𝘕𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘡𝘰𝘯 𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘱𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘢 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳. 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘣𝘦𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘱𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘸𝘰 𝘯𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘳𝘰𝘸. 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘢𝘭𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘚𝘢𝘪𝘧𝘢𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦, 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰.

Zon is madly in love with his friend, who is getting married, so he decides to try a hookup for his broken heart. To his utter surprise, what started as a purely sexual relationship with Saifah, has a healing effect on him and helps him deal with his feelings more than he had ever expected.

Your cover is clean, neat, and eye-catching. There isn't a lot going on, but the color scheme hints at the mood of the story, and it appealed to me as a reader. There's room for more creativity in terms of the title placement and overall format of the cover, but its simplicity also has a charm as well.

This seems to be more of a metaphorical title. Throughout the five chapters I've read, I couldn't find a connection between the title and your story. If you make the connection for your readers later on throughout the story, feel free to let me know, as I'm interested!

Your blurb is short, concise, and the little excerpt included at the top is perfect for summarizing the content of your story. I also got a taste for your writing capabilities and you got me hooked. As for the actual synopsis itself, it's very clear. There were some unnecessary commas, and you can check the comma rules I included when talking about your grammar. If you still need additional help after that, feel free to PM me or ask in the comment section!

Right off the bat, I got a sense of your writing capabilities. I was immediately immersed in the story and was able to feel what the protagonist was feeling. Further into the hook, the direction of the story felt a little slow, however. As a reader, I felt that the beginning of the first chapter was dragging, and you could shorten it. As we already know Zon is going to go in, you don't need to extend his inner conflict to that extent, or most readers will probably skip to when he actually enters.

You had some consistent comma errors. Keep in mind that commas are used to separate different clauses within a sentence, whether they're independent or dependent. An independent clause has a subject (who/what is doing the action) and a predicate (the action being done by the subject). Oftentimes, a sentence has two independent clauses, joined together with a conjunction. In the sentence, "I cried then Billy ran away," there are two independent clauses here. One is, "I cried," and the other is, "Billy ran away." Both have a subject and a predicate, and they're joined together by the conjunction, "then." Because of this, the two clauses still need to be separated with a comma, the correction being: "I cried, then Billy ran away."

Dependent clauses are just like independent clauses: they also have a subject and a predicate. However, dependent clauses are exactly like what they sound like; they're dependent on another clause. They don't make sense by themselves. For example, the clause, "I decided not to," has both a subject and a predicate, but it needs more context to make sense. There should be another clause attached or a sentence before it that it depends on making sense. When joined to another clause with a conjunction, the dependent clause should still be separated with a comma as well.

Commas are also used to separate an introductory phrase or word before the main clause. In the sentence, "Today I went to work," the independent clause is "I went to work," where the subject is "I," and the predicate/action is "went to work." The word "today" is not included in the clause, and therefore should be separated with a comma. The correction would be: "Today, I went to work." This is a lot of information to take in, but try to keep these rules in mind for the next time you're writing.

You had the occasional slip up with your punctuation/capitalization regarding your dialogue. Your dialogues are typically accompanied with dialogue tags (she said, he yelled, they shouted, describing the way someone says something), and action tags (she grinned/he sighed/they walked away, basically an action). A dialogue tag is a continuation of a dialogue sentence, meaning that the dialogue itself should end in any punctuation but a period, and the beginning of the dialogue tag is never capitalized, seeing as it's not the beginning of a new sentence. The opposite goes for an action tag, which is a separate sentence. That means the dialogue should end in any punctuation but a comma, and the beginning of the action tag is always capitalized.

Example of dialogue + dialogue tag: "'I'm okay,' she said." OR "She said, 'I'm okay.'"

Example of dialogue + action tag: "'I'm okay.' She forced a smile." OR "She forced a smile. 'I'm okay.'"

I noticed the amount of comma splices used as well. A comma splice is joining two different independent clauses together, and separating them with a comma, but not a conjunction. An example of this is: "I went to work, I drove in my car." These are two different independent clauses, "I went to work" and "I drove in my car." They both have predicates and subjects, and are separated with a comma. However, you must separate them with a conjunction as well. Without a conjunction, this turns into a comma splice. You have two options in this case. You can either replace the comma with a period and turn it into two different sentences, or add in a conjunction. In this case, the correction can be, "I went to work, and I drove in my car," or "I went to work. I drove in my car."

With your punctuation within dialogue markings, there were a few times you included more than one punctuation. If you end the dialogue with a comma, period, exclamation mark, or question mark, etc, within the dialogue markings, you don't need any other punctuation after the dialogue markings.

I was impressed by the quality of your writing. There were no spelling errors that I could catch, and overall, your diction choice and use of vocabulary flowed and went well with the direction of your story. I'd like to encourage you to always expand your vocabulary and use of diction so you always have interesting elements to spice up your story, but at this point, it's more of an option, not a necessity for you.

