Reviewer: minminXP

Title: Sment Town, The Place of No Return

Author: cathy4reals

Title: 6/10

The title’s slightly cheesy, and a little long as well. Maybe you should just change it to ‘The Place of No Return’. However, I don’t see how this connects to the plot, other than creating an eerie atmosphere. The characters in the story do not die after visiting the graveyard, and the tourists who went into the woods came out safely, although they couldn’t pinpoint the exact location of the graveyard anymore.

Storyline: 14/20

I find the task that has been set for Krystal pretty interesting, and I like how she’s supposed to help the restless spirits move on, unlike most ghost stories where the ghosts are chasing the main characters around instead.

Appearance: 2/5

Your poster fits the mood of the story, but I don’t like your paragraphing. The paragraphs are too skimpy; try to add in more details or join the sentences together so that the paragraphs look thicker.

I don’t like how you insert pictures into your story it takes up too much space and is actually quite unnecessary. Replace the graphics with your own descriptive writing instead. The picture of Krystal in a dress and a jacket spoils the mood of the chapter in chapter 2. I highly recommend that you remove all the pictures.

Writing Style: 2/10

Your writing style is very straightforward. A little too straightforward, I’d say. There’s hardly any description, and the chapters consist mostly of nothing but dialogue and pictures. If I compare your story to an animal, I’d say that your story is all skin and no meat, like a starving animal. The surface is present, but it lacks depth. 

Additionally, in writing a horror story, I must insist on a lot of content. Without the right diction, how are you supposed to create a creepy atmosphere without the use of words? I couldn’t feel the vibes that a horror story is supposed to give off.

Characterization: 4/10

You say that Krystal is disturbed, yet I do not feel that way. Although her relatives have talked about her having fits when she’s kept away from Taemin, I do not see how that is supposed to show that she’s disturbed. To me, I feel that Krystal is weak, helpless, and a spoilt young girl. She was afraid of practically everything in the graveyard, and hid behind Taemin all the time. What’s more, the way she throws fits when kept away from Taemin sounds like a child throwing a tantrum when she is denied something. The way you portray her makes me think of an immature and spoilt child, much unlike what you’re trying to say.

Her actions seem to have no depth, like how she thinks about her dress when she’s in a graveyard. Please do correct these details and try to show the deep personality that you mean for her to have.

One last thing: the main character here is Krystal, so why does it seem like Taemin is the one with the most focus?

Story Flow: 6/10

Although the story progresses fairly fast, I feel that most of the content has been left out because of your skimpy descriptions. You don’t elaborate, which is a pity when you have a storyline with so much potential to be so much more interesting than it is now.

Grammar/Punctuation/Spelling: 4/10

You made several grammatical errors along the way, as well as vocabulary mistakes.

For example, you wrote: “ The lose of her parents so early in life contribute to her delusion.”

It should have been: “The loss of her parents so early in life has contributed to her delusions.”

This sentence contained both grammatical and vocabulary errors, so I chose it to showcase to you how to correct your sentences. Hopefully, you can use this sentence as an example and fix the rest of your errors well.

Creativity and Originality: 11/15

Like I said earlier, this story is different because of the situation that the main characters are in. They're helping the ghosts instead of running away from them. I couldn’t see what was coming next. The ghost with the birdcage as her midriff really caught me off guard. Good job.

Overall Enjoyment: 7/10

Despite your technical errors, I think that you managed to capture my attention fairly well. It’d be a great improvement if you added more content into your story, though.

Sub-Total: 56/100

Bonus: 1/5 

There was a good twist in your horror story

Total: 57/100