Title: Anamnesis

Author: Malak--

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

I've decided not to score the summary because you've chosen not to go with a traditional summary, which is totally fine. In fact, it has a lot of intriguing elements and raises a lot of questions even without introducing the protagonist, conflicts and stakes. So, well done, nonetheless.

Just be wary: make sure your summary is polished. Beware of the correct usage of contractions, be aware of where you should capitalise your words, and make sure all your sentences end with full-stops. I won't discuss them too much here, because that's all in the next section below! 

Grammar: 2/5

Overall, your grammar definitely needs some work – but don't worry, I'll go through a few of them in detail.

The biggest error I found was throughout your dialogue. If dialogue is followed by a verbal dialogue tag (such as 'he said', 'she whispered', 'she exclaimed' – or anything referring to how the character says the words), there should be a comma before the closing inverted commas. If it's anything else, this comma should be replaced by a period (or a question mark for a question and exclamation mark for an exclamation). For example:

"Sweetheart you were involved in a car accident" my mum explained moving her hand over my shoulder trying to sooth me, but it wasn't "You've been in a coma for the past two months."

In that above example, you are missing punctuation before the closing inverted commas. Secondly, you are also missing commas that make the sentence cohesive. You're missing a fill-stop at the end of a sentence before the next set of dialogue, and you have a run-on sentence. It should be:

"Sweetheart, you were involved in a car accident," my mum explained, moving her hand over my shoulder. If she was trying to soothe me, it wasn't working. "You've been in a coma for the past two months."

Speaking of run-on sentences, you have a lot of them. You also have some words that start with capital letters even if they are not a proper noun or at the start of the sentence. Additionally, you have lots of sentences missing full-stops at the end, and some of your proper nouns are lacking capitalisation. I suggest revising those.

Also, look out for contractions. For example:

"Maybe its meant to be there."

Since you are trying to write the contracted form of 'maybe it is meant to be there', you need an apostrophe to indicate it is a contraction. It should be:

"Maybe it's meant to be there."

Another example:

"Shut up or ill end this shit."

It should be:

"Shut up or I'll end this shit."

Additionally, you need to look out for tenses. Every now and then, you'll fluctuate from past tense to present tense – sometimes within one paragraph. For example:

Leo called and texted, and so did Xander. I like the fact that they care about me.

If we break it down, it looks like:

Leo called and texted... [called/texted = past tense]

I like the fact... [like = present tense]

You need to keep tenses consistent.

And, finally, watch out for homophones such as:

"... pressed hard on the breaks."

Since you were talking about a car brake, it shouldn't be breaks but brakes. 

Characterisation: 2.5/5

There are some great moments of characterisation throughout your story. For example, Chanel's mother's reaction to the amnesia felt very realistic – where she started pointing out the rooms even though Chanel definitely remembered all of that. I also enjoyed Leo's character, and how, even in dire moments, we saw glimpses of sarcasm (I did laugh a little when he said "Why do people like tying me up so much? First my father, now Mia?").

It was interesting to see that not all characters turned out to be who we initially thought them out to be – in particular, Xander and Mia. In all honesty, I suspected Xander wouldn't be nice and that Chanel was the one who broke his heart – simply because of the way he told her about it earlier in the story, and also because it provided a clear solution to the love triangle. The reveal of his rather murderous intentions was quite good – it happened while he was driving the car, where it's too late for Chanel to do much about it.

The issue I found was that I couldn't connect to characters due to the lack of internal monologue. Your story is in first person, and yet, I didn't feel as if I was living and breathing each character. I didn't feel as if I was seeing the scenes with their eyes.

Let's be more specific and look at when Leo first talks about his father to Chanel. We see a lot of dialogue, but it's all just big chunks of it and there isn't any description to make the dialogue carry weight. The lack of description make it feel as if he almost has no expression or emotion as he speaks, which is odd because he's talking about his mother getting sick. It makes the characters feel stoic when they're not supposed to be.

Another example. When Chanel is telling her story to the psychiatrist, she says, "I teared up just remembering the nightmare." To really make us feel her pain, make her see glimpses of it then and there. Make her recall what she saw, and make us feel that panic upon seeing it. Make the reader immersed in her character by fleshing her out. 

Writing Style: 2.5/5

As I mentioned above, the writing didn't feel immersive to me due to the lack of description and internal dialogue. I wish you used setting more to your example! When Chanel is trapped in the car with Xander and she's learning the truth, emphasise how claustrophobic the car must have felt in that moment. In the basement, what does it smell like? What does it feel like? Use literary devices – simile, personification, metaphor – to really amp up the stakes and milk out the tension.

Even in the room with the psychiatrist. There was minimal setting, so it prevented the reader from feeling grounded. Additionally, because it was just dialogue after dialogue after even more dialogue, we don't even get a bit of personality from the psychiatrist – we don't feel anything from him.

Also, be careful of using a lot of words to say something when you can take a more straight-forwards approach. In some instances, I understand that taking a round-a-bout method to describe things adds to the mood, but sometimes, it makes the words lose impact. For example:

Black is all I was seeing until I...

Because it's such an abrupt and terrifying moment, why not simply make it:

Black was all I saw until... 

Plot + Originality: 3.5/5

Overall, you've got a very finely shaped plot – well done! There are some very clever moments of foreshadowing, such as Mia calling Xander 'baby' on the phone – that was a good indication that there was more sinister thoughts happening on her side. We also have some great moments of tension, such as a mother disappearing in thin air (and an aunty being very concerned but very ambiguous about it), and lots of death that keeps happening.

Be wary: don't gloss over death. For the sake of realism, whenever someone dies, make sure the reader feels it. When Chanel finds out about Joel dying, pause the dialogue for a second and really let Chanel think about it – let us feel whatever she is feeling, whether it be grief or confusion or numbness or all of it.

Also, don't be afraid to flesh out your scenes. For example:

After we finished eating, Leo and I took a pretty long walk. We basically spoke about everything; Leo told me about his parents, himself, and moving here with his grandmother.

To make us immerse ourselves into the story and characters, why have that in a single paragraph when you can show us their dialogue and conversation? Why gloss over it when it could be a great moment for the readers to see their relationship developing?

All of that being said, I do love the philosophy your story holds about starting a new life and being tugged by the past, as well as love turning people into monsters. I found it super interesting how the dreams were making her want to remember, and the sudden memory recollections – like when she was being tickled by Leo, only to remember someone hurting her – was absolutely fantastic.

Now, let's talk about the ending. Is the story over? On Wattpad, it says the story is complete, and if so, you've chosen a very odd ending. You've used a cliff-hanger, with us not knowing whether Chanel is dead or alive; we see her run in front of Xander, who is about to get shot by Leo, and we see Paulina and Dane hear the gunshot. But we don't actually know what happened.

Is that how you plan on ending your story? If so, is it because you plan on including a sequel? If that is the way you're ending, I'd consider having an epilogue to tie the plot points together and show the reader what happened – a nice way to finish the story neatly. 

OVERALL SCORE: 10.5/20

Overall, a fascinating story full of twists. Well done! I suggest working on the punctuation within your dialogue, and you should be good to go. I hope this review helps! I'm sorry you didn't get the reviewer you initially requested – El is very busy right now, hence why I'm trying to clear out her list. I hope that's not too much of an issue!