Title: Moments to Remember

Author: Tantk11

Reviewed By: JjinYJ

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Title: (5/5)

I really liked the title. The story resembles greatly - at least to me - a diary, which made this very appropriate. It reminded me of something I’d find on the cover of a log or journal which I found to be quite creative. I can’t say that I’ve ever seen a title quite like this before either, and the ambiguity of the phrase would probably ensure that it is intriguing to a potential reader.

Description and Forward: (6/10)

Your title would probably hook me, but your description and forward could be improved. To be quite honest, your description is actually quite good; it sets the scene - describing the kind of story that the one-shot will be - without going into too much detail. It was perhaps a little too short, but that is not always a problem. I deducted a mark for this section because the information you placed in the forward (title/word count/pairings) should be moved here; I don’t normally pick up authors on switching between forwards and descriptions, but since you asked for a strict review I’ll do that here. Anything that describes the story - be that a tag line or piece of dialogue, or anything that contains technical information like the word count - should be included in the description.

The forward was where I deducted the other marks. Or rather, it was for lack of a proper forward that I deducted the marks. Credits are fine to have here, since they don’t necessarily belong in the description and it was useful to outline the prompt that inspired the one-shot; but there was no real body of text that showcased your intended writing. You need much more than a quote or prompt here, and that is why I deducted a further three marks. I would suggest - even for a one-shot - that a few lines or paragraphs showcasing your intended style or plot should be included in this section. Your author’s notes are also fine to remain here, but as I talked about for your description; I would advise you to move the title/word-count/pairings into the description section.

Originality of Plot: (18/20)

I thought that the plot was utterly captivating and original. Pregnancy is of course a very common topic on fan fiction sites like AFF, but I must say that I had yet to discover a story that discussed the negative sides of birth - specifically stillbirth and its effects. These issues are not often handled by amateur authors, so I applaud you for having the courage to write about such an obscure topic.

There is little more to say other than why I deducted the two marks here. This was because I felt as though - as I will discuss under ‘characterization’ - Onew and Krystal’s childhood and developing relationship was rather clichéd. It was probably because the main body of your writing was dedicated to their adult life together, but I felt as though there could’ve been a lot more depth behind this aspect of the plot. It was a very generic boy-meets-girl scenario, which I most definitely think you have the potential to diversify from. My advice would be to try and avoid these scenarios. Your writing style is very strong, so I’m confident that you would be able to think of some creative ways for boy and girl to meet!

Mechanics (Grammar, Vocabulary, Punctuation and Spelling): (21/25)

Overall, the categories in this section were met very strongly. Your grammar was, on the whole very strong, with only minor instances of tense confusion and this is the same for your punctuation. However - since you asked to be marked strictly - I deducted several points for the spelling errors that I discovered; which was a shame considered how sophisticated your over language was.

Examples of spelling and grammatical errors that I found include:

1. ‘On her picnic rug, talking, laughing, and giggling.’ - The issues here is with your use of commas. You do not need so many and specifically, the first should be a semi-colon as you are about to make a list of ideas and the last is unnecessary since you are using ‘and’. The sentence should have read, ‘On her picnic rug; talking, laughing and giggling.’

2. Noun confusion, such as using verbs or adjectives in place of the intended noun. Examples that I found include, ‘A pleasant silent,’ that should’ve been, ‘A pleasant silence.’ As well as, ‘From his grieve,’ that should’ve been, ‘From his grief.’

I also found that you used the word, ‘Staffs’ more than once. Having an ‘s’ on the end of ‘staff’ is grammatically incorrect because ‘staff’ is known as a ‘collective noun’, which means it encompasses a plural concept anyway; thus there is no plural form of the noun. Other examples of ‘collective nouns’ (so that you can understand the concept) might include, ‘A flock of sheep’, ‘A pride of lions’, ‘The population of a country’ etc.

3. Sometimes there was also a slight confusion in tense usage. Mainly this concerned the use of improperly conjugated verbs. For example, ‘Joe and Mathew is a couple from Taiwan.’ This sentence should read, ‘Joe and Mathew are a couple from Taiwan,’ since the verb is referring to more than one person and thus requires a plural form. Another example I found was, ‘..who has married Jay Park three years before.’ In this example the sentence should’ve been, ‘..who married Jay Park three years before,’ since the action is completed. Using ‘has’ creates a compound tense which indicates an action that went on for a period of time; marriage obviously is a single event and thus does not need the ‘has.’

Other than this, your vocabulary was very wide, intelligent and creative.

Writing Style: (9/10)

Your writing style is very strong and I loved the way you formatted the story as a diary. It was very creative and made the style quite unique. There is little to advise you on here, other than that I thought perhaps your use of clinical - pregnancy related - language was maybe a little too extensive. I might suggest reigning in the overall use of medical terms (despite your inclusion of definitions) since it was a little distracting sometimes to have to scroll up and down each time I came across one of them. I deducted a mark because of this.

Characterization: (7/10)

The main reason I deducted marks in this section was because, as I talked about in the plot, I felt as though you glossed over the beginning of the story and missed the opportunity to give real depth to the nature of Onew and Krystal’s relationship. Once we’d reached their adulthood, you did a wonderful job of portraying their characters, habits and interactions; but I thought the childhood aspect could’ve added greatly to the sympathy that we felt for them after the tragedy of the still-birth.

I guess what I’m trying to say is; I didn’t really feel that they had as strong a foundation for their relationship as it was portrayed. I knew that they’d been together for something like 10 years, but I didn’t know what had happened in those years that had caused them to love each other so deeply. I feel as though I’m being very picky here, but in the nature of a strict review I think it’s best to tell you my opinion.

Flow of Story: (9/10)

The flow of the story was particularly strong. The formatting of the diary-esque writing style made the pace of the story fluid and easy to control, and I didn’t feel as though the scenes transitioned in a confusing way. It was very lucid on the whole.

The only reason I deducted a mark is because of the scrolling up and down that I had to do whenever a medical term appeared. I probably could’ve done a better job at maintaining myself; but it was a little bit annoying to get halfway down the page, and then lose my place because I had to scroll back up again.

Ending: (5/5)

The ending was very poignant and I loved how everything was tied together neatly. There was a very clear message behind the ending of appreciation for what you have, despite a loss; and I found that very refreshing.

I thought it was overall very tastefully done in tackling the issue of still-birth and that made the ending very appropriate. I simply loved it, and I’d love for a sequel as well!

Overall Enjoyment: (5/5)

Not much to say other than I loved it! It was so skilfully done, and I really enjoyed the message behind the ending.

Bonus (Poster): (2/2)

The poster was quite beautiful and I loved the animation of the text; sometimes this can be quite distracting on the eyes, but thankfully this was not the case here.

 Total: (87/100)

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Author's Notes:

Thank you for requesting!

I loved this one-shot and wish you the best of luck in the writing contest that it is intended for.

Regardless of the outcome, I hope that you're happy with this score!