Title: Darkfall

Author: celesteknight0

Reviewer: awesomeSTG

Summary: 5/5

The summary was pretty awesome, if you ask me! The fundamental cores of a good summary are there: the character, their stand or what they are in the world they're living in, the problem at hand, and the stakes. However, (I guess this one is pretty subjective so I didn't subtract anything) I got this particular feeling of not wanting to read it... because, well, the quest to save humanity and teaming up with one of the supposed bad guys? I guess you can say that it's a little common for us fantasy readers. What I suggest is that you clue us in on the unique points of the story. How is it different from everything else? Yes, while everything else under the sun has been done before, there will always be something different in your story, no matter what that is. Show a bit of it to us, make us question, and make us click that read button.

Description: 4/5

This is written pretty well, I must admit! I love how you can already easily grasp each situation properly, and how things just seem to blend in like they were made for each other. I really like the style here, good job!

However, for the entirety of Chapter 1, I felt like I was floating. I forgot the official term, but because there was no clear setting to hold us readers to the ground, it seemed to me like the characters were fighting in an empty white space, with floating fire and mages and a church, and nothing else. I don't know exactly where this story is even taking place, so yes, there's that, too.

Questions popped into my mind while doing this. What could be going on beyond the church? Who sent the mages? Why mages? What about her companion? What other creatures are attacking? It's Irene's POV, so we won't know, but when she's travelling to the village, there should be some sort of setting description to help us ground ourselves into the story. This applies to the rest of the settings, too — probably except that scene in Dimitri's house. That setting was neat and simplistic, and I liked it. 

Grammar: 3/5

As I had said earlier, the description wasn't bad, but then most of the little things here and there that grabbed my nitpicky self was the number of missing commas, spelling errors — and typos, maybe — along with some sentences that just sound awkward when you're reading them. Let me break it down for you!

First and foremost, semicolons. (Noooo!) This topic is also something I'm not that familiar with, since I don't really use them that much. In my own understanding, semicolons are used when two sentences that can stand all by themselves (independent clauses) are heavily intertwined and can be used as one. A common scenario where a semicolon is used is when authors are sick of using 'because,' and 'for.' 

Example:

Kihal lay down on the grass and winced; unlike the stories she had read, the grass felt itchy and uncomfortable.

Also, there were times when incomplete sentences appeared on some parts of the story like this: 

The period here, in my opinion, isn't particularly necessary, but it depends on how you look at it, since there are two options.

First off, you remove the period, replace it with a comma, and turn the G into a lowercase letter, and removing the second 'she,' and replacing with with an 'and.' Then there's the second option, where you retain the period but replace the structure of the second sentence.

Example:

"She groaned after sitting up, and then looked around."

Or:

"Groaning, she sat up and looked around."

Then, there's the past and the present tenses. 

The red underline represents the present verb used, while the blue represents the past. The purple one is something I'll discuss after the past-present part.

There are only very minor cases of these in your book, so you don't have to worry. You see, when writing a story — minus the flashback scene — an author has to choose first what kind of tense they want to roll with. Seeing that most of your narration is in the past tense, I'll just assume that you're going to continue on with that, which is completely fine! The fix is to just change grit to gritted, and then you're done. 

[ray_of_sunshine9 here to intervene yet again. The past tense of 'grit' can be both 'gritted' or 'grit', so don't worry. The blue and red lines can be ignored.]

The purple underline, however, is something I've seen repeatedly. This structure is the opposite of the image before this. The words I've underlined purple have the possibility to be able to stand on their own if you let them, because at this rate they're just sticking out the sentence. But then again, this will depend on how you look at it. This can be converted into: 

Example: 

"... as she landed, quickly standing up to shoot again."

Or: 

"... as she landed [here you can add some descriptions, like the ground/floor or her assessing what's going on around her for a brief moment]. Then, Irene stood up, aiming to shoot again."

(I personally prefer the second one because it will help tie up the groundwork for the place's settings.)

Anywho, these are the main things you'll need to polish up in your story. Hope this helps!

Characterisation: 3/5

Okay, let's start off with the main character, Irene! A strong, empowered woman. I really liked how you started off with her character, giving me hints that she's this quiet, reserved gal who is serious about the work that she does and how she's going to achieve it. This clearly shows whenever you depict her thinking of ways to pull things off.

However, I found a little — just a little — inconsistency about her that made me wanna raise a question.

The style of your writing is an omnipotent third person, which means we can delve into each of the character's minds and at the same time, know something that they don't, like the appearance of your villain. However, I think this also makes it a little harder to connect to the main character, who is Irene. I even feel like I know more about Dimitri than I know her. Also, I don't trust Dimitri. How could she be so trusting? While it wasn't stated that she trusted him right away, it also wasn't stated that she didn't. A little confusing? Lemme explain.

