Reviewer: Mila_333

Review: The Day After Prom

Client: OriginalSofieScott

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Title

The title actually doesn't fit the story. It may correspond to only 2 percent of the plot since the prom takes place at the very end and then it leaps to the epilogue. As such, the main concentration of the plot is something else, more like the journey during senior high school to Prom day. Second thing is that it's crucial to note that the title has to be enticing enough to attract readers. The current title does have a solid connection to the plot and is as such irrelevant in this case. I suggest you try to think of a better title and come up with something enticing as well.

Blurb

A blurb is deemed to be an overall reflection of the story. And, unfortunately, I found some grammatical mistakes in the blurb. For instance, you shouldn't insert a comma after Katelyn in the first sentence. There's also a typo noted: "Will she choose the right..." These are small mistakes, but they are consequential when found in a blurb. If you have a reader whose pet peeve's grammar issues, he/she will drop the book and will move on to something else. Moreover, seeing grammar mistakes in a blurb may also discourage readers to start the story as it's natural for them to think that the book will be full of grammar issues. Hence, the correction of those mistakes is preponderant.

Now coming to the content of the blurb itself, I have to say that it's relevant to the plot and it also contains the required elements that need to be included. However, I found that there were too many questions asked, for instance, you could have given a statement and then ask the related questions. You only said she's a typical high school senior and then prom is only a week away, then you've asked five rhetorical questions in return which is a bit too vast since you haven't really provided more information to readers for them to ponder. These might leave them uninterested, you can therefore provide some solid statements, for example, you can simply mention Ryder as well since he's the male protagonist.

Cover

The cover is nice and exudes teen fiction vibes. Considering your current title, the cover corresponds totally to that. Here, the girl in the prom dress featuring Katelyn goes well with the plot since there's the prom scene, the cover can pass here. But, naming the title 'The Day after Prom' will be taking it too far. The title should be written as such: 'The Day after Prom', basically the letter A in the word after should be in small letters and not capitalized. The font size and style is nice, although placing your Author name at the very bottom of the cover instead of below the title will be much more suitable.

Grammar

There were quite a lot of grammar mistakes noted, I have tried to point them out at the beginning, but it became a lot and hence, I decided to make a summary here. Firstly, I noticed a lack of punctuation marks when you're closing a direct speech. For example, if Katelyn is saying Hey to someone, it should be like this:

"Hey!" That is you need to put the exclamation mark before you put the closing dialogue tag.

Another example would be:

"I am going home."

You have to put the period when you end the sentence.

Moreover, there are certain sentence fragments that you need to consider revising. They didn't sound right or the appropriate words were not used. I have commented at such places and most you've already corrected.

You also need to carry out some proofreading so can you spot the multiple typos I noted. Again, I've tried commenting in line with the typos, but I may have left some when I was reading.

Most importantly the most repeated and serious grammar issue was the use of different verb tenses. I see you've used past tense to narrate the story. Once you have chosen the past tense, you should stick to that tense only. Along with past tense you can use the past perfect tense. However, you cannot use present tense and present perfect tense unless you are describing events that are currently occurring. This part is quite tricky if you aren't used to it. I suggest you read some professional books so that you get the gist of it. Hence, this edit will cost you some time and effort because I have noticed at a good amount of places this particular mistake.

Also, when you want to play a song for a particular chapter, I suggest you insert the playlist at the top of the chapter before you write down the chapter title. Nevertheless, If you want to insert a song at a current scene, I suggest you write down some of the lyrics of the song and insert them as a description of the scene rather than simply dropping the video song.

Plot

Alright, I've already pointed out many things in the comments. I will just provide a summary here although you have already corrected most of the things that needed correction. There was the scene where You already mentioned that the female protagonist had lunch at school and then you mentioned again that she's having lunch at home after she came back from school. Regarding the same matter, there is another scene where the group decides to meet after graduation the next day, but then when narrating the events; you mistakenly say they are meeting on the graduation day itself. On a serious note, this is a plot hole when the timings don't match. You can draft your story and insert the different events on the timeline so that you don't miss out on the points. This mistake isn't a big thing, it can be easily edited as you did it, but since it happened twice, I have to mention it.

In my opinion, Ryder's first point of view was not needed, except for the part where I commented the description was required. You could definitely add this part later in some other scene. But here his POV is not required; instead it takes away his mysteriousness and dims the reader's enjoyment of his character. If you wanted to tell us how Nicole and Claire got Katelyn's address, you can simply address this in a conversation of theirs as you did later on when they go over to her house. It will not block the plot's advancement if you remove Ryder's POV. As for the description which is required, you can add it in his second POV when he was with his two guy friends. Also, the third short POV of Ryder was not necessary when they were on their date. On the contrary, Katelyn's romantic description of her emotions was on point and brings on the feels.

