Hello, CharleneSa! This is Amoretti with your requested review on Chapters 1-5 of Sacrifice!

I’d like to take a moment to applaud you for choosing such a unique pairing! Charlene/Arron? I’d never think of such a pair, but now that I think about it, it’s kind of cute and it suits. It’s an innovative and ambitious route to take, and that is definitely admirable. I love reading about strange, unconventional pairings as much as popular pairings. :3

But anyways, back to the actual story itself…(I really hope this helps your writing. Remember, I’m being honest in a way that I hope to see you improve as a writer.)

Spelling, Grammar, & Other Structural Issues:

There is very few spelling errors, except I noticed that you misspelled ‘unfamiliar’ and ‘familiar’ twice in the first chapter. Also, in Chapter 5, you spell ‘this’ like ‘htis’— I know this is completely unintentional so you might want to fix that to sound more professional. Yes, I notice little things like that, which don’t really need to be pointed out so I shall move onto other things now.

You don’t have much of a problem with tense errors, as I clearly see that your story is told in the past tense. There are many writers that I’ve reviewed that have a problem with this, so good job there! The one thing that I notice about the mechanics of your sentences is that you tend to have run on sentences or sentence fragments. For example, your sentence here reads, “Everybody, save for Ya Se and Xiao Yu,at a unfamilar pretty face that had just walked in.” If you cross out ‘save for Ya Se and Xiao Yu’, it is clear that the sentence is not complete. Perhaps add a ‘stared’ after ‘everybody’ and you’re good to go! Although I won’t have time to point out your other errors, please take note of this whilst editing your stories. =)

Plotline (Creativity/Originality):

I wouldn’t say this is the most original story I’ve read per say, but I can definitely see a plot line going on here! Disregarding any clichés that might be threaded throughout the piece, I actually find the story pretty intriguing. It really does make me wonder— is Charlene genuinely good or is this all a dirty trick masked by the art of deceit and acting? This is a good sign. You’re keeping your readers wondering and that means you’re heading toward the right direction.

However, like I mentioned, your story seems a bit clichéd which leads to…triteness. It’s intriguing, but at the same time, predictable in the “mysterious new girl” and “quiet, handsome boy” falling in love sort of way. I know that clichés are hard to avoid, but it’s not necessarily the plot that makes it trite. It’s about how you portray the story, with whatever plot you have in your hands, which is something that can easily be improved. Building uniqueness in a character by showing her personality through innovative dialogue and mood-depicting description, for instance, can render that positive effect. Remember, even the most cliché of stories can be covered up with nice description (not that your story is cliché to the extreme or anything; this is just a general suggestion).

Description, Flow, Substance:

I have the gist of the different the personalities in the story, but the build-up of each character is lacking.

Charlene is this pretty, mysterious new girl but I don’t seem to know much about her beyond that. She smiles and smiles and frowns and talks and kisses and walks away and ignores people.  What I’m getting at here is that you DO have description, but most of it is about what she DOES. It doesn’t delve into her mind to tell her side of the story in her own, subjective manner. If you’re trying to conceal her thoughts for the sake of the plot line, then at least add some description about Xiao Yu’s thoughts and feelings. With it, the readers are able to get to know your characters better and sympathize with their actions. 

I’d say your story and its individual chapters are a bit on the short side. I usually consider a chapter to be 800+ words long while your chapters hover around 400 words, but that is entirely up to you. I personally write 1,800-4,500 word chapters, because by writing such long chapters, it allows for the story to properly develop. Your story is fast-paced, but it skips a lot of scenes, and scenes are also abruptly cut off by the multiple lines you use. By elaborating more, through dialogue or description, you are able to increase the flow of the story.

Dialogue, Word Choice, Voice:

In your after-dialogue, I like that you use the words “stammering”, “bickering”, “interrupted”, rather than just “said”. It creates personality and the tone of your characters.

You use phrases like ‘momentarily taken aback’, ‘right-hand man’ and other such phrases which creates a considerably light mood to the story. Your writing style stands on the simple side— a natural straight-forwardness mixed with many, many happy moments. It’s definitely a distinctive voice that I’ve noticed from your writing, which is a good thing. However, considering that your storyline is about a mysterious and possibly ‘evil’ girl hanging out with a group of guys (whom I do not know the behind-the -scenes story), the light mood takes away the dark, suspenseful moments of the story. I’m not sure exactly where you’re headed so I may be wrong and you might just be intending to write a story with a brighter ambiance. If so, I’m sorry and please ignore what I just said— I must have been over-thinking things, as I usually do. =3

Your dialogue in the beginning of your story needs indentation. Whenever you start a new dialogue/conversation with quotes, please remember to start a new paragraph every time! You start doing that as the chapters progress so good job for catching that, and just remember the fix up the first few chapters! :)

Overall, I’d give this story a 7.5/10!One suggestion I’d give you is that you have a lot of room to expand your story by making it longer (adding more description to increase the flow, showing more of the thought processes of the main characters to develop the internal conflicts of the mind, etc). Improvement in those categories will greatly increase the suspense and curiosity that the plot brings.

I actually do like the plot and despite only reviewing Ch 1-5 of the story as per rules, I think I’ll check out the rest of the story just to see what happens! Remember, an interesting plot is the first notable thing in a potential writer, so you’re heading the right way! Keep it up and don’t give up on writing! Stay motivated! =)