Chenderella

By: fefedove

Requested: June 21, 2014

Completed: June 22, 2014

Review Type: Fanfiction

Area of Help: These will be expanded on further down.

Dialogue: Typically with dialogue, the best course of action is to write what sounds natural for a particular character. Each character, just like a person in real life, has a certain way of speaking, even if the words are the same. It might be different because of their level of eye contact, their body language, the inflections, their accent, and so on. But in the case of pure dialogue, thinking about how a character would react is the best way to make sure the dialogue sounds right.

By doing this, you’re also ensuring that your characters are different from one another. It seems like a very obvious practice, but many of us as authors get caught up in the story and end up writing lengthy conversations where it sounds like an argument/discussion with yourself.

Flow: Flow isn’t easy and it’s easily disrupted. That’s true for all stories and there’s no way to determine a standard flow. Every story will flow differently based on the storytelling and characters and writer. Although this sounds abstract, the best way to determine if your story is flowing well is by “feeling” whether or not everything has been said too quickly, or if the conflict has been resolved at lightning fast speed.

Title [ 8.5 / 10 ]

Creativity: The title fits the plot, but it also has quite the comedic undertone. Whether or not the story was supposed to be amusing is debatable. There is a serious psychological twist, which is where it gets confusing on whether or not the title is appropriate. Then again, the hallucinatory quality of the plot allows for a more lighthearted telling.

Markdowns: There are deductions on the title only because the actual tone of the story is difficult to ascertain and therefore the title might be misleading in the sense that it hints at humor, but the plot is darker than that.

Characters [ 46 / 50 ]

Development: There are several characters in the story, but as they are all facets of a hallucination, the only character that will be discussed is Chen. He has a vision of himself in relation to several other strong personalities and demonstrates a sense of being suppressed or trapped by these forces. He doesn’t seem like a very well developed character until after it is revealed that everything is a hallucination – which is fine. That actually adds to the development of his character. He becomes vastly deeper when it becomes apparent that he’s actually suffering from a psychological disorder.

Voice: Well, considering there’s really only one Chen, there’s only one voice. The characters have their personalities, but the way they speak is still one in the same.

Proper Characterization: This is a retelling of Cinderella, so clearly there will be parallels and there’s nothing wrong with that. Chen as Cinderella is quite accurately portrayed, nearly to a comedic level.

Grammar/Spelling [ 24 / 25 ]

Correct Usage: It was fine overall, except for a few proof-reading errors.

Tenses: Fine.

Plot [ 72 / 75 ]

Intrigue: The description is clear and the story is written in the style of a fairytale.

Originality: The story is based on Cinderella and was stated quite blatantly in the description that the story is a retelling with a psychological spin on it. The twist doesn’t come until the very last few lines, but the retelling is also original in itself. Although there were quite a few explicit connections to the original Cinderella, this story was able to hold its own, for the most part.

Markdowns: A number of allusions to the original story were forced, such as the many random animals, as the story put it – that would pop up. That may have been to relate back to the Disney Cinderella, or maybe it was to relate back to Chen’s deteriorating psychological state, but everything is very questionable. That is the basic formula of any psychological story, and this story did hit those point.

Story Structure [ 71 / 75]

Point of View Coordination: It’s fine.

Realism (in terms of story setting): The setting of the story is very clear throughout. Both description and dialogue are consistent, never straying too far away from the historical context.

Functionality: The readers are actually given the entire story to formulate their ideas on it. However, in the beginning it was already stated that there was a psychological twist, so many were definitely looking out for it. It was well done, in the sense that readers were left guessing the entire time which is much more important when the story is a one-shot.

Style [ 47 / 60 ]

Personality: Since this was a project for school, the extra terms disrupted the story-telling, but were of course necessary for the class you took. The writing outside of those awkward interruptions was consistent but even then, there were moments where the sentences would just break the entire writing style.

E.g. It wasn't always like this, but then Chen's mother died and left him with the rest of the family.

This sentence in particular stuck out. It appeared out of nowhere and held none of the earlier writing patterns which revolved more around setting a very clear scene of this small town. The abruptness and shift in language was what set the sentence apart from the rest.  Furthermore, you demonstrate a subtle sort of writing style that relies more on gesturing and hinting rather than blatant statements such as the one above.

