Editor: Lacy (MissLacybee)

Client: OGSmithson

Work: Creation

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Oh, my God. I just finished the book and am insanely conflicted over the ending. On one hand, YES, Rahanna dumped Alejandro, and on the other, WHAT THE ** JUST HAPPENED??? I was not expecting that. How did she know he was using her? I mean, I hate Alejandro, but still. 

Also, what's all this about her father and mother? I feel like that could have been gone into depth a tiny bit more throughout the book, but without turning it into some kind of sob story. It was certainly a fascinating book. I loved the plotline, although the pacing was a bit dodgy in places - for example, there was very little description and a lot of unnecessary 'walking' and 'driving' scenes. The ending was also a bit rushed, happening extremely fast, while the beginning was a bit too slow. But I enjoyed this, overall :) It counteracts the cliches, which is fantastic!! ...I just realised that I might have left some comments condemning your use of cliches. I can't remember, but I take them back now. 

Right, I should probably get started on the actual 'professional' notes (ie: the harsh bits), instead of celebrating the fall of Alejandro, Charlene and the rest. To be honest, I was kind of shipping Rahanna with Josh. I don't know why, but it would be a cool plot twist to have them get together after the whole Alejandro-fame thing. Anyway, the notes. Here goes... The beginning, as I have mentioned a few times, I think, needs general work. If I was an agent who picked the book up, I would have put it into the slush pile without a second thought, even though the actual plotline/messages in it are right up my street.

Firstly, the first few pages of the book are your one and only opportunity to capture the reader's attention. If they aren't hooked within the first few paragraphs, or even the first sentence, they are much less likely to love your book or your characters. I feel as though the beginning does not fulfil your potential as much as it could do. You need to get your reader to love and care about Rahanna from the get-go, which means you need to start in the middle of the action with something that is going to impact her forever - for example, instead of starting by talking about the Queen, talk about how Rahanna is struggling to find her camera instead. This not only tells us a lot about her personality (she is prone to losing things and likes photography), but it also gives us a reason to root for her. We don't want to be introduced to the Queen in the first paragraph if that's not what the book is to be about. 

Thriller books always start with some kind of drama (Eg: I didn't know I was going to become a killer), while horror books usually start with some kind of attack or story. A similar rule needs to be followed with this book. The first sentence should tell the reader immediately what genre it is and who they need to root for. 

The second thing that put me off is the grammar. Grammatical mistakes should not be something that an editor has to look for. Of course, there's going to be the odd typo here and there, but in theory they should have been weeded out by the author before the book is given to others to read. This is because an editor's job is huge - they have to go through every tiny little detail of the book and make sure it's as perfect as it can be. The more details there are that need correcting, the longer the job will take and the more likely they are to miss out on other things. In other words, they'll have to spend time correcting your use of commas instead of helping you with the actual story.

The third thing is very similar to the second: wordiness. Just like grammar, the readability of each sentence also needs to be looked at. My first thought when I opened the document and read the first couple of pages was, 'What?', closely followed by 'Oh, God, I didn't take in a word of that' and having to go back and read it all again. I felt very guilty for having to do so, considering the fact that I ended up skim-reading a lot the first time and that's lazy. But I did go back and re-read it again a few times before I fully understood what was going on. So these three things were what glared out at me as I was reading the first chapter or so. I'd advise you to go back and re-write the beginning (and also some other bits, but we'll get to that later). 

The rest of the book is good - it's a neat, not too complex plotline based on reality, which helps to address certain issues such as alcoholism, rape, sexual assault, sexism, toxic masculinity and the pitfalls surrounding fame. I like Rahanna's personality - she's sarcastic and smart, and she also is content to wear dresses occasionally. That's a nice touch. Goths are way too overly stereotyped. 

I'm a bit concerned about the 'gay best friend' trope which Edward seems to follow, although Bruno and Edwards are cute (I kind of want to read about their wedding haha). The same goes for Raven as the 'snarky best friend'. She could possibly do with a bit more fleshing out, although I feel kind of bad for her. I hope she and Harry manage to work things out. Alejandro, too, isn't someone I particularly like - he's a bit of a... well, I'm trying to keep this professional, so I won't go into too much detail. He's interesting as a character, but I wouldn't want to meet him. At all. I didn't like him from the beginning and I definitely don't now. Toxic masculinity, surliness and the whole 'I'm sorry I cheated, it was an accident' excuse drives me up the wall. I do actually quite like the stereotypical-ness (is that a word?) of the characters, though. It turns the book into a political statement about other books. I have no idea whether that's what you intended, but I hope it is. It's a nice selling point. 

The main issues with the book are the grammar, the description and the pacing. There were scenes that were dragged out for much longer than was necessary, scenes in which all Rahanna did was drive between places. The grammar is a massive problem, one which I had to stop editing after a while because the work was so slow-going. It's physically impossible for me to correct every little detail when it would mean re-writing most of the sentences. The same goes for the description. There's only so much I can do as an editor, and writing the book for you is not one of them. Basically, the descriptions and the grammar need a lot of work. I'd suggest going through this book yourself another few times, writing additional drafts. As far as I'm aware, this is the second draft, which is fine, but you will need to do a lot more work before publishing. It's not an entirely scary thought, though, because I'm always here to guide you with stuff if you need help. And there are tips I can give you if you want to save money by not seeing a professional editor (who will charge money by the hour and can be pretty ineffective). It's probably best if you do some of the work yourself before hiring a professional. Some things to watch out for:

Dashes Dashes (- or --) are used to indicate a sudden break in someone's speech, an interruption, or to add additional information into a sentence. When used correctly, they look like this: "Oh, God!" cried Timothy. "What am I going to-?" But a crash from behind drowned out his last words. Dolphins - silvery, whale-like creatures with long noses - have been hunted for centuries. The child looked at their hands. "I- I- I'm sorry, miss," they stammered. This, on the other hand, is incorrect: Dolphins- silvery, whale-like creatures with long noses- have been hunted for centuries Annoyingly, it does matter where you put the spaces between the dashes, so watch out for them. 

