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11/8/2020 c1 132rebecca-in-blue
Hi there, here from the broken cliche challenge and fandom blind. I found the opening of this story kinda hard to get into. Amanda seems to spend a long bit of time staring at her reflection as we get information about her ability to transform, her history with Charlotte, etc. I really don't think it benefits the story to open with an info-dump instead of a scene/action. I also found Amanda's mom's bedtime story kinda hard to hear (and is she still getting bedtime stories as a high school freshman?). There wasn't really a storytelling voice to it, so to me, it just read like more of the narration. The SPaG got messier as the story went on, especially with *asterisking* the verbs and around the dialogue tags. I really think this needed to be better polished.
10/30/2020 c1 22ArkTaisch
Hi, here from the WA forum, so I'm reading this completely fandom-blind (and missed a ton of stuff, I'm sure, so take my comments with a grain of salt!)

Opening: I found it a little bland/slow: she looks in the mirror (itself a bit of a cliche!) and then reminisces. Nothing happens, no one says anything, no conflict to grip the reader yet. It does explain some things for the fandom-blind reader, but I think I'd rather you dived right into it and leave me to be confused and puzzling together the context!

I also read chapter 2, which I think does a better job of introducing the characters (and setting) and flows better, with actual scenes where they interact "live".

[...about her her black curly hair...] - extra "her" in there...

So third paragraph we get a hint of conflict, with this Charlotte Lanson... but it's still exposition /about/ her. I think it would be more fun to be shown this, through an actual scene where Charlotte is present and saying those things/teasing Amanda! (Like the later bit where they drop her... that could have been expanded into a fuller scene, while the pure exposition/memories could be cut down some.) I love the little details about cheerleading, makes the story more interesting/convincing.

This is a lot of paragraphs with no dialogue and no motion... still looking in the mirror in the 9th paragraph... Basically I think your story could benefit from more "showing" and less "telling".

And then a long story from her mom... interesting the way you have the "action" described here in an urban legend sort of thing, then later the actual action is elided and we skip to blood-stained Amanda talking to Lauren about it. I thought that was pretty effective, and added to the shock value. It certainly felt like an abrupt turn in events!

So it's set up to be the usual clique-y high school drama, where people are horrible to each other in the usual modern human ways, and then Amanda goes straight to head-chopping Grimm vengeance? Heh... (I was confused, though, that Amanda's mom first says they don't know any other Grimms, then later they do know that Lauren is one?) Or is it a cliche like "Carrie" only she goes home happily to her supportive family and friends after the bloody revenge? Interesting take on "teenage angst"...

Good luck with the challenge!
9/28/2020 c2 43fallingsnow6136
Hello, so I am here from the shorter review game on Writers Anonymous. The introduction doesn’t really grip me in because there’s a lot of dialogue, maybe you could start by giving us an idea of the setting. Like she arrived home, what did she see? What could she smell? Was the air crispy clean? What could she hear? Just a suggestion because the introduction does fall a little bit flat.

The body of the story however is much better and I really enjoy Amanda’s characterisation and how her mother reacts to her. There is a little bit of telling in this section about Amanda’s personality but it doesn’t take away from the story so I still like it.

I genuinely love how you wrote the horror of Sandra realising that Amanda just stopped. The whole scene was written very brilliantly and I don’t have much to critique. I am also curious as to how Sandra didn’t know her husband was the Grimm.

I love the conversation between the two moms. Overall, I would say your dialogue is your best quality and you really pull the reader in with the emotional dialogue, which is wonderful. However, looking into more purple prose/sensory imagery so description of the setting and using the five senses would make this story even better than it already is. I enjoyed reading this, so good luck and keep writing. Hope to see you again in this review game.
9/28/2020 c2 3Mudblood Slytherin and Proud
I discovered this author on a forum post and his comment made me laugh, so I decided to take a look at his work.

I am afraid I am not familiar with the fandom so I can't comment on how engaging or realistic the plot developments are but I will say it is very well written, on the whole. Good pacing and dialogue, and dialogue is so hard to write, so that's all good news. Believable interactions between mother and daughter, making for good relationships and characterisation.

I will say, anyone interested in this fandom and who to follow, this author chappy has a decent sense of humour and made me laugh with a review he wrote elsewhere, where a battle scene seemed to fizzle out at the end: "everybody sat around, sang Kumbaya, and went home"! Clearly I'm far from an expert on this fandom but I will say, humour and good, snappy dialogue are all good signs of a good author: follow this man!

