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Eighth Book: My Reincarnated Inamorata!

Writing Quality: Below Average
Story Development: Below Average
Character Design: Below Average
World Background: Below Average
Stability of Updates: Above Average* --- I suggest uploading one chapter a day so that you have less of a period where there are no updates. I noticed you updated several in one day. Perhaps this was for the contest that I'm guessing this story was for(?), but I'm pretty sure you met the qualifying criteria. So there's no reason to upload 8 chapters all on Feb 11 but have no more updates up to now, Feb 20th. This is an updating recommendation in order to cater to how readers like to read on this site. They like consistency.

Prologue---
"A girl ran behind a boy with a big bag of cookies." This isn't the best way to start a story as it's not gripping enough. It's too simple and mundane, not a great hook. Instead, I'd combine the two scenes into one. The boy and the girl have to separate (the second scene), and the boy thinks back to the previous scene when she had fallen and he piggybacked her. He thinks about how he loves her, but that fate had its way of separating them. These thoughts of him are better suited for this second scene because it's more conducive in this context and swiftly gets to the conflict of their separation.

Additionally, I caution with love at first sight for very young kids. Even if he's mature, at 7 years old, I don't believe a child has that clear and strong of the concept of romantic love. You can still keep "love at first sight" but depict it in a child's point of view that's very innocent and naive, like the fondness for a dear playmate.

"She tripped off with her tiny legs letting the mother earth to eat her favourite cookies." Turn this into: "She tripped over her tiny legs, causing her favourite cookies to tumble to the ground." Saying Mother Earth is a little awkward for this simple falling context, so I don't recommend including it for this sentence. Besides that, I can clearly tell that English either isn't your first language, or you're still learning grammar and punctuation as these kinds of sentences are prevalent in your writing.

Overall, this first prologue is definitely rough around the edges. In fact, I'd cut parts of it and incorporate the important act of separation as a flashback thought/reflection either in chapter one or later. I don't believe you particularly need this short prologue. Just jump right into the story.

The actual first chapter is much more interesting and serves as a better starter than the prologue. It gives enough mystery (she's reincarnated? what body is she in now? what happened to her in the past) and action (she's being strangled) to intrigue the reader enough to continue reading. Onto the next scene, cool, she has her own high-tech lair, that's a little different, nice. Now the questions are answered to the reader about what happened to her old body and how her new body fits into this new timeline. The fact that her cousins recognized her and knew she's reincarnated at the start of the story is an interesting twist to the usual trope. Instead of the FL being the solo revenge act, she starts with two helpers.

Continuing onto the proceeding chapters, she wants to use her husband for achieving her revenge. Your overall plot and conflict that you set up is so far good. It's what I expected from this genre story but executed in a slightly unexpected, different way. I stopped at chapter 7 because I felt that was enough to get to my overall conclusion for this story. This review is mainly for evaluating the start of your story, including how you set up the plot and introduce the characters.

Firstly, the basic plot and conflict so far is good. But the pacing feels rushed along with the romantic conflict, that's why I deemed the story "development" as below average. Mia wants to use Xian for her revenge, but she worries about falling for him because she thinks he's a typical CEO that will cheat on her and not really love her. We as the readers know this isn't true (so far based on his inner thoughts presented). I do feel like Xian is too perfect. He's good-looking, successful, loving, and understanding. Even with Mia's supposed amnesia and slip-up's in her acting, he doesn't seem to be all that suspicious. Thus, both Mia's wariness of Xian, and Xian's lovingness and consideration feels all a bit contrived/forced for the sake of the story. I suggest slowing it down a bit and add some realism to it. Make Xian more aloof and suspicious to what's exactly happening. Also, I don't understand why he was choking her before? That seems rather inconsistent with how the rest of his character was portrayed. If he's faking it though, you need to accentuate this point better. And for Mia, she doesn't need to be so aware/scared of falling in love with him, or thinking of him fondly. Technically, he's a stranger. So except for her acting, it makes more sense to think of him as a stranger before she starts developing any nagging emotions for him.