I enjoyed critiquing this story because the plot was going strong and in the right direction. There were several times where the pacing of the story dragged (and I'll address this more later) and the story plot seemed to split into different tangents. Your style of storytelling is mostly narrating a character's overall day/week/month, including changes in behavior that shows the story is adapting and continuing to expand. I enjoyed the several subplots and smaller conflicts you've woven into your story, as it gives it more dimension and flavor.

It was very easy to keep track of all your characters, as they each had significantly different personalities and characteristics. This helped your story come to life in a way that your plot may have lacked. The only concern I have is I noticed that while alternating between the perspective of Zon and Saifah, your writing voice remained distinctly similar for both characters. This made the mindset of both characters seem the same. It would have been nice to see distinct changes in the way each character differently narrated their story, and how they saw things in a different way from each other.

I am in love with your writing voice/style! It's very elegant and easy to read/understand. Of course, there were some grammar mistakes that took away from the full experience of your writing style, but by cleaning those up, your writing voice can improve on its own on a significant level. You included many descriptions referring to the five senses, which made the experience more fulfilling to me as the reader. There were times you had redundant descriptions, however, and I've pointed them out for you in your chapter reviews.

I noticed that the way you transitioned from one scene to another remained the same. What I mean by this is you use the same kind of transitions. From moving on from one chapter to another or from scene to scene, there's always at least a one day skip, or more than that. You didn't have scenes that transitioned from one moment to another. That felt a bit repetitive to me, as it's always good to experiment with different ways to transition. This can include transitioning sentences/paragraphs, techniques to smoothly move on (such as summarizing a certain time skip, etc), and avoiding repetitive diction when transitioning. Additionally, there were certain times where the story pacing slowed enough for me to want to skip ahead. The readers can usually tell when a character is going to make a decision, and which decision they'd make. While it's important to show the inner struggle of your character while making that decision, don't overdo it or analyze it in ten different ways, because the reader will probably already know the character's decision at the end and will want to skip ahead. All that aside, your analyses in every chapter were thoughtful and dove deeper than the surface, which I appreciated.

"Zon took a nervous glance at his watch, the numbers flashing in front of his face." (p.1). This has some filler words and could be restructured. Instead of saying he "took" a glance, you could remove it entirely. Suggestion: "Zon nervously glanced at his watch, the numbers flashing in front of his face."

The word "stroll" in paragraph four means to walk in a slow or leisurely way, so the "slow" tacked at the end of the sentence is unnecessary. The sentence would be more concise without it, and it's superfluous and clutters the sentence. I suggest removing it.

"But only to end up taking a step back each time." (p.5). The "but" is redundant here, and repetitive. I suggest removing it to avoid repetition.

"... he said, before his friend even had a chance to say anything." (p.8). The comma here is unnecessary, as the second part of the sentence is part of the main clause.

In paragraph 12, I suggest writing "30" out, as "thirty." Additionally, make sure to include whether it's Fahrenheit or Celsius. I read it as Fahrenheit, so I was confused for a bit. I'm assuming it's celsius.

"Zen groaned, resignedly." (p.13). The comma is unnecessary here. Additionally, if you want to steer clear of your use of adverbs, you can also keep the comma and simply remove the -ly. Correction: "Zen groaned resignedly." OR "Zen groaned, resigned."

"A forced smile was plastered on his face when he maneuvered his way between the tables." (p.22). You're using passive voice here. Passive voice is a technique used to describe that something was done, instead of simply stating that something happened. Passive voice is like taking the long route home; why bother when you can use the shorter route? By avoiding passive voice, you can be more direct with your audience and have a larger impact upon them. Correction: "He plastered a forced smile on his face as he maneuvered his way between the tables." I also replaced "when" with "as" as it seemed to fit the context more.

"She was in love, it was more than obvious." (p.27). You have a comma splice here. A comma splice is joining two clauses together with a comma, but without a conjunction. To correct this, you can either add a conjunction, or replace the comma with a period. In this context, the latter would be more appropriate. Additionally, I normally recommend using the latter choice to fix a comma splice, as the shorter the sentences are in general, the clearer the readability. Correction: "She was in love. It was more than obvious."

"But one thing he was sure of, was that he couldn't let his hook up come to light." (p.47). You have an unnecessary comma here. Additionally, you should have a hyphen between "hook" and "up." Correction: "But one thing he was sure of was that he couldn't let his hook-up come to light."

"... he wasn't acting like himself." (p.50). You have another use of passive voice here. I suggest avoiding this in order to have a larger impact on your audience. Correction/Suggestion: "... he didn't act like himself."

"Zon's lips stretched in an even wider smile, as he started to blink rapidly." (p.64). You have an unnecessary comma here. Correction: "Zon's lips stretched in an even wider smile as he started to blink rapidly."

