Skeleton Reviews

Titanic: Could It Be Saved?| -Havingfun_ISKEY

Client: Highland_Dancer
Skeleton: @Havingfun_ISKEY
Book Title: Titanic: Could It Be Saved?
Chapters Read: 8

Cover: Your cover needs a bit of work. The picture you used is quite nice, but I'm not a fan of any of the fonts you used on it. The cursive one for the title and the author's name doesn't really seem to match the genre for some reason, and the one for the subtitle is a bit plain. Even worse, the color you chose for the font makes it almost impossible to see the subtitle (well, the second part of the title, technically), and the author's name is pretty much invisible.

Title: Well, it's pretty accurate to the story, I'll give it that. Personally, I don't like that the title is more of a question than an actual title; it just makes it seem sort of unprofessional, even if the whole story is a "what if" scenario. It's certainly better than just calling the book "Titanic" or something like that, but you could tweak it if you wanted.

Blurb: The order of your paragraphs confuses me. It really sounds like the second paragraph should be the first one and the first one should be the second. I do find it interesting that your first paragraph ends with a question that suggests the conflict in the plot, but it is pretty vague as to what the consequences could be if the group of friends chooses one option or the other. Right now, the blurb makes it seem like the really obvious choice would be to save thousands of innocent people, as there is no implied reason that would turn them away from doing such a kind thing. One of your characters in a chapter discusses how, without the sinking of the Titanic, many people in the future could have died due to unchanged regulations; why don't you discuss this in the blurb?

Description/Scenery: Frankly, your descriptions are very, very bland. Your writing is very straight to the point, favoring moving the plot over giving us some time to get immersed in the setting or getting to know the characters.

My biggest problem is that you do a lot of telling and next to no showing. Right away in the first chapter, you begin with telling us that Becca complained to Salali without giving us any idea what she was saying, and then went on to introduce Iris and explain that everyone avoided her and that she loved history, etc. In the next few paragraphs, you also tell us that the teacher was bored and that Iris was excited. (Not to mention explaining the teacher's motives for letting Iris answer all of the questions.) Sometimes, in books, it can be extremely difficult to convey an idea without blatantly informing your audience, but many of the examples I gave can be easily solved by dedicating some more time to characterization. Humans are incredible with their ability to show a wide range of emotions through their facial expressions, body language, tone of voice, etc., but very rarely do I see those being taken advantage of in your story. There are a lot of other examples I could rip apart in your book and suggest possible amendments to if you want to PM me.

Because of your lack of description, your story moves at a ridiculously fast pace. While it's important to have almost every paragraph contribute to the plot in some way, sometimes it's really not a bad thing to slow down a little and let the readers learn about the world they are in a little more.

A majority of your book takes place in a completely different country far back in the past, where speaking mannerisms, culture, technology, foreign affairs, clothing, etc. was nothing like we are used to now; it is imperative, or at the very least, beneficial to take some time to flesh the world out that your characters are exploring.

Literary devices: Not a lot to say here, as I've said before, your writing is pretty straight to the point. It's something that I think you could really pull off if you took some time to research different literary devices and use to spruce up your writing. :)