“Lost n’ Found”

By: Sphinx_

Reviewer: St-renaissance.

1-Title: Usually titles are a great indicator for the general theme of the story, it’s not a surprise that readers tend to judge a story based on the title and synopsis. “Lost n’ Found” sounds like a thrilling story regarding a spiritual journey or a romantic transformation. Upon the first impression, we expect that the main characters experience a shift of belief and opinions regarding a certain element. There’s a hint of romance and serenity in the title, it comes off a modern twist on love and friendship. The length is suitable and sensible, and the implications of colloquial speech in the way you’ve spelled the title tell us how casual and quaint this story will be.

Rating: 10/10.

2-Description: Synopsis is a brief summary of the major events of a story, usually as prose; an abridgment, or condensation of a work. It’s naturally how readers judge the value of a story. Right, the synopsis is definitely simple and eloquent; it’s romantic in meaning and casual in structure. It does open with dialogue, so it reveals an intimate part of this relationship and hints at difficulties experienced by the couple. We’re expected to observe the development of emotions narrated in a simplistic style—and perhaps, scenes setting in a modern, metropolitan environment.

Rating: 5/5.

3-Plot: The introduction dives right in, it takes us on the couple’s first interaction with each other, their first impression of each other’s personality. As predicted, the story employs the first-person POV, it’s more personal and intimate, it’s a direct invitation to the protagonist’s psychological and emotional development throughout the story. It offers a more substantial opportunity to engage in different aspects of the human psyche; as seen, both characters play a vital role in this story, so investigating more into these characters’ construction can be important for the sake of the plot-line. There isn’t much scene-setting here, the environment is still vague and the time of day appears absurd and fluid. We like to stick with classical unities (time and place) for various reasons. For example, choosing a certain season and time period can grant your audience the chance to independently paint a picture using all environmental elements provided, and when you provide little-to-no elements, readers will struggle to set the scene on their own. Environmental elements can include weather, season, time of day, location, political situation, and social class. Once you’ve set the scene properly, you can actually begin with the dialogue and narration. However, try not to neglect the importance of the classical unities; they’re the backbone of any plot.

I understand that this is a one-shot, it’s meant to be as neatly abridged as possible but, the protagonist’s relationship with Mino develops without any sensible pace. It doesn’t make sense that the protagonist becomes incredibly trusting upon first sight, and the way they speak about philosophical subjects upon first meeting doesn’t really convey spiritual connection or even friendship. I’d suggest that you ease into it and take things slowly with this couple—if you’re aspiring to develop a sensible relationship that has the capacity to gradually develop. This one-shot relies mostly on dialogues, conversational pieces are assigned as the main connective tool between the characters and readers, and this means that dialogues must be well-constructed and strategic. Since you’ve applied Outer Dialogue, you can use this as a literary technique to advance the plot while simultaneously working on the protagonist’s presented persona. Before bringing these two characters together, tell us more about the protagonist and her life, we can learn so much about her character once you take the chance to use the narration more productively.

For example, we learn that she has a job, questions happiness has a crush on Mino, and she comfortable around strangers. That doesn’t really count for development because we never speak of her past, emotions, or opinions on any given issues that she experiences. I’ll tell you how this character translates to an unbiased reader; she’s passive and non-autonomous, she’s only here to represent Mino’s audience, she doesn’t seem to have a voice of her own. As an inquiring character, questioning is predictable of her persona—she’s literary here to learn something, to get some answers to questions that have been on her mind for years. Yet, she accepts whatever philosophy that comes her way, never really responding back diligently or enthusiastically. Let’s talk more about this in the Character Devel