and then move up.

This is a really tiny thing and more of a nitpick, but it's still something I feel is worth mentioning: I didn't think the *Time Skip* in the beginning of chapter 1 was necessary, and it pulled me out of the narrative. I say this because of two reasons. One, if you're going to do a time skip, instead of having just *Time Skip*, I'd recommend being more specific so it's less immersion-breaking. You say it's a 19-year time skip in the comments, so consider putting that instead of just time skip since the words "time skip" are pretty vague and don't tell us much. Consider this:

19 years later

Or you don't need the time skip at all. So that leads me to my second reason: we know there's a time skip. Readers already know prologues are meant to take place in the past, so the *time skip* part was unnecessary, in my opinion, or at least unnecessary in that way. That's why I suggest either not having it or being specific about it since the *time skip* is rather vague and distracting. Like I said, it's not a big deal, but still something worth mentioning since it did pull me out of the narrative a bit.

That was just a small critique, but the larger critique I have is consider slowing down a bit in that beginning scene and incorporating more description of the environment rather than just the actions and dialogue. Since this is our first look at the world, I'd suggest giving us more descriptions of what it looks like. What does their room look like? Maybe I'm just too RAAAH RAAAH USA (American), but I was surprised when it seemed like they had a bathroom directly in their dorm room since I've never seen that, but that's not a problem if that's the case and I think it works if described, it was just a little vague about where the bathroom is, the geography of the room, what the bathroom looks like, what the beds look like, what the room itself looks like, etc. I feel this is your first chance to really show the terror of this world. You started strong with that opening sentence giving us a feeling of annoyance (in a good way) when the alarm went off and made a horrid sound, so consider expanding on that by including a little bit more description-wise about the dorm, the bathroom, the classroom (since there wasn't much description there, either), etc.

There also were some areas where some characters weren't described as clearly as they could have been, which could be beneficial, though I can definitely understand wanting to omit some of that to make them all feel the same, but maybe just some general descriptions, like if you're going for they always look perfect, you can make some more general descriptions about their posture or their skin or their eyes lacking bags, etc., or on the opposite end, if you want them to look a mess, you can do that, too. For example, the Warden gets awesome description, and I loved how you described him! So all I recommend is considering extending that to other characters earlier in the book, like 101505B doesn't get much, if any, description in those beginning segments despite being one of only two characters in the scene. I hope that makes sense!

Overall, the dystopian world here is really cool and features many interesting things I think will get readers invested in the narrative. It does a great job building tension and mystery surrounding worldbuilding elements without relying on exposition dumps, giving the reader time to think for themselves and make their own theories before the answers are revealed. I had a couple of critiques, but the overall worldbuilding was cool!

Honorable Mention

Rhyshannon Chronicles | Book One: A Path of Swords by Aravis-Brightspell

Review:

The world throughout Rhyshannon Chronicles is overall good. The world is described well with interesting set pieces, and it's topped off by an interesting concept for said world that is very unique and unlike what I've seen before. I've always thought your worlds were good, so this comes as no surprise to see yet another solid world on the list here.

Like I said, the descriptions are overall good. While I'm personally not a fan of all caps, I can appreciate that the usage here was actually for something specific in the narrative and served a clear purpose. Regardless of reason, all caps still hurts my eyes and slows reader reading speed, so I can't say I enjoyed them per se, but I still appreciated them and this is one of the very rare instances where having a lot of all caps is not going to impact placement or take any mental points off, so good job there. I mean, you created a whole language for this book, giving major Dune vibes, so I also appreciate that a lot. At the same time, it didn't feel like you were trying too hard to be different or too advanced with it, which is a common problem I notice (particularly with purple prose writers), so that's yet another thing I appreciated.

The last thing I'll mention is what I touched upon in the intro paragraph: concept. Like I said before, I got major Dune vibes in terms of the unique language and creatures that made this book feel very fresh, especially when compared to the catalogue Wattpad offers in terms of its sci-fi (trust me, as an Ambassador working with the Science-Fiction profile, I know exactly what kind of sci-fi the majority of Wattpad offers, and it is not this...). You do a good job making this book feel creative, and genuinely creative. It's one of the most unique worlds I've read.

When it comes to critiques, they're really just some personal things that personally didn't attract me or even sometimes brought me out of the moment, though keep in mind every writer and reader has their own style, so take everything I say with a healthy grain of salt since my style is very different, same with my reading style.

