blk Shop

Home

GETTING STARTED

Archieve

OUR PREVIOUS WORK

Staff

ABOUT OUR STAF

Rubric

MORE ABOUT HOW WE GRADE

Author: JaeKnight
Reviewed By: KaihleeLo

Requested Date: 12/25/15

Review Completion: 12/25/15
Story Link: Link
Reminder: 

- Feel free to message me personally for any questions or clarification 

- Don't forget to credit us with our banner/logo 

- Thank you for choosing BLK Review Shop, hope to see you again!

Bonus: (Your questions and focuses for us here)

- Flow, Plot, and characterization (not character dev't. i depends on you) - All will be discussed on the right side~

Title: 9.5/10

Logical: 3/3

It's a logical story and the word 'interrogation' usually brings an image to everyone. So it's a situation anyone and everyone is familiar with, whether it was through experiences, shows, or books. 
Eye-catching: 2.5/3
Interrogation isn't eye-catching in my opinion as it already gives us an idea of what the story is, not what it's about but what it is. But the sub-title "The Confession of The Innocent" makes it interesting. 
Original: 4/4
The term Interrogation doesn't grab readers attention without the second half, but it speaks for the story and vice versa. It's not an overused title but it's not original either. However,  nothing is really 100% original. I won't dock points since the subtitle is a good choice for the overall story title. In my opinion the "The" should be lowercase. 

Description/Foreword: 9/10

Summary: 5/5

I'd suppose it's called an introductory or opening but here's a sentence I found could use some tweaking. "Anyone could recognize Sehun’s body even with the white cloth covering his whole body. His body structure was so undeniably striking that anyone could easily recognize him." I mean the issue here is obvious. I believe you can reword this and avoid using the same words in different sentences to showcase the point across. 

Appearance: 4/5
After the introductoy, the foreword is crowded with a few other things such as quotes, author's notes, credits, and much more. This makes the foreword longer than it should be but it's totally understandable. I suggest trying to shorten the foreword just so it doesn't look messy. What made it messy was the different font size, style, and the large gap/space in between each divider. If you can at least keep most of the font style and size the same, I believe the foreword would look a lot nicer and neater. 

Then again the foreword is the author's place, so I'll leave the decision up to you. But consider the point that many readers may leave if they have any more scrolling to do after the opening of the story on the foreword. 

Character Development/Showcasing: 5/5

Development: ungraded

You asked for characterization and not development, so this part will be ungraded and only used for characerization. I'll be dicussing each character individually so you get a sense of what I've taken from each character. 

Luhan: We learn that Luhan is delusional and perhaps mentally ill. He chooses what to believe and live in a world apart from realisty. In his world he's guilty as he blamed himself for his friend's death. Luhan's character almost seems bi-polar, at some points he's calm, ignorant, and even mockingly. At other times he's afraid, stuttering, and whatnot. It confuses the readers what his true thoughts on and why he's always yelling and shouting instead of staying calm. Luhans actions makes the story blurry and confuses us who he really is and what really happened. 

Yixing (a.k.a. Lay): Yixing is the child, the fan, we learn of much later on. He happen to clear Luhan's case by being a witness. It's hard to believe since we do not know how old he is or why he thought to phone the police. It's also strange for Luhan to know his name unless he happened to ask when Sehun wasn't around, but I understand it was for the better of the cause. 

Sehun: A rising superstar who's loved and adored by many is dead. All for the information we got from Luhan's doctor (who we can't trust to be real or not)due to an ex-girlfriend and to frame Luhan. But we also know that Sehun cares and respect Luhan's hobbies and such. But at the same time he hated Luhan because of the same woman they love. We don't know his true intentions but he appears calm and not very fond of his fans. 

Yoon Jin: Luhan's character may make the story confusing but Yoon Jin's character is just so random. We don't really know who she is but her role plays a huge impact on the actions of the lead roles.  

Relation/Cast: 3/5
The relationship seems iffy as we reach the end of the story. Because of Luhan's case I don't know if any of it was real or did happen. Like is this doctor real? Or did Luhan also made him up just so Luhan has someone to affirm that he wasn't guilty? Or is the doctor real and everything that he's been told is true? As grade school friends, why would Sehun and Luhan plot against one another because of a woman? Just how important was she? 

There were so much information left out that I wasn't sure what was happening. It's said that they're best friends but they don't appear to be, or perhaps it's because of their love for Yoonjin but in the end she never showed as she couldn't accept that Sehun is dead and Luhan has gone crazy. I mean who's giving her the information? The doctor? 

Behind the Author's Mind: 35/40

Logical: 10/10

The story itself isn't illogical as people in real life are like that. We create a world for ourselves and it's up to us to when we'd want to leave it. But Luhan's world was so confusing and hard to follow.  
Original: 10/10
I've never seen a story developed so strangely well. Everything started coming together but then the ending threw me off again. However, the idea of the story is quite fresh. 
Tone: 4/5
The tone of the story is consistant, though at times it sounds like you were telling us what we need to believe instead of just giving us the story.  

