Title: (4/5)

The first aspect of your title that I would like to address is the capitalization, not because there was anything wrong with it, but because it was perfect; I'd like to commend you on that. There are many stories I have come across where words such as "of”s are needlessly capitalized, and I’m happy to note that your fanfic does not fall under said category. And that may seem unimportant, but it's actually a very, very common mistake.

I have to say that "Runes of Despair" was not the most eye-catching story name I have ever seen. As a whole, “Runes of Despair” is entirely original; however, the noun-of-adjective pattern is not, and that's why a point has been deducted. I don’t see any reason for you to alter it at this moment, but it may be nice to keep this in mind when deciding on future titles, as it could easily become a habit to blindly follow common patterns instead of trying to create something new all together.

Now that I’ve explained my first impression of the title, I think I’ll make some remarks after reading the three chapters you have up.

First of all, I can’t help but wonder if you’ve mistaken the word “Ruins” for “Runes,” as ruins pertains to the state of something after being physically destructed, and runes relates to letters in the ancient Greek and Roman alphabets. Because the story is clearly only getting started and I don’t know too much about the plot yet, I can certainly trust that you know what you’re talking about, and we just haven’t reached the portion where old alphabets or codes come into play. (However, I did just want to point it out just in case because, at this point in the storyline, it does seem as though ‘ruins’ has a greater correlation with the plot - if that was not the intended word, please just disregard this comment).

And, continuing with the idea of ‘runes,’ or ancient alphabets, I have to say that the title does a great job of sparking interest. Because there are not many people out there who would relate letters of the alphabet to despair, it does create a sort of wonder for people who know what the word runes means. This brings me to my next point: A majority of people most likely will not know the definition of the word. Hell, the last time I heard it used was in my middle school history class and I had to look it up again just to be sure. This could either be a benefit or a disadvantage, as there are both the types of readers who will click on a story because they don’t know the meaning of the title and are eager to find out, and the type who will just scroll right through it. I have no idea which there are more of on AFF, so let’s hope it’s the latter!

As the story isn’t complete yet, I don’t have anything else to comment on. However, as you continue writing, I would like you to keep in mind some of the questions that I ask myself when I’m analyzing a title: How well is the theme of the piece reflected in the title? Can we see a new meaning at the end, or is it entirely straightforward (whether the answer to this question is good or bad depends entirely on the story type)? Is the" despair" conveyed well? How much of the story do the "runes" affect?

Overall, I’m giving you a majority of the points here because I trust that you can carry it out as the story continues on.

Description/Foreword: (6/10)

In reviews, I generally try to focus on the content of the description rather than the grammar of it; however, I will be highlighting a few principles here and there just to make a point. Note that I will not be fully explaining everything about the errors, however, because I would like the main focus to stay on your content.

In the first sentence, there were two mistakes: 1) incorrect use of a semicolon 2) there are many different rules when it comes to writing numbers and because of that, I won’t be deducting points for this. However, I have been taught that every number in writing should be written out, with the exception of math and dates, and I personally believe that it would look neater if you wrote out ‘ten’ instead of just putting ‘10’.

And concerning the content, there is one question that I think is important to consider: “does the description make sense to those who have not read the story?”

Of course, descriptions will always make more sense to someone who has read the piece, or knows what will happen – however, they should not be fully incomprehensible to those who are not yet familiar with the plot. And, before reading your story, I scanned over your description several times before fully comprehending it. This was not an issue with the actual content so much as an issue of how it was ordered. We start by being informed of the present, then jump back to say something the past, and then return to the present again. In all honesty, I found this way of organizing it to be extraordinarily confusing, especially considering of all the capitalized terms that I didn’t necessarily understand very well. If you had started with “ten years ago” and explained the past, then chronologically worked your way the present, it would have been much easier to follow.

Because I have been on this review for a long time (with an awkward, unexplained hiatus in the center OTL *many apologies*), I saw the description that you had up before this one as well. Some of it has improved, and I will give you credit for that; however, when it comes to introductions, authors tend to believe that switching around some words or sentences will fix everything. There are more problems than just the wording, though. The flow is also awkward because of how concise each sentence is, and how everything is put onto a separate line (which I know may be effective in some cases but, in this one, it only contributed to the confusion, as most lines appeared to have no correlation with the ones above them). That is why I highly, highly encourage you to rewrite this. Starting with a clean slate is never a bad thing.

There also many parts of the description that just didn’t make any sense. For example;

Incorrect: The skills were hunted and bounties placed on the heads of many.

