Back and Forth in Time

Story by: imatpot

Reviewed by: TheDividingTree

 

Title [1.5/5]

To be honest, if I was scrolling through the updated fanfiction, I would not have clicked on the piece. Since you tagged it as fantasy, I was expecting a plot that was more along the lines of an immortal of some sort who has series of flashbacks comparing his past and present, or something like that (or maybe that’s just me). But since I did click on the story, I enjoyed the feeling of realizing that your title actually referred to a time machine.

However, your title does not really fit with the story. To my understanding, she gets sent to the future and has no idea how to get back. From the title, after reading that Jaehyun invented a time machine (in the description), I expected that the person who used the time machine would be able to constantly travel back and forth in time, like your title suggests, and somehow manipulate the past, present, and future, and then cause stuff to happen. So in this way, your title is a bit misleading.

 

Foreword/Description [2/5]

First of all, try not to put any author notes or credits in the description—save those for the foreword. I would also suggest that you keep the font the same throughout the description. If you insist on bolding the questions, try using the same font and then bolding it in the questions. Right now, it comes off as a bit disorganized to me.

As for the content of the description, there are a few grammar mistakes that you may want to fix:

“Jeon EunChae is an ordinary girl…”

“… a crazy genius inventor…”

“But not this time. (This time,) she has invented a time machine.”

When you use ‘this’, it suggests that the time you’re talking about is recent. Therefore, it would be more suitable to use the present perfect rather than the simple past tense. The bracketed part is optional.

Personally, I’m not a fan of the rhetorical question approach to draw readers in. However, it would be great if you could write a couple sentences that make the reader ask themselves those questions instead of asking it for them.

Your foreword is fine, but you might want to hyperlink your credits to the profile of the person or to the shop where your poster/background/review came from, but you don’t have to.

 

Visual Appearance [2/5]

The poster confused me. In your form, you checked off romance and comedy, but your poster looks more like a fantasy-romance story. Also, your background did not coordinate very well with your poster. Maybe try to request a poster and background from the same person if possible?

Your chapters should also be in the same font. The font of your first four chapters is a larger font than the one in the fifth and sixth. Personally, I prefer the smaller font, so I agree with your change. However, you should change the other chapters to that smaller font as well. It may not matter to your subscribers because they are only reading the chapter that was last updated, but it may come off as disorganized to a new reader.

Also try to use the same POV headings in each chapter. For example, at first, you underlined the beginning of every POV and then did something like “----End of POV----“ (or a different number of hyphens) at the end of the chapters, but you later bolded the beginning of every POV and used a different number of hyphens. I suggest that you keep it consistent so it looks more organized.

 

Plot/Storyline [13/20]

I’ve seen the time machine plot before. The main somehow gets transported to the future or the past and she can’t get back, then a bunch of things happen, etc. However, because she got sent to a future that actually seems quite similar to the future she was living in instead of a future where there is a drastic alteration in the environment, it actually seemed quite original to me. I also understand everything that’s happening, so kudos for that. You’ve also left readers hanging in a lot of areas. For example, what will happen when Jaehyun and Chanyeol find out that Eunchae has been sent to the future? Or what has happened between Kris and Luhan to make Kris feel so guilty about what Luhan is doing for him? These hooks are good, especially in a story that has just begun.

Where you lost marks however were in the small details that did not make sense. The first thing that struck me was that Eunchae had been going out with Chanyeol for a year, and she never noticed any signs of him being gay. Next was Chanyeol introducing Baekhyun to Eunchae. Chanyeol must have foreseen that Baekhyun would feel hurt that Chanyeol already had a girlfriend, and may even feel that he was being played with in a generally heteroual society. To me, it would make more sense if Chanyeol had already briefed Baekhyun about his situation with Eunchae before the start of their relationship.

I would also expect Eunchae to let at least a few tears out when she realized that the person she loved never really loved her in the first place. I would also not expect her to think something as comical as “when in doubt, run!” when she is in a very confused state, and probably wanting answers from Chanyeol.

Other things were just small. Jaehyun threw her keys into the microwave for two minutes and then she just grabbed them and went to start her car? How did she not burn her hands? I did find that quite amusing though. Another was the Wiphone. Maybe you should describe this phone differently, because it’s 2012 and I’ve had wireless phones in my house for as long as I can remember.

Also, if Chanyeol really slept outside for three hours when it was minus thirty degrees outside, he would be close to dead and may even need some limbs amputated. I was sitting outside for an hour when it was only minus two degrees Celsius and I already couldn’t feel my hands and feet.

It may seem like I’m nitpicking here, but little things like this can really change a reader’s impression of your story.

 

Characters [13/20]

To put it simply, I didn’t really find anything in Eunchae that stood out to me. She just sort of seemed like a really two-dimensional character. You characterize her as “just an ordinary grumpy school girl”, but we don’t want “ordinary” characters. We want 3D characters that stand out to us because they’re unique. Even if she seems like a typical schoolgirl, she has to have some interesting hobbies or traits that you can bring out. We also don’t know much about her besides that, and the fact that she has an older sister who she thinks is a psycho. What about her family? We don’t hear anything about her parents scolding Jaehyun for destroying the house. Does she have parents? Are they overseas? Are they still alive? What is Eunchae and Jaehyun’s financial status?

On the other hand, I find that Kris and Luhan’s characters are much more colorful than Eunchae. I like Kris’ character the most. At first, he seems arrogant and a bit lazy, but then we can see that he’s caring and apologetic towards Luhan, yet cool with his phrase “ayo, waddup, this is Kris” and comical when he steals food from the trio. I can’t say much about Luhan because you’ve recently introduced him, but I can tell that he’s quite interesting as well as he contrasts nicely with Luhan. I feel that those characters are good enough to be part of a separate story with just the two of them. Nice job.

