Tuesday, March 24, 2026

The Runner by so1tgoes on Wattpad

Blurb

The world as we know it ended 209 years ago. 

From a desert wasteland springs a single kingdom, ruled by a tyrannical King and trapped in an endless war against the shadowy desert warriors. As a desperate bid to save what remains of humanity, society has been split into two distinct classes, nicknamed the Court and the Commons.

For an oppressed population on the brink of revolution, a common thief could be the last hope.

Up until now, Kay has survived by her wits alone. Reckless and impulsive, wanted by the King's guard, Kay has become known as the Runner. Using the city's rooftops as her personal domain, she manages to keep one step ahead of the King with one hand buried in the purses of the courtiers.

Driven by the plight of the commoners and the unjust death of her family, Kay seizes the chance to graduate from small-time thievery to full-scale rebellion. Her opportunity comes in the form of Will, a wealthy ex-soldier with a dark past.

Plucked from the streets and thrown into the shimmering palace court, Kay must use her every strength to blend into a world where she doesn't belong, closer to the enemy than she ever thought she would be.

Original (First 500)

My fingernails scratch and chip as I grapple to hold onto the building's roof, my feet kicking furiously against the rough stone below me. Finding purchase, my muscles screaming with the effort, I manage to hoist myself onto my forearms and over the ledge.
I'm sweating from exertion. Without stopping to catch my breath, I push up onto my feet and take off at a run, propelling across the roof toward the next building. The edge is just swimming into view when I hear a latched door flying open. Angry voices shout out as the guards' heavy bootsteps fall into pursuit.
Nearly there. My eyes are trained on the horizon as I recall the impending height and distance. My legs burn and my feet pound across the roof's surface, the reverberation of heavy footfalls at my back spurring me onward.
Finally, my runway ends. Without pausing or slowing down, I plant a foot on the raised ledge and throw myself out across the abyss.
For a single, perfect moment, I am sailing through the air, suspended and soaring weightlessly five storeys above the ground. This is it. This is what I chase after: this feeling of utter freedom. The flattened surface of the next roof rises to greet me and I absorb the impact with a practiced precision, landing cleanly.
A grin tugs at my face as I roll out of my crouched position. My legs already feel lighter. I straighten and wince at a familiar pain shooting through my left knee, then turn to look behind me. I push my hair back from where it whips around my face, swirling and tangling in the hot desert air. Squinting in the sunlight, I catch sight of the four red guards standing across the gap. The captain is at the forefront, red-face, his sword raised menacingly as he shouts his threats into the wind.
I raise a hand to my ear, pantomiming deafness while the captain's voice rises in fervour. He gestures madly for his men to return to the ground. Smirking, I turn and jog lightly to the next ledge, swiveling to glance back at the captain standing opposite the divide. Even at this distance I don't miss the daggers in his glare. A thrill of satisfaction runs down my spine and I cheerfully raise my hand to my forehead in a mock salute before I take one step backwards and drop off the roof.
Instinctively, my hands shoot up as I fall, catching a window ledge protruding from the building's facade. My feet grip the stone slabs and gradually, brick by brick, I am able to descend into the alley.
Sand kicks up around me as I land on the pathway below. I dust my hands off on my thighs and lower the scarf covering my mouth and nose. Listening for the sound of any pursuing footsteps, I make for the main road, intending to weave my way between the buildings before the guards reach the ground.

My Edit

I push up onto my feet and run, gasping for breath, trying to focus on the next rooftop through the mirage of hot, desert air. The edge is just swimming into view when I hear the latched door behind me fly open.
Nearly there. I calculate the height and distance. My legs burn and my feet pound across the roof's surface, the reverberation of heavy footfalls at my back spurring me onward.
I plant a foot on the raised ledge and launch myself out across the abyss. For a single, perfect moment, I am sailing through the air, suspended and soaring weightlessly five stories above the ground. I absorb the impact by rolling across the flat roof.

On the last roll, I use momentum to move into a standing position. I straighten and wince at the flare of pain in my bad knee, then turn to look behind me. I push my hair back from where it whips around my face, swirling and tangling in the wind. Four red guards have come to a stop at the edge of the other roof. The bright sun makes me squint, but it's worth it to see the captain is at the forefront, red-faced, his sword raised as he shouts his threats into the wind.

I raise a hand to my ear, pantomiming deafness. He shouts and gestures at his men without taking his eyes off of me, his glare rivaling the heat of the sun. As his guards retreat to the rooftop entrance, I turn and jog lightly to the opposite edge of the roof. I can never refuse an opportunity to show off, so I turn to face the captain, raise my hand to my forehead in a mock salute, and then take one step backwards and drop off of the roof.
Reflexively, my hands shoot up as I fall, catching a window ledge. I climb carefully down the brick wall toward the alley below. A few feet from the ground, I let go. Sand kicks up around me as I land on the pathway. I dust my hands off on my thighs and lower the scarf covering my mouth and nose. I make for the main road, pausing to check for guards before leaving the alley.
(Original word count: ~498 → Edited: ~374)

Critique

Fantastic blurb. The first line sets up when we are, then we get where (desert kingdom), and we get conflict (Court versus Commons). Beautiful. Then we get our hero's motivations and goals, and then we get the hook. Our little thief having to blend with the rich folk. So good. Honestly, I was holding my breath when I clicked on the first chapter. I would have cried if it had been a girl in class, bored, waiting for the bell to ring.

I am a bit confused by the action at the beginning of the scene. It seems like Kay has just jumped onto a new roof and she is running toward the next one, and the guards come up onto the roof she's just jumped onto (from the street), which is weird because shouldn't they have chased her up the last building, not the new one? It's possible that they anticipated her movements, but that's not stated.

There is a little bit of awkward phrasing, especially with the first sentence:

My fingernails scratch and chip as I grapple to hold onto the building's roof, my feet kicking furiously against the rough stone below me.

First, presumably, her hands should be above her head so she won't be able to see the state of her nails. And, in this situation, chipping a nail is not something you'd notice unless it's the reason it sends you hurtling toward the ground. Also, I get that we're joining Kay mid-action-scene, but it seems counterproductive to be kicking furiously while trying to hold onto a roof. I would think that would make holding on harder.

I couldn't really find a good way to rephrase the first paragraph, so I skipped it and went with her next move:

I push up onto my feet and run, gasping for breath, trying to focus on the next rooftop through the mirage of hot, desert air.

This is a stronger sentence to start with because it's a simpler visual (for the author and the reader) and it immediately introduces the reader to the desert environment, the fact that we're running, and that we're on a rooftop. I introduced the mirage because I liked the the visual of the other rooftop "swimming" ahead and although I think the author was trying to indicate that Kay was tired and maybe her vision was blurry, but she actually seems to get less tired throughout her escape, so I just switched it to the mirage. This way, we get the swimming rooftop and an intro to the larger setting of the desert as opposed to just the setting of a random rooftop anywhere.

Overall, this is a really strong sequence, and an incredibly dynamic way to start a story, but it does go on a bit too long. I was able to trim over a hundred words without losing any of the important information. Things like, "A thrill of satisfaction runs down my spine..." and "Finally, my runway ends." and "Without pausing or slowing down..." don't really add to the story and actually slow down the narrative, even while trying to indicate that we're in a hurry. So to go directly from, "...the reverberation of heavy footfalls at my back spurring me onward." straight to "I plant a foot on the raised ledge and throw myself out across the abyss." indicates urgency and immediacy without having to say it.

Setting

Rooftops in a desert environment on a sunny and windy day. The nice thing about an action scene is that the POV character wouldn't really be focused on details, so we can get away with the bare minimum of description. Rooftops are unique in that they are rarely used as settings, but they tend to be pretty uniformly boring to look at, so a reader will be able to picture a generic rooftop without much trouble or need for description that would slow down the action.

My only notes are that a) my assumption about a rooftop chase would be that it happens at night, so to find out that it's sunny day in paragraph six, it was an adjustment. If we throw in the mirage, in the first sentence like in my version, then people who assumed it would be daytime are not affected, but people who would otherwise assume that it was nighttime won't be picturing the wrong time of day for the first five paragraphs. And, b) there's a little bit of confusion regarding the building that we climb down at the end. We have stones and bricks kind of used interchangeably, but they aren't the same. Some buildings would have both, but when we're in a hurry like this, it's best to just pick one.

Characterization

We have Kay. She is athletic, loves the "hang time" from jumping, is a bit saucy with guards, and can shimmy down a brick building like nobody's business. I actually thought that the brick wall thing was the least believable part of the sequence, especially because the guards are right next door and have stairs to run down, so I just picture a bunch of guards running down the alley and waiting for Kay as she slowly and carefully finds toeholds. But, we'll take it on assumption that she's just super nimble and still able to outrun the guards after scaling the side of a building cartoonishly easily.

We don't get a lot of dimensionality with Kay's internal dialogue. Things like thrills of satisfaction and enjoying that moment of freedom after jumping and before landing are kind of what we'd expect from a character who gets themselves into this situation. If Kay was cursing and super neurotic about each move, that would make her more dimensional. Or, if a hint of bitterness or anger undercut her saucy salute to the captain, that would add some dimension, as well. We DO get Kay with her grinning and saluting the guard -- that's a bit unexpected. Her little move of stepping off of the building backwards does show some personality, so that's good.