Ellipses Ellipsis (...) create a pause or a 'trail off', either when someone is speaking or in the text itself. They are not to be used to indicate an interruption. That is what dashes are for. For example, this is incorrect: "Oh, God!" cried Timothy. "What am I going to...?" But a crash from behind drowned out his last words. If you're trying to show an interruption, ellipses is too weak here. You'll need to use a dash instead.

Commas 'But' always needs a comma before it, unless it is used in the following context: He is kind but annoying. 

I don't want to spend hours giving you a grammar lesson because you will definitely find it boring and I want to get back into the more interesting stuff. But there are lots of tips online that can help. I can recommend a few books, too, like 'Have You Eaten Grandma?' and 'Eats, Shoots and Leaves'. 

There are a couple of plot points that I am slightly confused about or feel could be referred to more frequently. Firstly, I'm assuming Sophie Rahanna's mum?? I like the fact that it's not explicitly stated, but I think Sophie should have made a few more efforts to call and a few more hints should be dropped. I've been curious about their relationship for the entire book and I was sad to see that it was never resolved. 

Another thing, this one more minor, is that I've completely forgotten who Natalie is. She seems nice, though, and I hope she has a better time of things with her boyfriend than Rahanna did with Alejandro. 

The incident with Harry also seemed kind of irrelevant. I'm not sure what it really added to the story, except to increase the tension between Rahanna and Raven. Maybe Harry could have shown a tiny bit of interest in her before? I'd like to have seen more of his character. The same goes for Calvin. What happened to him? Oscar is an interesting person that I'd have liked to have seen more of, too. The characters in this book are great, but I want to know more about them. I want to care about them as passionately when I'm reading as I do right now when I'm trying to put myself into your writing shoes. That means adding in more description and choosing your verbs more carefully. Give them defining features - walks, talks, habits, speech inflections, etc. The little things are what makes the biggest difference.

On a completely different note, there were some seriously fantastic little moments in the story, particularly towards the end. Put more of that in the beginning and the book will turn out amazingly. One memorable one was the part where Harry and Rahanna kiss: "It's not an accident, but it's not intentional either" - it's a beautiful line that summerises their feelings perfectly. More of this!! My fingers hurt now, so I'll come back to this in the morning. Sorry for being so harsh! ~ Lacy 

Okay, I'm back with more stuff after thinking about your book all night when I was supposed to be writing... Oh, well. I do genuinely love the ending. We need more books where manipulative, toxic, surly men get their comeuppance after cheating. I almost cried when I thought Rahanna was going to take him back. I realise that some of my comments, while they were what I thought at the time, might not apply to the book now that I've read it. But you might want to use them as a guideline anyway. I tried to be as honest as possible, so you have my first thoughts on everything (especially Alejandro, who I think I ranted about at some point). It would be nice if Rahanna wasn't just a goth, just because every snarky, independent woman I've come across in books has been one, but that's a story for another book, I guess :) You've done a great job on this!

I'm trying to think, was there anything else that I was going to mention? Oh, wait. The Spanish. I'll admit that drove me crazy for most of the book, given the fact that my Spanish is terrible and I got sick of typing everything into Google Translate. It's a general rule with books that, if anything you write needs a glossary/translation to explain it, it shouldn't be there. And while the Spanish is a nice tribute to Alejandro's roots, it's unnecessary. For the majority of the text, I was putting my head in my hands and going, "But why can't they just speak ENGLISH??" 

Speaking of English, there were a few Americanisms in the novel. I'm not sure where you're from, so if it's England, I'm very sorry, but I did notice that phrases like 'I missed him so bad' were being used, where it should have been 'I missed him so badly'. I don't want to repeat anything I've mentioned before, so it might be a good idea to refer back to the comments for the rest of the feedback. They're probably less vague than this is. 

I haven't read this through because I want it to be as honest as possible, so I apologise for any mistakes, nitpicking sessions, etc. You have done a fantastic job and this is is a focus on the negative stuff, I know, so stay positive! Keep writing more drafts - it's been a pleasure to work with you and your book. It's probably going to feel frustrating that I've basically just told you to do some work yourself, because that's what you asked me to look at your book for, but unless I spend another year and a half nitpicking your grammar mistakes and writing out a load of descriptions, there isn't really much I can do to help you until you've sorted some of those things on your own.

Maybe leave the book for a little while, read some other books and see how they compare to your own writing, then go back and begin a third/fourth, etc. draft. Then, if you don't want to pay a load of money for an editor, come back to me/find someone else, and we can go from there. Finally, I want to apologise for being such an erratic and distant editor. I feel bad, I really do, especially now that I've been so picky. But keep going! You'll have an amazing novel by the end. I hope some of this babbling/word-dumping made at least a little bit of sense. Let me know if there's anything else you want to work on. I'm here with virtual hugs and random snippets of writing advice for as long as you want me :) ~ Lacy