Review by Sunshine: The Way You Hurt Me
Title: The Way You Hurt Me
Author: Flowerygirl07
Summary: 4/5
So, I like the way you introduce your story! You start by showing us the two protagonists, then you show how their paths cross, and then discuss the stakes. I like that your main conflict isn't them falling in love, but maintaining their love story despite the side-boyfriend and the thugs – that's quite awesome. Overall, structure wise, your summary is pretty fantastic.
I would suggest that you brush it up a bit in terms of grammar and punctuation. For example, you change tense within a single sentence:
She was falling apart with friends... [was = past tense]
... her sister is dying... [is = present tense]
You need to keep it relatively consistent, especially if you're referring to the same aspect of the narrative. Also, try to keep it professional. Write 'because' instead of 'cause', write 'boyfriend and girlfriend' instead of 'bf and bf', and in the following sentence:
Soon Cassie and Evan cross paths when Evan moves to Cassie's school.
It's redundant to say their names twice. It can just be:
Soon, when Evan moves to Cassie's school, their paths cross.
Or:
Their paths cross, though, when Evan moves to Cassie's school.
And, also:
And Cassie doesn't know about the thugs?
That wasn't a question. It doesn't need a question mark.
Once those are polished, you've got a great summary!
Grammar: 2/5
Okay, so getting through your story wasn't too difficult, however, there are a lot of grammar and punctuation errors that need some work. But, don't worry – I'm here to help with some of these errors.
First of all, let's talk about 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:
"Stop! Please" I screamed.
You need to have punctuation before the closing inverted commas. In this case, since she's screaming, it should be:
"Stop! Please!" I screamed.
Since we are discussing dialogue, I'll also add that there was another rule you broke frequently. Whenever more than one character is speaking, each character should have their dialogue in a separate paragraph. For example:
"You're just a bloody monster!" I spat. He put one of his longer fingers on my lips. "You know that your not allowed to swear "he grinned.
So, as discussed before, there needs to be punctuation before the closing inverted commas (and no space between the final word and the inverted commas). Furthermore, since there is more than a single character speaking, their dialogue needs to be in separate paragraphs. It should be:
"You're just a bloody monster!" I spat.
He put one of his longer fingers on my lips. "You know that you're not allowed to swear." He grinned.
You'll notice that I also changed 'your to 'you're'. This is because you were trying to write "you are not allowed to swear", therefore, you need the contraction of "you are", which is "you're".
Speaking of contractions, be careful about where you put the apostrophe in them. For example:
"I would'nt hate you."
It should be:
"I wouldn't hate you."
If it helps, look at which letter is missing. Since the letter 'o' is missing in 'not', that is where the apostrophe should go.
Another thing is to watch out for singular vs plural verbs and nouns. For example:
There was only two people...
You used 'was', which is for singular. However, you described 'two people' – therefore, it should be plural. Consider:
There were only two people...
Again, be careful that you don't mix up the noun and verb form of certain words. For example:
"If you breath a word to the police..."
Breath is the noun. You need to use the verb, which is:
"If you breathe a word to the police..."
As mentioned above in the summary section, your tenses also keep changing from past to present tense. For example:
I sighed. [sighed = past tense]
The gym doors open. [open = present tense]
Finally, there are basic things that need fixing – you have sentences missing full-stops, you're not capitalising proper nouns, you have run-on sentences you have missing quotation marks, and random capitalisation in the middle of sentences. I suggest heavily revising your work.
Characterisation: 2/5
There are some nice things happening here. I do enjoy Cassie's sarcasm and sass – I really did laugh when she made the remark about mirrors breaking to Dawn. It was priceless! And the dark backstories of the two of them make them promising protagonists.
However, the story is in first person, and I'm still not living and breathing the characters. I think the main issue is that you are telling us about the characters by info-dumping their backstories, rather than letting us truly empathise with them. For example:
My girlfriend broke up with me, after my mum died my dad turned alcoholic, and I'm getting beaten up by thugs because one of the thugs thinks I stole his girlfriend.
It could work if Evan was sarcastically rattling it off to the reader, but he wasn't. Instead, it was just an info-dump of his tragic story. If you really want to build your characters and make the reader engage with him, show us this. Show us the beating, show us the fear he would be feeling, show us the ache in his chest as he thinks about his mother.
Same goes with Cassie:
Ever since Steven became my boyfriend, he had been abusing me.
Apart from the incorrect tenses in that sentence, you've just told us what is happening, rather than showing us. It is far more impactful to show the scene and focus on how she is feeling instead.
And, speaking of Cassie and her abusive relationship, it's bothered me from chapter one, to be honest. I know that it's difficult for victims of domestic violence to leave, but usually, it's because they fear letting go and getting hurt more, or they genuinely love the person/think the person loves them. In Cassie's relationship, she doubts he even likes her, and she doesn't seem to hold any affection towards him. In fact, the only thing that seems to be keeping her there is fear, since she says:
If I break up with him, he'll find me and hit me so much more.
But, throughout the rest of the chapters, I don't see that fear. I don't see her worry about how controlling Steven is, and worse yet, when she and Valer almost kiss, she doesn't think about him once. I found this a major inconsistency in her character. While it's great that you're not romanticising an abusive relationship, you need to make sure that it contains realism.
Writing Style: 2/5
As discussed previously, you do a lot of telling, and not enough showing. For example, let's backtrack to our first chapter, where Steven is hurting Cassie. When he does punch her, describe that to us – really bring us into the action. Does pain splinter up her arm? Does it feel like someone has dug thousands of knives into her stomach? And not just those – since it's in first person, you have to show us the pain she would feel in her heart at the thought of her boyfriend hitting her.
Also, there is no setting. I know you've chosen pretty common backdrops – schools, houses. However, to truly make your story immersive, you need to describe the setting in a purposeful manner.
Your writing also seems to be a bit bumpy. You have bits of flashback, but then bring us back into the moment, and there's no clear distinction sometimes. Also, there are a few inconsistencies in the writing. For example:
She took an interest of me when I was goofing around with my friends. I ran to the bathroom. She wasn't there. She turned around.
That chapter, as a whole, confused me, but this paragraph is one that I could not decipher. She wasn't in the bathroom, and yet she turned around? And, I'm guessing the 'goofing around with friends' was referring to something that happened in the past, so you need to make a clear distinction between that and the next bit about running to the bathroom.
Plot + Originality: 2/5
I found it interesting that it didn't follow the cliché, since Evan actually left Cassie to be with the popular kids – nice little twist from the norm, so well done!
I do think, however, that you really need to slow down the pace. A lot is going on – both protagonists are being abused, one has moved schools, one has an alcoholic parent, one learnt that she had an older sister but her younger sister is dying, and there are thugs and a love story, and we've introduced Valer, who seems to be another complication.
While the complexity is fine, it is only chapter eleven, and I still feel like I don't know your protagonists. Plot is important, but the backbone of a story involves immersive writing and engaging characters. I encourage you to keep up the originality, but also try fleshing out each bit of your story more.
OVERALL SCORE: 12/25
Overall, an interesting story that, I'm sure, will break our hearts. Just work on fleshing out your characters, as well as grammar and punctuation, and you should be good to go. I hope this review helps!
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