The other characters in this excerpt are the four guards and the captain. The captain is furious and the guards have no personalities at all. Now, this is not bad, necessarily. We're in a running scene, we don't really have time to get into everybody's hopes and dreams. But if we wanted the guards to feel more human, we could have them bending over and panting, maybe one throws up (and then Kay could indicate for how long she's led these cops on a merry chase) or faints from heatstroke. Like, maybe the reason Kay gets away isn't about speed, but stamina.

Also, for the captain, all we'd have to do to give him characterization is name him. If Kay knows him, then she can comment on how he'll be in a bad mood for a week or how the king will have him executed -- some indication that this character exists in more than just this moment for the purpose of allowing us to see Kay escaping from guards.

Conflict/Tension

There are two things that make this sequence feel long. The first is that we have no stakes. Physically, we can guess that if she's running from guards with swords, her life is on the line. But we have no fear, at all, throughout this sequence. We have a thrill of satisfaction, we have a saucy salute to the captain, and we casually step off of a building backwards in order to show off to said captain.

We start out with muscles burning and panting from exertion, and then Kay is at full energy for the rest of the scene. If there was a slow deterioration of Kay's energy level, then that would raise the stakes because we'd wonder if her slowing down would get her caught. Similarly, Kay has a flash of pain when she stands after landing on the roof. This would be a great opportunity to display fear that her bum leg is going to make it harder for her to escape. But it doesn't, and it's never mentioned again. Also, wind can be dangerous, especially when we're high up, but the wind just makes Kay look cool with her hair whipping back and forth (very insensible choice of hairstyle for Kay's chosen profession, by the way).

A hint at what she's stolen (jewelry, information, food, a cat) would give the reader some texture to hold onto. If it's a physical object, then running across rooftops is an opportunity to almost lose said object, especially if it's large, which would add tension. Naming the object would also imbue the scene with some emotional stakes. A treasured heirloom or a map of the enemy's lair would give the reader a sense of what we're fighting for. If we know if Kay is being altruistic (which is suggested by the blurb) or selfish, that will also affect how much the reader is rooting for Kay to get away.

The second thing that makes this sequence feel long is a lack of contrast. We have heat, but we do not have cool. We have hard stone and brick but we do not have anything soft. I suppose we have contrast between the red guards and the sandy desert, but those are still all warm colors. We don't know the color of Kay's scarf. If it's blue, that would be a nice contrast. If she's wearing all black silk (which would be weird on a hot day), then we'd have texture as well as color (or total lack of color). Little details like that wouldn't take a lot of word count but they would add a lot of texture to the scene.

Final Thoughts

All-in-all, we're lacking a sense of danger. We have implied urgency with running and swords, this is all strong enough of a start for a reader to immediately be caught up in it, but as the scene goes on, the lack of stakes gets more and more apparent. It feels like a scene from an anime. The difference between a movie and a book is internalization. If we get a sense of Kay's determination, fear, ability to overcome pain, to rely on intelligence rather than just her physical prowess, the scene would feel grounded, real, and be an even stronger way to start the story.

Now. All that said, this is a great scene. My criticism comes from having read it multiple times and really thinking about ways to improve it. My initial read of it, my internal impressions were a lot of "oh, thank god, a story called 'The Runner' starts with a chase scene" and "this is great" and "wheeeeeeee!". Any added characterization, conflict, setting development (a prop like a stolen object is part of scene-setting) would add a richness to the story.

Monday, March 16, 2026

Dead If You Do by KateNorth on Wattpad

Blurb

When Haley Bell is offered a scholarship to study at the exclusive Woodcreek College, famous for moulding the world's brightest thinkers, politicians and entrepreneurs, she jumps at the opportunity. 

Except when she arrives, the murders start.

In a campus hidden from civilization in the mountains of Colorado, Haley's classmates are slowly turning up dead. As the bodies pile up and eyes of suspicion turn on her, Haley finds that there's a reason why she was brought to Woodcreek. 

And it wasn't to study.

Original (First 500)

There's a story my brother told Daisy and me when we were little.
We were sitting around a campfire, its fiery flames licking our marshmallows as Elliot held a torch beneath his chin. The effect made white light stretch across his face, distorting his soft, child-like features and transforming them into something sharp -- something deadly. Wind carried the clink of our parents' champagne glasses and their laughter wrapped around me like a warm blanket, but even that wasn't enough to sooth the goosebumps raised on my arms.
Not for as long as Elliot was speaking, anyway.
Beside our little fire was a lake -- Crystal Lake, we called it. In the summer, my cousins and I would drive off the pier and take turns to see who could hold their breath the longest. It was a summer paradise, but at night it looked different.
The shadows swallowed everything they touched, covering the lake in its shroud. Mosquitos buzzes above the water's surface and, as I looked out into the darkness, I swore the darkness stared back. Things moved inside those shadows -- I would have sworn it on my life -- shifting into shapes they didn't teach us in school. But cocooned inside the fire's light, I knew I was safe.
That's what I thought, anyway.
The story Elliot told was about doppelgangers. As we grew older, like most things, it changed. But it always got scarier -- no matter what.
'We all have one,' he whispered, his tiny voice rising sharp against the crackling fire. He leaned forward, blue eyes flickering between my cousin and me. 'They watch us,' he continued, 'hiding in the shadows as we walk our dogs or go to school. Sometimes, they even take out place. I could be my doppelganger right now and you wouldn't even know.'
I bit my lip, every nerve in my body ignited with fear. I knew what doppelgangers did; Elliot's story engraved itself in my mind from the very first time he told it. They watched you in back alleys, studying your habits and traits until they can finally take your place.
Looking back now, I think it was the idea that someone could take me away from my family that scared me more than anything else. It's silly, when you think about it. Back then, I couldn't imagine anything worse than losing the ones I love. Now, it's all I know.
As the moths buzzed around the fire, Mom stretched out front he patio to see us. Her small, delicate fingers unfolded into a wave and I smiled, waving back, trying to ignore how stiff the movement felt. I had to pretend I was enjoying myself, because if she knew what Elliot was saying, what words he twisted, she'd be angry and I wouldn't be allowed to come here again.
I'd been having trouble sleeping since turning seven. Waking up in the middle of the night screaming from nightmares I couldn't remember. Mom boiled it down to Elliot's storytelling, but because I couldn't remember what I dreamt of, I wasn't so sure.

My Edit

Every year, we sat around the campfire at Crystal Lake -- me, my brother Elliot, and my cousin Daisy. This year, Daisy and I were seven, Elliot ten. My brother liked to tell the same story every year, except every year was more elaborate and scarier than the year before.

My mother, who blamed my night terrors on Elliot's stories, was safely out of earshot with Dad and Uncle Name and Aunt Name, but we could hear them. The clink of champagne glasses and warm laughter swirled around us on the wind as Elliot held a torch to his face, turning his round, friendly features into sharp, fearsome ones.

Shadows swallowed everything they touched, covering the lake in its shroud. Mosquitos buzzed above the water's surface and, as I looked out into the darkness, darkness stared back. Things moved inside those shadows, shifting into shapes they didn't teach us in school. I edged closer to the fire, believing that the cocoon of light was a physical barrier between us and the shapes. I held my marshmallow into the fire, more to mirror my brother and Daisy than out of hunger.

The story Elliot told was about doppelgangers. "We all have one," he said, his voice rising sharp against the crackling fire. He leaned forward, blue eyes flickering between my cousin and me. "They watch us," he continued, "hiding in the shadows as we walk our dogs or go to school. Sometimes, they even take our place. I could be my doppelganger right now and you wouldn't even know."

Elliot's story always started the same, and I trembled, in anticipation for what was to come. I think it was the idea that someone could take me away from my family that scared me more than anything else. Back then, I couldn't imagine how I'd feel if I lost the ones I loved. Now, it's all I know.
(Original word count: ~510 → Edited: ~309)

Critique

Great title, great blurb. The stakes are literally life and death, right there in your face.

For the excerpt, I love the contrast between the parents being close by and Haley's fear. They're present enough that Haley could call out to them, but she doesn't because of some unconscious need to be cool enough to listen to the scary story her brother is telling her. And the author doesn't have to say that explicitly because it's told in a way that we can infer it. All of the contrasts between dark and light, between danger real and imagined, are great.

That said, the excerpt could benefit from a bit more clarity in the writing. For instance, we learn the kids' ages after this excerpt, but that should be mentioned as early as possible. What the reader would expect from a seven-year-old's perspective would be different from a thirteen-year-old's, even though, as an adult looking back, you'd describe either age as being a kid. And knowing that Elliot is ten will also contextualize how scary the story will probably be.

Another thing is that we get a line about how it's so dark that Haley is seeing shapes that don't exist, and then a sentence later, we see her mother leaning over the balcony to wave at her. If we wanted to show that Mom is a worrier, we could have her calling out instead of visible. Then, Elliot could be exasperated, Haley could be reassured, etc.

Setting

Sticking to the excerpt, we have two settings: the campfire where Haley, her brother, and her cousin are sitting, and the deck where their parents are hanging out. We basically get the clinking of champagne glasses and floating laughter as the setting for the parents, and that's great. That's all we really need to know.