Skill, the ability to do something well, cannot be hunted because it’s not a physical thing. Perhaps you meant 'skilled,' because that would imply that we’re referring to skilled people. Also, you need to add in ‘were’ before placed, because the tense should remain consistent.

Correct: The skilled were hunted and bounties were placed on the heads of many.

Another part that had me confused was in the second-to-last line, where you stated that survivors had escaped. Where were they escaping from?

I will mention this more in writing convention section, but I would like for you to place much, much closer attention upon your comma usage; there are too many splices and it really damages the flow. So do the short sentences.

The vocabulary was quite good, may I add. Some of the phrases were really interesting and, although the flow and grammar were a bit off, your word choice was spot on. "Silently they hid in the shadows, bidding their time and recuperating their strength" was my absolute favorite line because it was simply worded so well.

In the forward, there were a lot of issues with writing conventions – so much that I had to reread many parts just to understand what you were trying to say. The first sentence, for example, had a comma splice and tense shift (I'll get into the mechanics of those terms later on in the Writing Convention section).

I would like to mention that the excerpt was a very good idea. It’s content does a great job of illustrating the choices that one must make, as well as demonstrating the difficulty of living, in such a society. We see a bit of the main character’s persona as well, which is always a nice thing to preview. And we also don’t know who she’s talking to, which adds a tinge of curiosity that I love.

The dialogue itself, however, must be revised. Parts of it seem redundant, as though the man is asking the same question three times in a row, and she’s replying with several questions that are all essentially saying the same thing.

Additionally, the portion of his speech where he says “The side which offers more peace and less suffering, more life and less death, but more hate and less love and more tears and less laughter?” Is excessively worded, making it nearly impossible to follow. In fact, I believe that you could just say “The side which offers less suffering but more tears?” This would also make room for you to add an ‘or’ and switch around two of the statements to mention the other side (because it does sound a bit awkward for him to finish the question without mentioning both of the potential choices). A question like “The side that offers less suffering but more tears, or the side that offers less peace but more laughter?” would have been much easier to interpret. Also, grammar tip: the word ‘that’ should be used instead of ‘which’ in this statement because it’s a restrictive clause (more here: x).

The order of elements was perfect, as well as the appearance of the text. Everything is divided nicely into its place, which lightens the load for the readers who are viewing this fanfic for the first time and, overall, you had the right idea in your head - after a bit of tweaking and rewriting, the description and foreword would be much more inviting for new subscribers.

Plot/Originality: (12/20)

I take word choice into large consideration when determining how many points should be given for originality, and I have to say that you did very well with this part of the rubric.

However, that being said, it’s also important to keep yourself from sounding repetitive or lengthy with your word choice. Here are some examples:

In chapter one: It was terrifying, deadly and murderous, causing a shudder to run down your spine.

Deadly and murderous are synonyms; there is no need for you to use both of them to describe the same thing, especially directly beside one another. Additionally, in the very next line, you wrote: “he whispered murderously,” which only added to the redundancy. If you ever feel that neither of the words is strong enough to describe the situation on it's own, you should pull out thesaurus.com and find a more impacting term: 'lethal,' for example, would be an excellent choice.

As for the description of the story, it wasn’t quite on par with what I’d hope for. While your word choice is generally good, your settings description almost seems forced – as though you’re listing facts instead of fluidly portraying an image. Description should sound more like a poem than a research paper. An example of this is in chapter one: “The room was medium-sized, with a small bathroom connected with a door. The entire room was windowless, lit up with artificial lighting, safe for a small vent in the bathroom that was screwed tight.”

The delivery here is almost robotic, not to mention repetitive and dull (both of the sentences essentially began “the room was,” which is a huge no-no). When I walk into a space for the first time, I won’t only notice that the only source of light is artificial and there is a connected bathroom – I’ll notice that the artificial light is generated from a tall, elegant lamp in the corner and it covers everything in sight with an orange tint. I’ll notice that the mirror in the bathroom is glossy and untouched, that the walls manage to look empty and small simultaneously, due to the lack of a window. Also, how big is a medium sized room? Fifteen steps across? (And, grammar note: the phrase you were looking for is "save for" not "safe for")

Some other parts that I would really like to see more description on are the uneven ground in the camp in chapter three, as well as the weather! The uneven ground seems to be an interesting part, and it’s really just a pity that I couldn’t form an image of it in my mind. I believe the weather was mentioned at least once or twice, but the remarks must have been very slight because I can’t remember any vivid description (and, in a prisoner camp as awful as theirs, the weather must have a large effect on their well-being). Of course, you do mention the season at the very beginning of each chapter, but as I read through, I think it would still be a good idea to enforce the setting - the temperature, at least. Don't leave too much up to the readers' imaginations, because it will become vague.

