The Story of Jane by random_bookworms

Reviewer: samantha-writes

Cover: 2/5
— Great, well-made cover! Very aesthetically pleasing. I love how the fonts and images fit together.
— Sadly, it doesn't fit the time period at all. At least, what I assume to be the time period. It seems to be in the late 19th century, right? At least based on context clues, it seems to be around that time. The cover gives off the impression that it's a modern-day story. The people's clothing and umbrellas makes it seem like a completely different time period, so I was very thrown off when I actually started reading and had to reestablish the time period, which isn't easy to do. Still in the back of my mind, I think this story is modern, and it isn't.
— There's nothing about it in particular that relates to the concept of the story. It just overall doesn't seem to attract the right audience, so I think it's worth remaking.

Title: 3/5
— I mean, yeah, the story is about Jane. It is indeed the story of Jane. It fits lol. As far as matching the concept of the story, I'm not really sure. Yeah, it's a story about a woman named Jane, but the title should show that there's more substance than  that. I just don't think it fits as best as it could.

Blurb: 8/10
— It's a bit strange to start off this blurb introducing a character that isn't Jane lol. Really threw me off, to be honest. But not a big deal. I don't quite understand why there's almost as much introduction to Emma as with Jane, but that's also not a big deal.
— The second paragraph hints at jealousy and competition that could come up in the story, and that's really interesting. Maybe it doesn't actually happen at all, but it makes me hopeful for it.
— Good introduction to Jane and all the work she does.
— The last 2 sentences are really well-written. I am a bit confused, though; what is she surrendering to? Overthrowing her position? If so, it's a bit unclear. If that's not what it is, I have no idea, and you need to clarify.
— Not the most readable blurb. I had to reread it a few times before it made sense to me, and that was after I had read like 8 chapters in and knew the context of the story already. The first time I read it, I was even more lost.
— I'd love a mention of the location. At least the general location. You can even mention the century if you want to, but I don't think that much is necessary.

World: 6/10
— There are mentions of the different areas, so that's good, but it isn't regular enough that readers are able to piece it together and keep track of them. I only remember Lyrell (I think that was it) and another one that starts with like a Dw- or something. Really not restated enough to keep track of.
— The time period is hinted at well because of the telegraph and carriages mentioned, and because of the social statuses like dukes, princes, duchesses, etc. These kinds of things established a 19th century time period in my head. Still not sure if I'm right about that, but I know the telegraph was invented in like the mid 19th century so I'm going for it lol.
— There just could be more about the locations around them that hint at where they live. I'm speculating the UK, but I'm pretty stupid and I also just reviewed a story in the same time period that took place there, so I might just be thinking too much about that. Maybe make it a bit clearer.

Plot: 7/20
— Obviously the story isn't in chronological order. It jumps around a lot, so the exposition was a bit hard to grasp. It gave readers more of a challenge with piecing together the backstory, and I love a good challenge. There's a lot less telling the readers what's going on in your story and a lot more giving hints and showing it through dialogue. That's a good thing. And I found myself being able to piece together most of the backstory. I think some of it is too confusing. The revolution mainly is confusing to me. There are just some parts of the exposition that aren't very clear from a reader's perspective, but most of it was understandable after awhile.
— That being said, the introductions were off. Not just of the characters, but of the situation too. Just felt like being thrown into a scenario with almost no context. I figured it out eventually, but if I didn't have to read a minimum number of chapters when reviewing and instead I was just reading it for fun, I don't know that I would've continued. I hope that doesn't sound contradictory to what I just said a second ago. Like, it's good that you don't directly tell readers everything that's going on, but at the same time it's too vague that if I wasn't reviewing it but reading it for fun, I don't think I would've read very far before just being too confused to continue.
— The main conflict introduced in the blurb seems very interesting. I've been into historical fiction lately, so I liked the concept right off the bat. I think the main conflict is an interesting internal conflict. Jane is unsure what the best decision to make is for her people. And I like that.
— However, I haven't gotten there yet and I feel like I should have. Or maybe I have gotten there. (I'm around chapter 7 or 8 btw.) But if I have, it wasn't clear. And the weird time jumps make it hard to keep on a track. I'm not saying the time jumps are terrible, but maybe they could be more like flashbacks that occur once or twice in a chapter. Maybe that's what they are, but if so it isn't clear either.

