A Blaze of White Light

by Miechan

Entry for Shoes of a Unicorn Writing Contest

reviewer: kshanti

title 2/5

» Your title is at first glimpse very pleasing to look at but does not tell a reader anything, which is common these days and perfectly fine I think. Personally I think your title is a bit of a cliché, because many stories are titled in this similar manner and you’ve used very plain words. It is not my intention to be mean, I am merely voicing my own opinion. Try to play with the beautiful language that English is and find more peculiar words to enhance your fiction, especially the title because that's the first thing the reader will turn their attention to. The beauty of fiction in general comes from the charm of the language. I see how your title connects to the story but maybe you could have thought of something more original?

foreword and description 2/5

“Seungri scrapes together a bunch of talented misfits and persuades them to start a band, but it's not easy to tame those who walk the very edges of high school's cliff of life. Everyone has secrets they're not ready to share, and they all know only too well how heavy hard-held secrets can become.”

» Your description is informative and gives the reader a grasp of what the story is going to be about without revealing too much of the plot. It’s intriguing but you should ponder whether or not your description is too mainstream, because despite having thought of a snell glimpse of the story, it does not stand out of the crowd. However you managed to write in two sentences the main red string of the story, which is something a reader appreciates because it gives them a peek of what might come and what they should expect without getting too rambly. It’s a short summary just like it should be.

» Foreword should always contain disclaimer rights and although you’ve added the credit for you graphic designer, you’ve forgot about yourself. You say that your works have been plagiarised before and that is an actual crime which unfortunately occurs a lot on the internet. There is a feature on AFF which allows you to disallow text selection. I think everyone should turn that on so no one can copy+paste their story. Please be careful. Always write down your rights because the story is yours, your own fictional design and no one is allowed to claim it as theirs, reproduce, store it in a retrieval system, translate, transmit or otherwise circulate without your prior permission. From now on, please remember to add disclaimer to avoid getting plagiarised. A good foreword also contains the author’s name, rating, genre, characters, pairings and possible warnings, which you do not have. You should pay attention to that in the future because providing the reader proper information is important and makes the reading experience more enjoyable. What I do like about your disclaimer is that you’ve explained your line of thought regarding the story flow and how you arranged the original oneshot into a multichapter story. It’s a good clarification.

plot 10/15

» Your story starts in a very engaging, somewhat humoristic way which eases the reader into the narrative. There’s a hint of humour in your plot which gives it an airy feel. As I read through your story I would have liked a few more references to Seungri actually wanting or thinking about starting a band because it sort of came out of the bush. Your story is a high school!au which is a fairly likable and an easily relatable concept and whimsically revolves around the French teacher and her lessons (brilliant!). You’ve succeeded in writing in a manner which keeps the reader anticipating more and almost hoping for the moment when everything suddenly goes wrong. I always cringe a little at stories which somehow include actual entertainment companies because they confuse me as to in which universe everything actually happens. I’m not a fan of mixing fandoms either, but that’s just me because I think that combining even two different groups together can drastically decrease the concept/value of the story and make it messy, and here you’ve combined even more artists. However you pulled the Big Bang / 2NE1 thing off quite well because it wasn't a dominating feature in your plot. Your story is a bit predictable but enlaced in a few crucial twists such as the Daesung/Minji incident, Jiyong's problems and Seunghyun's disablement. I’m not entirely sure if adding the Paris terrorist attack was too soon but it gave good ground to your plot because we all heard those news and again can easily relate. Overall plot is great but I have to decrease my points because of the predictability and the cliché concept of a high school band. Your plot has all the ingredients for a juicy story. It’s very engaging and makes the reader want more. I am not at all familiar with the Bible but I suspect that you’ve quoted some lines from it? I think that that’s a bit too much, but the quotes connected fairly well to the plot. However they made the story a tad bit tacky.

flow 19/20

» Your story runs smoothly in its fragmentary gestalt. It’s great that each chapter is divided into shorter clips because it gives your entire story structure and keeps it from falling all over the place. The pace is great and allows the reader to really submerge themselves into the story, the incidents and the inner thoughts of your characters. As I said earlier, a bit more priming before the whole band thing started would have added to the story. Towards the end of your first chapter the slices got shorter so I thought that you could have evened them out a bit more but knowing the whole structure it isn’t a huge thing and in all chapters the pieces were of different lenghts so I didn't mind. The entire story is really long which is respectable and the flow stays almost similar throughout the chapters. This is a great example of how these sort of fragmented/glimpses of life stories should be written. You have a great sense of humour too! It really eases the smoothness even more. Overlapping happens effortlessly and is pleasant for the reader, easily graspable and understandable.

character and relationship development 19/20

» Character development feels natural. Personally I enjoy the character of Mademoiselle, because you’ve portrayed her in a warm, domestic way with a hint of and added a pinch of humour in her. A character like that is always good to have in a multichaptered story to lighten the atmosphere. Personally I’m not familiar with your chosen characters so this was a completely new experience to me and I have nothing to compare the characters to, therefore you get an honest opinion from me. The character of Seungri is well built and you’ve really thoroughly planned him beforehand it seems. A very steady persona. Daesung is a very believable character as well and highly identifiable. I liked Seunghyuns’ cool character and how you kept him a rather calm figure. Character development all in all is very reasonable and whole, done in a good pace and remembering the high school concept really something that truly happens in an actual world. I found Seunghyun’s development to be the most interesting because of the twist of him being deaf really didn’t dawn to me until the last chapter. The sassy somewhat rebel character of Jiyong is well put together and reminds the reader of the actual traits of the said person in real life because G-Dragon tends to be on the insurgent side. Very good portrayal. Youngbae seems to be a bit serious but that’s a good thing. The whole range of characters is diverse and lets the reader in with a variety of insights on the plot. The background story of Jiyong’s shines light on his actions and his personality. Towards the end of the fourth chapter I felt that you fell in the cliché genre again during the confession part.

grammar, spelling, word use 15/15

» Your grammar is excellent! I see no infant mistakes such as your/’re mishaps and such. See, in the actual story you’re delving into the language, having fun with it and creating elaborate images in the reader’s mind. The most important part of fiction is to be able to build vivid descriptions and you’ve done well. I noticed a few typos though, in the first chapter e. g. there was a “u” missing from “Daesung” in the last part of your chapter. Not a mistake but I thought you’d like to go correct that! Other than that I just have to admire the French you’ve used. French never fails to make a story elegant. Throughout the story I enjoyed your extremely detailed descriptions because your way of writing lets out experience and a sophisticated touch to literature, which is something most authors do not possess and end up writing hast portrayals instead with overflowing dialogue and pay way too little attention to carrying out the plot with depictions.

overall 19/20

» Honestly, I was positively surprised by your story. I am an exclusive taoris writer/reader so this was the first time for me to read anything outside my own otp, and I really enjoyed your fic. It’s good to explore the waters a bit I think and I’m glad that did. If your title and the graphic would have been a bit better I would have probably read your story even without reviewing it. I would have paid more detail to the aesthetics and the visual presentation of the story if I were you, but everyone has their own preferences. Overall a wonderful piece of fanfiction and definitely a treat to Big Bang fans!

total of 86/100