The campfire crackles, it licks marshmallows, and we can't see the lake but we can hear mosquitoes buzzing over it. Great details, short but evocative descriptions. The darkness that stares back is awesome.

Characterization

We have seven characters in this scene plus some unnamed cousins who go swimming in the lake but who aren't present at the campfire. I think that parents letting their kids tell campfire stories out of sight indicates a level of complacency and safety they feel with their environment.

Daisy is only mentioned as being physically present but we haven't heard from her yet by the end of the excerpt. Elliot is a storyteller, he tells a more elaborate version of the story every year and his mother believes that his stories are responsible for Haley's night terrors. I think that, despite that phrasing, Elliot must tell stories year-round.

And Haley, our POV character, is scared of just the idea of a doppelganger taking her away from her family, but she doesn't want Elliot to stop telling his stories. When her mother waves, Haley tries to smile so that her mother won't figure out that Elliot is scaring her. Although, if her mother can see them, she can probably see Elliot holding a flashlight toward his face to make himself seem scary, so I don't know.

Haley is properly nuanced, which is good, since she's our POV character. She's scared of the story but more scared of not being included. She's sensitive and observant and aware of her autonomy to a believable extent for a seven-year-old. If we wanted Elliot to be more dimensional, we could have a line talking about how he makes the stories less scary for her, which doesn't work, or he makes them even scarier because ten-year-olds are sociopaths.

Conflict/Tension

We have internal conflict in that Haley is scared but doesn't want to stop the storytelling, we have the contrast of laughter being like a blanket but having goosebumps from the scary story, we have the contrast of the bright fire and the dark forest. And we have the foreshadowing line about Haley losing all of the people she loves.

The tension is undercut by things like Haley reiterating the point that Elliot just made about doppelgangers watching from the shadows.

'They watch us,' he continued, 'hiding in the shadows as we walk our dogs or go to school. Sometimes, they even take out place. I could be my doppelganger right now and you wouldn't even know.'
I bit my lip, every nerve in my body ignited with fear. I knew what doppelgangers did; Elliot's story engraved itself in my mind from the very first time he told it. They watched you in back alleys, studying your habits and traits until they can finally take your place.

In general, even though the writing is evocative:

The shadows swallowed everything they touched, covering the lake in its shroud. Mosquitos buzzes above the water's surface and, as I looked out into the darkness, I swore the darkness stared back. Things moved inside those shadows -- I would have sworn it on my life -- shifting into shapes they didn't teach us in school.

Interruptions like "I would have sworn it on my life" and the mom checking in from her place on the patio keep the scene from feeling focused and purposeful. If the point of the scene is the story Elliot is telling, we need more focus on the story. And more story.

Final Thoughts

The first line, "There's a story my brother told Daisy and me when we were little," indicates that the story her brother tells in this prologue is important to the rest of the novel. But he doesn't tell a story. He introduces the concept of doppelgangers and then we switch to present-day Haley at a crime scene, who concludes that we shouldn't be afraid of doppelgangers, we should be afraid of ourselves. This is an intense line, and an exciting one to step into the first chapter with, but it negates the entire purpose of the storytelling scene. Why are we experiencing an entire scene that the author essentially dismisses with the last line?

Anyway, other than that, this is a promising start. At the very least, the author can set a mood and come up with compelling hooks.

Sunday, March 8, 2026

And Then There Was Victor by isabelle_olmo on Wattpad

Blurb

How exactly did I end up the best friend of the guy I hated my entire life? Listen, this is going to be a long story. Let me take you to the beginning. The year was 1992...

ENEMIES-TO-FRIENDS-TO-LOVERS

Victor Manning has been infuriating Becka since she sat behind him in 7th grade English. He's cocky, self-centered, and obnoxious. When High School ends, the college dynamic slowly turns Victor into the one person Becka cannot live without.

Original (First 500)

Mami had stuffed all our baby photos along with her wedding album inside of the washing machine which is why they were saved. Our house was now a carcass of its former self, skin and bones and the meat, our things, all missing. I didn't know where we belonged, but we couldn't stay here, here was all gone, and by some miracle, we remained.
The newspapers called Miami a "Wasteland" and that's what it was like. God had reached down to earth and with his great big hand he had crumbled the houses into toothpicks then laid them back down for their owners to find. Mami said gather what I could, whatever could be saved. All that I was, all that I had, fit in a box. A brown wet box.
Kissimmee was somehow where we ended up because a long-time friend offered us a room to stay in, until we got our things together. I remember thinking how small it was, small streets, small people, slow and steady.
This town was sterile and orderly, people outside of the norm were frowned upon and I was a small brown girl with frizzy hair that had one pair of jeans and had to share a bed with her little brother.
"Can you escort Beckett -- is that your name?"
The school counselor dressed funny, everyone in Kissimmee did, much different from Puerto Rico or Miami.
"Becka. Becka Montana."
I realized suddenly that my accent was thick. Very thick. I could tell by the pursing of her lips. I wasn't welcomed here, this was not where I belonged, where we belonged. I wanted to explain to her that this was not my choice but I didn't have the words.
"Derek, can you escort Ms. Montana to Mr. White's English class? She's new", the woman said and in came a boy with blond hair that fell on his face even as he pushed it back.
I didn't dare look at him, I didn't dare look at most boys. I didn't know what to say and I didn't want them to see that all I owned was in a wet cardboard box under a guest bed. He signaled with his chin for me to follow.
Mr. White was smiling and dressed so well and sharp that I remember thinking that he looked like a businessman.
"Becka?"
"Yes, sir. Becka Montana."
The class, which had turned to stare openly at me, snickered and I didn't understand why it was funny but I thought that perhaps they already knew that Miami was gone, destroyed and I was the debris that had wandered in.
"It's a pleasure to meet you Becka, welcome to 7th Grade Engish."
His eyes were brown and warm and I smiled a little at him.
"Thank you."
"Where are you from, Becka?"
"Miami." I chanced a look at the room. The faces were foreign and strange, and I missed my friends in Miami but I didn't know where they had ended up, where the winds had blown them.

My Edit

The newspapers called Miami "a wasteland" and that's what it was. God had reached down to Earth with His great big hand, crumbled the houses into toothpicks, then laid them back down. All that I was, all that I had, fit in a box. A brown, wet box.
A family friend offered us a room in Kissimmee. Compared to Miami, the town was small, slow, and colorless. Even the school counselor was beige. I could tell by the pursing of her lips that my accent was too thick. My skin too brown. My hair too frizzy. I wanted to explain to her that I didn't want me to be there either. Sharing a twin bed in a strange house in a strange city at a strange school was not how I wanted to spend seventh grade, but I didn't have the words.
As quickly as she could, she passed me onto her student aid, Derek. He ran his hand through floppy blonde hair that re-settled immediately against his cheekbones, and led me down the beige halls to the beige classroom. I didn't dare look at him, I didn't dare look at most boys, but he seemed older than me. Probably eighth grade?
As we walked in, the entire class, seemed to perk up just to snicker at me. I was debris that Hurricane Andrew had blown in, and wished I could blow right out again.
Mr. White, my English teacher, had warm brown eyes, brown skin, and a gentle smile. He wore a full gray suit with a vest and tie, like a businessman, and spoke like one of them, his accent polished away to nothing.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Becka. Where are you from?"
"Miami." I chanced a look at the room. The faces weren't all hostile, but they were all strange. I wondered if the winds had blown my friends to equally unfriendly places. I hoped not.

(Original word count: ~604 → Edited: ~321)

Critique

We get so much backstory before any action takes place, that it feels like the author wanted to start the story earlier. We start with Becka's mom saving photo albums from the hurricane by the putting them in the washing machine, which could and probably should be it's own scene. Then we have the newspapers' interpretation of the hurricane, a description of the town Becka moves to, and then we get to the present moment, in the school counselor's office -- except, wait, we're only here for the counselor to stumble over Becka's name, and then be handed off to a floppy-haired boy who leads her through the hallways. None of this, so far, is a scene, except, potentially, the floppy-haired boy leading Becka to class. We meet the English teacher and the excerpt ends.

If we're going to stuff this much set-up into the first 500 words of a novel, we can do it a little more efficiently. First, dump the washing machine, and give that its proper moment later in the story. Second, we go on a bit too long about how quiet and boring this new town is and how Becka feels too big and colorful, so shorten that a bit.

In my re-write, I drop the name confusion and just have Becka be aware that the counselor thinks she's too brown and efficiently infodump all the reasons Becka is also uncomfortable with being there. Then we have the floppy-haired kid escorting Becka to her class. I like the line about not being able to look at most boys, which, to me, is an insight that is the price of admission to letting that be its own short scene. The boy's silence also adds to the awkwardness and Becka's sense of not being welcome (even though it's likely that's not his intent).

Setting

We're in a beige school in a beige town where all the people are beige (think "Blue" by Eiffel 65 except replace blue with beige). Becka and her brother and mother are staying with friends. We don't get a lot of information about the house -- we'll assume it's beige, but we do know that Becka shares a twin bed with her brother, and that they have a soggy box full of family photos under that bed. And here's where we have a bit of a problem with worldbuilding. Because we're trying to tell too much of the story at one time, we're condensing things in a way that doesn't make sense.

