REVIEW by: x3_strucked
It's always been you, MY JULIETTE..
First Impressions
Title: 3.5/5
The titles of fanfics have been evolving a lot recently, and I guess this comes in a good and a bad way. In a good way, the title is fresh and alluring to readers. I myself don’t like the fact that authors use names like (Lucifer, Juliette) into their titles. It doesn’t feel original, and it feels like a cheap rip off to pull in Shawol readers. Of course, I’m not saying I hate EVERY story with those kinds of titles, some stories cleverly explain the use of its title while still maintaining its plot. And fortunately for me, your title was a good example of this, I guess the main thing I’m bothered about is that authors would make titles like these without giving much thought into WHY they are. I’ve read some Juliette titled stories before and I’m pretty disappointed that the only mention of it is the character’s name!
That is quite an unfair use of a title as it provides no meaning, it feels too forced like the author wanted to use the name Juliette into the title just because of the case of wanting to. And in that way, the title loses its connection with its reader and its own plot. Much like the plot of a story, the title is also very important, it needs to provide a deep meaning, in a way it also needs to represent the plot.
Your title did it very cleverly and may I add, very smoothly and understandable. I liked the fact that your title had a double meaning, the first thing I thought about your title was that it was going to be a romance between two people who love each other to the death. But when I read on the true meaning behind the title, it surprised me that it was actually centred around the Juliette music video. So an epic romance much like Romeo and Juliette in the form of Minho and Krystal that started off from the Juliette music video?
Wow, that’s like hitting two birds with one stone.
What an awesome title, it’s like Rome and Juliette replaying itself… without the tragedy. Although the appearance of the title was lacking in originality, it made up for what it lost with its meaningful title. Deep, alluring, and complex, and it works.
Poster: 3.5/5
Hmm… looking at the poster I can’t exactly say I like it, the poster looks too plain, there’s really not much colour apart from the background and what the characters are wearing, and the whole effect and arrangement used for the poster is too lacking in detail. A poster of a fanfic is quite important, though it really isn’t by much, a poster has to satisfy three things, the appearance, the meaning and the wording.
I can’t exactly say much about the appearance because I had already explained it at the top, the poster looks too dull even with the background colours and the entire editing of the pictures looks too choppy and rushed (Sorry). Don’t worry every poster has its flaws and even then it may just be my entire opinion, even when I say that the background colours of the poster look too dull, some people may disagree saying that it may look appealing to them.
Everybody has their own tastes and that’s why posters don’t really contribute significantly to its story, but the most important thing that your poster must have is a deep meaning behind the pictures and colour and also the wording of it must fit the plot. Your poster may not be a good example appearance wise, but it’s the perfect example of both the wording and meaning of your plot! The colours of your poster may not look that interesting, but it’s clear and simple, it sends a clear message to your readers of what genre your story is going to be about.
The wording of your poster is a bit too much, usually posters would only have one line of quotation, but I guess in a way the quantity of your wordings does fit the overall look of the poster. It makes up for all the empty space remaining inside the poster and in a way, it does reflect on the plot of the story. By the way, I love the way you arranged the pictures of Minho and Krystal in the poster to make him looking at Krystal’s direction, it gives a sense of distant romance and realism.
I can’t say this was the perfect poster, the colours were slightly dull and boring, the effects used in the background were too old-fashioned and the font used for the title name was really uninteresting. But nether less, yours was quite a standard example of a quality poster with its wording and arrangement of pictures. Slick and simple, well done.
(Note: I see that you had two posters, but because you used your main one, I decided to review that instead. But I did quite prefer the second poster to the first one, it was a lot more colourful and appealing)
Foreword: 8/10
I guess for a story about a romance between two people there’s not really much things to describe about the plot. Everything is already there, the characters, the plot and the setting so I guess it wouldn’t matter if I said the foreword was a bit empty and lacking in detail. Of course, you could still try and renovate your foreword to make it look more appealing to readers, maybe adding some more character descriptions so readers can get a broader spectrum of the supporting characters in your story.
Your character descriptions were quite short and brief, but that’s a good thing, it means it’s simple and straightforward. I like the fact that you slipped in rhetorical questions in the character descriptions, that’s a clever way in stirring a reader’s interest because they would want to know how they would end up together.