That being said, the first thing I personally didn't care for was using : as a way to indicate the mind speak. To me, colons aren't ever used for a purpose like that, and I felt quotation marks and the dialogue in italics works just fine. The dialogue is already in italics, so that's why the colons had moments where they felt a little much and also, to put it frankly, unnecessary. When we already have an indicator for the mind speak (italics), there's no need to have a second one, especially a punctuation mark meant for a completely different purpose. There were many times where this mind speak happened and I saw the : at the end and thought you were introducing a list or something similar since that's the main thing colons are used for, so it did get confusing at times. For me personally, it also made it harder to identify what was and wasn't dialogue since sometimes the colons blended in with the text as opposed to clear " that indicate starts and stops for speech. I'm all for experimentation, and you clearly did a lot of effective experimentation here, though this moment of experimentation didn't hit for me. Like I said, though, every writer has a different style, so that's just my perspective on it. I just felt that since colons are used for very specific purposes, not to mention the italics were already indicators of the mind speak, the colons felt unneeded and distracting, though again, it's all a matter of style and perspective.

Another thing that's more of a personal thing is that while I do enjoy the overall descriptions, there were moments it felt you were doing a little too much with them, especially during intense scenes, like fight scenes. In chapter 4, there's the line "It backhanded him contemptuously, claws mercifully retracted, throwing him against the wall, and his head reeled from the blow." The main thing here is the "contemptuously" feels like it hurts the flow and is a forced-in adverb. I recommend being mindful of using adverbs, especially when the physical actions and sensory details can do the work to show the intended tone or emotion within the scene without needing to resort to adverbs. Consider: "With a contemptuous backhand, it threw him against the wall, his head reeling from the blow." Or simply: "It backhanded him, claws mercifully retracted, throwing him against the wall. His head reeled from the blow." However, those are two random examples I pulled out of a hat, so I'm not saying they're perfect or what will work for the scene, they're more there so you can see potential ways the sentence can be written without needing the contemptuously. I encourage you to play around with the sentence and find what works for you!

Overall, the worldbuilding is pretty solid and does a good job immersing the reader in what's going on. You do a good job making us feel part of the narrative with an interesting concept and cool scenes showing those concepts. There were a couple of critiques I had, but I overall thought you did well.

ALL REVIEWS:

The Story of The Throne by KhaliqahAzima

Review:

The Story of the Throne is broken into parts and contains many cultural elements that make it interesting to read. What I like most about it is the concept and how the kingdoms work. The rankings here with the crown prince and the other royal members of the families make it even more interesting to read about, always giving us diverse concepts that keep us on our toes and keep us engaged while reading since we want to see more of these intriguing ideas.

I liked Ojaswini and how she impacted the plot, often having dialogue that felt very separate from the rest of them, making her more unique as a result. That may not seem like it relates to the world, but I honestly think it's deeply connected because she manipulates the world around her and is the avenue through which the audience gets to see more of the world and its exposition, so it's important to get her right, and I think you did. You made her intriguing to read about, which made the world more engaging as a result.

The last thing I'll mention before moving into the suggestions section is I like how the characters address one another and how the honorifics are handled throughout the narrative. It's a small thing, but it adds a lot of layers to the world to see the different ranks interacting, and you can tell a lot about a character depending on how they address another person. I think it's an incredibly interesting system you have here within the royal families, and I appreciated reading about it, so overall, good job with that!

The main critique I have is consider slowing down in the beginning of the story. For someone more familiar with the culture, they may catch on quicker, but even then, it's still very fast-paced and mostly dialogue. For someone like me who's unfamiliar with the cultural terms and aspects, it was impossible to understand what was going on, and I imagine still difficult even for those familiar because it was primarily dialogue and not many chances to breathe. What I mean by this is we don't know what the courtroom looks like. We don't know what the characters look like (yes, there were pictures in the characters chapter, but we need descriptions since it's hard to remember that many pictures, especially when we also went through a glossary full of information right before the character pictures) during that scene either, so consider slowing down and giving us more breaks between the exposition-heavy dialogue. It's a lot to take in all at once, so consider having more descriptions of the courtroom to give us better geography of the scene, descriptions of the people so we know more about them, descriptions of the emotions in more detail (much of the emotions are described with more general descriptions, like moments of quiet or smiles and things like that), etc. It's really, really important because this is your first chapter and the audience's first look at the story you're writing. I also say this because this happens throughout the text where sometimes there will be a location but little to no description about said location. When we don't know the location, we're imagining the characters in almost a white void since we don't know where else to put them. That's why I recommend going beyond just the name of a place since saying something like "chamber" or "courtroom" may give a general location, but chambers and courtrooms look different everywhere, and everyone reading your book will have a different mental image of them, so that's why it's important to ground your reader a bit with specific information about the environments you're putting your characters in. Though, I will say there are more character descriptions later, so that's good.