Then there’s Chanyeol. I can’t really say much about him yet because he only appears in a small flashback and a snippet of the present, but he seems a bit insensitive, yet caring at the same time. He’s a bit confusing for me, but I think if you lay him out well enough he could be interesting as well.

 

Flow [7/10]

I think the speed this story is going at is perfect and understandable. However, there are some things in the story that are like little hiccups—and I don’t really like hiccups. Readers may find it irritating when there is suddenly a huge space with ellipses to indicate time passing before Eunchae thinks of something else. Instead of using those spaces, I’d suggest you use a sentence to describe the time passing. She could be staring blankly at something, sighing, or whatever you imagine her doing.

If you’re going to use thoughts, I suggest that you use single quotation marks (‘) or italicization to indicate a thought, because it can get confusing when a writer like yourself uses thoughts quite often. I see that you’ve done that in later chapters, but I suggest that you go back into the previous chapters to change that as well since they’re your second impressions (first would be your description/foreword).

I see that you do POV switches. Those are fine, but be sure to specify who’s POV it is at the beginning of the chapter and at every POV switch. I also wouldn’t suggest going into third person whenever you go back to the past. Since Chanyeol is a main character, you could put that section in his POV.

Last thing is that your chapters are fairly short. I suggest that you make them longer. I understand that you want to leave cliffhangers like “meet my boyfriend”, but sometimes too many of those may get readers a bit upset when the chapters are too short.

 

Writing [12.5/25]

This could use some work. I’ve put this section in a list of examples with headings for what I’m covering. If you need help with understanding any of these or object to my corrections, please do not hesitate to PM me. I understand that many of these could also just be typos that require proofreading, so if you'd like to, you could request a beta reading from me or anyone else in the shop as well. The format of these examples will be topic, original excerpt, reasoning, corrections. 

Ex. 1: Tenses

 

            I heard a loud gasp. Luhan looked up as well.

            It’s that girl again.

            Oh crap I forgot about her!

 

The first and second lines are in different tenses, and the third is a thought, but this is a generally confusing passage because of the switches in tenses and the lack of differentiation between narration and thought.

 

            I heard a loud gasp. Luhan looked up as well.

            It was that girl again.

            Oh crap, I forgot about her!

 

Ex. 2: Commas

 

She held up a small delicate antique pocket watch.

“That’s a nice clock, but I think you made a mistake because it’s 4 in the afternoon not 7!.”

 

There are quite a few commas missing here. Be sure to put commas in between adjectives describing the same object. Numbers should also be in words if they are less than ten. Pocket watches are not the same as clocks; clocks are meant to be stationary whereas watches are portable.

 

She held up a small, delicate, antique pocket watch.

“That’s a watch, but I think you made a mistake because it’s four in the afternoon, not seven.”

 

Ex. 3.1: Chat Language—Tildes

 

            “Noona~~” He whined. “EunChae’s mad at me, and she won’t open the door~~”

 

People can generally imagine whining to be like that, so you don’t need the tildes. Save tildes for messaging.

 

            “Noona,” he whined, “EunChae’s mad at me and she won’t open the door.”

 

Ex. 3.2: Chat Language—?!, …………., and CAPS

 

I still can’t get over the shock…..that my….boyfriend, I mean ex…..has a……boyfriend…….WHAT??!

ARGHHHHH!!! I’M SO CONFUSED!!!

 

This can be a bit hard to read because you’re splitting the sentence into many pieces with ellipses. Ellipses are three dots followed by a space; be sure to keep the long lines of dots in messages and texts. You should also save the many exclamation marks and question marks for chats—caps, too. I’m not so sure if this is a thought or a first person narration, so I’ll just do the correction as if it were the latter. No red because I didn't really want to color the whole thing red.

 

At the time, I couldn’t get over the shock that my boyfriend—ex-boyfriend—had a boyfriend… What?

I groaned. I’m so confused! (This could also be: “I groaned. I was so confused”. If you want more emphasis at certain points, you can use italics instead of exclamation marks.)

 

Ex. 4: Korean

 

"Eunnie-ah!"

"Yeol!, Sup!"

 

In Korean, if a name ends with a vowel, that name would be called with "yah" instead of "ah". So you would say "Chanyeol-ah" or "Baekhyun-ah", but you would say "Eunnie-yah" or "Yoona-yah".

 

"Eunnie-yah!"

"Yeol! Sup?"

 

--

 

As for your writing style, I find that you use too many exclamation marks. These exclamation marks can be replaced with verbs like ‘exclaimed’, ‘yelled’, ‘shouted’, ‘blurted’, ‘retorted’, etc.

You could also go for more complex sentences when you find many simple sentences in one paragraph. An example of this would be in chapter three when you’re describing the time machine (“I see that she’s decorated…”).

I did like your word choice, though. Your word choice was very understandable, yet you used a variety of words in the right contexts, and there were not any noticeable repeats. I found that very impressive; good job!

 

Personal enjoyment/Bonus [4+1/10]

I did enjoy the constant relationship status confusion, as well as the little squabbles between characters.

+1 Bonus: I can see your writing improve gradually throughout the chapters. That’s always a good sign!

 

Total: [55.5/100]

 

Sorry this was so long... I tend to ramble quite a bit >< Happy New Years though, and be sure to rate my review out of 10 in the comments (: