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|    Ɑ Ƅℴx ℴƒ  ℂℎℴℂℴℓⱭŧ℮   |

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| xoxo~ simplicity at its sweetest ~xoxo|

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ςummer ƒades αway

by xxBubbleandTroublexx

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review by celestial-xx-kisses

title: >( 10 )<

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I couldn’t help but absolutely adore your title. It didn’t give the plot away, it connected very well with the story, and was eye-catching and very interesting to me! Summer Fades Away sounds very nice as a title, and I have to give you full points for making a title that drew my attention in!

description/foreword:>( 6 )<

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your description:

original:

Jonghyun is nothing more than an apple farmer's apprentice. A young boy growing up in a world so dependent on their harvests they are willing to sacrifice the most beautiful of their children to it. He is the one in love with the most perfect of their children. He is in love with Key, a boy who will vanish forever at the end of summer.

It’s not bad, but the way it was written doesn’t flow quite as well as it could. It’s on the choppier side, and sounds a bit disjointed. There’s a missing word, and a bit of repetition is in it.

Edits are in italics:

Jonghyun is nothing more than an apprentice to an apple farmer. He’s a young boy growing up in a world so dependent on their harvests that they are willing to sacrifice the most beautiful of their children to it. But, Jonghyun falls in love with the most perfect of the sacrificial children. He is in love with Key, a boy who will vanish forever at the end of summer.

I have to say, the last sentence of the description was very nicely written: it used the premise of the story and included the title very nicely. It drew me in and held my attention! Very interesting.

foreword:

An interesting start to the story. It introduces the characters to us, and hooks the reader with a scene near the end of the plotline. However, it seems very awkward to read. Sometimes, sentences can seem redundant, such as:

Key nodded, even though both of them knew it was a lie. A sweet lie whispered so they could stay happy.

The first sentence already tells the reader that it was a lie; you don’t need to re-state it in the second sentence. While sometimes repetition can be used effectively to hammer in a point, overuse of repetition can actually bog down the text, and make it harder to understand. If you want to use repetition, make it in one sentence.

For example, instead of:

Key nodded, even though both of them knew it was a lie. A sweet lie whispered so they could stay happy.

Use:

Key nodded, even though both of them knew it was a lie, whispered sweetly so they could both stay happy.

or

Key nodded, even though both of them knew it was a lie. A sweet whisper, so they could stay happy.

Minor grammar fixes (in italics):

The slim boy shivered in his arms, reminding Jonghyun that summer was coming to an end. Another week and it would mark the beginning of the harvest. (incorrect tense of verb-- reminded vs. reminding)

 "I will never forget you, Key.” (missing comma)

plot/originality:>( 8 )<

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The universe you created was very developed, with the premise being that every year, the most beautiful children were to be sacrificed to the harvest.

Jonghyun was a farmer’s apprentice, while Key was one of the children to be sacrificed.

The way you began the story, with Key living in the house that Jonghyun had been warned to stay away from, was a good exposition into the world that they lived in.

The , when Key was ultimately taken away to be killed was the highlight of the entire story.

Summer into Fall. Fall into Winter.

Those lines, for me, were what really tied the story together. They were alluded to in the beginning of the story, and were a recurring theme throughout the entire story.

I liked that, a lot! It gave a feeling of completion and round-about to the story.

The only thing that I could find slightly wrong with this was the ending. It felt a bit rushed, and a bit too happily-ever-after-woot for me.

Key died, and you did a great job of executing Jonghyun’s heartbreak in the story, with him going down to the sea, and remembering Key whenever he smelled apples, or saw the ways that trees bent.

So, having Key come back so suddenly was kind of a Deux ex Machina, or event that seemed too perfect. If you’d mentioned that the god could be kind anywhere earlier in the story, it would have felt much less sudden.

Also, using “the voice” instead of Key’s name confused me a bit, because it took me a while and much re-reading until I figured out what happened. I didn’t know how Key was back, and thought that Jonghyun had died! Again, this is the result of a sudden ending-- the readers can get confused.

Otherwise, I thought your plot was extremely original, and paced relatively well!

characterization:>( 6 )<

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The characters were alright. They didn’t do anything out of character, but they weren’t terribly interesting, either.

