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reviewer: w15hful

 

 

Title: 3.5/5

Your title was capitalized properly. Although it was not particularly memorable or interesting, it reminded me of The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway, so I was compelled to read what the story was about. After completing the one shot, I can say that the title did capture the essence of your story. I am assuming that "The Girl" refers to Jiyeon, and you included "the Sea" in the title because Jiyeon sing by the ocean, and that is where Myungsoo first discovers her (and thus finds his inspiration). To me, the title gives off a very "everyday" feeling, which somewhat represents this story, but not quite. Also, the "normalness" of the title may turn some readers away from your story. Personally, I would suggest something more concise and something that makes the reader think. A possible title could be Our Sea. As a writer myself, I understand that coming up with titles is tough, so I tried not to take too many points off in this category. 

 

Foreword: 4/5

I liked the description. It did not reveal too much about the story, nor was it very vague. It made me wonder as to why the girl never did realize he was there, compelling me to read further. I do feel the astericks "*" in the beginning were unnecessary. They do not serve any purpose and should be omitted.

The poem in the foreword was nicely written, and I enjoyed it. However, I found the picture of Myungsoo on the side unnecessary, as well as the "-Kim Myungsoo-" at the end. It made the poem seem like it was an actual quote by Myungsoo, which it wasn't. You should give the reader some credit; they can easily figure out it is written from Myungsoo's point of view. Other than that, the way you put the credits at the very bottom and in small, grey font was good as it did not divert attention from the actual content to itself.

 

Originality: 3.5/5

The idea of a blind girl is-I wouldn't say clichéd, but-common. For example, Juniel's song "illa illa" centers around a girl who is blind. However, it is hard to come up with an idea that has never been used before. Although the idea of the story in general seemed a bit commonplace with a romance beginning with music and a girl who is blind, you were able to spin it into an interesting tale. The plot moved a bit quicker than I'd have liked, but I will elaborate on that later, under Flow.

 

Characterization: 10/15

The story was a one shot, so there obviously was not too much room for character development. As I will explain further in the Flow section, I (and others) would appreciate it if you split it up into sections. The characters were very plain and prosaic, and I believe this was mostly due to the length of the story not allowing you to delve deeper into the character's personalities. It made the story dull overall, although I feel the plot had much potential. I can't tell much about the characters. Myungsoo just seems like your average guy who loves music and Jiyeon. He appears to be a nice guy. Jiyeon, from what I have gathered, is lonely and depressed most of the time, as she keeps thinking about her past love. But what I don't understand is how quickly she accepted Myungsoo. Then again, I may be wrong with my opinions on each character's personality because honestly, there was not much character development at all. 

 

Plot: 16/20

Although the plot contained some clichés, I believe it could have been a wonderful and intriguing story if executed well. I felt like everything went by too fast, and the plot wasn't developed very well. I figured that the general plot is about a boy who likes busking seeing a blind girl singing on the beach, and he falls in love with her. To be quite honest, I am not very good at explaining things in the Plot category, since I would not want you to change too much in the story.

 

Conventions: 9/15

Instead of simply correcting your mistakes individually (which would take a long time), I'll try to educate you on some general problems with the grammar in your story.

The first thing I noticed about your story was the verbs you used. There are two voices in English, the active voice and the passive voice. It mainly depends on the type of verbs you use. I cannot stress the importance of using the active voice as much as you can. That means that the subject should be performing the action denoted by the verb, not the subject be acted upon by the verb. To make things easier, here are some examples taken from your story.

 

What you said (passive voice): There was a flock of birds flying just above the surface of the water, slowly rising and falling as they passed over the waves.

What I would change it to (active voice): A flock of birds flew just above the surface of the water, slowly rising and falling as they passed over the waves.

 

What you said: My ears were filled with the beautiful singing voice of a girl along with the sound of wind, the humming of the birds, and the sound of the rhythmic waves which created a melodic, soothing combination.

What I would change it to: The beautiful singing voice of a girl filled my ears, accompanied by the sound of wind, the humming of birds, and the crash of rhythmic waves, merging together to create a melodic, soothing composition.

 

So that is just something you should pay attention to. The active voice is almost always preferred, and your story will sound better with it. Of course, there are some cases where you are forced to use the passive voice, but those are exceptions.

Another thing you should pay attention to are your verb tenses. I found it a bit uncomfortable reading your story because you would switch tenses every now and then, creating something that just did not sound right. Verb tenses are complicated to explain, and it would take too much time, so here's a link that I found quite helpful. I shall list a few examples from the text where you used the wrong tense.

 

What you said: A few hours had passed, but unfortunately, no one dropped money in my guitar case; it seemed like people already got bored with my music. 

What I would change it to: A few hours had passed, but unfortunately, no one dropped money in my guitar case. It seemed like people had already gotten bored with my music.

 

What you said: I laid down on the golden grains of sand and looked up at the vibrant yet soothing streaks of color that had filled the canvas of the sky.

What I would change it to: I lay down on the golden grains of sand and looked up at the vibrant yet soothing streaks of color that had filled the canvas of the sky.

 

Ah, lie vs. lay. You use lie when you are lying down somewhere. You use lay when you are laying something down. The past tense of lie is lay, and the past tense of lay is laid. You simply used the wrong lie/lay, nothing too big.

Other than problems with verbs, there were other minor errors within your story that could be fixed easily with a reread or a beta reader.

 

Flow: 7/10

The pacing of the story was way too fast for me. Everything went by in a blur. First thing, Myungsoo's going down to the beach to search for his muse. The next minute, he knows all about Jiyeon's past and they're all chummy. I do not think your plot is suitable for a one shot. There is not enough time to develop the plot and characters, and everything seems forced and rushed. I would suggest you split it up into several chapters and take the time to develop the plot further. The whole story just seemed too unrealistic, and I would attribute that to the pacing. I feel that if you slowed things down a little, the story would be much easier to believe as well as more comfortable to read.

 

Writing Style: 12/15

Personally, I wasn't too fond of your writing style. One thing I liked, though, was the balance between dialogue and narrative text. There was sufficient description and imagery, and I could picture some scenes clearly in my head. Your diction and writing style was not engaging (for me, at least), but unique in a sense. Everyone has their own writing style.

 

Overall Enjoyment: 6/10

It wasn't exactly my "type" of story, and I would not have read it under normal circumstances. I was not particularly fond of it, but it wasn't terrible. The writing style was mediocre, and whether or not I enjoy a story depends largely on whether or not I liked the writing style.

 

Total Score: 71/100