Another reason why I find Ryder's POV as unnecessary was because the whole description of how he was feeling is a little bit over the top and also quite repetitive. You basically are retelling the things that happened previously. Some descriptions of Ryan's emotions are required, but I suggest you limit them or else they're way too cliché. Don't get me wrong, I love cliché but there's a thin line of demarcation between cliché and cringe. Make sure it remains on the cliché side.

In one particular scene, I also found it dramatic and childish for Ryder to cry, there's nothing wrong with being a softie, but this section seemed unrealistic.

The main thing I noticed in the plot was 'info dumping'. What this means is that the chapters were uneventful. There were loads and loads of info dumping and details were being provided that weren't even required, bringing very little to no advancement to the plot. For example, there were countless mentions of the protagonist taking a snack or her friends (Nicole and Claire) asking for info of her time with Ryder or them going to prom shopping which did nothing in the development of the plot. For instance, chapter 25, 26 and 27 can be erased totally and the plot would still remain the same that is the absence of these chapters wouldn't really make any difference. I also noticed that many of the chapters were short; I suggest you combine two chapters in one and make the story less long. The amount of chapters the book contains does not correspond to the quantity of events happening in the story. This book should have on average 18 to 23 chapters and not more.

The story really lacked the emotions of the characters. Unfortunately, I couldn't connect to any of them. The most you did was narrate the events of the story while failing to describe how the characters are feeling. For instance, when she found out about Debbie's betrayal, I was expecting a deeper breakdown of the female protagonist, and seeing Asher with Aubrey should have made her enraged. I wouldn't have even known they shared a long term bond if you didn't mention that they were childhood friends. Additionally, the connection between Aubrey, Liam, Ryder, Asher, Katelyn, Debbie, Nicole and Claire to form the crisis they were in was quite interesting and dramatic. Howbeit, the character Liam seemed unnecessary; the reason is because he never actually appeared again in the story. Although his part is necessary in the development of the plot, he should be entitled to more screen time at a later stage. 

Moreover, you never mentioned anything in the beginning about the conflict between Katelyn and her dad. I may be wrong but it seems like you got the idea to insert a daddy issue at a later stage when you were writing the story. Instead of mentioning the issue, you could have had a live scene of Katelyn choosing her own career, debating for herself.

As for the link between the female protagonist and the male protagonist, I liked their connection, but again the events that happened between the two were uneventful, the aspect you evinced more importance between the two was the narration of their past about their parents' relationship. This is a good point for the plot advancement but it isn't much of interest to be the centre of attention.

The description of their school in the first chapters were nice and even the details of the party was on point. Nonetheless, I would have loved to see more descriptions of places narrated in the story.

Character

I really like how Katelyn grew throughout the story. Even though you didn't really show us the part where she chose to do what her heart desires rather than what her dad instructed her to do, although adding this scene would have been a bonus point, this information about her character shows fierceness and self-confidence. On the other hand, although I do understand that this is a teen fiction story and the female protagonist's relationship with the male protagonist is a first one, character development is needed for the female protagonist at the prom scene where she literally behaved rudely to Emma. Again, I would say that I do understand that this is a teen fiction story, but she definitely needs maturity here. If it was Aubrey in the place of Emma, I would have completely understood and her behavior would have been justified.

Moreover, character growth has been noted for the other characters, for example Debbie and Asher. I also love the way Josh dealt with his relationship and decided not to start anything when they were unsure of whether they would be able to deal with everything, mostly a long distance relationship.

Writing style

The writing style is plain, simple and basic. I suggest you try expanding your vocabulary. I noticed repetition of expressions and words in general. Obviously, a lot of words can be repeated, but it shouldn't surpass the extent where the reader will notice there's repetition. I am quite lenient when it comes to words/expressions' repetitions, hence if I came to notice it, it must have crossed that boundary. One way to enhance your writing style is to try to beautify your sentences, using more advanced words instead of simple ones. Make use of conjunctions to link two sentences. The proper use of punctuation marks may also enhance your sentences.

As far as the voices of the characters were concerned, they weren't very distinct from each other. When someone reads your story, at one point they should be aware of the voice the character holds. However, you failed to give them their own voice. For example, when you are writing Katelyn's point of view and when you're writing Ryder's point of view, you have not shown much difference between the voice of the two characters when in fact they should be having two distinct voices. Hence, this is something that you should work on. This process also takes some time before you achieve this. You can try to start with beautifying your sentences and then see the way the characters are portrayed and your words used to describe their voices, emotions and expression.

Reader's enjoyment

Despite all the critics above, this story can become really great if the grammar's edited, the writing style's enhanced and the plot is well planned and sorted. There are so many scenes that need to be replaced with more impactful and solid ones.