So that's my main suggestion since it's really important to set your readers in the scene and present that exposition in ways that make it easier to understand. You as the writer already know everything as if it's second nature, but the audience only knows what you tell us, and we can get overwhelmed with that much information, which is why I suggest considering including a few short paragraphs here and there, or just more breaks between the exposition-heavy sections of dialogue to give readers the chance to process what they read before they move on to even more information they'll have to process. I hope that makes sense.

Overall, there are many things to like here with cool concepts/ideas that will keep readers interested in your narrative. The world is all in all interesting, with the concepts and how Ojaswini guides the reader through being two major highlights of the book. I had a major critique about description, but I still think this is a good world!

Love Shots by IR3NIC

Review:

For everyone who's reading this, the story I am reviewing in Love Shots is Lone Tear.

Lone Tear features a narrow, more isolated world depicting a sea and characters interacting with said sea, which I believe is the first solid point of this narrative's worldbuilding: how it's limited yet impactful. I don't think anyone will read this story and by the end of it think "But what did the sea have to do with it?" It's obvious; the sea is an omniscient being that oversees (or overseas... please laugh, I'm so funny-) the entire short, making this part of the world very impactful. It was a good decision to narrow the scope and focus on the ocean. I don't mind not knowing much about the world outside it because, to be frank, it doesn't matter to the story you're telling, so I liked the decision to keep the focus on the sea and Taehyung's presence instead of forcing yourself to branch out and provide backstory for every little thing.

Another thing I really enjoyed was the emphasis on the saltiness of the sea. Considering the ending, I just thought it was fitting to talk about the saltiness, not only because it perfectly represents the sea, but also because it feels like it reflects the ending very well. That's a small thing, but I just wanted to point that out since I think it's interesting.

The last thing I'll mention before I move into my critique is the overall blend of the five senses I think works well here. While I do have a critique for the descriptions, I like the concepts behind them and the general path you're trying to take here by having emphasis on smell and sound in particular, but all the five senses get their chances to shine, and I will always appreciate it when an author goes out and uses the five senses since I believe it's a great writing technique.

The only thing I'll say is be careful not to overdo it with descriptions. I wouldn't quite call this purple prose, but it definitely lingers on the line between it, especially since a few descriptions felt a little forced and like you were forcing the complex vocabulary too much. For example: His reverberating brown orbs...". What does that mean? How do eyes reverberate? What is being reverberated in his eyes, since there's nothing there that hints at maybe light or something being reverberated in his irises? Reverberating is a word describing sound or sometimes light/ideas depending on context, almost like a synonym for echo, so that's what I mean when I say sometimes it felt forced. That moment felt like you were trying to have an adjective because you wanted one, not because it was needed, if that makes sense. If there was an ulterior meaning you were going for by using reverberating, it did not come across that way. You may also want to consider downsizing because it can easily give the impression that this is a more ancient-like story, or at least in the far past, since this kind of language is commonly associated with historical books, fantasies, and anything that takes place in the far past. There were quite a few moments where I thought this was taking place in like the 17th or 18th century, not more modern times with cruise ships and yachts. I'm not saying don't use advanced language or dumb down the text a lot, more consider what words you're using and be a little more selective with them, if that makes sense, and being careful not to use advanced words for sake of using them, that way when you are using them, they're more impactful and have stronger syntax. I hope all that makes sense.

Overall, Lone Tear has a more narrow world, where the reader is mostly grounded to this one place instead of seeing a huge city or a country or anything of the sort. Though, maybe you could argue the ocean is its own city, so maybe that's another way to look at it. However, the most important part is that this grounding was very beneficial to the narrative and gave it more weight and intrigue, not to mention the world felt like it was constantly pulling at the plot, themes, and characters, making everything feel like it meshed well. I had one critique about the word choice sometimes giving the wrong impression about the world and becoming distracting from said world, though I otherwise enjoyed it and thought you did good with it.

The Coffee Shop Cupid by Amerlin8608

Review: 

It's a little difficult to judge the world in this book since there is only one official chapter out and a short prologue, so I haven't had much chance to see the world yet, mostly the plot and characters. Still, I will do my best to judge based on what's there.

Before I get into the core review, I just wanted to say I like the title a lot and think it's very cute. It's attractive and will do a good job bringing readers in.