First, wouldn't the box be under Becka's mom's bed? Where the mom is sleeping isn't addressed, just the kids. Also, why would the box still be wet? If the contents are that important, I'm pretty sure the friend they're staying with could have given them a dry box to put their family photos in, and even if they didn't, how long does it take for a box to dry? Not longer than the presumably week or two that it took to move in with friends.

If your POV character is in one setting and is trying to describe another setting, stop and think if we can tell this part of the story earlier or later. Describing one setting takes a certain amount of momentum away from the action of a scene, so describing two does so doubly. And trying to describe a whole town and a school and a classroom and a guest-living situation is too many things for one scene. None of the settings are getting the attention they deserve and the scene feels longer and less eventful than it otherwise would.

I get that the author is trying to front-load EVERY reason Becka is uncomfortable, but there's an easier way to do that. Start the story earlier. Getting ready for school, the chaos and discomfort of being a guest, walking to school with little bro and being self-conscious about his bright clothes and loud chattering in this quiet, beige town where all of the other kids are being driven. Then, drop him off at kindergarten (or whatever grade?) and let his total lack of hesitation in joining the other kids work as a contrast to Becka's self-consciousness. Then let the school counselor be weird and the floppy-haired kid be quiet.

I understand that there's fear that maybe this stuff wouldn't be interesting, but as long as you're exploring a scene with conflict and tension (which just the one-line synopsis of these scenes have inherently), then it will be interesting. And the scenes don't even have to be long. Like, less important scenes can be shorter than important ones. I think of a scene under the rules of a one-act play. Any time we switch locations (even going from a bedroom to a hallway or vice versa) or a character enters or leaves, that's a new scene. So a scene can be a sentence long or a paragraph or an entire novel.

The other compromise would be to let us get to know Becka better AFTER meeting Victor and let Becka just be uncomfortable in the classroom because she's new and not beige. Then we would get to their witty banter and explore more of Becka's personality later.

Characterization

Characterization is another area that suffers with trying to tell too much story at once. We have a lot of characters in this short excerpt. Becka (the main character) her mother, her brother, the friend they're staying with, Becka's old friends, the school counselor, the floppy-haired boy, the teacher, and the students in 7th-Grade English class. We have all of these characters, and only three of them get physical descriptions (including Becka). Personality-wise, the school counselor is kind of racist and the English teacher seems nice. Mami is motherly.

Becka, herself, is the most dimensional, seeming to feel lost and too big for the space she's in. She describes her friends as fellow storm detritus (which is genius) and hopes that they all landed somewhere friendlier. She's also very poetic. I love this description of the hurricane: "God had reached down to earth and with his great big hand he had crumbled the houses into toothpicks then laid them back down..."

Becka's dialogue is her name, twice, and where she's from. This reads as natural because most kids in the same situation would answer exactly what they're asked and not offer anything.However, the dialogue spoken by the adults is unnatural. For one thing, the school counselor stumbles over Becka's ethnic name, which is SO weird. I feel like this is based on a real experience about a more Latin-sounding name and the author tried to use it but the name Rebecka is of Hebrew origin, which means that it's pretty common in Caucasian circles. Also, the counselor acting like she doesn't know Becka's name when she's probably holding Becka's file is a level of hostility I don't think the author is going for.

And then we have Mr. White welcoming her to "seventh grade English". I can't imagine any teacher talking like that. We all know what grade and class we're in, that's why we're here. This is obviously for the reader, but I feel like there's a more natural way to work in the fact that she's in seventh grade. What I'm curious about is, is this near the start of the year, middle, or end? Because the level of awkwardness increases the longer the year has gone on. This would be foremost in my mind, walking into a new school (I've only missed a couple of weeks, or the kids have already established their friend groups, or why am I even here, what can I learn in three days, etc.).

Conflict/Tension

One thing we're not missing out on is conflict/tension. We have God against an entire city, we have Becka uncomfortable in every aspect of her new city, the school counselor being weird, her classmates giggling as soon as she walks in, Derek's floppy-haired silence, and having no personal space. Even her bed is something she has to share.

We even have Becka's mother against the storm. Using the washing machine as a place to keep valuables is really smart. I definitely think that the author needs to explore the hurricane itself as its own scene, if not multiple scenes. It doesn't all have to happen before our main story starts, it can be done in varying sizes of flashbacks from a sentence or two to a few pages. Processing that level of trauma can take a minute, so I can see it being something that Becka has to deal with for years.

Final Thoughts

We have a lot of potential in the original excerpt. I like ALL of the story that the author is trying to tell. The major sin is trying to shove too much story into too few words. I don't think that most readers would clock that nothing is happening because of the conflict inherent in every line. But, after a while, it feels like we're waiting for the story to start.

This is because the author doesn't stop to nail down a particular moment -- sights, smells, nuances. Instead, we're trying to experience a hurricane, the aftermath of a hurricane, a new town, a new bed, the loss of possessions and friends, the first day at a new school -- all at the same time. It's too much. This isn't a story, it's a hurricane of information.

Having read ahead, the next few chapter suffer from the same issue. Not to the same extreme, but it always feels like we're trying to get to the next part of the story. We need to finish junior high so that we can get to high school so that we can get to college where the real story starts. I don't know if college feels the same way because I didn't get that far, but I will say that if you're writing a part of a story as a way to get to the part you want to write, just write that part. We don't need an epic romance that starts in junior high if you don't care as much about what happens in junior high as what happens later. Just skip that part.

All that said, the author definitely has the potential to really nail a moment. That whole God/toothpick thing is genius and I'll never not think of that when I see the aftermath of any storm. Also, a lot of the writing in the next few chapters is charming, it just feels rushed.

Saturday, February 28, 2026

The Famoux by famouxx on Wattpad

Blurb

Fame can be deadly.

Out of the wreckage of environmental collapse, the country of Delicatum emerged. Its most popular celebrities are the Famoux, uniquely beautiful stars of a reality TV show called the Fishbowl. In a world still recovering from catastrophe, they provide a 24/7 distraction. 

Sixteen-year-old Emilee Laurence is obsessed with the Famoux-they provide a refuge from her troubled home life and the bullies at school. When she receives an unexpected offer to become a member herself, she takes it. Leaving behind everything she's ever known, Emilee enters a world of high glamour and even higher stakes. 

Behind their perfect image lies an ugly truth-an anonymous stalker has been dictating the Famoux's every move, and being popular really is a matter of life or death.

Original (First 500)

When I was younger and more susceptible to liars, my mother let me in on a little secret that took me years to outgrow. If I really wanted something, she told me, all I had to do was think about it, and hope for it, and my requests would always be heard.
"Thoughts are powerful," she said. "Good or bad, they have their way of coming true."
Poor advice to give a child, much less one as vulnerable as I was. I took her wisdom as fact and accepted no other opinions. As children do, I thought only of ways to make my singular life easier. I thought about acing my tests instead of studying for them, thought about making good and lasting friends instead of being one in kind. I thought about standing up to Westin van Horne one day instead of ever becoming brave enough to do actually do it.
But thoughts without action, as I'd later learn, are meaningless. My grades, my loneliness, and my torment persisted, because I didn't do a thing to change them. Yet, as I walked home, I kept my mother's promise in mind. I thought new thoughts of a better life, sure that these would be the ones to come true. And when I came home crying, she was there to wipe the tears from my eyes and feed me more honey-tasting lies. She'd tell me how my differences weren't flaws, and that I wasn't worth any less than Westin or any of the other kids. She'd tell me I was beautiful, unique was good, and a whole menagerie of other little myths long since proven untrue. I'm sure even then I knew they were lies, but oh, were they wonderful lies to live. I grew to depend on them -- on knowing that no matter how bad the day was, my mother would always be there to comfort me with tall tales of a better future.
Which turned out to be yet another lie.
The morning in question wasn't inherently different than any before it. She insisted I wear her jacket to school, a blue corduroy thing lined with fleece, since mine was getting small in the arms. She told me as always to think positive thoughts that day while she fastened the buttons. I was fourteen at the time, so the sentiment was met with rolling eyes, a swat at her hands, and an assertion I could fasten a coat just fine on my own, thank you. At school, Westin and his group gave me their worst, and I fought tears the whole way home. It was the usual routine. It was expected. So when I creaked open the door and sulked inside with my usual, miserable flair, the last thing I expected was to find the house empty.
Sure, the furniture was still in place. The cabinets were still stocked. But the smell of peonies in her perfume was faint, as if she'd been out of the house all day. I didn't think much of it until I went to her closet to return the jacket and discovered her things were gone.
A thought tried to enter my head at that moment, but I wouldn't let it. Thoughts had power, after all, and this was one I couldn't bear to let come true. But as I checked her empty drawers and noted the missing duffel bags in the hall closet, I realized it already had.
My mother was gone. She had run away.