Characters: 2/10
— Again, the characters have little to no introduction. Their relationships to one another and their social statuses were hinted at, but I still had that "what is going on and who are these people" issue.
— I thought Kit and Jane hated each other or something. When he proposed and she was upset, I thought they both just hated each other and he was forcing her to accept for some ulterior motive. Just need a bit more clarification there.
— The characters' personalities weren't shown very clearly. (Man, I just keep using the word "clear" lol, it's been a long day.) I'd really love to get some more clues towards their traits.
— I. Need. Appearance. Descriptions. I'm the kind of reader that needs to imagine each scene, so adding in character appearance descriptions throughout the story will really get me. And a lot of other readers like it to, not just me lol.

Chapters & Content: 3/10
— What do the bold sections mean? Maybe that's something readers are meant to figure out, but it was bothering me. Are those present time, perhaps? Are the regular parts the jumps back in time? Lemme know, I need to find out if I'm right.
— Again, the time jumps should be maybe reduced. It just doesn't feel like the story is going anywhere with them taking up the majority of the story, even though they're giving some backstory.
— Maybe you've heard of infamous "info-dumping," but if not, I'll explain it. This is a common issue writers have in which they throw too much information at readers all at once, as the name implies. This can be with backstory, introductions, really almost anything in the exposition. You have the opposite issue, which is uncommon from what I've observed. You need more context to the story. You need to give readers more information. I think I've made that clear by now, though lol.
— Chapters were really short. It doesn't really fit for this story, so lengthen them. Maybe like 2000 words at least, for a start.

Grammar/Spelling: 8/10
— I've been blessed lately—by, well, you lol and some other writers—to have read stories with pretty good grammar. Yours is another one of these. It's not perfect, but the issues are consistent enough that they'll be easy to correct. So thanks for that! As a grammar freak, I wasn't stressed out lol. The only issues are with commas, dialogue punctuation, and speaker tags.
— When specifying the person being spoken to in dialogue, there needs to be a comma. I know that sounds confusing, so I'm just gonna get right to the example: "'Hello Jane'" to "'Hello, Jane'" AND "'Make friends brother'" to "'Make friends, brother.'"
— When adding additional and unnecessary information (you can determine if it's necessary or not by taking it out of the sentence, and if it still makes sense without that segment, it's unnecessary), you need commas around the information. That, or you can use parenthesis or dashes (—). Example: "The man smiled, not unkindly at Jane's frown" to "The man smiled, not unkindly, at Jane's frown."
— Small correction! Not sure how to explain it, so here's the example: "'You're the devil aren't you'" to "'You're the devil, aren't you.'"
— When dialogue is followed by a speaker tag (a sentence that comes before, in between, or after dialogue that indicates the speaker, for example, "she said") and originally ended with a period, the period should become a comma. Question and exclamation marks stay the same. The speaker tag, if it comes in between of after dialogue, which you seem to only stick to those anyway, should start off lowercased unless the speaker uses "I" or their name is being used. Even if the dialogue ends with a question or exclamation mark, follow this rule. You tend to get the dialogue punctuation right, but the speaker tag capitalization is a problem.
— Speaker tags must ALWAYS indicate speech. If any other action is occurring during or between dialogue, that's not a speaker tag, and therefore the dialogue punctuation should never be a comma before this. The sentence should be capitalized because it is NOT a speaker tag. This is probably your biggest problem.

Writing Style: 5/10
— There should be more variety with speaker tag placement. By that, I mean you should have more speaker tags before the dialogue. You have plenty in between or after it. Well, actually there aren't that many real speaker tags, most of them are other actions that are posed as speaker tags. That's another issue, actually. You need more speaker tags. I had to hunt for who the speaker was and backtrack a lot to try to figure it out.
— On top of that, there is a lot of dialogue. Interesting style, yes, but I think you could use more narration. It might help with some other issues.
— I. Want. Imagery. I love imagery so much, but because of the lacking narration, it was just missing. Descriptions overall were missing, and that just seemed off. But missing imagery? It's just missing that spice that really gets readers into a story.

Enjoyment: 5/10
— I mean, I wasn't too hooked at almost any point. There were some moments that were emotional and I empathized with the characters, but I wasn't attached enough to care much.
— It was kind of fun to use the hints to figure out the backstory and put the puzzle pieces together, but it just felt like unnecessary effort after awhile. There needs to be more explanations and narration to fill in the gaps.

Overall: 49/100
The story has potential to have a great plot, but it feels right now as if it isn't going anywhere. There isn't enough introduction or backstory, it just felt like I was being thrown into a bunch of different situations with every new time jump. The time jump idea is a bit confusing, especially because I forgot how far back we went, but I think it can be done if it's a bit clearer. I think that's your key point: make it clearer. Your grammar and world are doing well, and your blurb is great, so now you need to improve on the other categories. It's good that you aren't info-dumping, but you need more clarity now. Good luck writing/editing!