Title: Runaway

Author: Degal_Heartfang

Reviewer: Marykhah77

Summary: 4/5

The summary started off very strong. It gave me all the key points, and you summed up the story with very minimal sentences without giving us too little detail. 

The only problem I had concerned the stakes. What would've happened to Annabelle if it didn't happen differently? Give us a bit more detail, but don't overload us. 

Grammar + Punctuation: 2/5

I'll say this right now: your dialogue needed some work. But don't worry—we'll cover that here!

First, let's discuss what verbal tags are. These phrases come before or after a quoted phrase. They tell the reader how a character said something. For example: he said, she whispered, they murmured softly.  

Here's an example from your passage that you used incorrectly: 

Jigsaw rolled his eyes, "You're not so tall yourself, missy."

Here, you put a comma after eyes, but it wasn't correct. That phrase wasn't a verbal tag, so you shouldn't have a comma.

Jigsaw rolled his eyes. "You're not so tall yourself, missy."

That above is the correct way to write it.

I also noticed that you didn't start a new paragraph when a new hat acted was speaking. When there is a conversation, you have to make a separate paragraph, not add a comma in between. Like this example: 

The girl snickered, "What kind of name is Jigsaw?" , "My original name was Billy..."

That above passage from your book was incorrect. Correct it to:

The girl snickered, "What kind of name is Jigsaw?"

"My original name was Billy..."

If there were any other mistakes, they were addressed by the comments. And you answered them politely.

Also, avoid using exclamation points and questions marks at the same time. Stick to whichever fits best so it doesn't look informal. If you're having a text-message conversation, it's fine to have that. But to write like that just seemed a bit informal and sloppy. Choose who her fits best.

Plot Development: 3.5/5

I'm a very big fan of horror. Though, I haven't gotten into the Annabelle franchise—that's because I feel like over-hyped. However, I do like that your chapters were short; it added suspense and kept the reader reading to find out your plot. Great job!

But, in the first chapter, you dived right into the action. I was a bit shocked that everything happened very quickly; I myself am a big fan of plots that start right away. 

In the first chapter, Annabelle was already on the run. I liked that it was a mystery from what she was running away from, but you answered the question too quickly. Keep the readers wondering what she was running from. 

Horror tends to move pretty quickly to keep the suspense up, and I think you executed that perfectly. The chapters were just the right length to keep me wondering what happened.

Character Development: 3.5/5

I loved the internal dialogue between Annabelle and her doll form (I'm sorry if that wasn't what it was—I'm new to all this). How she constantly told herself that she could take all of them down kept me worried and suspended.

I wish we had more depth concerning the other characters. They all seemed bland and uninteresting. Perhaps add more backstory to them.

Also, I don't know if this was just me, but I didn't really feel invested to Annabelle. I didn't care about her situation enough; I think it had to do with starting the plot off way too early. Readers should feel for characters, so write a backstory with them. With all of them.

Characterisation: 3/5

I'll start this off right away. The characters were way too similar. Their personalities and thought-process shouldn't be that alike.

Since you have such a large cast, you have to make the characters different. Otherwise, a reader can get very confused. Sometimes, I got confused—that's not good.

Make them have different personalities. In fact, make them break tropes. Branch into new personalities and thoughts. Your book will be that much more unique if you do that.

OVERALL SCORE: 16/25

Overall, a refreshing concept. You had moments when you kept me on the edge of my seat. Just fix up your punctuation and tweak the characters a bit, and you should be good to go!

If you have any questions, please PM me at Marykhah77.