This review is done by Nikachu22 for eXpelliArmus_4ever Aim On The Mystery
𝐀𝐈𝐌 𝐎𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐘𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐘
Main Focus: I'm new to this, so anything you find amiss or not good just let me know, please focus on oc (crystal) and harry and the flow of the story if everything makes sense.
Review:
The first thing I noticed about this book is the cover. It is absolutely gorgeous. The colors, the pictures, everything is so clear down to the words and the picture of Harry on the front really tells me what this book is about (fanfic).
It really draws me in and makes me want to give the book a glance. I like the title as well, as it gives the book a sense of not knowing. Many books can be predictable, so to have the word mystery being a focus would only suggest that the story is driven by just that. First impressions are favorable.
What's overwhelming is the size of the first chapters. I'm not sure of the word count, but for me it was quite a hassle reading through them and it took much longer than I anticipated. I do applaud the amount of words you were able to achieve writing this and find that you as an author could place multiple scenes in one chapter is a way to get whatever you need out of the way.
It seems like there is a lot of information you want the readers to know. The first chapter, the opening, you'd want something more pulling to start it off so, what I'd suggest is leaving that explanation until the Hudson's kids actually make it into the scene. I'd just simply start it off wth the aunt telling her to get up. This starts off everything with an action, let's people know the story wastes no time in jump starting.
Crystal's description in the first chapter is lovely. Right off the bat it gives the readers clear vision of how this character looks. The part where you begin to explain her personality could be removed. What you'd want to aim for is showing her through the writing and not telling the readers who she is. It's ok to have her personality in a character's part, but you'd do better intimately if you can show Crystal to the readers and really lock in her personality by the things she does.
After that we begin to learn about her mother and a little of Crystal's past. This is where the information dumping begins. It's the first chapter. I'd lighten up the mood a little with less information that could be easily used later. What I'd go for is just a direct course to her personality and allowing the readers to see her. Because this is a fanfic, they already have the visions of the other characters, but now this is YOUR character that's mingling.
Middle section of the first chapter turned into a life explanation of the MC. Too much too soon and this may burn readers out quickly. A little here and there is fine.
I think the early chapters have a lot of filler that without or without it, it won't move the story along. It seems as though there are many scenes playing out the characters and their interactions in that given moment instead of setting the stage for the future plot. Dialogue sometimes became the drive between characters which diminished their personalities a bit because everything was just back and forth talking instead of feeling out the characters and resulted in what is known as detail dumping.
During the conversation between Crystal and Dumbledore, he tends to load a lot on her. Some of the things could be told later in a story as things unfold, or at a slower pace so that the mystery of things can still remain.
You don't want your character to be flawless. Even though right now she is very stiff, she needs something that can keep the interest going. It's hard to write about a character that is a bit withdrawn as they are a lot harder to explain. What can help is keeping them in their heads as the things around them unfold so that though the characters in the book find them confusing, the readers do not. Maybe a little bit of the personality traits they hide, reside in their silence. .
While there are some parts that do push the story forward, I find that if I could skip over a large body of the story without missing anything, that is just filler. There's nothing wrong with filler, but too much too soon is the key.
I do have questions and I know in order for them to be answered I might have to read further on, but I'm confused as to why everyone knows of Crystal, but no one knows how she looks or even remembers her? They are written as iconic people in history because of what they did, but have no idea of each other?
The MC holds a stable personality right now, and it seems she's having a bit of a problem with the others. Her guard as a character might be too high. It's ok to have her kind of guarded but having something that draws her to Harry would start to unfold her just a little bit while keeping her solid traits atm. She just seems really snobbish and doesn't like interaction at all and a little fake, but for their interactions I'd add a little pique of interest in her. Something that'll set their relationship up.
Also, I noticed in chapter four that somehow after being utterly oblivious in all of their interactions that Harry somehow remembers her after getting her real name. So, he truly did know how she looked, and had moments when he was in a room with her, but had no idea. This is confusing. I'd only suggest that when he does see her, for the first time he's hit with a familiar sensation through his body as if he knows her and he does, as well as knows her name, but he keeps it a secret and often stares at her instead of playing the whole superman idea. (Like they can't tell Clark is Supe....)
I think this is a better approach for their relationship because these early interactions are raising a lot of questions and it's resulting in rocky characters. I also read that Harry was a narcissist, but I'm not seeing much of it. .
Another approach is she could also remember him, but acts like she doesn't know him and as he tries to whisper things to her/get her alone, she could play it off and brush his actions away with her stiff personality, but he's quite persistent and doesn't understand why she'd do this to him. This grants him a lot of death stares, but it'll give readers the chance to understand their hidden past. This gives it more of a natural feel rather than taking the oblivious approach because in order for a character to not notice, they'd have to be a complete airhead and/or bline.
There were a lot of grammar/punctuation/spelling mistakes but I read your plot description part and noticed you mentioned English is not your first language so I'll take that into account and not fault you too much on it.
I think this writing has the basics, I just think you need to ground the characters out a little more and rearrange their first meeting/the first chapters a bit so that the rest of the character interactions/growth can follow the foundation.
Take some of the information out and let it come naturally or allow another character to tell her story. Like from Harry's point of view. What he remembered of her past etc, instead of you the author just filling everyone in. There are a lot of approaches you could take in these first chapters. You'd want more excitement and more drawing readers in to set the stage as well as what to expect as the story goes on.
The idea of placing a demigod in the story is a lot, but it's not bad at all. It's actually really interesting seeing this kind of thing, because usually what people do is place another basic human in fanfics to just dwell amongst the characters, rather than a whole god.
It was a pleasure reading this interesting idea, and I found myself scolding Crystal mentally. She's a tough one and I like how you keep her consistent even though some of the interactions require more emotions. She was enjoyable. Thank you.
