Requested on: 27.6.16

Finished on: 28.6.16

Author of the Story: Midnightroses

Story Title: The Crimson Pills

Review by: Suhyo07

Total Score: 100/100

Title (6/10)

The title's really good, describing what you're saying perfectly. The main title makes perfect sense, yet it's a bit dull since it was what the whole story was about - The Crimson Pills. Even though I said that, I couldn't suggest a better title for the story, so I suppose it's alright. However, when I read your story, I found that all the other chapters were named 'The Crimson Pills'. Don't do that. The lesat you could do is to name it a different title every chapter, even if it's Chapter 1, 2......because it shows that the chapter you're reading is different from the previous one. Please change the title of every chapter a little.

 Foreword (9/10)

The description was definetely interesting. It could interest readers, and at the same time urging readers to continue reading. One thing that bothers me, however, was how the description was displayed. It doesn't have any paragraphs, just sentences ploughing on. There were too many lines, and it would have been better if you seperate it where there were different points, as it is too confusing now.

The foreword didn't say anything except for the warnings, but that's fine. Some authors prefer to write a small part of their story to further interest the readers, but I would say the description was already enough.

Plot (31/35)

As a whole, the plot is definetely new and unique. I've never read something like this, so what happens next is always a surprise.

However, there were a few plot holes that I spotted. you noticed that Minho had a sister, so what's the reason Taemin had to be the person who was pregnant when there were females still left in the story? I had assumed that because all the girls and women had gone extinct, then the facility had to do experiments on the boys as there seemed to be no female workers in the 'hospital'.

You also needed to explain why the facility chooses them. For example, any particular criteria that made Taemin, Minho and the other boys that stand out because you normally won't just march into an entertainment agency, kidnap one of their trainees and go back to your own base. Sounds weird, doesn't it?

The flow of your story is smooth, which is a good thing since I'm actually hanging on your every word. There's something that puts me off, which was the contents of the dialogue. Most of it was about Taemin or Minho struggling against the nurses and doctors, or the nurses and doctors telling them they'll know 'soon' or 'later', with only a small amount of it actually talking about what the facility is doing to them, slowing the flow a little.

However, most of your plot was very interesting to read, with the struggles of both boys written very vividly. Good job on that.

 Characters (17/20)

One thing about the characters: Minho's and Taemin's personalities didn't differ from each other much, with Taemin showing more of the vulnerability, though most of it were almost the same, such as both boys crying for help and being tired, etc. All of it describes perfectly how a normal human being would behave in such a situation, but since Minho seemed to be the stronger of the two, I expected more from him besides rebelling inwardly and running away.

On the other hand, Taemin's personality was really fitting. He was the young boy with ambition who was kidnapped from his agency where he was training as a trainee, and suddenly being thrown into such a place made him scared, so he tried leaning on Key and Heechul for help. However, what I would suggest is adding more of his inner feelings or thoughts, something like the 'slowly-going-insane' part of him.

Other than that, the descriptions and personalities of your other characters were fine, except for the white-haired man, who seemed to just pop out of nowhere.

Grammar (20/20)

I understand that most of us authors don't spend time to re-read our stories and correct the grammatical errors, but from the story, I'm almost sure that you're not an English native.

1. Missing punctuation

There were several missing commas between senteces. Trying reading them aloud and see how they sound like, according to how you write it. Here are some examples:
"The doctor didn’t even acknowledge the other instead talked to the nurse taking a file flipping through it." (Chapter 2)
It would have been better if it was changed to this:
"The doctor didn't even acknowledge the other, instead talking to the nurse, taking a file and flipping through it."
There were three mistakes here: missing punctuation, which was the missing commas, mistake of verb and missing conjuction. Or there's another way to correct this sentence:
"The doctor didn’t even acknowledge the other, who instead talked to the nurse, taking a file flipping through it." 
Either way, there would be an absence of comma, but this time, you can simply add a pronoun and be done with it.

Put commas aside, there's the problem of full stops as well. Most of it was placed in the wrong places, where the sentence hadn't finished yet you're forcing a stop in it, like:
"He sat down on the bed picking at his growing toe nails. His usual boredom already taking over his mind." (Chapter 1)
Corrected version:
"He sat down on the bed, picking at his growing toe nails, his usual boredom already taking over his mind."
Instead of full stops, you can use conjuctions like as, since or and, or you could put a comma there.

2. Missing verbs

Some of your sentences missed simple verbs, such as 'are' and 'am', like this:
"A tape measure used to measure as he reached compete ." (Chapter 1)
A 'was' should be added, like this:
"A tape measure was used to measure as he reached complete ."
This would be better in terms of grammar.

3. Changes of tenses

This is a very common mistake, and there wasn't authors that hadn't made this mistake, so it's fine. Stick to one tense and use it, even though these mistakes can be overlooked generally, your story would look more neat if you use only one tense.

Overall Enjoyment (5/5)

Personally enjoyed it a lot. The idea and plot of the story wasn't bad, but if you can improve on your grammar and personification, then it would be better and more enjoyable.

Good luck on writing and an excitng development in the story :).

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