The Longest Night

By: TEZMiSo

Requested: March 6, 2018

Completed: March 11, 2018

Review: Serious
 

**This review is based on Chapter 1-9 only**

Title [ 9 / 10 ]

Creativity: The title describes the story accurately. I think the tone of the title also fits the writing style. Whether or not it’s a particularly creative or clever title is debatable, however, I noticed that you also changed the title from a previous one? It seems that you’ve put some thought and concern in the title, so who’s to say that it’s not fit for the story?

Characters [ 43 / 50 ]

Development: Oddly enough, it’s more realistic if they have on-track minds given the severity of their situation. Actually, it’s more interesting that Seulgi is able to think beyond her survival instincts and put other people before her own malnourished body. Seulgi’s motivations are understandable though when you think about the quote about Hope that she tries to live by. And I suppose when you’re in a hopeless situation, you have to cling to a reason for living. She made Wendy and Yeri her reasons to move forward toward some nonexistent goal.

Wendy and Yeri though are rather lacking in development though. Again, given the nature of the story though, they’re withered humans who are just hanging on by a thread. They aren’t particularly bursting with energy or personality and that makes sense. Yeri killing someone just further isolated her mentally. Wendy is struggling to even breathe each day and her coughs being filled with blood in recent chapters doesn’t bode well for where her fate is leading her.

Irene has just introduced from where I stopped reading. She’s only been in the story for a couple chapters, so she’s also hard to pin down, but she does seem somewhat livelier than Wendy or Yeri. However, that may be because she seems more hardheaded like Seulgi.

Joy hasn’t really had much screen time thus far.

However, the relationship between the characters should be commented on. They seem to have a growing sisterhood of sorts and that’s both understandable and admirable in their situation. Given how hostile other humans have been on their travels, it makes their relationship with one another that much kinder and humane. I think Chapter 9 also solidified Seulgi’s resolve to keep living. She’s extremely protective of the others and only lives for their laughter and momentary cheer. That’s both sweet and sad which is the tone of any post-apocalyptic story.  

Voice: Seulgi is different. The other two blend together. Irene is still a wild card. Joy hasn’t shown much of her character as of yet.  

Grammar/Spelling [ 25 / 25 ]

Correct Usage: Great.

Tenses: Fine.

Plot [ 51 / 75 ]

Intrigue: There seems to be a lot of interest among readers. The description was quite detailed but that’s good since readers ought to be ready for a highly stylistic story.

Originality: It’s a very straight-forward post-apocalyptic, scavenging story. There’s not a lot of intrigue or overarching plot beyond survival. That seems purposeful since it allows you to experiment with your prose rather than a plot-focused story.  

Coherency: Most plot details are quite consistent and that’s because there’s not much going on plot-wise. The story doesn’t require remembering a lot of minute details about their circumstances. It’s focused more on their mental degradation and describing a stark existence.

Therefore, I think there were only a few things I noted which seemed strange, but that could’ve been my failure to read closely enough. The only one I haven’t been able to understand is in Chapter VI when they meet Irene and they search the satchel for weapons but don’t find the hatchet or pocket knife. Were they hidden in a secret compartment? Or did they search the satchel really poorly? Did I miss the explanation of them hiding the weapons elsewhere? Or, is it that Irene and her companion at the time didn’t consider those two things weapons?

Story Structure [ 65 / 75]

Point of View Coordination: Looks good.

Realism (in terms of story setting): It stays very adamantly in the post-apocalyptic setting. What I am still questioning is how the apocalypse struck. There have been hints dropped sporadically but nothing solid within the first 9 chapters.  

Functionality: There’s tons of room for readers to speculate what’s going on. I’m also wondering about quite a few things. Among them, the less serious ones include: where are their shoes? Did they outgrow them? Were they just too worn down to even bother with anymore? I just have a hard time seeing that given the alternative are dirty plastic bags. Also, the state of their foot infections is just something I’d really like to understand. How have they been traveling practically barefoot for that long without any infections to their bare feet which must be stewing in those bags?

Also, in Chapter 3, they climb into a house through a broken glass window that also has shards of glass littering the floor, but they walk through anyway. How did they not suffer from cuts or micro-cuts? They’re only wearing plastic bags with some soggy cotton for padding. I just was trying to imagine how they managed to stealthily bypass those types of injuries, because given their malnourishment, infections from minor wounds is very likely.

