Slay My Beloved

by invisible_girl

Title and Description - 11/15

I loved the title. It’s unique and has a poetic mystery that makes me want to read on. Grammatical issues aside, the description gave a good idea that the story would be a supernatural mystery type story and provided intrigue to read the story.

Plot - 15/20

It’s a little soon to comment, because I feel that the main meat is yet to come, but the plot has some good promise. I have no problem with plots that have been done, because a writer will often find a way to turn the story into something that we’ve never heard before. I can definitely see promise in your plot. I like the mystery aspect that you have woven into it as well as the 'two kingdoms' that you have involved.

Characters - 15/20

The characters are good and I feel that I can connect emotionally as the drama unfolds.

I love how you wrote Chen’s character. I think the paragraph at the end of chapter two was some of your best writing due to the emotional impact of his character here.

Pace and Flow - 12/15

The story started out with a good pace. I would be cautions about waiting too long to start revealing pieces of the supernatural mystery that has been hinted at. I can really see this developing well into a full blown horror story.

Grammar, Spelling and Structure - 4/15

The spelling was good, but the grammar had some serious issues. I’m really impressed that you’re writing an entire story in a language that is not your native tongue. I think having a good beta reader who is fluent in English could help clean this up as well as help you to improve your English quickly by pointing out your mistakes.

One big issue in the structure was the way that you denote dialogue. You tend to hide it within the paragraph and distinguish it with dashes i.e. -I can’t take it- I said to him with a sad grin. - Of course you can take it. I bought it for you. - He said and took it from my cold hands.

Typically this would be written as:

“I can’t take it.” I said to him with a sad grin.

“Of course you can take it. I bought it for you.” He said and took it from my cold hands.

using quotations to distinguish the dialogue, not dashes, and separating each character's dialogue into separate lines. It just makes it easier to distinguish quickly who is saying what and is the standard way to portray it visually when writing in English.

Overall enjoyability - 6/15

While I was interested in finding out what happened in the story, the grammar and formatting issues took away from the enjoyability to some extent. I really do hope that you continue to write as you improve your English as I can see that you really enjoy story telling and it shows in your work.

Total score: 63/100