My Edit

When I was young and susceptible to lies, my mother let me in on a little secret. If I really wanted something, all I had to do was think about it, and hope for it, and my wishes would be heard.
"Thoughts are powerful," she said. "Good or bad, they have their way of coming true."
And when I'd come home from school crying every day, for years, she was there to wipe away the tears and feed me more honeyed fiction. My differences weren't flaws. My bullies were wrong. I was beautiful, unique, good. Even then, I knew they were lies, but, oh, I needed to hear them.
One morning, she insisted I wear her jacket to school; a blue corduroy thing lined with fleece, since mine was getting small in the arms. "Think positive thoughts," she said, fastening the buttons, her liquid amber eyes smiling, her peony perfume enveloping me.
I was fourteen, so I rolled my eyes and swatted her hands away, outwardly rejecting the comfort that sustained me. School, as usual, was terrible, and I cried the whole way home. When I skulked inside, no one was there. Peony perfume was a faint whisper in the stale air. I'd beat my siblings home -- they had friends to hang out with after school -- my father was at work, my mother must have gone into town.
I wasn't sure if I felt abandoned or released from the ritual of confessing every humiliating moment of my day. I stomped up the creaky stairs -- creak, stomp, sniff, creak, stomp, sniff. I stomped, sniffed, stomped to the open door of my parents' room. Stomped and sniffed my way to the closet to return my mother's jacket.
My father's clothes hung there, brown and beige and smelling of starch and dust. My mother's flowy floral dresses were not hanging next to them. Her neat, dainty shoes were not next to his big, worn ones on the bottom of the closet.
A thought, originating in the pounding of my heart thrummed through my veins until it reached my brain, but I shut it out. If I thought it, it would real. My mother wasn't gone. She wouldn't have left me. She couldn't have.
But her perfume was not on her dresser, no underwear in her drawers. Her small, pink suitcase was not in the hallway closet. She was gone.
(Original word count: ~583 → Edited: ~396)

Critique

Great blurb, I like a lot about the premise. First, behind-the-scenes of reality TV is always interesting to me, ditto with glamorous settings and the corruption behind them. The fish-out-of-water element with Emilee coming in from a troubled home life is also great. I like the added danger of a blackmailing stalker. This all promises a really compelling story.

The writing itself is poetic and evocative, with the opening line mimicking the opening line to The Great Gatsby, with a twist. In The Great Gatsby, the narrator speaks of his father reverently, and the narrator in this story calls her mom a liar in the first line. Aside from that, though, we get a portrait of a melancholy girl who is bullied a lot and her only solace is her mother's comfort -- until she comes home from school one day and finds that her mother has left.

Setting

Kind of a nebulous "back when I was a child" lack of setting at first, and Emilee's house. We get a creaky front (or back?) door, furniture, full cabinets, empty drawers, and the faint remnant of peony perfume. Since we all know what a house looks like, this is serviceable, but could do with a little bit more description.

In my version, I made the stairs creaky instead of the door, described her father's clothes and what her mother's missing clothes looked like (very simply, just floral dresses), and instead of just empty drawers, I had Emilee note the missing perfume bottle on top of the dresser. I gave her mom a small pink suitcase instead of duffel bags that could belong to anyone. A blue, fur-line corduroy jacket doesn't really evoke floral dresses as the rest of that person's wardrobe, but it works as an example of how you can add a little bit of detail without spending paragraphs on their entire closet.

The point being that in the original excerpt, we don't have anything concrete to anchor the sense of emptiness and loss to. Investigating someone's bedroom in their absence is an awkwardly invasive thing to do, and can reveal things about the non-present character that we might not be allowed to notice if they were around. So, I feel like this scene, presented as an emotion-dump, rather than an infodump, is a missed opportunity. We also don't have any indication that Emilee has siblings, like, no clothes lying around or shoes to trip over. I added some clothes to the father's side of the closet because otherwise, you would think that Emilee and her mother live in this house alone.

Characterization

Emilee is very emo. Like, too emo. We get a lament that she spent her childhood expecting her life to get better without knowing that she'd need to work for it:

I thought about acing my tests instead of studying for them, thought about making good and lasting friends instead of being one in kind. I thought about standing up to Westin van Horne one day instead of ever becoming brave enough to do actually do it.

This is okay, but it's so generic that it's not really saying anything. Like, name a subject -- I thought about studying for my math test instead of closing my eyes and praying I'd ace it. I like naming the bully, but we could be a bit more specific here, too. "I thought about punching Westin van Horne in the face the next time he made fun of my weird mole." And hoping for good friends to come into her life rather than being a good friend would also be more effective if we had some specificity. "Charity never laughed when everyone else did. She even told Westin to "shut up" once. I could have baked her cookies or invited her over to play Scrabble..." or something.

All in all, because we spend so much time in Emilee's head with so much generic lamentation, I cut most of it out. I think the author thinks that the crux of this excerpt is Emilee's regret in believing that thoughts are magic, but the real crux of it is Emilee coming home to find that the only person in the world who loves her and believes in her is gone. By choice.

If we wanted to make this excerpt a real gut punch, we'd include more information about her mother than perfume and what kind of jacket she wears. We get her philosophy is "thoughts are magic" but how does she implement that? Like, instead of "think positive thoughts," have a kind of daily prayer. "I am going to ace that Pre-Algebra test, Westin van Horne is going to be nice to me today, I'm going to tell Charity her hair looks nice."

In the original excerpt, we also have Emilee crying SO much, and we don't know why. Like, HOW is she different? What does Westin tease her about? Is he physically abusive? Why is every single day of her life torment? And if it's so bad, why doesn't her mother homeschool?

The problem with Emilee crying so much is that it's her only personality trait. She relies on her mother to help her feel better but she doesn't have any interests that she can get lost in or build self-esteem around, no sense of humor, no agency in building her own mantras, rather than just -- hoping.

Also, I know from reading ahead that Emilee has siblings. They are not mentioned at all until she has to tell them that their mother is gone. Neither is the dad. Hinting at family dynamics early on would drive home how and why the mother is so important and how much worse Emilee's life is going to be without her mother there to buffer the rest of the family's rejection. Right now, it reads as Emily's only family is her mother who has abandoned her with no explanation or even any reason that the reader can glean.

As I was reading this originally, I was sure that the mother was about to die. I was surprised that her mother chose to leave, especially because this read as a mother-daughter family until this point.

Conflict/Tension

Yes, there is tension in the present-day Emilee calling her mother a liar, in regretting her reliance on thoughts instead of deeds, and the way she rolls her eyes and swats her mother's hands away. Nice little foreshadowing for guilt later on when she realizes that that was the last interaction she'd ever have with her mom.

Also, even though I rephrased it for clarity, I really liked this part of the original:

So when I creaked open the door and sulked inside with my usual, miserable flair, the last thing I expected was to find the house empty.
Sure, the furniture was still in place. The cabinets were still stocked. But the smell of peonies in her perfume was faint, as if she'd been out of the house all day. I didn't think much of it until I went to her closet to return the jacket and discovered her things were gone.

I feel like this is a moment that is glossed over compared to the paragraphs and paragraphs of navel-gazing, BUT I really like the writing. The distinction between a fully-furnished and stocked house that is still empty because a person is missing is really lovely. And the discovery that her mother's things are gone is a shock, not just because I was expecting Emilee to find her mom dead, but because everything up until this point depicts a loving and devoted mother who would never leave her child voluntarily.

So, yes, there is tension, it's just kind of buried in too much thinking, and the moment of finding her mother gone needs a bit more attention. My version is almost 200 words less than the original excerpt overall, but the discovery of the missing mom is 80 words in the original whereas in my version, it's 144 words. Word count is like a weight, indicating to the reader where their focus should be, so we want to make sure we're giving the important moments the weight they deserve.

Final Thoughts

This story has a lot of promise. I like the idea of exploring a story featuring an obvious loser who is thrust into a living situation under constant surveillance with the ultimate It crowd. The fact that the It crowd is being stalked and blackmailed is just a bonus.

The writing itself, even reading ahead, is full of good ideas that are drowned out by direction-less angst. I get it, my early writing was like this too, but it does add an extra level of difficulty for the reader. I definitely think that there is an audience for this version of the story, but maybe a bit of a smaller audience than the author might ultimately want. If the author works on more concrete, plot-and-character-driven aspects of the story, rather than relying mostly on emotion, they'll be able to expand their reader base.

Friday, February 20, 2026

Keeper Martin's Tale by Robert Stanek

Blurb

The "Ruin Mist Chronicles" begin when the Elf Queen sends her sworn protector, Seth, on a journey to the lands of Men. Legend says that the races have been divided for hundreds of years and there are few survivors among the brother races. In Keeper Martin's Tale, readers embark on the unfolding of the first path through the histories of Ruin Mist. This is a deep epic fantasy ostensibly chronicled by Keeper Martin, head of lore keepers.

