Shattered | Kates Katering

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The cover looks homemade, with the black bottom half, the dark, indistinct image, and a weirdly skewed title text in a font that feels thematically awry (not to mention the fuzzy white shadow effect). The author's name looks like a signature (cool idea), but is indecipherable (bad idea).

About the picture, it's hard to say what we're dealing with. A girl in a dark room with light coming from behind... It gives off some creepy vibes, as if something bad is about to happen to her. It contradicts the soft font, more fitting for a romance. In any case, it's a total miss for a fantasy cover.

So far, we wouldn't pick this book in a store.

Short, ominous titles are often recommended in the industry; the downfall is that the title can be vague, with hundreds or more books of the same title to compete with. Search for "Shattered" on Wattpad and you'll end up with 75K results. You might want to think of something more original.

Anyway, the word tells us next to nothing about the story, the genre or themes.

On a hunch, we'd say it's about a girl whose life will be shattered in some way or the other throughout the plot. If it's about something entirely different, the title might be misleading. In any case, you need to make a connection early on, preferably even in the blurb.

This blurb is confusing and vague from beginning to end, conveying next to nothing of substance about the story or characters.

This blurb is supposed to be about the MC(s) and the plot, not a vague hypothetical question to readers. The "when you're..." format doesn't work most of the time, especially if you want your blurb's tone to be serious and mature.

That point aside, the first line is long, vague, confusing and heavy. "Even stronger monarchs" lacks comparison or context. Stronger than what? Nothing has been qualified as "strong" so far and "stronger" isn't the superlative of "powerful". And what monarchs? Of what? From where? How many royals are running amok here, exactly?

"....a mere speck in a sea of peasants" is very heavy, and we're not sure what it means.

If the "you" in question is trying to "survive", what are they trying to survive? This is vague.

The first paragraph is incoherent, and definitely not the sort of confusion you want in a blurb. The second paragraph at least begins by identifying the MC(s): Marbella and Bianca (who later vanishes from the blurb, making us question why she's here at all). However, there is still a lot of wordiness and confusion to be sifted through.

What does "class of the insignificant" mean, exactly? Are those the peasants? Does the caste/economic system go: Royalty, Assorted Nobles, People Who Work for Royalty/Nobles, then "Peasants"? Is there no middle, or upper-middle class? No lower class above "peasant"? The term is too broad and feels cliche, not to mention classifies everyone in a certain economic bracket as somehow "low".

"...in the wake of the Siege of Phidal nine years before.": Readers have no context and no idea what this means, so it has little meaning or impact.

"But when Marbella finally finds herself at a total loss for the first time in her life...": This is very vague and clunky, and tells readers nothing about Marbella or her situation. Also, if Marbella survived a siege, wasn't she "at a loss" then, whatever it means? Or was she on the assieging side?

"...to threaten all she knows in the name of the terrible Queen Lyra.": Again, no context and vague wording rob this of any weight it otherwise it might carry. The "All she knows" phrase is extremely common in blurbs, yet often carries zero meaning. We haven't a clue who William Kenneth or the queen might be, or what they want. Furthermore, "life" is repeated.

"When forced to work together, the head of the militia and the young thief...": Who? Is this meant to be Marbella and Kenneth? Readers have no way of knowing at this point. And again, "...along with a mysterious mute woman with strange powers...": we have no idea who this is, why she's involved or what her 'strange powers' might be.

"...uncover that there is more that connects them than they originally realized.": As far as we can tell at this point, nothing connects them at all. Nothing is confirmed--no stakes, no conflict, have been properly set, and the plot remains mostly a mystery. Furthermore, this doesn't really work as an end hook, as it only compounds the problem of being too insubstantial and vague to convey anything of real meaning.

This needs a serious revamp, hopefully with some sort of context and focus on the story you're trying to sell us. There is too much confusion about almost every aspect, from the MC's motive to what genre this is meant to be. In the end, we know exactly the same as going in, except maybe that there will be magic.

