Next Big Recognition Contest

Round 20

Again here, clip the descriptions. Neuter the bad boy... (of the long descriptions, that is, not the male MC... well... you can do that too if you want...)

—>

"Come here," he gestured, and stepped away from the wall. Standing in the middle of the alley, he was bathed in a silvery light, and Zara noticed, completely without meaning to, that the douchebag was actually attractive!

_So that's what all those airheads were on about._ (internal dialogue italics) She stepped towards him. She shouldn't, but she was mesmerised by his eyes."

See what I mean? Keep. It. Short. You don't need to talk about the blush. You don't need to say that she's not usually like this. She's gone beyond that point now. The whole point of that was to say that Zara was attracted to the guy. Right here, right now. Her thoughts, her observation of him with a halo (lol) and the fact that she was walking towards him because of his eyes was enough to let us know that she's hooked.

That she knows she shouldn't be walking towards him and that she didn't mean to find him attractive was enough to let us know that she's not usually like that.

"Her rational self screamed at her stupidity while her emotions gushed at him."

I have no idea what you meant here. How did her emotions gush at him? Did they personify and rushed at him like groupies?

Ok, from the para of "He flicked his hair from his eyes, leaning against the wall opposite of her." you've changed POV. Now we're in Max' POV. I wouldn't do that. Keep us with Zara. Because this story is Zara's. And I'm assuming this guy is a new char who's just been intro'd because of your info at the beginning. Would be a pity to give a newbie the voice of the story here since Zara worked for it.

"Why have you been following me?!" Zara repeated for what she thought was the millionth time.

<— at this point, I had to scroll back and confirm, because this was actually the first time (not the millionth) Zara had asked this question. She started with the questions on the para "Oh, I haven't said anything of that sort..." and the question was "You still haven't bothered to explain anything to me, and I'm getting pretty tired of conversation, Max. How long have you been following me?"

Keep the dialogues logical. At this point, ask yourself why Max would explain anything to her when she hasn't asked anything because they've been bantering to and fro before this. It would be more logical for Zara to go "Look, I'm getting tired of this conversation. You have some explaining to do. How long have you been following me?"

Was the "How long has this story been going on?" meant to be a dialogue, or her thoughts? If it were her thoughts, why doesn't she voice them to him?

When she's going all verbal assault on him, don't change the POV in mid sentence.

"You get everything handed to you on a silver plate by your stupid servants (no comma required there). ... Work? No, you definitely don't know what that word is." Don't go third part on him because Zara was referring to him directly before and after that bit where the pronoun went 3rd party, so it's not consistent. If you want to have her complain about him in 3rd person, do it all the way, instead. Otherwise, it just sounds odd. It's ok in the next para because you kept it short. "You think the world revolves around you and your stupid minions, about Max and his latest flings." But I'd recommend changing it to —> "You think the world revolves around you and your stupid minions—Max and his latest flings—but newsflash, Buster, ..." the em dashes keep that portion of it as an "aside" so that it doesn't interfere with the rest of your sentence. In that way, the change in POV is excusable.