Anywho, into the review about the worldbuilding, I always like to start with what I liked, and what I liked was the very start of the story in chapter 1 with the opening paragraph. I liked how you immediately set the scene and gave us a few of the five senses to catch our attention and establish what's going on without wasting time. Since that's the official start of the story, that's a great thing, and seeing as that's the start of the story, I just thought that was the appropriate place to start the review, haha.

Another thing I enjoyed was the use of crowds throughout the first chapter. Some may think that doesn't have anything to do with worldbuilding, but I'd argue that's an essential part of showing Aryan's daily world and what he has to put up with. That when combined with the constant interruptions of his speech made for an interesting dynamic that I think readers will be very interested in. It was like a back-and-forth cat and mouse game, and I appreciated that.

Lastly, I think there was an overall good balance of exposition and story, giving the necessary details about Aryan's backstory without including unnecessary information. I always say that you have the entire book to give exposition, so try to stick to only what needs to be in the first chapter, and you do that here, which is good. Exposition is a major part of worldbuilding, so to have a good balance between it and story progression is a great sign that the rest of the story is going to have strong intrigue and engagement since you won't be stretching out exposition unnecessarily.

Moving into constructive criticisms, I have a critique that applies to both the blurb and the story itself. The opening line of the blurb is "In the heart of the bustling city, a shy barista harbours a secret mission of revenge against a powerful business empire." What city? Consider being more specific here since the word "city" is so vastly different for everyone. For example, when I see the word "city," I immediately think of New York City. It's just the city I'm so used to, so it's what I think of (it also doesn't help that it's the city of cities). So that's why I suggest being more direct, especially since this is the blurb, and being more direct in a blurb could be beneficial. For example, "In the heart of the bustling city of *insert name here*...". It's the same sentence, only with the name now, so you're being more specific at the cost of 1-4 words (depending on how long the city name is), which is a great benefit for really no cons since 1-4 words is basically nothing and won't clunk up the sentence.

Another reason why this is important is because you do the same in the prologue with the cafe and the city by not including any names for them, so this is a continued issue where the first sentence of the prologue is "The city skyline loomed in the distance, a sprawling metropolis of towering skyscrapers and neon-lit streets." Again, consider including the city name since "city" is very vague and will pop a different image in everyone's minds. For example, I like how, in chapter one, you name ApexForge Technologies right off the bat. It's specific, it's clear, and you make it a known fact as soon as the chapter starts, and I liked that. Names are really important for worldbuilding, and readers like having names for things, so that's why I suggested considering including the name of the city earlier in either the blurb and/or prologue. I'm not sure if you included it in chapter 1, either; I read it specifically searching for a city name but didn't see any, so that's another reason why I suggest adding it since I'm not sure I saw the city had a name.

Overall, The Coffee Shop Cupid has potential to grow into an even more engaging story with thought-provoking characters, plotlines, themes, and worldbuilding elements. It's early on in the book, only one chapter in, but it shows promise to expand as time goes on. I had two quick suggestions about considering being more specific about the location and giving more names to things like you did with ApexForge, though I otherwise think the world is looking like it's going in a good place so far!

In Another's Shoes. by ParkAaimin

Review:

The title already hooked me in since I was curious to see where you would take this kind of concept, and I think you overall did some interesting things here. First, from an aesthetics standpoint, you really nail the concept. The cover picture is awesome, the chapters are not too long or too short, and there are a bunch of other things, like fantastic chapter names, that really make the readers feel immersed in what you're writing, which is awesome, so good job hooking the reader in and making them want to... well, read!

Another thing I'll mention is I like the concept, which is a major part of worldbuilding for a multitude of reasons. The concept here is all about Y/n and her mind, and I think how she interprets the world depending on who she is and what she's thinking is cool to see and makes the narrative more unique as a result. I actually really enjoyed seeing things through her eyes, which is rare for me since Y/n characters are normally hit or miss, but I think you did something really unique with her here, and I hope you do more of that with your Y/ns in the future since you seem to have a knack for it.

The last thing I'll mention before I get to critiques is while I do have a critique for descriptions, I think the overall descriptions are good since they incorporate some of the five senses and let the reader see more of the world. Descriptions are an essential part of worldbuilding, so the fact that you experiment with your descriptions by including the five senses is really cool and something I encourage you to keep doing more of!