Because this story is a two person romance, there’s nothing much I can say about your foreword, it’s simple and gives a clear message to the readers while still being delicate enough not to spoil anything to do with the plot.
A Closer Look
Originality/Creativity: 8.5/10
In terms of originality, I must say that I’m surprised at myself for saying this, but your fanfic is quite an original. The fact that the story is a romance inside a romance is what pulls me into the story, and this is the fact that makes it stand out of the many other romance fics that I have seen. If you think about it, it’s actually quite hard pulling off a fanfic that has a plot situated with a romance within a romance. But I think you pulled it off very well, and quite realistically and smoothly.
The fact that Minho and Krystal’s relationship had ascended to a romance was ONLY because of the romance video, Juliette that they had done together. And it is also ONLY because that Krystal had been dressed up to look like Juliette, her hair flowing down, wearing a pretty dress that Minho had finally realized her true beauty. In a way, I find it quite bothering that Minho never noticed Krystal because she didn’t dress pretty enough on the pilot chapter, it gave me a feeling that he was an arrogant and selfish player-like idol who only looked at pretty girls.
But when I thought about it more deeply, it made more sense that Krystal as the shy and private girl never actually dressed up prettily even though she would be really beautiful if she did. And this all makes sense as a whole, because of Krystal’s shyness, Minho never got to notice her true self and her true beauty. The thing or “romance” that had actually brought them together was ONLY because of the Juliette video and it makes sense from there because without the intimate and somehow distant skinship that they had shared in the Juliette video, Minho would have never realized Krystal and in doing that he would have never realized love.
What a creative storyline I must say, I’ve seen many storylines that combine two plots together but your story was the first of many to actually disguise a plot within another one. There are no original and unique fanfic in the world, but if I was to look at your one, god it would be quite close.
Flow: 13/15
I only have three words I have to say for this category, short, simple and sweet. Does that mean I like the flow of this story? YES! Although the chapters of your story lacked description and were more dialogue-based, the flow of the story was really quick and pleasant. If I was being a little too strict, I would have to say that too much dialogue isn’t a good thing because stories also need descriptions. But in your case, since the story is a point-of-view based, then I guess that’s alright since describing things won’t be needed as the character’s thoughts are basically the same.
The pace of the story was quite slow in general as the two main characters were still confirming their feelings for each other, but although the flow dragged a bit from the start, it was still pleasant to read because your chapters were brief, simple and short. As I read the story further, I was beginning to wonder WHEN they will finally reveal their feelings for each other, because already three-quarters of the way through, I still couldn’t see anything. That I guess wasn’t a bad thing, it kept us with the suspense and curiosity. And when the chapter came out with the moment of , I couldn’t help but smile, it’s like the chapter was telling us, “Look how far we’ve come”.
To have a good flow and pace for a story, the flavours have to seep in slowly into a reader’s mouth, and yours was a perfect example of this. The flavours were slow and blunt at the start, but it kicked in towards the middle, and gave us a blast at the end.
Plot: 14/15
As a romance story between 2 people, the plot is very straightforward and simple. Usually the only obstacle in the story that is stopping the two characters from getting together is their own misunderstanding, or a certain event that distances their relationship. And since your fanfic is quite a short fanfic with about 20 or so chapters, the obstacles in the plot fits the story and it’s pace. If you had added a new obstacle, like a love rival for instance, then the entire length of the fanfic may change, and the quality of its plot may go downhill.
I’m glad that you didn’t add anything new to the story, I quite liked the plot of it, old fashioned and unique, it’s one of the first stories that I’ve read that ONLY talks about the relationship between two of the main characters. Fanfics these days are always about love triangles, love squares, evil ex-boyfriends, evil mother-in-laws, poor people and rich people. URGHS, can I tell you a story? Once upon a time when the genre, romance popped up in the world, it was ONLY about the intimate relationship between TWO people. As time passed by, more and more themes were added into romance, and soon they all turned into a cliché.
What I’m trying to say is that fanfics don’t have to have love triangles, ex-boyfriends, birth secrets, poor girls to make it interesting to readers. Your plot divided a clear line between a cliché and a classic, the story didn’t talk anything about love rivals or poor people, it stayed true to a REAL romance by talking and showing the gradual and subtle relationship between two innocent people.