Original (First 500)

Sunrise loomed across the horizon, pale as jasmine and mostly obscured by dark, feral clouds. The early morning air held an unusual chill and Adrina gathered her light shawl more closely as she stepped out onto the catwalk atop the wall. A breeze blew long strands of hair across her face. The hair, black as the receding night, flowed to her waist and while it was normally braided and folded over her left shoulder, it wasn’t now.
Summer must surely be at an end, Adrina surmised, for the breeze came from the north and not from the West Deep.
Adrina walked to a place where the wall jutted out and cut its way into High King’s Square. Behind her the palace parade grounds were empty and silent, as was the square before her. Many stories below, the city’s residents would soon awake. The square would fill with sounds as merchants began to unpack their wares. Palace guardsmen would muster for breakfast. City and palace would stir to life.
Yet Adrina preferred the empty moment just before all this happened, for the silence echoed the aching of her heart. She pressed her chin into the palm of her hand, her elbow glued to the stone framework of the wall. She sighed mournfully. The palace was truly dead, all real life having long since been gnawed away.
She could have passed the day dreaming about things beyond the gray stone edifice, the cold palace wall, with its portcullis tucked cleanly out of view. She had sauntered through many a day thus, envisioning magnificent journey to the four corners of the land.
Great Kingdom had many holdings. High Province in the north – the far, far north – where amidst mountains of ice and stone the rivers boiled and filled the air with blankets of fog. South, beyond a forest of great white trees called giant birch, lay South Province with its capital city enveloped by the majestic Quashan’ valley. East through the Kingdom along the East-West road were the Territories, divided east and west. The untamed Eastern Territories were awaiting discovery. The Western Territories held but two Kingdom outposts: Zashchita and Krepost’. Traders claimed the walled city of Zashchita was carved from the very trees of the forest, and its building lifted so far into the heavens that they were lost in the clouds. Beyond Zashchita lay Krepost’ and her ferryman who took travelers across River Krespost’ so they could begin the climb into the mountain city, and where afterward the gatekeeper may or may not chase them over the cliffs into Starter’s Bay and to their deaths.
But today Adrina was frustrated to the point of tears. She wouldn’t pass the day dreaming of things she may never see. She didn’t understand what difference the passing of a year made. Why did it matter so that she was a year older? This year seemed the same as the last.

My Edit

Sunrise loomed across the horizon, pale as jasmine and mostly obscured by dark, feral clouds. The early morning air held an unusual chill and Adrina gathered her light shawl more closely around her as she stepped out onto the catwalk atop the wall of the castle. A breeze blew long strands of hair across her face. The hair, black as the receding night, flowed to her waist, free of its usual braid.
Summer must surely be at an end, Adrina surmised, for the breeze came from the north and not from the West Deep. She walked to where the wall jutted out, overlooking High King’s Square. Silence seemed a shroud over the whole of Imtel, clear to the Braddabaggon foothills. Below, the city’s residents would soon awake. The square would fill with sounds as merchants unpacked their wares. Palace guardsmen would muster for breakfast. City and palace would stir to life.
This aching silence each morning before the city awoke, resonated within her. She leaned her elbow atop the stone framework and pressed her chin into the palm of her hand, staring out across the land.
To the far, far north, amidst mountains of ice and stone, rivers boiled and filled the air with blankets of fog. Adrina longed to see this for herself. She longed to see Zashchita to the west, a city carved from the very trees of the forest; its buildings lifted so far into the sky that they were lost in the clouds. And Krepost’, which could only be reached by ferry, where she'd make the three-day climb into the mountain city. The Gatekeeper would find her worthy and invite her in or find her unworthy and chase her over the cliffs and to her death.
She shivered at thought. She'd prefer to be invited in, but at least being chased off of a cliff would be an adventure. Better than dying of boredom and grief at home. As of midnight, she was officially a year older. But the only way this year would be different than the last was in her dreams.
(Original word count: ~503 → Edited: ~347)

Critique

The blurb on Amazon is a mess. It mostly talks about how great the author and series are, but almost nothing about the story. I pasted the most coherent description into the "Blurb" section at the top of the page, but it's so generic, it could literally be describing a thousand high fantasy stories. There's nothing specific to this story except for the character names for Seth and Keeper Martin.

I will say that the writing itself (at least of the first chapter) is lovely and evocative. "Sunrise loomed across the horizon, pale as jasmine and mostly obscured by dark, feral clouds." Feral clouds, really? That's beautiful. We also have, "The silence seemed a shroud over the whole of Imtel..." Even the less poetic sentences clearly have a lot of thought put into them.

Setting

The setting is the top of a castle at dawn -- looking over the square and countryside. Maybe not the most unique setting for a fantasy story but still more interesting than real life. I'd definitely rather be there than here.

Characterization

The characterization is less specific. I think Adrina is supposed to be young, maybe sixteen or so, but the passage makes her read as much older, especially the hints about her grieving. We know that she likes this time of day, before the rest of the city wakes up, we know that she wants to see some of the more spectacular and unique parts of the world, so that hints at an adventurous spirit, and we know that she's melancholic. (The silence echoes the aching of her heart, and she sighs mournfully.) That's pretty much all we get but definitely enough to start a story with.

Conflict/Tension

Conflict comes from what Adrina wants versus what she's allowed. She wants to travel and have adventures, but she can't. Something about this day being her birthday means that she can't just hang out on the roof, people watching and daydreaming.

Final Thoughts

Overall, a pretty strong first 500 words for a story. I will say that the longest passage, describing the different territories kind of made my eyes cross a bit. We don't really need a verbal map this early on, but if we have one, for me, the potential adventures in each land are more important not only to me but to Adrina, so this is where I made the most edits.

In the passage below, I've underlined all of the unique descriptions and crossed out all of the generic ones.

~~Great Kingdom had many holdings. High Province in the north – the far, far north – wher~~e amidst mountains of ice and stone the rivers boiled and filled the air with blankets of fog. ~~South, beyond a forest of great white trees called giant birch, lay South Province with its capital city enveloped by the majestic Quashan’ valley.~~ East through the Kingdom along the East-West road were the Territories, divided east and west. The untamed Eastern Territories were awaiting discovery. The Western Territories held but two Kingdom outposts: Zashchita and Krepost’. Traders claimed the walled city of Zashchita was carved from the very trees of the forest, and its building lifted so far into the heavens that they were lost in the clouds. Beyond Zashchita lay Krepost’ and her ferryman who took travelers across River Krespost’ so they could begin the climb into the mountain city, and where afterward the gatekeeper may or may not chase them over the cliffs into Starter’s Bay and to their deaths.

Sometimes, in fantasy stories, authors are tempted to describe the entire world, but that doesn't feel natural to the scene, the direction of Adrina's thoughts, and it's not interesting. What IS interesting is boiling rivers and cities built into the boughs of trees and potentially being chased off of a cliff. At a moment like this, a snapshot is more effective than an entire map.

So, for my edit, I just kept the interesting parts and cut out all of the generic stuff:

To the far, far north, amidst mountains of ice and stone, rivers boiled and filled the air with blankets of fog. Adrina longed to see this for herself. She longed to see Zashchita to the west, a city carved from the very trees of the forest; its buildings lifted so far into the sky that they were lost in the clouds. And Krepost’, which could only be reached by ferry, where she'd make the three-day climb into the mountain city. The Gatekeeper would find her worthy and invite her in or find her unworthy and chase her over the cliffs and to her death.

There aren't any glaring sins in this excerpt. If anything, some of the writing can be tightened up and focused, but this was obviously crafted very carefully, not thrown together for attention. This is actually way better writing than half of the stuff I run across when I'm looking for excerpts for this blog.

This is a story I heard about from a YouTube video talking about how the author faked reviews and fan sites to make himself seem like a best-selling author. He was pretty elaborate with it, and I was intrigued to see what his writing was like. Honestly, not bad.

If you Google this author's name, you'll get a lot of results describing him as the "worst author in the world" and stuff, and that's just because people like to feel superior. Robert Stanek is cringe for creating sock puppets in order to talk about how great his work is, so that means that his writing is automatically bad. Now, I haven't read the entire book, and maybe it's not great, but based on this sample, he knows exactly the story that he wants to write and he has some skill in pulling it off.

I think his biggest sin was wanting to be a successful author more than he wanted to be a good writer. It has actually occurred to me to do exactly what he did -- build up hype, talk to myself about how great I am, all that stuff. There were two main reasons I didn't follow through with that. First, I thought that if I was going to go through all of that trouble to try to seem great, I might as well just work on trying to be great. Second, I thought I would probably be caught and humiliated for it, and that's exactly what happened to him.

I wonder if he partly did all of this for his own amusement, thinking that nobody would ever find it, and getting to play the big important author. The internet isn't as forever as we like to think, and it's so easy to be anonymous on it just because so many people are doing so many things.

I find it distasteful the way that people like to find someone dogpile on, like they're not an actual human being. I don't know anything about this Stanek guy (unless I AM him, bwahahaha) but -- I don't know -- to do the amount of writing that he has done shows a certain level of commitment. And, frankly, the level of marketing that he's done, shady or not, is also impressive. And I can't help but cringe in empathy with him instead of in superiority toward him. I hope he keeps writing and has a good life outside of the internet.

Thursday, February 12, 2026

The Incorruptible Man by Crystal Charee

This is an old story that I started re-writing last year. This is what I'm assuming will be Chapter 3, but we'll see. The story is about Tracy, a con woman who has run away from her old boyfriend (not abusive but very married).

She has a spreadsheet of known marks, what scams have already been performed on them, and by whom, and how much money each con artist made off of the mark, as well as the mark's potential net worth.

Fred has an asterisk under his name, which, at the bottom of the spreadsheet just says "The Incorruptible Man". He's a used car salesman, owns his own lot in a small town in the middle of nowhere. He has been touched by a LOT of con artists in Tracy's circle, but never for more than a few thousand dollars. His net worth is estimated at almost a million dollars. Tracy is intrigued and has nothing better to do, so she goes to check him out.

She meets him at a bar, offers to go home with him, and initiates sex. The next day, while he's at work, she cleans his house, gets to know his neighbors, and throws out the randos that he lets stay in his home. Chapter 3 is later that day, when Fred gets home from work. The previous chapters were from Tracy's POV and this is our first look at Fred from his POV.

