Title: Big Little Steps

Author: Tifinylulu

Reviewer: GnomeMercy

Summary: [no score - will not be added to final score]

I loved your summary; it's not the authentic Wattpad summary, but it's all there, and it explains that its a short story as well. Since it's not long at all, I can't really correct your grammar, but I certainly love the mysterious feeling! It goes with your actual story and it certainly intrigued me enough to check out your story!

Grammar: 2/5

Overall, your grammar is pretty decent. I can tell you know some of it. However, there were quite a bit of mistakes I found, especially to do with verbal tags.

For example, in the first sentece, it read:

"... and that skull scared the heck out of you. It took me fifteen good minutes to get you to talk again."

Now, usually if you start a sentence with an ellipses, it's usually alright to let it go as it's used as a continuation (sometimes). However, since this is the beginning of your story, I think it would be better if you started it with a capital like so:

"... And that skull scared the heck out of you. It took me fifteen good minutes to get you to talk again."

[though, ray_of_sunshine9 here to pitch in and be a nuisance, while it does look neater to have the very start of a story begin with a capital letter, in this instance, it is still grammatically correct to start the sentence with "... and" instead of "... And" - assuming that the sentence is a continuation]

Another error I found in your grammar was that your verbal tags were slightly off. I'll show you some examples:

"It was the last few ones we ever had," The second speaker replied before taking a sip of his now cold tea.

It should be:

"It was the last few ones we ever had," the second speaker replied before taking a sip of his now cold tea.

See, a comma means its part of a sentence, so that means you don't need to capitalise "the" on "the second speaker". This happens again (twice) towards the end as well. (Once, you capitalised when there a question mark, which is actually incorrect as the question mark makes the dialogue still a part of that sentence.)

Another error, similar to this one due to the fact that it was a verbal tag error, was that you ended the dialogue with a period and full stop. This was actually working, since the next part of the sentence was not a verbal tag. However, you did not capitalise the sentence:

"It was fun while it lasted." she smiled to herself.

It should be:

"It was fun while it lasted." She smiled to herself.

"She smiled to herself" is not a verbal tag as it does not fall under the category of verbal tags (e.g. he said, she retorted, they smiled, she welcomed, he stated and so on). Also, the dialogue ends in a period, indicating it's the end of a sentence and "she smiled to herself" is now a new sentence (this is an error that recurs. Try to see if the next sentence after is a verbal tag -- if so, then get rid of the period at the end of the dialogue -- or if it is just a sentence that just describes what they are doing. I counted about 6 or 7 times. If you read your work, you'll be able to find them).

Another problem I found was that sometimes you would but a comma when there was actually no verbal tag after, and therefore no need for it. Here is an example:

"I thought you were smarter than this," she let out a light chuckle. "I'll never hate you..."

Here it should actually be:

"I thought you were smarter than this." She let out a light chuckle. "I'll never hate you..."

I also saw you do this:

"I just... wanted to let you know." she concluded with a small smile on her face.

It should be:

"I just... wanted to let you know," she concluded with a small smile on her face.

"She concluded" is a verbal tag, hence their should be a comma at the end of that dialogue sentence. Otherwise, your dialogue was alright, it was just these mistakes I found. Some of them are recurring, so be careful. You might need to do a bit more of a careful check to find them!

Lastly, I noticed you used "-" when Brain was cut off from his speech (it was when he said: "No. You don't need to-"). "-" is a hyphen, which means it joins two words together (e.g. blue-eyed). "--" or a long line (which I unfortunately can't do on my computer) is an em dash, which should be used in this case.

Character Building: 5/5

In a short story, character building is extremely complicated, so don't worry. However, I believe you pulled it off very well as I could really feel for these characters, and I believe you developed them very well! I absolutely loved the little bits of flashbacks you added in, it really helped your reader understand what your characters went through, and what they are today.

I can't say much here, because I genuinely love the way you used the limited time you had to flesh out your characters as much as you could, and it worked! I also loved the way you incorporated their names, it was flowy and it fit! I absolutely adored their relationship! Well done! 

Peggie was sassy and hot-tempered. You did tell us that, but it was after you showed us, which I meant I could actually believed it (whoa, she chased Brain with a shot gun, that's kind of crazy)! I didn't get much out of Brian, but I could tell he was nice and cared deeply for her!

Writing Style: 4/5

I think your writing style suits your story. It isn't flowery descriptions and unimportant details, it's straight to the point, yet not too fast-paced and is actually cohesive. I adored this story, the writing style most of all. It's one moment, one scene, but a lot happens, and it's thoroughly enjoyable!

The one problem I did have was when you mentioned Sydney. I didn't have a problem with that in a sense, it was just the fact that you finish that part off, and when you get to Brian and Peggie's breakup, you didn't mention Peggie's name, so I thought it was Sydney and Brian's breakup. I'll show you what I mean:

Sydney never told him what she meant by that last statement, or maybe he didn't want to know what she meant.

The day they went their separate ways was still vivid in his head. She was angry, no doubt there. She was so angry she chased him out of the house with a shot gun she got as a birthday present, from her father...

(I put the comma in bold as it's actually a grammar error and doesn't need to be there.)

Can you see how it's confusing? If you read further, it turns out you were actually talking about Peggie, which isn't really what you made it seem like. I suggest changing it to something like this:

Sydney never told him what she meant by that last statement, or maybe he didn't want to know what she meant.

The day he and Peggie went their separate ways was still vivid in his head. She was angry, no doubt there. She was so angry she chased him out of the house with a shot gun she got as a birthday present from her father...

Something like that, so it makes it clear that he's talking about Peggie and not Sydney and his breakup.

Beautiful writing style, however. I loved how you took your time to flesh things out, which I thoroughly enjoyed! You have great writing skill!

Plot + Originality: 5/5

I loved your plot. Nobody talks about breakups on Wattpad, so I loved the idea of your story. I loved how the ending was still a mystery, and their development was astounding! I loved the way they were going, the pace felt natural and real, and I adored their relationship. Your characters and storyline were absolutely beautiful. I can't say much here because I enjoyed the plot immensely! The fact that it was a short story worked very well as you developed them at just the right pace!

OVERALL SCORE: 16/20

A truly beautiful story, and something that will stick with you. I loved how you didn't talk about the start of a relationship, but the end of one -- and new beginnings. I loved how they didn't end up together again, and it was still a mystery if they ever would. There were some small grammar slip-ups that can be fixed with a quick round of editing! I thoroughly enjoyed reading this story, and I hope this helps!