I have three critiques. The first thing I'll mention is the smallest thing, and then I'll work my way up. The first thing is there are noticeable and distracting grammar errors throughout. It's not a huge deal for a worldbuilding contest, though since the frequent errors distract from the story and can lose the flow of descriptions (which are important for worldbuilding) at times, it is worth mentioning. There are quite a few, so I will just list a couple of notable grammar errors below:

- Sometimes capitalizing "I," other times lowercasing it as i

- Some end punctuation errors where you'll put a comma instead of a period/full stop at the end of sentences

- Some general comma errors where you're missing commas

- Sometimes you'll use multiple ! or ? in one area, like !! or ??, but I would strongly recommend only using one

I only bring this up since it can distract from the story, as I said before, but it's not a big deal overall, so let's move into some other things.

The next thing is be careful with some repetitive descriptions. Not always, but there were some times you'd use the same description more than once, and especially be careful if you're repeating cliche descriptions. For example, when describing smell, you used *insert smell here* "filled the air" a few times. It's used multiple times in chapter 1 alone. Not only is this description a bit overused for describing smells, but since it's used frequently, it did make the descriptions not as fresh as they could be at times.

The last and most important thing is script format. By that I mean dialogue is written like this:

Soobin: Hi.

Instead of: "Hi," Soobin said.

I only bring this up because you have descriptions and character thoughts akin to a book, but the dialogue is set in script format, making it a hybrid between script and book format. So it's very distracting and often takes away a lot of the emotions and doesn't feel as immersive as it could be. Typically, script format isn't meant for books. While it may be able to work in some circumstances, I don't think it works here and I would recommend using the more standard book format dialogue instead. However, if you want to write a full script, I 100% encourage that and think that's awesome. I'm a film major, so I understand since scripts are fun to write. I would definitely recommend using the free version of Celtx since it formats everything for you so you don't have to worry about formatting errors. I just recommend sticking to one or the other (book or script format, not a hybrid of both), if that makes sense.

Overall, In Another's Shoes. has a lot of intrigue with a cool title, awesome cover picture, and aesthetically pleasing chapter titles that will draw you in, and I think you'll stick around to see more of the identity commentary this book has and how Y/n is torn between herself and Jeon Aaira. I had a few critiques regarding grammar and descriptions, but it's overall an interesting book I think has a lot of intrigue.

I Wish For Another Life by emilypoole977

Review:

I Wish For Another Life has an interesting world in terms of its concept, with Namjoon going on a spiritual journey of self-discovery. It is based off his music, which is another interesting touch to give it another layer. The emotions toward the end of the short were the highlight for me, showing Happiness and how Namjoon embracing all his emotions impacted the other versions/lives of himself. So when it comes to concept, the world has many interesting factors that made it stand out, and it also was directly connected to the main character, which made the world feel more impactful as a result.

Even though this was a very character-driven narrative and not as much world-driven, there were still many aspects of the world to enjoy. I believe your descriptions have improved when it comes to character emotions since the final two chapters had plenty of cool moments where Namjoon looks more inward, and we get a more intimate look at what Namjoon is thinking, which is very helpful for understanding what's going on.

When it comes to descriptions of the world, they're okay, though not as fleshed out as they could be. Many of the locations don't feel as grounded as they could be since sometimes they are barely described, if at all. I don't think you need detailed descriptions for this story about the world since this is character-driven, as I said before, so I'm not recommending adding paragraphs upon paragraphs of environmental descriptions, though consider having just a little bit here and there to reflect character emotion. Some of the most fascinating worlds are worlds that manage to interact with the characters and make it seem like the world itself is a character. What I mean by this is consider having the world reflect your characters, like many cyberpunk stories will have criminals as main characters due to the typical cyberpunk world carrying that aesthetic. For this story, consider having the environment reflect the characters. For example, in chapter 2 when Namjoon gets the phone call, he's sitting on a bench. Consider having a few descriptions here and there to have the world reflect him. Maybe it's raining, maybe there's thunder in the distance signaling rain is about to come, maybe there's a crying kid in the distance, maybe it's just an overall gloomy day. Some of those are more basic ways writers have environments match emotions (like the rain and gloomy day matching sadness), but even something simple like that that'd take only one extra sentence can add more weight to the emotions, if that makes sense. Characters, plot, themes, and world are the four major storytelling elements, so that's why I'm even suggesting more descriptions in the first place because the world can be an essential part to building character, plot, and themes. I hope that makes sense.

Overall, the world is really interesting, especially in terms of its concept with the emotions, basing it off of Namjoon's music, and how Namjoon shifts through multiple lives to come to terms with his inner conflict. I like how it's a character-driven narrative with cool concepts to support said characters. It's all in all a cool world, and this is probably one of my favorites by you. There's been a lot of improvement and intriguing emotions, so good job, and keep up the good work!

This was a runner-up for honorable mention, so I would like to leave some votes on the story to show my appreciation for your hard work.