For this story, the plot definitely shined; it was original, it was interesting, the world-building was great. The story was definitely plot-driven rather than character-driven, and it shows.

Despite assigning traits to the characters, “arrogant- Key”, “naive- Jonghyun”, they are never quite fully explored.

All we ever know about Key is that he’s beautiful, and that he’s going to die. There’s nothing terribly characteristic about him, not much that we can say about him. The arrogance that you mention in the first section is never alluded to again.

Afterwards, there’s suddenly an instant attraction between Jonghyun and Key. Although possible, as Key is amazingly beautiful, and Jonghyun’s the only one he talks to, there’s no middling area describing it.

We get one snippet discussing their first meeting, one sight on the fence, and then BAM!, Jonghyun and Key kiss after Key gets tackled.

Speaking of being tackled, wouldn’t Key have serious issues with being tackled, as he has literally never been physically harmed before? It seems strange that such a delicate person would be totally okay with a rough farmer’s boy pushing him to the ground.

After the second meeting, the relationship is developed in just one section, which I find a bit fast, as they only get about three lines of elaboration.

What you lack in proper characterization, you gain back in the fact that you wrote Jonghyun and Key’s reaction to Key’s impending death.

That part was very well done, with Jonghyun knowing what was going to happen, yet still actively refusing to believe it.

This line in particular sparked my interest: (edits)

 It wanted Key as badly as he did. The difference was that It was a god and Jonghyun was only a farmer’s apprentice.

It showcases Jonghyun’s despair very well, and also subtly tells the reader that Jonghyun really loves Key.

spelling/grammar/punctuation:>(  8  )<

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On a whole, spelling and grammar was very well done. Tenses were almost always correct, words have been clearly run through a spell-checker, and there weren’t many spelling typos. You were great with present/past verb agreements, and your voice was very strong.

That’s natural talent-- You’re good at it!

The indentations were off, though, and really distracting. You’re probably wondering, what do indentations have to do with anything?

Technically, they’re a part of punctuation, and mis-matching indentations can seriously distract a reader.

There’s an easy fix if it’s just margin issues:

Simply left-align everything, and then select a unified first-line indent.

However, if you used a mixture of tab-keys and margin indentations, it’s going to take a while to sort out. It’s worth it, though, and can make reading much easier!

I have to commend you, though, your punctuation was otherwise very nice. Occasionally, a comma could be missing, but those were obviously mis-types rather than misuse.

writing style:>( 6 )<

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I’ll be honest, your writing style threw me off quite a bit. I’m a very picky reader, so it may just be personal issues, but your sentences seem choppy and disjointed.

In many situations, you can connect two sentences together, like this:

Instead of:

Bees buzzing through the air, a gentle wind brushing the tops of the trees. No sounds of the slim boy.

Use:

Bees buzzed through the air, gentle winds brushed the tops of the trees, but there was no sounds of the slim boy.

Often, varying between short and long sentences can make interesting textures in your story/writing piece.

Also, within the same sentence, there was another strange thing I noted: you left a dangling participle.

“Bees buzzing through the air, a gentle wind brushing the tops of the trees.”

is not a complete sentence. There’s no action verb in the same tense-- see how ‘buzzing’ and ‘brushing’ both end in ‘ing’? You need at least one ‘ed’ verb in a sentence if you are writing in past tense, which your story is.

I changed it in the above example, but try reading out the sentence out loud to see what I mean.

Of course, if English is not your first language, this may not make much sense. Try it, though, and looking up dangling participles.

overall enjoyment:>( 7 )<

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Despite ripping the story apart in the review above, I actually quite liked your story! Like I said before: the world-building was the absolute center of your story. The development of the characters was a bit weaker, but within such an interesting premise, they became secondary.

Thank you for requesting a review at  Ɑ Ƅℴx ℴƒ  ℂℎℴℂℴℓⱭŧ℮, I hope I helped!

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final score: <(51/70)>

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reviewer’s note: Hello there, dearie! It’s celestial-xx-kisses. I must tell you, I’m an incredibly strict reviewer, docking points for even the smallest things! Many shops say that they’re strict, but as you can tell from the review above, I really am! In reality, even if the grade averages to a C, your story was very good, better than much of what I’ve seen on AFF.

Keep writing, and never give up! :D