Original (First 500)

Fred wasn't sure which smell hit him first, or hardest. The succulent beef stew simmering on the stove, or the total and utter lack of musty gym socks. The kitchen was dark and quiet, with only the stove hood light on. Silence reigned in his home for the first time in forever. He walked into the empty living room the beef stew trailing behind him to mingle with the faintest hint of weed snaking through a stronger combination of Pine Sol and Lemon Pledge. The couch was empty, all of Todd's stuff was gone. No bong, no scattered clothing and sneakers, no overheating XBox or screaming television. Only a lamp in the corner that Fred had completely forgotten he owned offered some light in the dark room. Thick bows that had previously lay abandoned on the carpet now held the curtains open. Fred felt the sudden need to set down. He sank down on to the armchair next to the couch and looked around.
He couldn't remember the last time the curtains had been open. Way before Todd, some couch guest had closed them, and that had become their permanent position. His second wife, Eve, had kept them open, but they had been chosen by Janice and hung by Fred. He'd never understood Janice's excitement about the exact shade of sage green, the way it perfectly matched the leaves on the floral couch. Everything had been chosen and placed so carefully, been preserved by Eve, and left to rot by Fred and his menagerie of uninvited guests.
Tracy had done this. She'd cleaned his house and made him dinner as a gesture of gratitude for hosting her the night before. Her car hadn't been in the driveway when he'd gotten home -- maybe she had gone back to Stucky's to find a more attractive, age-appropriate host. He tried to feel grateful, instead, he felt old, tired, and alone. He stood and fled the living room on slow, achy knees.
The hallway was cleared of the random accumulated junk he'd grown so accustomed to seeing that it had turned invisible over time. The absence of it made the space feel bigger and cleaner. And emptier. He flipped a light on in the bathroom. The bathroom smelled like clean laundry and had towels neatly layered over the towel racks. The sweet, plasticy smell of a fresh shower curtain liner wafted in the air, but he couldn't see it because it was hidden behind a mauve linen shower curtain. He recognized it as his wife's. For a deliciously delusional moment, he stared at the matching bath mat and engaged in a fantasy where Janice wasn't dead after all.
When the moment was over, that old cactus-spiked blanket of grief pricked at him, settling into his skin.He flipped the light back off and continued down the hallway. He already knew that the guest room would be clean and empty before he opened the door.

My Edit

Fred wasn't sure which smell hit him first, or hardest. The succulent stew simmering on the stove, or the total and utter lack of musty gym socks. The kitchen was dark and quiet, with only the stove hood light on. He walked over to the simmering pot, and stared down at it. Yep. That was beef stew. The scent trailed behind him as he walked into the living room. Over the stew, the faintest hint of of weed snaked through a stronger combination of Pine Sol and Lemon Pledge.
The couch was empty, all of Todd's stuff was gone. No bong, no scattered clothing and sneakers, no overheating XBox or blaring television. Only a lamp in the corner that Fred had completely forgotten he owned offered some light in the dark room. Thick bows that had previously lay abandoned on the carpet, held the curtains open first the first time in years. Fred felt the sudden need to sit down. He sank down on to the armchair next to the couch and looked around.
Way before Todd, some couch guest had closed the curtains, and that had become their permanent position. His second wife, Eve, had kept them open, but they had been chosen by his first and only real wife, Janice. He'd never understood Janice's excitement about the exact shade of sage green, the way it perfectly matched the leaves on the floral couch, but he'd been happy that she was happy. Everything had been chosen and placed carefully by Janice, preserved by Eve, and left to rot by Fred and his neverending parade of uninvited guests.
Tracy had done this. She'd cleaned his house and made him dinner as a gesture of gratitude for hosting her the night before. Her car hadn't been in the driveway when he'd gotten home -- maybe she had gone back to Stucky's to find a more attractive, age-appropriate host. He tried to feel grateful. Instead, he felt old, tired, and alone. He stood, knees creaking, and continued the tour of his home.
The hallway had been cleared of the random accumulated junk he'd grown so accustomed to seeing that it had turned invisible over time. The absence of it made the space feel bigger and cleaner. And emptier. He flipped a light on in the bathroom. The bathroom smelled like clean laundry and had towels neatly layered over the towel racks. The sweet, plastic smell of a fresh shower curtain liner wafted in the air, hidden behind a mauve linen shower curtain. Another Janice pick that some guest had switch out for a cat wielding a trident and riding a whale, at some point. With the original curtain back, for a deliciously delusional moment, he stared at the matching bath mat and engaged in a fantasy where Janice wasn't dead after all.
When the moment was over, that old cactus-spiked blanket of grief pricked at him, settling back into his skin. He flipped the light back off and continued down the hallway, dread building in his stomach. He already knew that the guest room would be clean and empty before he opened the door.
(Original word count: ~490 → Edited: ~521)

Critique

It's hard for me to be objective about this scene, partly because it's newer writing, and partly because it just makes me love Fred so much. If you met Fred in real life, you'd think that you were meeting the personification of a beige paint chip. But this scene shows him at his most tenderhearted, grieving, and lonely self, and I'd die for him.

I'll usually critique the first 500 words of a story, but since this is a couple of chapters in, I'll probably be a little more forgiving of the fact that it's a quieter scene.

Setting

Fred's house at dusk. It's quiet and clean, with the hint of weed peeking through the savory scents of stew and Pine Sol. It feels warm to me, probably because of the beef stew greeting us on the stove and wafting behind him as he wanders through his house.

Not the most exciting of settings, but this scene will have been preceeded by Tracy cleaning and cooking and clearing out house guests all day. I think it'll be a nice contrast -- the chaotic hustle of Tracy's day versus Fred's lonesome self-guided tour of his own house.

Characterization

We get to know several characters through this passage. Fred, of course, but also his first wife, Janice and his second wife, Eve. We also get remnants of Todd as well as the ghosts of other house guests. If this was the first scene in the book, we'd be getting an interesting picture of Tracy, as well. Someone maybe a little presumptuous but generous. Maybe someone, as we move through the house, that doesn't understand that a neat home isn't as appealing to Fred as a full one.

One thing I had in the original was bringing Janice's mauve shower curtain back. I think I originally pictured just the liner being used for years, but since that wasn't clear when I re-read the passage, I just put in a shower curtain that I actually purchased for my own home because I thought it was hilarious.

Fred's ambivalence toward the changes to his house is interesting. He's not really pleased or displeased. At first, he doesn't really react at all, just kind of accepting, then he's kind of hit by the curtains being open for t he first time in years, then he feels lonely as he moves through the hallway, checking the bathroom and on his way to he guestroom.

His guilt over letting people treat his house however shows up with the curtain tie backs, but the shower curtain makes him hallucinate for a second that Janice is alive. His connection to Janice feels very big in this scene, in a way that it probably won't for the rest of the book. I think that at this point in his story, he associates Janice more with loss than companionship. I want to see, as he moves through the rest of the story, him be able to focus on what they had that he gets to carry with him, rather than what he doesn't have anymore. And I'm not talking about curtains.

Oh, and I have to mention this, because it makes me love Fred, even though I'm the one who wrote him this way. He mentions that he "hosted" Tracy the night before and acknowledges that her cleaning his house is a gesture of gratitude. If you hadn't read the previous chapters, you wouldn't know that Tracy initiated sex and that Fred was very interested in giving her as many orgasms as he could for as long as she'd let him. I like that he uses the word "hosted", I like that he doesn't feel entitled to her continued presence, and he doesn't slut shame her or otherwise be disrespectful of her, even internally. This is how you know Fred is fictional, but I don't care. My world, my perfect love interest.

Conflict/Tension

Fred is not the most demonstrative of characters, even internally, so I worry that he, and this scene, can come off as boring, but I think it's important to allow him to be boring and ordinary. His life is about to get VERY interesting. In a way, this story offers him a call to action, even though Tracy is the main character. She's already in action, has never not been in action, so this is the calm before the storm that she's about to drag him into.

Even without knowing that, there is tension in Fred's ambivalence. Most people walking into a warm, clean home with food on the stove would feel cozy, cared for. Fred feels guilty and abandoned. His lack of gratitude is also in conflict with what the reader might expect after watching Tracy do all of this for him for a full chapter.

Final Thoughts

My revision doesn't have any sweeping changes from the original, probably because the writing is so recent. I think I wrote this in 2024. I did go through and try to smooth out some of the transitions between rooms and clarify Fred's reactions, although I still want him to be a bit hard to read. Fred is never going to be a demonstrative character, but at this point in the story, he's very disconnected from his emotions, so melancholy and guilt are going to be uppermost.

I will share a spoiler, though. Fred is not alone in the house. Tracy is in his bedroom, which is at the end of the hallway, around the corner from the guest room. So, as Fred gets lonelier throughout his tour, and maybe even a bit resentful at Tracy's presumptuousness, he's going to be blindsided to turn the corner and see light shining under the door.

I came up with this character I think around twenty years ago and never did anything with him. He's so blah of a character at first glance that I didn't even know if I'd ever try to write his story. I came up with the idea for The Incorruptible Man maybe ten-ish years ago? And when I realized that Fred could the The Incorruptible Man, I was really happy that's I'd be able to use Fred in a story that had such a fun premise. For me, it's going to be really fun to balance the absolute soda-crackerness of his personality with a wild, WILD plot.