HOOK

The very first paragraph failed to draw us in.

On the form, it is passive (too many "was"), borderline addressing directly to readers to dump info on them, redundant ("under siege outside the walls" is self explanatory) and presents tense issues (mixing present and past tense).

The first line itself states the obvious and lacks impact.

The paragraph is both confusing (last line is too long and convoluted to be clear) and fails to address the interesting part (that Gianna/the young woman/the sorceress/ started the war) by dismissing it as irrelevant. It was very relevant on the contrary and necessary for readers' comprehension of the situation.

Despite a potentially action-packed opening featuring a siege on a castle, it takes far too long for that background to be addressed. The opening is stagnant, failing to involve readers in the world.

~

CLARITY

The job of a writer is to use words to communicate ideas. In order to achieve this, clarity is necessary. In Shattered, we found many sentences, even whole paragraphs, were a jumble of inconsistent information, vague wording, and blurry actions. At times, the story became incomprehensible. In order for readers to properly grasp and follow a story, the narrative must follow some form of logic--otherwise you end up with the written equivalent of a Jackson Pollock painting, and if that's not your intention, time to rethink your construction.

For example:

"The line of succession would only matter if the three of them survived this attack with any form of political power" doesn't mean anything as is. You probably meant that they have to survive AND keep some political power, but we had to pause and dissect the sentence to come to this conclusion.

This entire paragraph:


This never-ending line:

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DIALOGUE TAGS AND ADVERBS

One of the writing rules you can find stipulates that "he said/she said" are invisible dialogue tags. Readers' eyes and brain are supposed to ignore these and stay immersed in the dialogue and the action.

It's a trap! (reference intended)

Using these tags too often (or any dialogue tags for that matter) will make a dialogue as heavy as a brick. It will sound like it comes from a toddler's story book. But because adults have a better attention span than 3 years old (in theory at least...), this is not necessary and should be avoided as much as possible.

When it's obvious who's talking (most of the time in a conversation between two characters), don't use any tag at all.

When you need to specify who's talking, prefer an action tag, that could be place before or after the speech.

Ex: "Fay rolled her eyes and sighed. 'Oliver, will you stop skinning this kitten?'" or "'You kids are crazy.' Sal massaged her temples for a while and walked away."

If you really need a dialogue tag (it happens), using "say" is fine only if you remember two things: there are plenty of synonyms and some verbs can't be used as dialogue tags. At all. Never. (like "laugh", "sigh", or "breathe").

Now... Adverbs.

Stephen King thinks that "the road to hell is paved with adverbs". And it's true that adverbs are very often redundant and useless. But Stephen King also uses "awhile" instead of "a while" so maybe some nuance is needed (as well as a better editor for Mr. King).

Some adverbs, rare, can be used here and there to color a verb. But, nine times out of ten, a propper, more elaborated description, will be better to convey subtext, show that a character is feeling an emotion without 'telling' via an adverb, and clarify a situation, an action.

Shattered is cramped with the "dialogue tag + adverb" combo, to a painful point (Ex: "said emotionlessly", "said strongly", "replied jokingly", "asked innocently"). Sift through your text to highlight these and start correcting.

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MAKING CLEAR WHO'S WHO

Despite all the tags used, it's next to impossible to keep track of the characters, both in dialogue and actions. That blurs everything, making the text confusing, hard to follow, and thus hard to care about.

We see two main reasons for that:

There are too many Queens, too many women, and too many girls. The same character is often identified as all three. Sometimes, multiple characters within the same scene are all identified by the same three words.

Characters are not well defined. It may be clear in your head what they look like, how they act and who they are as individuals, but readers will need more than "the other Queen" or "the young woman" to differentiate one from another.

Use more names, find specific term to qualify each of your characters, or make sure the pronoun you use is obvious. Of course this needs to be done accordingly to the PoV chosen.

Which leads to...