Ever since the beginning of their journey, Dimitri and Irene had been together, but with less conversation. We readers don't even know what Irene's goals or plans are, which makes it harder to connect. Dimitri, on the other hand, already stated his goals and why he wants to stop the other dark beings from ruling over humans. There's a loophole in Dimitri's story, but we'll get to that later.

Irene has been reserved, which is good, because that totally matches her character. But, the thing about a character's personality is that it usually stems from their past, their backstory. I know you probably already have one in mind, but in my opinion, it doesn't hurt to add context clues to help the reader figure out what kind of life she's led before this story took place. Her backstory will help justify her actions, on why she's decided to do this, or do that. Then, there's also her hair. I don't know why it's been hinted that it's particularly different but nothing else has been said about it afterwards. No explanation. I understand that the chapters aren't that long yet, but hopefully you won't forget to include this fact in the future updates!

Dimitri, too, to help us understand why he's doing all this. What experiences did he have before? How did it shape him to who he is today? Who was he before Darkfall took place? This isn't necessary along the first act of the story, so that's okay. It usually depends on the occurrences that will happen along your story. I'm really intrigued by him, so there's that, haha. Good job in making him a charming, mysterious type of character!

Plot: 3/5

In these parts, I have minor problems. I don't really think this ought to be a big one, but I'm having issues with your villain. Yes, this is supposed to be in the characterization section, and yes, the villain isn't directly involved yet. However, from the experiences I had with reading about villains and writing about one (we basically have the same villain type, the "big boss" kind with lots of underlings and strings to pull), and I found the early revelation of the dark lord kinda disconcerting.

We humans have a natural fear. However, in books, it is much harder to invoke that fear into us, the readers, since if we spot something fearful along the scene we can just yeet outta there and close the book. There. Problem solved.

The best kind of fear you need us to feel is that urge to be afraid for the main character. The urge to want to stop reading but you can't because if you did, you'll never know whether the character lived or died! Why am I tying up the evocation of fear with the boss, you say? Well, it's because those two elements are heavily intertwined. 

Your villain must be able to evoke fear into not just the main character but into us readers as well. What's one thing we fear the most? The unknown. That's why there's a good reason most villains are hidden until they come out for good reasons. This trope is popular, yes, but that's because it works. Your ragtag group faces an underling which they have a hard time defeating, and then what? There was a villain of much higher stature the entire time? This tells you that shit's about to go down.

Because of the boss's early presence, the tension of that unknown boss literally evaporated, which is a downer. One would think, "oh so that's the villain? Welp, hopefully they survive long enough to meet him, in which they surely will!"

Great examples of these tropes done well is Kronos and Gaia from the Percy Jackson and Heroes of Olympus series. There's also Voldemort, but he just monologues so much it ends up boring. Most of the time they aren't even there, but it's an imminent threat exactly because of their absence. It means they could care less. It means the heroes (or antiheroes?) for that matter aren't that important yet for them to waste time. (Um well, I guess except for Voldemort, but he's got many things to do, too.)

I mean, I didn't say the villain shouldn't have more screen time. It's fine to do so in the much later parts of the story, where we will be able to actively witness them slaughtering someone — or maybe not, if you're a genuinely peaceful person. It all depends on the voice of your villain, because that's what makes them so darn interesting. Timing is everything.

Realism: 4.5/5

You kept me reading until the very end! To be honest, even if the book is still short, I have the tendency to lose interest in a story pretty quickly, and then never get that interest back up again. That's why I'm such a slowpoke. (And nope, that's not the reason why your review was late, haha.)

Yes, I have the attention span of a squirrel.

Anywho, so far you kept the details realistic and on point — or as realistic as a fantasy vampire story can get — and I enjoyed it. My only comment here is about that weapon they will use to fend off the dark barrier, Daybreaker, and Arius. The way he talks and moves doesn't seem realistic enough to me, probably because I'm still not grounded by the setting, or because I don't know him that much yet. Like I said before, the characters seem to be floating on air. I don't know when you'll begin your worldbuilding yet, but I'm curious as to what this story has to offer! So far, vampires are hot. Hopefully the werewolves aren't, too. Bleargh.

OVERALL SCORE: 22.5/30

Thanks for choosing me to be your reviewer! I am truly honoured. Sorry if this came out much later than expected, 'cause school is pretty much bullying me again right now. If you have anything to discuss or comment about the review, then go right ahead! I hope you found my pointers helpful. Keep writing!