Lovely Memories, Forgotten - by Annnjcifer

Before we begin I would like to commend you for your really lovely background and poster. It's not part of my reviewing criteria but it's really nice. The theme of black and white is not only pleasing to the eye but also carries this peaceful yet sombre aura.

Hmm... You kind of... How do I... The story is okay. Well, a little cliché (In fact, I remember seeing some movie with the same scene) and a little cheesy, but it's bearable.

Your writing is sort of "off" though, and it disrupts the mood of your story to quite a large degree. There are, for example, humorous parts where there shouldn't be any. You also seem to like cursing and screaming/screeching a lot, which actually fails to heighten the tension (if that is what they were meant for) and instead makes your character look… to put it nicely, very un-ladylike.

Besides that, I really really REALLY detest the fact that you mention snot. I mean, effing gross!! Have you ever seen snot dribbling out from an actor's nose before? And if ever you did would you not cringe? It is not a pleasant image to put in your reader's mind.

TITLE: 4/5

It did bring out the supposed mood, so you have a higher mark. Still, it's not exactly very creative so no full marks.

FOREWORD: 3/5

1. I like the way you experimented with colors. Be careful not to overdo it though.

2. It's short, sweet, and mysterious. Perfect. Probably the best part of your entire story.

3. But why'd you include the character profile?? Worse, your descriptions of the characters don't match with what their behavior implies. You say your main character is "patient and loving", but she curses like a sailor at every single thing. And she screeches. Like an animal. The girl in the poster doesn't match with the girl in that photo, too. Inconsistent, disorganized, me no like it, me minus 2 marks.

LANGUAGE USE: 19/30

Grammar, punctuation, spelling etc:

1. "They say that he saved me from my death; died for me."
Inappropriate use of semi-colons. Semi-colons are used to separate what could stand alone as proper sentences. "Died for me" is not a proper sentence.
"They say that he saved me from my death; he had died for me."
Or you could just use a dash instead.
"They say that he saved me from my death - died, in fact, for me."
Google semi-colons.

2. "Was my incident something to do with water?"
What? I don't even know what category this mistake belongs to. It should be "Does my incident have something to do with water?"

3. "Closer than I wanted him."
To be. Closer than I wanted him to be.

4. "For a second, I lost consciousness."
Losing your consciousness implies that you fainted, not that you forgot about your boyfriend.

5: "So I kept on going on."
... Just say you continued.

6. "Where you taking it another step when I inturrupted?"
It's spelt as interrupted, and you made a typo for "were".

7."I never saw Junhyung this hurt before."
I have never seen. You can't "never saw".

8. “Kikwang snorted besides you."
Besides = Anyway
Beside = By the side, or in this case, by your side.

9. "... Trying to keep him in a good distance."
You keep someone in a range, but AT a distance. In addition, keeping someone at a distance, especially if you call it a "good distance", means that you are avoiding or trying to stay away from the person.

10. "I clamored aboard."
Unless you mean that she was kicking up a fuss while boarding the boat, the word used here should be clamber (climb rather ungracefully).

11. "The wind was getting harsher, so I had to take out my hat."
Take out from where? From inside your head? You should be taking it off (your head), not out of.

12. "The wooden stick missed us by just several inches."

Several inches, in my opinion, is quite a lot.

13. "I ducked as something else fell from the 'sky'."

Why 'sky'? Is it a false sky?

14. "Then something else hit me and I fell to my stomach."

You can fall to your knees. Falling to your stomach would be weird. Meanwhile, falling onto your stomach would mean that you fell and landed on your stomach.

15. “I grabbed out and reached the steering wheel.”

I think you mean: I reached out and grabbed the steering wheel.

16. “I paddled toward a piece of furniture that was floating in the water. It had dropped out of the boat. You clung onto it and you finally got to rest a little.”

First it’s “I”, then it’s “you”. Inconsistent.

17. “Tell him that I have no worth living for.”

Tell him that I am not worthy of living.

Vocabulary range:

This is the story's biggest flaw.

Okay, imagine hearing or seeing what you described.   

"You ing lied to me, you !"

"It was a mistake!" you screeched.

"Please! You're going to drown! You need to ing save yourself!"

Girl: "I'm sorry." Guy gulps and looks down. All of a sudden girl acts possessed and grabs the guy's face, kissing him so aggressively that he "flinched a little". And even then she does not pull back, instead she deepens the kiss.

"What?" I snapped. "We're alone, and aren't we still together?"

Girl says: "I'm sorry." she cries, and guy bends down, tenderly rubbing away her tears. She leans up to kiss him, but he pulls away. And so, like a barbarian, she flares up, screaming like a banshee: “What's wrong with you this time?"

You wailed and rocked back and forth on your feet… You screamed and screamed…

And this one, the ultimate best:

Snot was everywhere. Rain was everywhere.

Mmm… Not very romantic, is it? I mean, the snot.

