Hello, Dove Carol , and good afternoon.

I found this chapter in the Review Request forum. The only special request I found was to read the previous chapters, which I did and posted reviews. Therefore, I will use my general reviewing format to critique your piece.

This chapter read clear to me, but I do have some suggestions and some grammar corrections to point out which is why I rated it with three and a half stars. Again, here are my policies on rating and reviewing for your reference: "Bobbi's Rating and/or Reviewing Policy" .


The typos, grammar, and style issues I caught were as follows:

She looked at me very curiously.

I noticed a few 'very's in your piece. While it's not grammatically incorrect to use it, it is generally a frowned upon style because it robs you of the opportunity to use stronger words. Mark Twain has a quote about them, and I won't type it in here verbatim because of his own strong language. Paraphrased, however, it said 'substitute a naughty word every time you want to write very, and the editor will take it out and the writing will be as it should.'

Either just take out 'very' or experiment with a thesaurus until you find exactly the word that describes the situation. Don't be afraid to play with your drafts.

She was wearing a purple silk, or at least that’s what I had imagined silk to look like, dress

It is also frowned upon to separate the noun from its adjectives like this. There is also a comma needed before the conjunction that is connecting the next clause. If you restructure the sentence to correct these things, it will look like this:

She wore a dress of purple silk, or at least that’s what I had imagined silk to look like, and she looked much healthier. . . (We can take out the 'was -ing', too. Makes the language more active.)

There was a healthy glow to her cheeks and her eyelids, I added an 's' because both her eyelids were painted.

worse condition than us, but from what I could see There needs to be a comma before 'but' because that conjunction joins two independent clauses.

two different worlds was the Wall and yet no one had known that there Two conjunctions here are unnecessary. Take out one of them and put a comma in front of it since it is also joining two independent clauses. (", yet" or ", and")


A few things I noticed as a reader:

After reading the first chapters, I was not expecting the twist that came here. Someone on Dove's side of the wall seems to be lying, and I wonder why. I have a few ideas, but I feel like this will become clearer as the story comes along. I also feel like I am starting to see why the violent conflict is going to happen even though the aftermath being described in the italics section is so severe. With a little more polishing, this story can really take off.

Thank you for allowing me to review your piece. I'm just another reader and writer so use or discard any of my suggestions at your personal discretion. If you make changes and would like me to reassess your piece, feel free to e-mail me.

Keep writing and keep improving!

—Brandi