Now I hope someone who knows your fandom can come up with something more substantial about the plot!
9/20/2020 c1 94Sara K M
Hi I'm reading this for the Break the Cliché Challenge, and I really can't tell what the cliché is supposed to be. Was I supposed to expect Amanda and Charlotte to become BFFs? Were Lauren and Amanda supposed to end up as enemies, as Lauren was a Grimm? If that's the case, you may want to make it more clear that Lauren WAS a Grimm, as I had to read it several times before I understood that Lauren was a Grimm.

That being said, I liked the relationship between Amanda and her mother. You make it clear they are close, and her mother is supportive of her. (Her mother is her martial arts instructor, she likes to listen to her mother's stories about the Grimm, etc.) Yet, it's interesting that Amanda doesn't tell Sandra about her "big adventure" with Lauren. I suppose it's typical for teenagers to withhold information to their parents because "they wouldn't understand."

And that brings me to another thing that's done well in this story. Despite being a Lowen, Amanda is clearly has normal teenage worries. She worries about her looks, she doens't like to be teased about "not fitting in" with the other cheerleaders, and she tells her friend Lauren more about her life than her mother. I think it's very important if you are writing a "monster perspective" story, that you allow the reader to identify with. And those all concerns/behaviors that most readers either still do, or would have done when they were teenagers. :)

However, this story could have been written better. Much of it uses passive voice/and feels forced.

For example: Amanda Prentice was staring at herself in the bathroom mirror before bed. Unnecessarily passive. (Passive voice is a good technique when you are trying to summarize something. NOT when you are writing action that is currently happening.)
Try: Amanda Prentice stared at herself in the bathroom mirror before bed.

Furthermore, the way you bring up Charlotte in the second paragraph feels forced, rather than natural. You might try something like:
She twisted one lock of her curly black hair and sighed. Charlotte Lanson always made fun of her hair, as well as Amanda's petit figure, and honor roll grades. The other girl was the most beautiful girl on their cheerleading team, with straight blonde hair, very curvy and athletic looking, and had the attention of every boy on campus.
Do you see how much more natural that sounds?
9/7/2020 c1 18dtill359
Dropping in from the WA challenge,

First off, congrats of getting something written for the challenge. Honestly, I haven't even nailed down my idea yet.

A few things about the piece:

The verb tense in the first paragraph shifts from past to present, then back to past.

I wasn't sure what cliche this story dealt with. At first, I thought it might be the "introducing a character by looking in the mirror" cliche, but then the story moved away from that and didn't mention it again. Then, I thought it might be a twist on how horror movies play out with Amanda's mom telling her that odd story, but then everything ended as expected.

Overall, I was confused as to what the overall theme and plot were. With this being so short, it was difficult to discern either of these.

I felt like this was the first scene of something longer and thought it needed to have at least a couple thousand more words added in order to fully show readers the cliche setup, then how the cliche was broken.

Anyway, good luck in the contest.
9/6/2020 c1 31lalez
Hey there,
I found your story through the WA forum.
This was not what I expected and I mean that in a good way. I read your title and knew the challenge but still I was surprised.

I haven't read any Grimm stories as of yet, so what comes next might be simply me being uniformed of the ffnet community: you meant to write Kehrseite (which would be the correct german spelling and is being used also on the wiki pages for Grimm in English) the same goes for Lwen (yes, I understand Umlaute aren't easy with an American keyboard and I am cheating since I am german).

Anyway back to the story: I was almost laughing at the stereotypical highschool drama setup, although you have deviated there already. In most cheer squads the flyers are the queens and from my understanding to be on cheer you have to have pretty good grades. But lets roll with it.
The antagonist Meghan is the classic mean girl so that works in your favor to setup the cliche again.

I struggled in the brigde of your story. Just before the little tale about a Grimm:
"Sandra nervously smiled and petted Amanda's dark curly hair. They had never taught Amanda any of those dusty old wives tales or the foolish legends. Nobody they knew had ever even seen a Grimm before - it simply didn't make sense to fill children's heads with that sort of nonsense."

I actually went back a couple of times, and if I am not completly mistaken you made Amanda half Grimm, so how can Sandra say noboday they knew had ever seen a Grimm? (Might just be the crazy german in me).
As far as childrens stories go, your final comment in Sandra's thoughts makes a lot of sense. The tale is gruesome and horrible. Fits in well with canon. Good job on that.

The end was great again and made me chuckle. For me you have put a spin on a cliche which fits into the world of Grimm but I am not sure your story is finished and the cliche broken completely.

Good luck in the challenge.

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