The plot in itself, as I’ve never read any science fiction series other than GONE which, by the way, I highly recommend (*I need to get my life together, why am I recommending books in the middle of a review*), is very original in itself. I’ve never come across anything like it, and that’s really one of the wonderful things about writing fantasy: it is your own fictional world and, true imagination is never cliché. I would really like to commend you on that.

The originality score, however, is not based entirely on whether or not it is clichéd; there is more to being individual than just only looking at one’s story in comparison to others. It also has to do with how memorable your own writing style is; and, at this point in the story, I still have yet to see exactly what your writing style is, other than pure dialogue and action.

Most of this section has been catering directly to the originality (how the story is expressed), so now I’d like to say a little bit about the story in itself: the plot. This will be short because I personally believe that it’s perfect. You seem to have everything thought out very well and, as a reader, the first chapter really drew me in. Keeping in mind that I’m not the biggest fan of science fiction or fantasy, that’s really saying a lot! Of course, there are only three chapters at the current moment, but I will give you the benefit of the doubt because it seems that you know where you’re going with this.

Characterization: (15/20)

Because the story isn’t even relatively close to nearing completion, I’m almost reluctant to write about the characters, since I honestly don’t know enough about them yet. I will say what I think so far, but don’t take it too much to heart because two large parts of characterization is how they change throughout the story and the affect they have on the reader, neither of which I can say anything about at this point.

The first impression I had of Eunkyung was melded in with my primary impression of the family household. Her mother and father were portrayed beautifully and my heart was particularly beaming as you described the various occasions where her father kept his promises. The amount of trust and the strength in their family was absolutely immeasurable, so I took a liking to the three of them as a whole.

When her parents died, I felt sad. It wasn’t to a point where I shed tears or anything (which isn’t saying much, because I rarely cry over character deaths), but I’d still like to congratulate you on making me feel a connection to her parents after only just meeting them earlier in the same chapter.

Eunkyung impressed me a lot throughout certain points of the story as well. The most prominent example of this is her leadership towards the kids, but I also liked the point within the first chapter where you wrote: “Even at your young age, you understood that though you needed your parents, someone somewhere probably needed them more.” Seeing this type of maturity in an eight year old was remarkable, and really said a lot about her character. Lastly, I found it very sensible how, in chapter two, she still had hope of getting out and in chapter three, that hope had begun to fade - showing that she wasn't too unrealistically optimistic.

However, there was still a part of Eunkyung’s character that irked me to a certain degree on the realistic spectrum:

By the middle of the second chapter, she should be dead.

The warden literally beat this malnourished eleven-year-old to the ground, slammed her against a wall, booted her in the back, and she is still conscious? Let alone alive? Don’t even get me started on the 200 push-ups and punishment methods released on her in the cell.

I believe that you are placing too much value on the actions and physical treatment in the story and not nearly enough value on the impact that they leave. Even a normal eleven-year-old wouldn’t be able to do 200 push-ups (unless they were on some crazy type of steroids). I think that, in the moment when she was protecting Jongin, you should have zoomed in on the details rather than add in superfluous violence to reach the desired intensity level; describing exactly how menacing the warden looked and how scared she was would latch more emotion onto the situation and allow the reader to make a deeper connection without going to unrealistic violence measures.

Now, I’m also not saying that you should take the portion with the punishment cell out of the story entirely, as it is a good example of how cruel their surroundings actually are. Perhaps you could make it into a hypothetical situation, something that she’d heard about through conversation with others in the camp rather than from personal experience. I mean, I doubt that any type of warden, no matter how petty or heartless, would really take the time to torture a little girl just for being a "busybody." And the part with the first-aid kit does not need to be changed either; the bruises and marks left behind just from a couple original hits from the warden on the street would call for treatment on their own.

I think this draws a connecting line to my next point: the wardens. It seems as though they’re presented more as objects rather than people because of how sadistic they are. While I don’t believe that you need to present them with sob stories, they just seem so hollow - like they aren’t even people. Fill them with something – anger or duty, at least.

I really want to be able to say something about the other characters at this point, but I don’t feel qualified yet. I like them all, though, and am seeing some definite potential. The mysterious boy who speaks English and Kyungsoo’s mute sister really stand out to me at this point in the plot, and I love where they are headed.

Flow: (12/20)

First of all, it was quickly brought to my attention that you use present participial phrases (phrases which begin with a verb that ends in –ing) for way too many sentence beginnings. This obstructed the general flow of the entire story to a drastic extent and sounded extremely repetitive and overused. Of course, using this technique once in a while could be preferable to sticking with the typical, standard sentence structure; but when sentences like these are stacked directly beside each other, it’s incredibly overwhelming. I would highly suggest trying to combine more sentences and also switch words around to change things up a bit.