Description: The description is sparse by the end of the story which is slightly discouraging considering how well the scene was painted in the beginning. There could’ve been greater description of the festival going on outside or the atmosphere that seemed to be beyond Chen’s reach. It would have emphasized his disconnection with the rest of the world which plays back into the psychological disorder that forces him away from the overwhelming state of society. Furthermore, the character of the princess seems to appear suddenly as if added on only as a necessity to make the story progress.

“Night came and strands of beautiful lanterns, rivaling the brightness of the stars, shone through the dark velvet cloak. There was music and laughter and the clinking of fine ceramic plates in the village square. The colors were loud and the conversations were umami and sweet- a synesthetic delight. Party-goers feasted without a care for tomorrow- all anterograde amnesiacs living in the moment.”

This particular description through the story’s tone off, but was also clearly necessary for your project. It becomes a matter of wondering whether this description was purposefully more psychological because it’s nearing the end of the story, or because you were running out of space to meet the project requirements.

Either way, this description is completely different from the beginning of his hallucination, which matches Chen’s personality much more as he is deeply wrapped up in his own thoughts and world. The festival is very technical and veers far off course. The majority of the story has been written in such a way that Chen seems to be leading the story, but at this point, the hallucination suddenly becomes a mass of medical terms.

Dialogue: You asked for particular help in this section. Your dialogue isn’t actually bad. It veers off course only because of the characters’ lack of development. For this review, only Chen was discussed in terms of Character Development, but here in the Dialogue section, the other characters become more important. It’s impossible to fully separate them. However, overall, your dialogue reads perfectly fine. It lacks strong emotions more than anything else.

The best advice for dialogue would be to remember to include language or “buffers” around the actual dialogue. So, for example, throwing in body language descriptions or the way their eyes are moving. Perhaps try expressing the state of emotions the characters are in. These buffers change the tone of the dialogue.

Clichés: Well it is a retelling of the story of Cinderella, so clichés are a given no matter what.

“Flow”: The story is snipped short, but that may have been because of your class project requirements. If this story was allowed to expand more though, the problem areas would be point blank statements that are used to shift the story. Imagine an old film reel that has been poorly cut during the editing process. It makes the story jump forward at an odd pace.

Take for example the earlier sentence used in this review: It wasn't always like this, but then Chen's mother died and left him with the rest of the family.

This disrupts the story because no other sentences are structured with this tone or style.  Other than that, for the story’s length, the pace was not rushed. Since the tone of the story was fairytale-esque, it was alright for the story to be written in the way that you did.

However, you may have been wondering about your flow because the ending was slightly rushed, at least in comparison to the beginning. The beginning of the story has a lazier pace but at the end, everything happens in a flurry, causing you to rewind and reread. Keeping a consistent voice is the best solution.

Also, stopping and taking a step back is also important when the story is winding down too quickly. The addition of the doctor at the end is also quite fast. It helps to pull back when you’re on a roll sometimes, simply because what you imagine in your head may contradict the actual reading.

Formatting: It looked fine.

Literary Devices [ 5 / 5 ]

Metaphors, similes, alliteration, aphorisms, repetition, etc. : Yes!

Extras/Bonuses [ 2 / -- ]

Readers Enjoyment: Good

Particular Snippets of…: ------

Improvement: Oddly enough, the story flowed much better at the beginning. Please look at the notes made on flow.

Enjoyment: It was enjoyable. I laughed, though I don’t know if I should have.

Total [ 275.5 / 300 ]

92%

Reviewer’s Comments:

The only real issues I saw were with the confusion concerning the tone of the story. The story was put together quite well, but it was a bit disconcerting not knowing whether to be serious or to laugh. Making that clearer would probably be a good course of action for future stories. It doesn’t have to be blatant, but perhaps a bit less ambiguous.

However, I do like your writing style. The subtlety is much needed when there are so many writers who simply blurt things out in their writing when it could’ve been framed much more elegantly with fewer deadpanned statements.