Concinnity Book Club (Open)

Guide to write and review fiction

This is some in-depth guide on what you can review on. I wrote it myself from scratch so if you find anything weird, tell me, I'll revise it.

Reviewing criteria.

1. Grammar
Including basic grammar, punctuations, tenses, POV, syntax, dialogue/action tags. What to focus on is whether they shift POV/tenses through the chapter, or do they use a comma where it's needed? Or they mistook a comma for a period?

2. Style and descriptions
This depends on you. This is hard to review. As long as it's not deadwood and you could understand what the heck is going on, it's fine. Just because you hate purple prose, doesn't mean the writing is bad. And watch out for adverbs and adjectives. If you see 10 adverbs and/or cluttering, redundant adjectives in a chapter, it's an indicator that the writer is lazy and just telling, not showing. Watch out for unnecessary verbs like 'then' and 'that'. If you see them throughout the chapter, it could be bad writing. *shrug* Description should trigger your senses. There are five senses to focus on when describing something. Smell, sight, touch, taste and sound.

3. Plot and flow
It's fine to have a 500 words chapter or a 7k chapter, as long as the plot is moving. The scene is changing.

4. Dialogue
Do they speak like normal humans or aliens (well, unless they ARE aliens)? If their dialogue feels unnatural coz they're forcing facts and backstory on us, that's not a good one. If they repeatedly use exclamation mark for everything, I don't have anything else to say 😑

5. Conflicts
There should be internal and/or external conflicts in the chapter. By conflicts, I don't mean sob story. Conflicts can be the issue they want to remedy in the story.

6. Engagement/Hook/Believability
Did you scroll through coz it's boring af (don't do that though 😂)? Are there suspense? Mystery? Let's say, although it's a romance genre, there should be suspense/mystery too. Doesn't mean it all has to be love problems. If the POV is in the medieval epoch, there shouldn't be a YouTube channel, no matter how big of a PewDewPie fan you are. Their voice should fit their age/culture they're in/academic level/gender. This is subjective too. But at least, an 8-year-old shouldn't sound like a 30-year-old.

7. Charm and Characterization
There are writers who can write technically correct all the time. But their book lacks emotions. If they can breach your stoic face and make you laugh or angry or whatever they want to engage you with, that means they're a great writer. The character is supposed to be at least realistic. Someone you can imagine walking on this planet. We have 7.7 billion people on earth by 2019. Humans are born with a subjective personality. So not all of them is relatable to you. They don't need to be relatable. As long as they have a distinct personality (3D character) and have charm (whether you hate them or love them because they're written that good), it's great enough. Their personality should be true to the characters and not changing in each chapter (unless they suffer from multiple personality disorder).

Yours,
Karin.