It's Complicated By Baxmbix (Baxmbix)

Prologue (Chapter Title)
Contemporary (Genre)
Strong female character vs. bad boy elite(Themes)
First person present ( some tense changes )
Suspense level (🌝🌚🌚🌚🌚)
-----8.05----

Hi

thank you for letting me read your first chapter. Let's get right into it. 

Things to look for in a first chapter
- clear genre (contemporary)
- clear time period (check)
_ clear MC (check)
- few characters introduced (check)
- suspense / tension (low tension)
- life-changing event / decision (maybe)

I can tell from the care you put into this piece that it means a lot to you. You write your characters in great detail and you don't skimp on any of it. You know your world inside and out and you have a wealth of information to share with your reader. These are all great qualities. I must touch base on something else that is also important.

Balance.

The good thing about your writing is that you are able to be very vivid in your detailing. You also weave dialogue in with the exposition, too. But for the most part, there is a glaring pacing issue that needs to be addressed and that can be solved with Chekhov's gun. Chekhov's gun says that anything mentioned MUST have significance. Yes. In life, some things are incidental. Some things happen randomly--not in fiction. Each scene, each detail must serve a purpose. When she told us how to make her favorite meal, going into great detail about the ingredients, I thought someone was about to be poisoned. Because there were 3 paragraphs dedicated to just that instance.

That did not happen.

She couldn't sleep and tosses and turns. I figured something in a dream was going to show itself as maybe more than meets the eye. No.

That also did not happen.

All right, she's going to her aunt's house then a party, surely at the party, there's some big blow out--something huge she cannot walk away from.

No. Not then either.

A great detail of time is put into instances, information, focuses that don't do double-duty. I mean to say, they don't have a secondary function. If she's given a blue jumpsuit and she hates it and we get information about it in great detail, and she throws it away (for example), I expect to later find out that this is  jumpsuit given from a prince who wishes to see her in it and now she must crawl through garbage to find it.

That is the expectation when we read so much detail, that it will be useful for us later on, so we pay attention.

I will be honest in saying that your ability to paint the atmosphere is your greatest talent, and perhaps even your greatest downfall because as of now, I know more about her food, clothes, and company, than I know about as a person.

But what is the main plot? What is it she wants? What is her problem and what is the solution and what's standing in the way of that solution? What should have happened is the scene starts with her in the kitchen getting food, the maid mentions the father's misspoken words. Skip to the party where Dominic brings it up, then accuses her father of lying, thanks to Cordelia's own words, and it's all over the papers in the morning. A scandal that could potentially SINK her father's politician ambitions. That, for me, is the life-changing event/decision. Then she must hunt Dominic down to force him to retract his words. Bing, Bam, Boom, over.

I do appreciate you letting me critique your story and I hope it was helpful at all. It took 1 hour and 30 minutes or so to finish the line edit. Please check out the video TUTORIALS in this book to find out more about formatting.

Happy writing!

Fairy Tale Retelling (LynaForge)