Our Personal Arithmetic

By: Ataraxy and babewithbrains

Requested: October 29, 2012

Completed: November 21,2012

Review: FF

Area of Help:

Emotion

Emotion is conveyed through naturalism. This means that the only way to make the feelings reach your readers is to express it in a way that’s completely human. When people write, they often take on a new voice that’s much more sophisticated and clear in an attempt to show maturity and ability. That’s fine, but to succeed in pressing raw emotions through that haze of glorified language, authors have to urge the realism of human nature into the piece.

Gaining sympathy through the imperfections of characters is the most common way to reach out to readers. This is often done by using informal language in dialogue to bring some humanity back into the written characters.

Interest to Reader

I’m not sure what to say in this portion of the review. This seems to be more of a personal question, because I cannot speak for the readers of your story. Whether or not someone is interested in your story is completely based on individual preference. Therefore, certain people will find this plot line and its characters unfathomably great, whilst others will think the opposite.

Title [ 10 / 10 ]

Creativity: It’s a clever title. I don’t have much more to say but that.

Characters [ 40 / 50 ]

Development:

Sehun – He has an interesting character which is expressed rather well. As an archetype character for this genre, he has a set style that’s noticeable and consistent throughout the story – even through the changes. The way his character was finished also adds to his growth as an individual, but more so, his personality seems to act as the representation for his and Luhan’s relationship dynamic.

Luhan – Luhan is much more interesting than Sehun in terms of background history. The idea of being ually abused was shocking, but added entirely new dimensions to his character. In the end though, that entire line of plot was extinguished. The affect it had on Luhan isn’t explored fully and ends up being another random fact that doesn’t quite do much more than progress the romance.

The issue concerning them is the rigid way in which they have been portrayed. Yes, their characters are defined, but they’re inhumanly defined. By that, it means that they have these personalities that can be summed up in very exact descriptions. Normally, people cannot be defined that easily. Nonetheless, it’s good that you were able to define them with different personalities.

Bottom line, these characters require imperfections in their flawed outlines. They are perfectly flawed and therefore lack a certain human quality. Although Sehun hates everything, he admits he doesn’t really hate everything. That was a good start. The only problem is that following those words, Sehun continues to express this constant disdain for the entire world. Pressing the feelings of hatred is fine, but it cannot define Sehun as a person. There are more sides to him as shown through Luhan, but even then, that only gives Sehun two sides to what should be a multi-layered person.

Adding onto the depiction of perfect flaws, the way Luhan affected Sehun is very typical for the plot line. They fit these flawed molds created from prior usages of this plot by others – not to say that this is a plagiarized work.

Voice: They definitely have different voices.

Grammar/Spelling [ 16 / 25 ]

Correct Usage: Overall, it’s understandable. There are some mixed up verb forms, but that’s something you’ll learn to correct as you get older. Plus, they’re too minor to point out. It would be nit-picky to take the time to tell you all of the tiny things you’ve done wrong.

Perhaps it would be good to point out two things though.

One, be careful with singular versus plural. Really pay close attention, because just like with the tenses, these are easily confused.

Two, no matter the situation, every character needs a separate line when speaking. Even if the two sentences seem to work better as one paragraph, it’s absolutely necessary to split them up.

Although there are times where it’s alright to play around with standard formatting, those times are reserved for writers who have been around for decades. Experimental writing is just as delicate as experimental art. Anyone can call poor writing and/or “experimental” but that doesn’t make it experimental. For example, an artist who has monkeys throw paint on a canvas is different from an artist studying brain activity in monkeys and their ability to splatter paint.

Tenses: As you stated above, present tense is your most feared tense. This fact shows clearly through your expression of it. Present tense is a difficult one. It takes focus to keep in check all of the word forms since most people aren’t even used to mentally thinking in present tense. Therefore, it’s very easy to mix it up with Past Tense.

In this particular story, present tense is not coherently done throughout the piece and it often is replaced by Past Tense. Nothing can be past tense if the story is completely present tense. While attempting to use a new tense is always admirable, there’s a proper way of going out it.

First off, it’s very important to read published books of any kind that are written in present tense – if not books, then some sort of written material in that tense. As a writer, it is your responsibility to research thoroughly on topics that you are unfamiliar with. Fan fiction in present tense will do very little for your learning ability.

Secondly, check yourself while writing present tense. It won’t flow quickly and naturally like past tense does. You have to work to keep the tense steady and strong, otherwise everything becomes a mess.

Plot [ 35 / 75 ]

Intrigue: It seems as if it would be enticing. A tutor and student falling in love can be rather interesting in every case. Furthermore, the actual situations occurring keep the readers on their toes for the most part.

Originality: After thinking about it for a bit of time, it becomes apparent that this story is very similar to A Walk to Remember (2002). That isn’t to say that you copied anything, it’s just a comparison to express this point of originality.

Although stories have been done over and over again, it’s a matter of how to recreate it so these comparisons are avoided. As your story goes, the main points are a boy without an interest in math, a troubled math tutor, they fall in love, the tutor gets fatally sick, the main character watches him die, the main character changes for the better. The largest problem with originality probably came from the fact that cancer was used as the catalyst for tragedy.

Story Structure [ 62 / 75]

Point of View Coordination: There’s a consistent P.O.V.

Realism (in terms of story setting): The setting is possible and understandable. It’s strange how the story begins very realistic, grows into a mass of frequently used scenes and situations, and then fades back into a realistic ending. Although that’s not always a bad thing, it’s confusing as to why that particular format was chosen. It begins to appear as if ideas were running out and the only way to fix that was by adding in cancer – the greatest sickness of all time for sorrowful situations.

Functionality: This piece actually functioned really well. It’s great that you gave us time to figure things out concerning Luhan because the impact became stronger.

Style [ 45 / 60 ]

Personality: There’s still room for you to grow and develop your style. For the time being, there’s a clean and crisp style being used all around which is fine while you’re still learning how to write. Over time, that structured, formal way of writing will become something free and much more reflective of your voice.

Description: Your story is basically all description, so there’s nothing in particular to say about it. There is nothing outstandingly bad about it, because the description acted as the base for plot progression and expression of character emotions.

Dialogue: The scarce use of the dialogue shows how important each piece of dialogue was. There’s nothing to worry about concerning it.

Clichés: This is been previously addressed in the Plot portion of this review. The basic format of this story is following set clichés. If you are aware of this, then it is up to you what you think of it. So long as you know what you are doing, then there is nothing horribly wrong, because that means you are capable of changing that aspect at any time.

“Flow”: It flows relatively well. There’s nothing outrageous, except for perhaps the sudden shift from realistic to unrealistic and then back to realistic.

Formatting: The formatting is lovely.

Literary Devices [ 5 / 5 ]

Metaphors, similes, alliteration, aphorisms, repetition, etc. : The consistent parallels to arithmetic were wonderful.

Extras/Bonuses [ 3 / -- ]

Readers Enjoyment: You should be very pleased with your comments. The fans seem to be rather sincere.

Particular Snippets of…: The final lines were very well done. A lot of stories fall short at the end, but you paid close attention to the closing.

Improvement: The improvement was noticeable in the characters and plot progression.

Enjoyment: It was rather interesting overall.

Total [ 216 / 300 ]

72%

Reviewer’s Comments:

Is there anything in particular I have to say? Not really.

Some extra advice I might offer (if I haven’t said so earlier, I can’t recall) though, is to choose realism or lack of realism. Blending them in this story’s context doesn’t do much except drop a very heavy wall in the center of the story. The way in which the sickness was introduced disrupted the flow of the story , and although it could’ve been used, the terms on which it was added did not match the rest of the tale.