Review for touslesjous // By: OutspokenGirl612

Title and Story Link:

Title: (8/10)

The title is completely original and eye catching, before reading the foreword I immediately got the vibe of big companies fighting in the business world. Did it catch my attention? Yes. And it fits the story perfectly. 

The only thing that displeased me was the fact that you mention the epilogue in the title; when a reader sees something so long, he/she automatically ignores it most of the time. I also don’t think you need to push so much into the reader, I’m not saying you did it with that intention, but it can be seen that way, and many readers will feel bothered by this fact. My advice is to just mention the epilogue somewhere in the author’s note you have in the foreword, or at the bottom of the last chapter of Presidential Wars. 

Overall Appearance: (6/10)

Okay, the poster seems nice and is actually pretty; but I wonder, if there’s a space to put the poster, why did you put it down in the description section? It doesn’t sound logical to me. Apart from that, the fact that there’s no background doesn’t affect the story anyway, especially since the borders of the posters are blurry, as if fading, giving the sensation of disappearing into the white. The font size, as well as the color, is okay; they eye of the reader won’t be bothered by it. Also, the way in which your chapters are ordered looks very nice and professional. 

However, there is something that bothered me and it was the Foreword/Description page. You seem to have changed the orders in which everything should be there. I’m not saying you can’t, but since every space is named and defined for something specific, this creates confusion. For example, why in the Characters’ space is there a note about the “Action genre” instead of the characters’ actual names? Why is the poster in the description when there is a place to put the link? And the prologue poster, that one creates a severe confusion; seeing two posters together, the first thing that comes to my mind is that they must have links. But that’s not the case. Then why is that prologue poster there, if it doesn’t have an actual purpose?

Description and Foreword: (5/10)

So, for the description, it’s totally perfect and eye catching the sentences you wrote. I also have no problem at all with the language, it’s completely perfect and I feel totally pleased seeing that you’ve carefully checked for any spelling mistakes. It accomplishes completely the purpose of catching new readers. But, going back to what I mentioned in the “Overall Appearance” section, I have some things to say regarding the description:

I don’t actually think there’s a need for a prologue poster, unless you’re using it here with the link, but you already have the name of the prologue written there, so you can just link it to the title. Why do I say this? Well, it’s because it creates confusion. To a normal reader, this might be a wall they won’t want to climb. If you still want to keep it there, I suggest you put it in the bottom of the foreword, next to all those promotions you have for your other stories.

As for the poster, I already mentioned that it would be better to put it in the poster section, so that it feels more organized. Unless you’re planning to put another poster, in which case you can leave it where it is to create effect.

Regarding the foreword, I also need to say a few things:

1. Having author’s notes isn’t bad, but it’s good to keep them short. If you plan on making them longer, you can make a blog post and link it back to a phrase in your foreword.

2. There’s too much font changing and colors in the author’s note; it gives the feeling of being long and messy, and that doesn’t help if you want the readers to actually read whatever you wanted them to know that isn’t related to your story.

3. Promotion: Why is it so much and so long? You can also make a blog post with it and link it back; but it is really bothersome to keep scrolling down and seeing titles and titles and word counts. If the reader chose this story, then it’s because he wanted to read this one and not any of the others. If it’s a new reader, then he will still start here. I suggest you move them either to a blog post, or to the end of the story; whenever a reader finishes he is left with the lingering feeling of wanting to keep on reading, especially if the story was of their liking, meaning they liked the author’s style. So, a closing chapter is perfect for that; they finish and automatically have new suggestions on what to keep on reading. But don’t leave them in the foreword, because the reader can get annoyed and ditch your story, which you don’t want to happen.

4. Where’s the actual foreword?  There’s only an author’s note and promotion there. Many people get confused when they see “Description” and then “Foreword,” so I’ll e