On a totally unrelated note, I like your usage of footnotes. For Eunkyung’s name especially, it was a wonderful addition my understanding of the story. In my reviewer perspective, it shows precisely how much thought you put into deciding on the main character’s name (which is very impressive since many writers just choose a random name and go). To my reader side, it revealed an interesting bit of info about the main character, and possibly even more about her parents (who named her). For some words like Appa and Umma, I think that a large majority - if not all - of your readers will already understand the word or be able to piece it together from the context. But then again, I won't detract any points for that because they can make the decision of whether or not they want to scroll down, and I completely understand if you want to keep it there for just in case.

There are some small instances sprinkled throughout the story where I believe one word should be swapped out for another, and they were typically in cases that most readers would brush off, but I still wanted to notify you so you could be more alert of word choice mishaps in the future. Here are two examples of what I’m talking about:

In chapter one:

Incorrect: “Appa!” you called out excitedly, jumping up from where you sat on the couch, your homework long forgotten.

Correct: “Appa!” you called out excitedly, jumping up from where you sat on the couch, your homework already forgotten.

“Long forgotten” is a phrase that indicates, well, that something has been forgotten for a long amount of time. However, her father legitimately just returned home only a few seconds – maybe even milliseconds – ago, and that doesn’t count as a long time. “Already” is a better word choice.

In chapter two:

Incorrect: Jongin spoke up silently from the side of the room where he sat with Sehun.

Correct: Jongin spoke up in a lowered voice from the side of the room where he sat with Sehun

How does one speak up silently? You don’t need to use the phrase “a lowered voice,” but what you said here really doesn’t make much sense.

These instances are very small, and typically unnoticeable, so I’m definitely not implying that you have to reread every word of every chapter to revise them – but I still found it worth mentioning because it’s a good thing to keep in mind while typing up future parts of the story.

Another mistake that came up relatively often is one that I mentioned in previous sections of the review: repetitious wording. In "Runes of Despair," there were two main types: 1) when a word was used more than once in a short amount of time 2) when two words that mean the same thing were placed next to each other. I already gave two examples in other parts of this review, with the word “murderous” in one part of the story and the word “room” in another. I’m sure that it is becoming pretty redundant of me to keep talking about it, and I’m creating a mountain out of a molehill at this point because it’s not your story’s most fatal flaw, but it’s still something to keep an eye out for.

One direct flow error that I would like to put my finger on is that in chapter one, when you never mentioned that Eunkyung's mother was home until this point: “Upon hearing those words, your mother froze. She had come home a few days earlier and was reviewing your homework when your father arrived.” These two sentences came after a very long description of her parents never being home and her father’s due arrival, so I had naturally assumed that her mother wasn’t there yet. And then, you suddenly mentioned that she'd been there the whole time. It was almost sounded like you were saying “Eun’s parents are usually never ever home and her father just returned. Oh, and her mother’s there too btw” instead of saying “Eun’s mother was home despite not being there for the majority of the year, and her father just returned.” I hope that you understand what I mean by this >.>

Another instance that I would like to address is the use of the “ge” suffix. This, once again, was something that isn’t a huge problem at the moment, but I still want to talk about it so it won’t become a larger problem later on. “Ge” should only be used in direct thought or dialogue; putting it in a normal paragraph seems strange, as if you had said “mom” instead of “your mom” in one of the sentences. This has only come up once so far, in chapter two, when you said “You shared this room with five other boys, with the oldest being Han ge” (Also, I think you can take out the second “with” because it sounds repetitious), but I wanted to notify you so you can avoid doing it again in the future.

One very last point that I would like to make is avoid adding –ly onto adjectives as much as possible. Quietly, loudly, quickly – defenestrate all of these words. I’m not saying that you should never ever use them, but there are better ways to elaborate on an action. Instead of using adverbs to spice up verbs, try to spice up the verbs themselves: for example, “Jimin shouted” sounds better than “Jimin said loudly.” Then again, “Jimin said with a heightened tone” also sounds better than “Jimin said loudly,” so even if you don't want to change the verb itself; try to find a better alternative than the typical -ly adverb.

Writing Conventions: (10/15)

The most common grammar/punctuation mistake was one that I see in nearly every single fanfic I read: the comma splice. I actually think it’s a good thing that your most potent grammar error was a common one, as it does demonstrate that your understanding of the English language is at a relatively high level. However, it still needs to be fixed; you should now begin to consider that commas cannot just be thrown around whenever you feel like a sentence got too long and want to break it up (or something else along those lines).

