“Bumi’s Brew”

By: Lazy_lazuli

Reviewer: St-renaissance.

1-Title: The title is short, lighthearted and sufficient yet ambiguous enough to keep the reader suspenseful. It has delivered the settings, the general idea of the plot and the themed ambiance in a couple of words. I don’t understand the purpose of having another name included in there, “K. Taehyun” doesn’t deliver any further function which hasn’t already been previously disclosed, if it’s the name of the main character, then perhaps it should be replaced in place of “Bumi”, if doing so will spoil a purpose or something, then simply remove the name from the title; it’s ill-fitted and void.

Rating: [9/10].

2-Description/Foreword: The description is generally of a suitable length, the content may be altered or enhanced in order to cover more significant ground and include information that is important to grasp the readers’ attention. For example, we don’t hear about the main character’s ambitions or aims instead, we’re left with a solitary view of one setting and one event, which may not win everybody’s attention because it gets too detailed in some areas and ambiguous in some other areas. The description, for some reason, shifts the focus of the narrative away from the main character and towards two other characters; that could harm the main character if either of those characters isn’t proper round characters.

Usually, the purpose of the description is to provide the readers with a general idea of the plot without spoiling anything. On the other hand, the content of the description can include the settings, exposition, background briefing, and aims. I’d suggest that you keep your description centered around the main character, its goals, aims or background, any other information can be presented during the prologue.

Rating: [8/10].

3-Plot: The beginning is interesting enough, there’s a substantial amount of environmental description, definitely could be given more attention and time to flourish properly. See, the purpose of the description of the settings goes back to the Aristotelian theories of Tragedy and Drama; settings aren’t merely a time and place, it’s the underlining essence of absolutely every element. It’s the sheltered reasoning for a character’s behavioural pattern, for example, a character placed in a countryside in the 1940s is ought to behave differently than a character placed in a city the same year. By taking a moment to breathe some life into your environment, you’ll evidently see the effects of doing so while developing characters. For example, if your environment has a melancholic ambiance; rainstorms, bleak streets and whatnot, the audience won’t question a character’s negative attributes such as alcoholism, pessimism, or blasphemy. Always remember that it all goes back to the settings and how you choose to describe them.

As for the narrative point of view, it’s definitely interesting. I’ve never read or reviewed a literary work which used the second-person narrative. Yes, that makes it unique and innovative enough, but is it functional? We will investigate this method more deeply. On a general level, the second-person narrative gives off a more intimate experience into the consciousness of a character (it’s not as intimate as the first-person narration, but it comes in second) it’s a reliable method to entrance the audience and perform a more profound investigative look into the persona decided. However, there’s no point of using the second-person narrative if you’re gonna employ that special task to a minor character.

The character of Taehyung should be supplied with the second-person narrative rather than employing two narratives because it only makes it more complicated and confusing. Initially, you’ve used the third-person narrative to direct the story as a whole but used the second-person narrative while still using the third-person narrative to control every other character, including the main one. I’m very confused and slightly impressed at how you’ve managed to pull through that procedure, sorry for my harsh words but a story of such degree shouldn’t require three different narration points (first-person narrative for inner monologues, second-person narrative for the employment of one of the characters, and third-person narrative for the general narration of the story) and my question is: Why? Why go through this entire process simply to translate a basic plot that doesn’t require any profound investigation. I would recommend that you ditch the whole second-person narrative and stick to the third-person narrative in general and the first-person narrative for consciousness exploration, but that would require you to re-build your story from scratch and I don’t think you’d do that. But trust me, it’d make your story less messy and easily comprehensible.

Speech clearness is evident; generally speaking, the diction used in your work is clear and coherent. It delivers its purpose within limited proportions. No exaggeration or purple language, there aren’t any changes needed for now. Speech correctness is well-leveled and sufficient for most parts; there are few misspelled words and phrases that could be easily edited once you go over the story. For example, in chapter one, once the main character meets the manager, you wrote “Sitting on his phone, with his phone cupped to his ear,” the literary phrasing of this description is incorrect because it contains Refrain (a literary term used to describe a reoccurring word or phrase in a literary work). Using appropriate synonyms for already-employed vocabulary is hi