Additionally, it’s winter time and snowing, and given their severe states of starvation, how have none of them succumbed to frostbite when they’re wearing threadbare rags? They also often don’t have actual shelters at night, which further makes me question what is going on. Is it a case of the atmospheric changes due to the apocalyptic disaster? Is winter not as cold? Is the snow not actually snow, but instead just a metaphor for ash that’s falling like snow?

Anyway, these are just questions that came to mind as I read. Some are worth addressing, and others are just minor curiosities that have plausible explanations that readers could deduce on their own.

Style [ 52 / 60 ]

Personality: You are very obviously a style writer. I don’t know if there’s anything else to say about this. It’s quite admirable how you don’t shy away from gruesome vocabulary and depicting unappealing things such as jaundice, boils and blisters.

Description: First, let’s be very clear and get it out of the way. Your descriptions are quite thoughtful from a stylistic perspective and very vivid as well. The word choice paints such incredible landscapes and depicts characters’ behaviors in almost jarring detail. For example, anything concerning their state of disease infestation and malnourishment. With that said, the description reads in two ways.

First, it’s very good at providing a solid picture of the setting and people. At times, it was almost like I had been transported to the barren landscape of ashen snow you described. The choice of formatting for the dream sequences was also interesting and made itself distinct. Reading it resembled recalling actual dreams upon waking up. It’s jumbled and kind of fast paced with swarms of images.

Second, some of the descriptions read as indulgent. That is, description for description’s sake. That’s not necessarily bad, and I’m guessing that you were also using this fanfiction as a testing grounds for writing, experimenting, etc. But since you also requested that I provide some feedback on the prose, I thought I would note this. The descriptions can be quite repetitive after a while, such as noting for possibly the fifth or sixth time in a single chapter that the girls have greasy hair. Or that there is only desolation around them. Of course, I understand painting a picture, but these details are established and re-established constantly to the point where some of the paragraphs in each chapter are purely there to remind readers that it’s post-apocalyptic.

Dialogue: The formatting is fine. There are a few times when it’s unclear who’s talking since you seem to prefer the heavy description to lie in contrast with short, curt dialogues. Their style of speaking fits the nature of the story though.  

Clichés: This is a tricky one. Your plot is cut and dry and the scenarios they’re facing aren’t unique because they’re all part of the post-apocalyptic tropes. I think what masks the clichés is your prose style, though. You don’t redress the scenes, you just write them more eloquently than others who have attempted the plotline.

“Flow”: The pacing is slow, but the story is intriguing enough to draw readers into it. You also created an extremely vivid world and that can be quite eye catching for many readers who want to feel like they can see what the characters are seeing.

Formatting: It’s fine.

Literary Devices [ 5 / 5 ]

Metaphors, similes, alliteration, aphorisms, repetition, etc. : Most of your writing includes literary devices.

Extras/Bonuses [ 3 / -- ]

Readers Enjoyment: You have some pretty thoughtful readers, and I’m both astounded and not by the lack of comments. For one, your story doesn’t fit the mold of readability that fanfictions often have to strive for. That’s one reason I could think of. If you change the names, it could be a fullfledged apocalypse novel. The level of detail is really high for a fanfiction and pretty dense for casual reading. Lengthy novel types aren’t the speed young people read at these days, which is a shame. Especially on AFF, you aren’t going to find many people who can sit still and absorb your style of writing easily. But also, it’s good to improve the level of writing on the site to encourage more writers to experiment with prose styles, rather than just gunning for popular, fun, and fast storytelling.

Particular Snippets of…: It had to be the dirty bathtub scene.

Improvement: The story is slowly expanding and more details about what happened to bring them into a post-apocalyptic world are being revealed.

Enjoyment: I think it was a well-written story—leagues more thoughtful than anything I’ve seen on AFF in years (granted, I’ve only recently returned to AFF). However, I’m not actually in the know about Red Velvet so I probably would’ve never come across this.

Total [ 253 / 300 ]

84%

Reviewer Comments:

I honestly appreciate your writing as a serious piece of fiction, even if it is published as a fanfiction. You put time and effort into it and even go back to edit/revise (that’s more than a lot of writers can say these days). Most of the deductions you’ll find in the plot. It’s stylistically an incredible story, but with that, oftentimes stories will have simplified plots/character designs. The reasons behind writing also vary and I personally know that I use fanfiction as a tool for overcoming writer’s block on my serious fiction. I assume that you also use fanfiction as an outlet of sorts.