This plot is a true classic, well… I can’t say a real classic but in terms of the genre romance, this was quite close. GOOD JOB!
Grammar/Punctuation/Vocabulary/Spelling: 18/20
As the story goes, I did find a handful of mistakes with your grammar but of course not to a big extent, so don’t worry. What you need to do is just proof read your story every time you finish a chapter or maybe get a beta reader or friend to read it over for you. But I don’t really think there’s a clear problem with your grammar, apart from some mix up with the past tense and present tense. I think that’s okay seeing as it still makes sense in a way and the reader can still understand the point of your sentence without getting confused.
I think the main problem in the story is your mix up with present and past tense. There is nothing to be embarrassed about mixing up some grammar tenses, a lot of authors have minor mistakes like these. I’m just glad that apart from the minor grammar mistakes there weren’t anything else wrong with your fanfic. Your punctuation and vocabulary was spot on but I think I need to note something about your use of commas. Often in your sentences you put commas and they were quite unnecessary, here is an example:
The next day, is the Dream Team day.
The next day is the Dream Team day.
It makes sense none the less, but as a sentence it would look more comfortable to look at without the comma. Well that’s it, I must say the grammar of your story was nearly perfect though I didn’t like that you written the entire story in present tense, it made some of the lines seem a bit awkward. But it makes sense, and as long as fanfic makes sense, then that’s as good as it gets.
Final Conclusion
Characterisations: 7/10
The way you depicted the characterisations of the characters was a bit… dry, I guess it’s because the chapters were brief and short and there was no effort to put in detailed descriptions of their emotions and their actions. Because of this, our connection feels a bit lost with the main characters. But anyway, I guess I can’t blame you since this is a point-of-view story but even though the thoughts of the characters were straightforward, it could’ve been more elaborated so us as readers can feel for the character, see more deeper into the character and like the character as a whole.
I don’t know how to describe the characterisations in the story, because there weren’t really much description in the story to support it. But the thoughts of one another was enough to tell us how they were feeling and what they were doing. To get a better portrayal of a character, you should elaborate more on their feelings and emotions, not just elaborate, but describe so us readers can picture it all on our mind. For a story to work, you as an author need to provide us with a visual so that we can picture it in our minds without having to impose force on it.
Writing Style: 8/10
I must say for a short chaptered fic like yours, I quite enjoyed reading it. The story was brief, straightforward and unique in its own way, the “Juliette” theme of the story is what drives the plot apart from the many fics I’ve read. It’s a near original and a classic in the genre of a romance fanfic, it didn’t have any forced obstacles such as the ex-boyfriends and love rivals stuff. The main obstacle was their feelings for one another, and their misunderstanding with their own feelings. And in that way, I found it very enjoyable to read seeing how this whole ploy would turn out. And it the chapters were simple and brief making it a breeze to read, which is another plus seeing as the plot had no cliché whatsoever.
Total: 83.5/100
Overall Enjoyment
I must say that this fanfic was quite a pleasure to read, it was simple, fresh and addictive. I find this whole plot a total original, well that’s my opinion, I’ve never really read a fanfic before that told of a romance that came out from a romance based music video. And that’s where all the awesomeness comes from, it’s a romance inside a romance, like I had said before, it’s truly an awesome way of depicting a plot. It wasn’t a love at first sight, it wasn’t an opposites attract, it wasn’t a misunderstanding, it was ALL because of the romance video.
Although I enjoyed this fic very much, I must say that some people may not, this genre is a classic, it really is. It had no obstacles, it had no cliché, it was just a subtle and growing relationship between two idols and it works for me. But for other readers, it may not, this story doesn’t have the action packed clichés that other fics have such as the jealous girlfriends, the ex-boyfriends, the whole scheming and all those drama. In that way, some readers may not be interested in this because they feel that these sorts of genres are too dull and boring, I myself would have liked your fic to have a sort of love rival because it would give the story some drama.
Although the fic didn’t really have much suspense and those action packed drama that most fics have, it had the subtle and classic romance. And I enjoyed every bit of it.
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