Ahemhem… *prepares to preach*

Your choice of words is inappropriate.

With everything that you write, you are painting an image in the reader’s minds. If you use crudewords, the picture will disgust readers. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like the thought of snot being everywhere. It doesn’t add anything to the story, anyway.

The images of the various characters are also heavily affected by what you write. To illustrate my point:

Example 1: “Shut up!” She demanded roughly, the tears b in her eyes. “Shut up! Shut up!!! You are not in a position to speak!”

Example 2: “SHUT THE UP!!” She screeched before crumbling to the floor, bawling her eyes out as she did. “SHUT THE UP!! SHUT THE UP!!”

… You get what I mean?

I guess it’s okay for the guy to drop the “f-bomb” when he sees his girlfriend kissing another guy, but for the girl to curse incessantly is a little… undignified, you know what I mean? She’s like “You need to ing save yourself” and “you ing lied to me” and probably at home she’s like “pass me the ing ketchup” or “don’t ing use my ing L’Oreal again, you ing retard!”

And she does it screeching, or screaming, or snapping, or shouting.

I find it very difficult to like her.

And if I don’t like her then I wouldn’t feel sad for her.

Plus, the words you used to describe Junhyung’s actions sometimes make him look… um… well… gay. For example:

"Baby!" Junhyung skipped into your room, smiling happily.

Compare this to your:

"ing cancel the trip," snarled Junhyung.

In one he skips, in another he snarls. In the first he acts like Bambi, in the other he’s a wolf. Do you prefer the Bambi, or do you prefer the wolf?

If you decide that a Bambi-like boyfriend would be attractive, then you could have written your story to make him look like a sensitive but affectionate boyfriend instead of a gay one.

Like:

“Honey~” Junhyung called out, smiling as he entered the room.

PLOT: 20/30

Logic:

I can’t tell if she loves him or not. I can’t even tell if she’s mentally stable.

“I hate you,” I told Junhyung. “I hate you, I hate you.”

And then…

“No!” I grabbed his shoulders. “We can die together.”

… Split personality much?

1. "You were screaming, trying to keep your head out of the water, spluttering, looking around."
I almost drowned before and I absolutely could NOT scream. Every time my head rose above the water I was panicking, gasping in both water and air. To cry for help was more than I could manage. To look around was impossible because tears and water were stinging my eyes such that I could see nothing. I know you've probably never experienced drowning, so this didn't cost you points. I just thought you should know.

2. She's in her bra and she screams when she sees Kikwang enter but then continues packing, STILL WITHOUT A SHIRT.

3. Wait. When she was making out with Kikwang she was in her room, right? The door then opens and there was a figure standing there, which is probably Junhyung. He asks if they're done making out, she whips around, and all of a sudden they are miraculously transported to the living room where he is lounging on the sofa. Or at least that's what was conveyed to me.

4. Until now I have no idea why the "huge stick thing that was holding up the sails" snapped. Did Junhyung, whom was wearing sunglasses that his girlfriend would never be able to afford, and whom loved his girl to the point of killing himself for her, buy - no, rent - some cheap, lousy boat for their second anniversary??

5. I’m not sure, but I doubt that sea patrollers swim to the rescue of people stuck in a storm. They are, after all, quite a long way away from the dock. A lifeguard, on the other hand, helps drowning people, but only if it doesn’t mean that he will be swept by the currents too.

I really don’t know, but I do think that if there is a storm, nobody should be in the water. Helicopters will fly from overhead, search for you, find you and drop you a rope, or a ladder. Maybe the rescuers will climb down to help you up. But they won’t be swimming in the water.

6. Will he really die if he falls into the sea? He could swim, couldn’t he? Can’t he just swim and wait for the rope to haul his girlfriend up before coming back down to him?

The story isn’t creative, but that’s okay. It’s the logic that bewilders me.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT – 22/30

They’re developed enough. But they’re unrealistic.

I know that dramas and movies and books have been saying the same old thing over and over again such that it almost seems possible, but come to think of it, it’s actually quite difficult to sacrifice yourself as long as you still want to live, even if it’s for a person you love deeply.

Can you imagine the courage you need to muster to kill yourself?

It is not easy.

This is debatable, however, so it won’t cost you marks. It’s just some food for thought.

No A1 for you because your characters are a very rowdy bunch. They are rustic and simple-minded. As I’m not sure if this was what they were supposed to be I gave you a relatively high mark anyway.

OTHERS

When I first read through your story (with one eye closed), I actually liked it, especially the ending. The ending is quite skilful, as is the forewords. Everything else in between was a bit of a mess though.

There were quite a few mistakes in your English. If I didn’t look closely I would have missed it, so it doesn’t really affect the story a lot. Still, if you can perfect it, please do.

Your problem is your choice of words. That can be easily corrected, however, as long as you see its necessity.

So… yuppers. You pass~

imsosofia