The Dark Witch - Comments

29- I don't know what you think 'a due' means, but if you meant 'adieu', that basically means 'goodbye' in French.

Chapter 27- I think at this point that Becky could be Maria's daughter.

I read all of the chapters last night. I really like what you're doing with the story!
Keep up the good work! I look forward to reading more.

You can never truly appreciate the outside world until you’ve been apart from it for at least three years, and trust me, I never thought I’d be saying that. - At first, I really liked the start of this, but everything after “apart from it” kind of ruined the sentence from me. It made the sentence too long and so it lost some of its potency. It kind of drags.

The cloudless blue sky, the bright sun, the lack of cabbage and cat smells in the air… - I wasn’t sure what effect you were going for here with the ellipsis, but it was lacking. It felt unfinished, and not in a way that was effective.

Sameness had never been a thing for me and I could barely tell one brick house from another brick house on this street. – Here I thought that the repetition of the word “brick house” wasn’t really needed. It’s another case where the sentence just becomes wordy and longer than it needs to be. Simply ending the sentence with “…one brick house from another” would have been more effective, I think.

Apparently I turned up there when I was 3 years old – Just a little thing, “3” should be written out, instead of using the numeral.

You used the word “apparently” a lot and it gets annoying to see in narrative. I mean, not everything is apparent, if it were, then they’d be no reason to even mention it.

My jaw clenched slightly, well, it doesn’t matter anymore. I’m a witch now and I’m off to Hogwarts in a week. – Sometimes you mix description (My jaw clenched) with narrative (Well, it doesn’t matter anymore). When it’s in a sentence that way, they need to be separated.

Now, since I didn’t read the entire story (I only read the chapter I reviewed) the stuff I critiqued might just be a part of how the story is supposed to be written but…

(1) By the time I was half-way through this chapter, I was a bit bored. Some things just got so redundant that I wanted to just skim through the rest and move on to what was the “meat” of the chapter.

(2) The narration used here is also a bit monotonous. I understand that it’s supposed to be more of a contemplative chapter for the character, but I think it’s also important to remember that this is a story and people are reading it – so even simple thoughts should be written in a way that’s interesting for the reader.

(3) On that same note, this chapter is supposed to be more of what the character is thinking, but the way it’s written comes off as too…planned, in a way. It doesn’t really sound as though this is the inside of someone’s head. Some of the phrasing and the words used isn’t indicative of the way a person would reminisce and remember events of their live, so it comes off more as the character is speaking out loud to another person. Like this part, for instance: Apparently I turned up there when I was 3 years old, dehydrated and dying. – I don’t think that person thinking to themselves would phrase things that way. Or here: A fire, really, wonder how that started? I couldn't help but think. – I don’t know what to make of this. Is she being genuine in her curiosity or is this sarcasm? It seems forced.

(4) I think that the type of narration used here gets a bit mixed up. Reading it, it feels like you tried to make it both as first person narrative and an inner monologue for the character (Becky), and it just doesn’t work. The two different styles involved with both just isn’t blended well here – I’m not sure if it could be blended well anywhere.

I just found this all really confusing. The fusing of thoughts, actions, and descriptions without any detectable way of distinguishing one from the other, just made this piece a big “?” for me. It was hard to figure out what was supposed to be contemplation, what was direct thoughts, what was description… I think if you just fix that, make the chapter better organized in that sense, that this would be a really good chapter.

Sisrius is being awfully queer.

Story Review Game - Prologue

Okay, so I've never read a Harry Potter fic before, and honestly, I've only read the first four books when I was like ten, so bear with me.

First of all, I love the way this is written, using snippets from newspaper articles. That just seems so original to me.

"“He was just minding his own business. Walking down the street, then bang, he was dead.” This should just be one sentence because the second sentence isn't complete.

"All attempts to confirm this new information have met with…dead ends." I loved this sentence, mainly because of the double meaning of dead ends. That was very clever on your part.

"The female death eater and daughter of He Who Must Not Be Named, murdered 13 muggle school children..." There shouldn't be a comma in this sentence.

"On Christmas Eve friends and family of the late minister, Abraham Ackerly, went to spend the holiday with him and his family at their private residence. Only to discover someone had been there first." These should be in the same sentence because the last sentence is just a clause, not a complete sentence.

Overall, I like this prologue. It's a very unique and creative way to start the story, and I feel like I know the set up of the story.

Beautifully written.
Whatever is happening to Becky is an incredible, unfortunate event.
Utterly fascinating.
Can't wait for more, darling.