In conclusion, you have a good story idea going. But it's a little more than a skeleton at this point. I think you can flesh it out with more world and visual details, and introspective and realistic thoughts and actions of the characters. Additionally, grammar is a weak point of the story, so brush up on correct syntax and punctuation in order to make it flow better. I also recommend not using so many question marks and exclamations in narration. This makes the story feel very amateurish. Those ending punctuations ought to be for more significant and dramatic moments or questions. Instead, rework your sentences to properly end with a period. This will make your writing feel more "professional" and "serious."

Good work, and good luck!

Ninth Book: A Serenade for the Innocent

Writing Quality: Above Average
Update Stability: Great
Story Development: Above Average
Character Design: Average
World Background: Above Average

Good grammar, few typos and errors overall. It might be due to you rewriting the first story though. While the writing is technically/grammatically sound, and there’s a relatively good range of vocabulary used, the prose and style feels lacking. But it lacks not because there’s not enough “stuff,” but because there’s too much. Surprisingly, for once, it feels like there’s too much self-introspection in the first person narrative. This connects a bit with the character design portion. The first story describes Margaux from her point of view too much. There’s paragraphs of how she views herself as above everyone else and being annoyed that she’s interested in a guy like John/being beaten in “popularity” and “fame” compared to her Student President Status. Even though I find her character generally unlikable, I don’t detract just because she’s not my cup of tea. In fact, there are moments when she’s quite relatable. In regards to writing her, I just simply feel like a lot could be cut about her without losing anything essential; in fact, it would make those details about her less redundant and more impactful overall. There’s also another aspect of the writing that feels off (not off as in wrong, but in that something’s missing which could elevate it to Great). The suspense and horror is generally well done, but again, due to over-focusing, like with her character, it also feels dragged out when it could be condensed to deliver a sharp more frightening impact. In short, the timing is off due to the length of the writing descriptions.

More specially on character design. I was on the fence about average or above average. I settled on the former because I realized it’s about design, not depiction. The latter I touched upon in the above section in relation to writing style, while the former is about the strength, originality, and memorableness of the characters. Margaux has a strong, clear character, but it’s too generic. This might be due to the excess of details describing her and her every thought, but her whole character boils down to haughty af. I say this a little jokingly, lightheartedly. Most don’t delve into and focus on such characters, so that view was refreshing. However, the inner struggle she had wasn’t strong enough, which is why I deem her a relatively weak character. She falls too squarely into one category when it would’ve nice to give her more dimension, perhaps elaborate more on her conflicted feelings when John died. That’s the part I looked most forward to, what kind of psychological or emotional struggle would she have when he died after “meddling” with him. But instead of this being dwelled upon in the length that the previous descriptions of her character were, this crucial bit, the climax really, was lacking. This also includes how she went “crazy” when the “monster” chasing John came after her. I would’ve loved more on that.

And touching lightly on John, I found him a bit more interesting, he seemed more promising with more potential, but instead he was just diminished to a simple scared prey. I understand this is the horror part, of being reduced to such a state, but it made him ultimately forgetful.

Onto the plot and world background specifically, here you shined the most. It’s not common to see horror genres on here, so it was cool to see how went about creating suspense and mystery. With that said, as mentioned before, the “timing was lacking” to make the scariness even more chilling and the “monsters” more intriguing.

In conclusion, I think you’re a good writer with good ideas, they just need to be refined to the next level by cutting some parts harshly out while diving more into others. The horror feelings and depictions are promising, but needs quite a bit of polishing.

While I mostly focused on the first story in writing this review, I also read the second story, and the same critiques are consistent from the first story.

You’re going down a cool, unique road. Continuing writing and refining, good luck!

Can you give my novel a review?
This is my novel.
Title: The ascendance of the "Emperor of Darkness"
Link: https://www.webnovel.com/book/16205041106295805/The-Ascendance-of-the-%22Emperor-of-Darkness%22