↻ AUTHOR ࿐྄ྀ  sabzsolo
↻ REVIEWER ࿐྄ྀ  TaesNemo

First Light :: 9/20

» Title :: 3/5

The title, to be honest, confused me at first. It was probably because one of the main characters' names was written first then the title. It seemed like the actual title wasn't given much priority.

Maybe put the main title "lost your mind" first and then the character's name "Stiles stilinski". This portrays the fact that the book's title is "lost your mind" and the book is a "Stiles stilinski fanfiction" based on the series "teen wolf".

» Cover :: 4/10

The cover simply has the face claims and the title, which is definitely not enough for it to be an acceptable and good cover.

To improve the cover I suggest, first add the author's name, without which the cover looks orphan. Adding the author's name makes the cover and the story belong to the rightful person — the author.

Second, the cover is way too simple for a story based on the paranormal genre. Elements of intrigue or mystery, suspense and thrill; all these are non-existent making the cover give a simple highschool young adult fiction vibe.

Adding in more face claims, complex graphic effects and hints on the possible gruesome situations encountered in the story via graphic illustration can help improve the cover by several times.

» Blurb :: 2/5

First, I'd like to speak about the structuring of the description, by that I mean the way it's written. It, to say in simple words, is congested. Without spaces between paragraphs and dialogues written along the same line as the descriptive sections.

Make it look neat and spacious, split the paragraphs and write the dialogues separately with spaces between the lines.

Second, the current blurb is very simple and not unique or attractive to read in any way. The first line, not all love stories have a happy ending, this sounds more like a blunt statement with no style or alluring features to it, not all lovebirds have a happily ever after, this rather than the original line looks more creative and sounds good.

This was just an example but, what I wanna convey is that, be creative and thoughtful with the blurb, don't limit it to just introduction to the plot, few slogans and quotes from inside the book. Use a complex writing style, play with your words and try framing the blurb into an unique and attractive one that intrigues the readers to go on further.

Dawn :: 4.5/10

To be honest, as a person who is not familiar with the American series, I was kinda lost. The reason being no proper introduction to the characters and a powerful opening to the plot.

The story took off with a mother and daughter movie night and the step-dad and sibling who left years ago showing up without notice. I understand that Scott and the father had been away for a long time and the OC had probably forgotten them.

But once she realises who they actually are, she shows no hesitation in shaking hands with her step dad (who is said to have broken up with her mom) and pulling Scott into a hug (step sibling who she hadn't seen in a long time.)

Now this situation in itself, doesn't it look weird and nonsensical to you? The rest of the plot too had an extremely fast pace, lacking description at places, explanation on emotions and povs of certain characters.

The dialogue flow was pretty confusing since the start, the reason being, inadequate action tags and verbal tags. I mean, by that, the information on who is saying the dialogues in what way, while doing what kind of activities is not specified. When too many dialogues continue without this information, the situation is actually a conversation between two or more characters, we have no idea on who is saying what. Which makes certain conversations completely messed up and confusing.

I'll explain more about this in the latter categories.

Plot and Idea :: 4/20

As a person who is not familiar with the original series and the original plotline, I can't specifically distinguish between what parts of the current plot is a copy of the original one and what parts are made up by the author themselves. Without this clarity, I can't possibly say if the plot is creative enough, unique in nature or is it just a cliche repeat of the series itself.

But on the whole, the current plot is commonly used, set in the highschool theme with the teenage characters getting into trouble on their own is a cliche idea. Although it's a cliche plot, there were instances that made no sense according to reality, like all the main characters are teenagers and contrastingly they do stuff teenagers their age can't do in real life. How is that possible?

For example, Stiles is possibly a year older than Hannah and is in sophomore year so he isn't eligible to get his driver's license just like Hannah. Yet he drives the jeep? Frequent time skips made the flow of the story distorted and confusing too.

For instance, right after it was confirmed Scott was a werewolf, there was a time skip to a few months, by the time they had befriended several people who were introduced almost out of nowhere. There wasn't a proper introduction or explanation to how the characters met and how they found out more werewolves in the locality and also how everyone who knew about Scott were okay with the piece of info. Like how were the parents not scared or freaked out?

The pace or the plot too is pretty fast, Scott and Hannah bonded as siblings over a single night considering they hadn't known each other for nine whole years. Stiles and Scott became best friends in a single game and even started avoiding Hannah, the reason being they wanted to know each other better. Scott says he might sleep walk rarely and that very night he walks off to the woods (don't they keep the doors locked?). There were so many things left without proper explanation that I found myself lost and confused often throughout the read.

It doesn't matter which fandom the fanfic is based on, but basic rules of writing a story have to be followed to give readers a sensible and read worthy work to read and enjoy.