Naration: 4/5

As I've mentioned this was written in third person's POV from start to end, so it's easy to follow. However, words like "just" and "this" should be avoided when explaining a scene by the third person POV. 
Storyline: 7/10
Knowing that Sehun has a necklace that Yixing wanted, it's hard to say if the kid wasn't responsible for Sehun's death. In the end he had the necklace and a phone in hand. I wondered if that was Sehun's cell phone or house phone, but that was never disclosed.  Plus Sehun ignored him when he was very excited, so I don't know if Yixing held any bad intentions afterwards.

At first I was a bit uneasy why Yixing, named as one of the best, was so quick temper like Luhan. But then it started to make sense as he's Luhan's creation. He's the creation that Luhan created to accuse the actor of murder. It also did the story justice as we believed for a short while that Luhan was responsible for Sehun's death.

The twists in the one shot made the story a lot more interesting, but the pace of the story ruined it. We, as readers, weren't given the chance to enjoy the sudden twist and instead were quickly rushd to the next scene. The story would have been a lot better if the actions of each character were carried over, but they weren't and so each scene felt imcomplete.  

Proper Use of the English Language: 21/25

Proper Grammar/Punctuation: 8/10

Your knowledge of vocabulary made the story a good read, but proper grammar made it difficult. At times I had to read certain sentences over and over again even when it appeared simple. It had to do with poor sentence structure and poor wordings. I suggest considering the points I've provided below and reword a few of these sentences. 

Original: From Luhan was seeing, the detective was having a rough time. 

Suggestion: From the way Luhan was seeing, the detective was having a rough time. (On the side note, if you can explain why Luhan saw this. What triggered his thoughts that the detective was having a rough time? Or was it supposedly "had a rough time" and not "was having" because that sounded in the present time)

Original: Lay does not want to be outsmart by an actor—who potentially can be smarter than a detective can. Actors have their ways, so as detectives. (This sentence was worded poorly, try to mention the dective first as you're writing from Lay's perspective here. Compare his position to the opposing side.) And Lay wanted this interrogation to go process by process until Luhan get involve and spill the truth. But he also wanted it not to be long, he does not want Luhan to scheme his crime over the interrogation. (Try rewording this in a different manner and see the different results. Avoid negative words like "not to be long" by switching it to words like "shorter", "less draggy", "less etc".)

Suggestion [1]: Lay does not want to be outsmart by an actor—who potentially can be smarter than a detective. Detectives have their ways, but so do actors. And Lay wanted this interrogation to go smoothly until Luhan get involve and spill the truth. But he also wanted it a short process because he does not want Luhan to scheme his crime over the interrogation. 

Suggestion [2]: Lay does not want to be outsmarted by an actor, one who has potential to be smarter than him. Dectivies may have their ways, but so did actors. However, Lay wanted this interrogation to go on process by process until Luhan gets involve and spill the truth. But at the same time he does not want to drag on with the interrogation, in case Luhan chooses to scheme his crime. 

Original: Luhan clenched his jaw, felt a sudden resentment that ran through his body. He bit his lips, annoyed. He wanted to punch Sehun at the face, but he could not. All he did was to ask, "Why?" 

Suggestion: Luhan clenched his jaw as he felt a sudden resentment run through his body. He bit his lips, annoyed. He wanted to punch Sehun on the face, but could not. All he did was  ask, "Why?" (I noticed your on and at are misplaced. Go back and read your work aloud to see if anything strike you as odd. Some 'at' should have been on.)

Original: “Why didn’t you call 911 at the first place?”

Suggestion: “Why didn’t you call 911 in the first place?”

I understand that it can becomes difficult when an author is trying to write about two same-gendered people in one scene, it becomes him/his or her/she, and it gets super confusing. Near the beginning, try using specific term to describe each one instead of pronouns and only their names. Words like "detective", "suspect", "officer", "Chinese actor", "Chinese detective". There are an abundant ways on how to handle this without confusing the characters with pronouns. 

Termonology: 4/5
Termonologies were used on a wide scale, but often misued. As I've pointed above, work on the at, in, and on. See how differently the three make a sentence. 

Here are examples:

ON: "Hey can you not sit on the counter?"

IN: "Hey can you not sit in the counter?" 

AT: "Hey can you not sit at the counter?"

On is in present time. Basically asking someone to get OFF the counter

In, you can't sit in a counter so you can't get OUT of a counter

At, at is more of an action to be taken or has happened in the past. 

Language Barrier: 9/10
Many make the error in names, try to keep it consistent.Yoon Jin should be Yoonjin is Luhan isn't Lu Han and Sehun isn't Se Hun.Otherwise there were nothing wrong under this section. 

General Enjoyment/Last Comment: 3/5
If the story was written differently I believe I would have enjoyed it much more than I wanted. The plot of the story is so well thought out, so brilliant, but the way it was executed was a bit saddening. I truly love the idea behind everything, I just wished I could feel myself in the characters shoes and at least feel bad for them. But I don't have enough information on them to do so. 

Total Points: 82.5/95 (Please let us know on how we're doing by voting on our poll on the front page. Your feedback is much appreciated!)