~

PoV ISSUES

Before addressing the PoV issues, we must talk about the two part prologue. First, it's a weird choice. In general, if you need more than one part for a prologue, it means you need to turn them into chapters. Especially when your prologue is as long as yours.

Moreover, the two part aspect made it even harder to follow for the reasons mentioned in the section above. It's unclear who's doing what and leads to the other issue at hand: the PoV treatment of your prologue.

If the prologue is meant to be written using an omniscient third person voice, there is no reason for the break.

But if, as we suspect, Gianna is supposed to be the PoV character of the first part, and Lily of the second, you keep piling up PoV issues (info dump, filters, distancing, head hopping, inconsistencies,breaking the fourth wall...).

Tightening your PoV will improve characterisation, clarity and scenery. Furthermore, when you use close PoV, readers experience the story with that character, through their feelings, and the impact is greater for it.

If Gianna were the PoV character, we could feel the horror of battle, the menace of her opponent, concern for the children, etc. That character-driven distinction would be a much more powerful delivery of the scene. We would care because Gianna cares. The same goes with Lily in part two and the fight against the evil queen.

Another benefit to close PoV is you then have vast options at your disposal for conveying scenery through sensory perceptions, which helps avoid info-dumping. If the night is starless, the MC will find it difficult to see; if the wind is cold, the MC will shiver; if a tunnel collapses, the MC will feel the impact and tremors. And so on.

~

SCENERY

The setting of the prologue was potentially intense and interesting: a besieged castle. However, this setting was sparsely described at best, and often confusing. We struggled visualizing both the characters and their surroundings. The lack of imagery also prevented us from immersing in the scene--we were reduced to mere bystanders who were trying to figure out what the heck is going on. Keeping track was exhausting, turning what could have been an epic battle scene into something we just wanted to end.

The castle is just that, a castle with rooms and hallways, but without any shape or size. The context and our familiarity with typical fantasy culture led to imagine a huge medieval stone castle, but we can only assume.

Likewise, the tunnels or caves are never described, neither physically nor through sensory perception.

~

INCONSISTENCIES AND PLOTHOLES

The battle is blurry but seems to be quite problematic. You talk about a siege, but describe (at a minimum) an attack on walls. Sieges are a game of patience, meant to starve the castle occupants until they surrender. Storming the place is too expensive in lives to be used lightly. Furthermore, if the dark queen is able to tear walls down in a simple strike of "inky purple flame" (whatever it means), why bother sending troops?

Twice during the prologue, Marie is kept silent, first by Gianna and then by her sister. We can't see why as stealth never was needed and Marie wasn't making much noise to begin with.

Why is Lily already dressed up for escaping when, until the wall falls, Gianna was confident about the battle?

A young child falls down castle stairs (presumably stone) and instantly gets up, uninjured. Without further details, this seems odd.

In that paragraph--past the tense issue (the use of past perfect reads odd and unnecessary), the closet repetition, and the many dialogue tags--the description of the closet read awkward:

"A cut through the back"? Do you mean a hole in the back panel?

"Leading to an opening in the brick wall": so the closet wasn't against the wall? How far was it for the "cut" to "lead" anywhere?

Afterward, Gianna is feeling an "overwhelming joy" and is "happy that their plan had gone well", which seems very weird when she may be about to die, the girls are still in great danger and were sent into the wild...Their survival isn't guaranteed at all at this point.

If the stable boy needs a lantern in the caves/tunnels, does it mean the girls were walking into pitch black darkness?

~

MANICHAEISM

The end of the first part of the prologue, when enters the dark queen, obviously villainous, ready to senselessly murder everyone including kids (for revenge and/or power), gave a very black and white feeling to the whole thing.

Cardboard muahaha villains are a common issue in fantasy (in all genres, really) and should be avoided when possible. For one thing, their schtick gets old fast. Their motivations are often something like world domination for its own sake, because "evil". They often lack layers, and end up with one-dimensional personalities. We only saw Lyra briefly, but in that short time she displayed many of the warning signs of the

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