"'I feel ya' said suddenly Junior." (p.67). You need punctuation at the end of the dialogue, and I suggest restructuring the order of the words you used here. Correction: "'I feel ya,' said Junior suddenly." And if you want to take it one step further, I also suggest removing "suddenly" to reduce the amount of adverbs you're using.

"Not a good one exactly." (p.73). You need a comma here. Correction: "Not a good one, exactly."

"Partially, because he was not used to hookups with complete strangers..." (p.84). You have an unnecessary comma here. Correction: "Partially because he was not used to hookups with complete strangers..."

"For someone, who wanted it to be a secret, you sure mention it a lot." (p.89). You have an unnecessary comma here. This is a common mistake throughout your writing. Correction: "For someone who wanted it to be a secret, you sure mention it a lot."

"'I bet Fighter gave you a free copy that he got from me,' he laughed, trying to ease his guest's mind." (p.126). You have incorrect punctuation and capitalization regarding your dialogue. Correction: "'I bet Fighter gave you a free copy that he got from me.' He laughed, trying to ease his guest's mind." "He laughed" is an action tag and is not part of the sentence. Rather, it is the start of a new sentence.

"Fucked?" (p.154). Here, it should actually be "fuck," as it's answering/part of the question, "Did you ever fuck?"

"I actually thought he's gonna tell me they broke up." (p.170). Since this is an event that happened in the past, this sentence should be converted into past tense. Correction: "I actually thought he was gonna tell me they broke up."

"'What, on Earth, is he doing?'" (p.2). You have unnecessary commas here. Correction: "'What on Earth is he doing?'"

"The questions were swirling in his head." (p.2). You're using passive voice here. I suggest describing the actions directly as saying something happened, instead of saying something was happening. Correction/Suggestion: "The questions swirled in his head."

"'What time is it?', he asked, in a hoarse voice." (p.4). Since you already have punctuation within the dialogue, you don't need punctuation afterwards. You also have an unnecessary comma in the dialogue tag. Correction: "'What time is it?' he asked in a hoarse voice."

In paragraph 9, I suggest writing out numbers. "4:40" should be "four-forty." That way, you can avoid breaking the flow of the story and remain professional.

In paragraph 40, "cliche" should be "cliché."

"The black as night liquid was disappearing in the drain, drop after drop vanishing in the hole." (p.43). You need hyphens here. Additionally, you have passive voice, which I suggest avoiding. Correction: "The black-as-night liquid disappeared down the drain, drop after drop vanishing in the hole." I also replaced a filler word to fit in with the context here.

"With a small pout, that he did not even try to hide..." (p.72). You have an unnecessary comma here. Correction: "With a small pout he did not even try to hide..." I also removed an unnecessary filler word.

"Oh hi!" (p.80). You need a comma here. Correction: "Oh, hi!"

"How could he ever get out of the wedding, if he was going to be the best man?" (p.104). You have an unnecessary comma here. You tend to add more commas than there should be in your chapters, so make sure to go thoroughly when editing to correct that.

"'Feel free to drink this,' he pointed at the bottle." (p.109). Since the action tag is not part of the sentence, the punctuation and capitalization regarding the dialogue should reflect that. The beginning of the action tag needs to be capitalized, as it's the beginning of a new sentence. The punctuation within the dialogue should end with a period, not a comma, to indicate that the sentence ends, and another begins. Correction: "'Feel free to drink this.' He pointed at the bottle."

"... half laughing, half crying." (p.120). You need hyphens here. Correction: "... half-laughing, half-crying."

"I seriously thought he's joking when he asked them if I could be his editor, but knowing we're friends they agreed and here we are." (p.122). You need to set this in past tense, as this is an event that happened in the past. You also need a comma. Correction: "I seriously thought he was joking when he asked them if I could be his editor, but knowing we were friends, they agreed, and here we are."

"... Saifah asked softly: 'You alright?'" (p.132). The colon is unnecessary here, and it makes more sense to replace it with a comma.

"He really wished it was easy to erase his feelings, to get rid of them like an old, expired food he could no longer do anything about." (p.134). I suggest removing the "an," as "food" is not countable.

"Neo was just too big of his life at this point, to easily get rid of him." (p.139). You have an unnecessary comma here.

"It's not like he knew Saifah well enough to know he would never take a cigarette to his mouth or that he did not have some worries of his own." (p.144). Here, you have a tense slip-up. "It's" should be "it wasn't." Also, I find "some" redundant here. You can have better readability with it removed.

"You would be able to focus on trying to find someone..." (p.176). This is a bit of a mouthful. I noticed that you can shorten it by phrasing it as, "You would be able to focus on finding someone..."

"Zon's eyes crinkled at the corners, as he looked him up and down." (p.25). You have an unnecessary comma here.

"'Mornin'' yawn Saifah, stretching his limbs." (p.36). You need to have punctuation ending the dialogue, and you have a tense slip-up. Correction: "'Mornin',' yawned Saifah, stretching his limbs."