Whiskey Lullaby by amber_rose
http://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/598704/

Title          4/5
Appearance          4/5
Foreword         9/10
Flow           5/5
Characterization       23/25
Plot       22/25
Style         9/10
Grammar        9/10
Dialogue           5/5

Total      90/100

reviewed by Suliee

Title: If the story was summed in two words, it would be: whiskey lullaby. It’s relevant to the story and emits this mature-romance aura, which I am in love with. But, I do find it sends out a dull and weird imagery.

Appearance: The layout is simple and clean. Just the way I like it. I like the fact that Siwon is in greyscale. Foreshadow to the story, maybe?

The sudden change in font colour at the end hurt my eyes a bit. Since you already have it italicized, you don’t need it to be grey as well.

Foreword: Instead of a short description, you’ve inserted a short section from your short story and a good part, if I might add. It’s the centre of your story, your plot. But you could have shortened it to: The officer opened the wallet to a photograph of a face Sooyoung wished she could forget. Still, it’s vague but concise to the message. You want to try to pull the reader in, fast. The more questions asked in the foreword, the better. (Why is the officer there? Who is in the photo? What does she want to forget? Why?) This single sentence equals to the same amount as the section.

Flow: The scenes were short but each had a reason to be there and the narration connected them. It was fast paced and it matched their “whirlwind romance.”

Characterization: The main characters in Whiskey Lullaby were Sooyoung and Siwon, a great set of characters. Sooyoung was real to me. She made mistakes. She went through insecurities and has pride. It was difficult for her to face the truth and dwelt on the past.

Siwon, I find, not as real. Since he was a police officer, you explored other scenes, not just the same one used in Sooyoung’s POV. Good, but mentally, he's a lot like Sooyoung though they both agreed that they were polar opposites. He’s a generic character, the angsty officer. There isn’t much depth. It’s hard to write a character that is not relatable so I suggest a character map. Or write a background to bring the character to life and give him his own voice.

Plot: “Whiskey Lullaby” has a simple plot, focused around the romance. It’s not original (and bit on the cliche side) but it was written out properly. Delete the explanation of his life, the section before she opens the box, because it is a summary of Siwon’s section. You don’t need to explain everything for the reader; they need to think and connect the ideas too.

Style: I find first person the most interesting out of the three point-of-views. This brings the readers the closest to the characters. There is always a lingering thought: does she or he know everything that’s going on? Sooyoung didn’t, which was why I was extremely happy when I was reading her section. Her wonders of Siwon became mine as well. However, Siwon’s part of the story was too similar. Their character voices were too similar although you said they were different. Like I said in the character section, give Siwon his own voice. For example, his thoughts could be shorter, or the imagery in his section could show his cynical side.

Grammar: I was pleasantly surprised with the grammar. There were small mistakes that were scattered around but it didn’t distract me too much. Check over it and you'll find it.

Example 1: Spelling error. Heardquaters should be headquarters.

Example 2: "No." Was her reply. should be changed to “No,” was her reply.

Dialogue: It was there when needed (although, reading the same dialogue was a bit boring).

Reviewer's Comments: This was written well and I had no problem reading through it. There are a lot of novels with different point of views used. “Change of Heart” by Jodi Picoult was something I read years ago which used the same concept. Hope this helped.