I don't have a lot of story ideas for "real world" settings. I mostly like high fantasy and speculative stuff. The thing about that is that you have to ground more fantastic settings with believable (for the genre) plots and characters. Not an issue with this story. As it's set in "reality", I don't need to ground it and it's going to get weird. Sometimes, conflict and tension just come from contrast. Fred's bland personality in juxtaposition with a wild plot is going to be SO fun.

Wednesday, February 4, 2026

The Magical Beasts Calls Me Mother by Rojeen_Zara

Blurb

I died from exhaustion in a world that never wanted me.
When I opened my eyes again, I was no longer a nameless office worker...
I was the beloved daughter of a duke inside a novel I once read.

But here's the problem:
I'm not the heroine.
I'm not the villainess.
I'm just the "ex-friend" side character who was supposed to fade away quietly.

That was my plan too-
...until I stumbled upon a black dragon's egg.
Until it hatched and called me "Mother."
Until it transformed into a child and dragged me into the center of every noble's gossip, every battle, and... every man's heart.

Now the male lead won't stop appearing in my life, the second male lead keeps getting too close, and even the villain himself seems interested in me.

And worst of all? The so-called heroine is furious that everything she wanted... is becoming mine.

I never asked for this.
But if fate insists on putting me in the spotlight-
then fine.
I'll shine brighter than anyone else.

Original (First 500)

Warmth.
It was the first thing I felt. The kind of warmth I had never known in my life.
When I opened my eyes, sunlight spilled across silk curtains the color of dawn. My body sank into a mattress so soft I thought I was still dreaming.
"Celestria, you're awake."
I froze. The voice was gentle. Loving. So unlike the one I grew up with.
A woman sat by my bedside, her golden hair coiled elegantly, her emerald eyes shimmering with relief. She reached out and touched my cheek as though I were the most precious thing in the world.
"My darling daughter, you frightened me. You've been asleep for so long."
Daughter.
The word pierced through me. My throat tightened. My adoptive mother had only ever spat that word at me like a curse. But this woman...she said it as though it were a blessing.
"...Mother?" My voice cracked.
Her eyes softened further, and she gathered me into her arms. "Yes, I'm here. Your mother is here."
I couldn't stop it. Tears burned my eyes and slipped down my cheeks. I clutched her gown as if she would vanish.
She stroked my hair patiently. "Shh, you're safe. Your father and brother will be overjoyed to hear you've woken."
Father? Brother?
I pulled back, blinking rapidly. My gaze darted across the room -- gilded furniture, crystal vases, walls adorned with paintings that looked centuries old. Nothing about this resembled my dingy apartment or the office where I'd collapsed.
And then...memory hit me like storm.
The novel.
I knew this place. I had read these very descriptions.
This was the Arden Duchy. The home of Celestria Arden, the duke's beloved daughter. A side character in the story.
My heart pounded in my chest. If I was here, that meant...
I wasn't the heroine.
I wasn't the villainess.
I was the girl destined to stand in the background until she disappeared from the story altogether.
The door burst open before I could breathe.
"Celestria!"
A tall man with silver hair and commanding presence rushed in -- the Duke himself. Behind him, a boy around my age with stormy blue eyes barreled past, nearly tripping in his haste.
"Sister!" the boy cried, grabbing my hand.
I stared at them -- at the father and brother I'd never had in my real life.
They looked at me as though I were their treasure.
My lips trembled. This wasn't possible. None of this was possible.
And yet, when my father's large hand rested protectively on my shoulder and my brother grinned as though I'd hung the moon, I couldn't help but whisper the one truth my heart knew:
For the first time in my life...I was loved.

Critique

This is a showcase post — an excerpt of the first 500 words of a novel that are so good, I don’t see any reason for my own edit. This will still be a critique, but it’s mostly a highlight of excellent work, with discussion of a couple of areas I wanted to nitpick.

Let’s start with the easiest fix: the title. It has too many plurals. It should either be The Magical Beasts Call Me Mother or The Magical Beast Calls Me Mother, depending on how many magical beasts call her “Mother.” Based on the blurb, it’s only one.

The blurb is great. For most posts on this blog, I try to provide a more compelling or cohesive blurb than the author provided — that wasn’t necessary here. The author describes her story beautifully.

The first line, “I died from exhaustion in a world that never wanted me,” is intriguing but heartbreaking. In the next line, she opens her eyes, and in the line after that, she’s a character in a novel. Each successive line escalates with more intriguing detail: from a world that never wanted her, to being fine with being a side character destined to fade out of the story, to this crescendo: "But if fate insists on putting me in the spotlight-/then fine./I'll shine brighter than anyone else."

We do get a bit Mary Sue-ish. Every guy in the book falls in love with her, including the villain. But I’m fine with it. I’ve never had a problem with self-insert characters. They get to be what I want to be, the smartest, most talented, most desirable person in the room. A character doesn’t need to be fatally flawed to be interesting. Conflict and tension can come from choices, rivals — existence.

Similarly to the blurb, the writing in Chapter 1 is poetic, and in fact repeats a couple of the same lines as she realizes she’s a character in a book: “I wasn’t the heroine./I wasn’t the villainess.” The next line differs from the blurb: “I’m just the ‘ex-friend’ side character who was supposed to fade away quietly.” This feels contemporary and slightly jarring against the poetic rest of the blurb.

The line in the book, “I was the girl destined to stand in the background until she disappeared from the story altogether,” is much stronger. It matches the poetic feel of the prose and says so much. Compare “ex-friend” to “girl”: an ex is nebulous — the victim or the villain — whereas “girl” feels more innocent, less powerful. Compare “fade away quietly” to “disappeared completely”: both are beautiful, but “disappeared completely” is so final.

Setting
Here are some setting descriptions: “sunlight spilled across silk curtains the color of dawn” and “a mattress so soft I thought I was still dreaming”. These scream luxury even before we get to “gilded furniture, crystal vases, walls adorned with paintings that looked centuries old.”

The setting tells us the MC didn’t wake up as a peasant on a straw mattress or a hard, cold ground. She woke up as a princess (daughter of a duke — but what’s the diff?). We get texture with silk, soft, gilded, crystal. For color, we get “the color of dawn.” There’s just enough imagery for the reader to fill in the details without slowing the pace of the MC’s realizations.

That said, the room could use a few more colors and some additional physical description. The bed could be a canopy, there could be a chest of drawers, candlelight, or a book that her mother is reading before Celestria wakes up — something period-specific to set the scene. Very short mentions of clothing would help too: a “brocaded gown” for the mom, “doublet and hose” for the father and brother would immediately evoke a medieval vibe.

Characterization
The heart of this chapter beats through the MC’s interactions with her new family. Her mother’s “golden hair coiled elegantly” and “emerald eyes shimmering with relief,” the father’s “commanding presence,” and the brother’s “stormy blue eyes” all frame a scene overflowing with tenderness. The mother touches her cheek “as though I were the most precious thing in the world,” and the father and brother “looked at me as though I were their treasure.”

What saves the reader from going into sugar shock is the MC’s memory of her old life. When her mother calls her “daughter,” the MC thinks, “My adoptive mother had only ever spat that word at me like a curse. But this woman… she said it as though it were a blessing.” That contrast gives the emotion its weight.

As someone who’s been abused and neglected, the MC could react with suspicion or discomfort — but instead, she cries and accepts the affection. That choice tells us she’s not naive, just starved for love. Even her calm acceptance of waking up in a novel feels believable: people who’ve survived chaotic households are experts at adapting to sudden shifts in reality.

The family’s one-note warmth works here because the chapter ends before it overstays its welcome. If the chapter lingered longer, we’d need a little more complexity. Even naming the parents and brother add dimension to a simple characterization, since names come with so much baggage.

The brother could use a distinct moment. He’s uninhibited; maybe he climbs onto the bed before being gently scolded. How the parents handle that tells us more about the household’s emotional rules than paragraphs of exposition could.

Finally, it might help to clarify whether the MC still has her own memories or any of Celestria’s. Her physical state — any lingering pain or dizziness from Celestria’s “injury” — could also ground the scene. Those small details of body and memory would make this lovely, dreamlike opening feel just a little more real.

Conflict/Tension
Conflict doesn’t come from tension between characters or the MC’s rejection of her situation. Instead, it comes from remembered loneliness and pain. The height of tension is a hug:

“I couldn’t stop it. Tears burned my eyes and slipped down my cheeks. I clutched her gown as if she would vanish.”

That is heartbreaking. The last line is similarly heartbreaking:

“For the first time in my life...I was loved.”

This feels positive on the surface, but “the first time” carries a lifetime of conflict in the background. Imagine living an entire life without feeling love — there’s so much unspoken tension for the reader to fill in. It’s a very powerful statement.

Final Thoughts

The chapter works beautifully as is: dreamy, half real. This fits a character who just died or woke from a coma. A little more depth would fill some questions for the reader and make the opening even more compelling — without ruining the poetic voice.

Waking up in a novel isn’t original, but it’s rare. Waking up as a side character? That’s intriguing. I love the idea of exploring a world you know so well, like walking through a painting and seeing what’s out of frame. What happened off-page that you now get to be part of?

The blurb promises action, intrigue, and romance — I’m excited to read further.