Let me give you a couple examples of when comma splices occured in your piece and how to counter them:

In chapter dos:

Incorrect: The punishment cell was the worst, there you had no food, and they forced you to do inhumane punishments, such as pushups as they whipped your back or forcing you to drink water before punching your stomach till you hurled it out.

Correct: The punishment cell was the worst: you had no food, and they forced inhumane punishments upon you, such as pushups as they whipped your back or forcing you to drink water before punching your stomach until you hurled it out.

This sentence is quite wordy as is, and I think you could benefit from splitting it into different sentences (although, that is just my personal opinion, so it’s fully up to you). Now, to explain all corrections: A comma splice occurred after the word ‘worst,’ where a colon should have been used. (If you don't understand precisely what a comma splice is, here's a webpage that explains it pretty well: x) The purpose of the colon is to prepare readers for a list or an explanation of an aforementioned subject. Because you stated that the punishment cell was the worst and everything else in the sentence was a list of what made it the worst, a colon will therefore prepare the reader for said list.

I also omitted out the word ‘there’ because it was unnecessary, and changed the phrase “they forced you to do inhumane punishments.” I suppose that there was nothing technically wrong with this phrase, but it makes it sound as though Eunkyung was being forced to inflict punishments upon others, and I don’t believe that’s what you were going for.

Also in chapter two:

Incorrect: They wanted to train subordination; to deter you from fight back.

Correct: They wanted to train subordination, to deter you from fighting back.

This was a reverse comma splice, because a semicolon was used when a comma was needed. Semicolons can never be used to combine dependent clauses (a group of words that would be a fragment if it were to stand on it’s own) and, on the contrary, commas cannot be used to split independent clauses (unless the independent clause begins with one of these: and, but, or, nor, for, yet). In this case, because “to deter you from fighting back” is a dependent clause, a comma must be used.

I also adding -ing to "fight" to even out the verb tense.

I won’t get into any more comma issues because this review is stretching on much longer than I planned, but here is a screenshot of my English teacher's punctuation usage rules that I believe you may benefit from. Of course, not every single rule ever is included here, but it is a nice base:

Another problem I caught was fragments. Like many other mistakes, I don’t think this was reoccurring enough for you to need to go back and change anything, but please be on the lookout in the future.

In chapter two:

Incorrect: That someday, you would escape with your family, to a brighter and safer place.

Correct: Someday, you would escape with your family to a brighter and safer place.

Taking away “that” made the fragment into a complete sentence. Also, the comma before “to” was unnecessary.

The last problem I will address was verb shifts. There were many occurrences where you would suddenly switch from using the past tense to the present tense, and it just sounded strange.

In the description:

Incorrect: Life now, was dictated by the rules of the Holy Governor but all it took was a small spark, for the Coup to start again.

Correct: Life was dictated by the rules of the Holy Governor, but all it took was a small spark for the Coup to start again.

You start the sentence with “life now,” suggesting that we are talking in the present tense, and then say “all it took was,” which is in the past tense. Additionally, both of the commas were used incorrectly. If you refer back to the photo I posted above, a comma needs to be placed in front of ‘but’ due to rule H.

Other mistakes concerning grammar were mostly incidental, such as putting a period after a question or not placing dialogue on a new line. Those are entirely self-explanatory, however, and because my fingers are starting to hurt from typing so much, I won’t pinpoint any specific examples. Proofreading before posting a chapter will normally fix these sorts of things.

 Personal Enjoyment: (2/5) 

The first chapter really drew me in to the story, but because description and flow issues in the following chapters, I can’t say that I fully enjoyed it. However, that being said, you are only three chapters in and there is a much, much longer way to go with this story! I think that you seem to know very well where you’re going with everything, and I’m sure that the plot will turn out just fine :)

Total: (61/100)

Comments:

I am currently in denial about how long it has taken me to complete this review. I did attempt to make up for it, however, by typing up nearly all of my notes about your story. This is a hella lot of advice for three chapters, which I hope you don't mind. (requesting for a long review for me means that it will be extremely long).

Also, please remember that I don't suggest taking all of my advice (although, that itself is a piece of advice so huh). Instead, I suggest pulling out bits and pieces of this review - whatever you feel most comfortable with or believe would most benefit your story - and using those.

If you have any comments or questions regarding the anything or everything I've said, don't hesitate to ask!

❀ Thank you for requesting! Please remember to leave a comment and credit the shop in your foreword ❀