First, I suggest slowing down the pace of the story. This can be done by giving characters more opportunities to meet up, spend time and visibly bond over conversations and events, and not simply let the readers know that the said characters are good friends in a line or two.

Second, let events that take place be more realistic and sensible, a wolf bite can't look like a simple dog bite and a teenager can't react with "it should be fine if Mellisa cleans it". There is no sense or logic here since people react in worse ways when they feel pain and have accidentally sleepwalked into the woods and have gotten lost only to be attacked by an animal. The shifting and signs of transformation into a werewolf isn't as simple as eye colour change, fast reflexes and heightened senses. I don't know how it was portrayed in the series but, for a book, read and research more about paranormal and mythical creatures, explain the abnormalities in detail and give the readers time to adjust to the twist and changes.

Give the twist more impact, turning into a werewolf on a full moon isn't as simple as growing long nails and a hairy body. It's more than that and adversely painful a process, take it slow, explain in detail what Scott feels inside him, what he registers through his senses and how his reflexes work, let the readers get a good idea on what is happening.

Not just the initial events but I speak here about the whole plot as such, I hope you get my point and work on improving the plot.

Characters and Emotions :: 5/15

To be frank, there is nothing I can speak about on this topic. Because one, the characters still seem alien to me, and as far as I have read I haven't spotted any written part that explains the emotions of what a particular character is feeling at a particular time in a specific event.

Although the plot contains strong events like Scott's accident and shifting, Hannah's incident at the camp and fight, all of them were solid events where the character's emotions, thoughts and feelings could have been explained beautifully and in detail.

Talking about characters, every character was introduced with just a one line sentence. Scott was simply introduced as Hannah's step brother, Stiles as her best friend and Hannah herself, well she didn't have a particularly detailed introduction. The rest of the members of the gang; Liam, Kira, Alison and Issac to name a few were all introduced at once, as "other people who knew about werewolves". Where is the introduction to every single character's personality and background?

Dedicated a paragraph or two to explain and describe each characters' physical appearance and mind set, their relation with the lead characters and the plot in general, basic details of their behaviour and how different their are from the others and unique, can help give the readers a better idea on what kind of characters they are reading about.

When introducing Stiles as Hannah's best friend, add in a few lines talking about their friendship and what kind of a guy he is, when Scott is introduced, don't stop with "step brother who returned after nine years" but proceed further comparing his physical appearance from the past nine year, thus giving the readers an idea on how he looks now.

Introducing other side character's one by one, this gives you the chance to extend the plot as well, other than that by explaining the characters separately the readers have a clear picture of the number of characters the story had and don't get confused among all the various people who are present in each scenario.

While describing a particular event, for example —the fight during the camp night— take the chance to explain what each character is feeling and how they are reacting to the events taking place. Write what Scott is thinking about Alison's aunt coming to catch him, describe Hannah's mental state when running up to protect Allison, elaborate on stiles' and the others reaction to what happened with Hannah.

Writing in detail like this keeps the plot and story clear and slow paced giving readers a good and clear read without confusion and doubts.

Writing Style :: 6/15

The writing style lacked a wider range of vocabulary and description. The story when read simply felt like a briefing on a larger plot and story, possibly the series itself. Due to the fast pace and lack of description, the story seemed too consolidated and brief, which is not how a story should look like.

Like I said in earlier categories adding in the necessary information and description, elongating the plot should make the writing more good.

As for now, all I have to say is use a wide variety of words and ways of writing, the story as you mentioned at the beginning should contain humor but there wasn't any as far as I read, only minute ones that didn't have a great impact on me. All I have to say is write more and more, the story lacks content.

Grammar :: 8/20

Basic grammar was fairly good. But the most noticeable mistake was tense shifting. Meaning for sometime the story was written in the present tense while a few Paras later it shifted to last tense, and that's grammatically wrong.

The tense indicates the time at which the event is taking place, that is, if you write, Hannah and her mom's movie night on the weekend in present tense then it means the scene was taking place at the moment, namely in the present. And the next day's events have to be necessarily written in present tense because the previous ones were written in present tense. You can not jump from one tense to another without valid reason and at the right moment makes the plot less meaningful.

There are articles on the internet you can read to know the rules and usage of tense change in more detail.

Minute mistakes were spotted but that can be rectified with minor editing and proofreading.

TOTAL :: 36.5/100

Reviewer's Note :: On the whole, I think there are a lot of areas where improvement is required, and taking the review seriously and working on the plot and other areas can help improve the story. I hope you take this as a guide and will be able to work better in future. All the best!!

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Yours Truly,
SeeSaw Fam.