(August 2015)

Title: Ghost In the Shadow
Author: lunaticmoon

Reviewer: eleutheromaniac

Title: (2.5)/5

The title definitely catches my attention right off the bat with its mysteriousness nature. I would be careful with the capitalization, however, as the title should actually read: “Ghost in the Shadow”. It’s a little thing that can be really confusing (I love grammar to death, but it can sometimes be a pain), but it’s still important to pay attention to it.

While I originally wanted to give you full marks for your title, after reading through your story, I had to stop and ask myself whether or not the title was actually appropriate for your story. While the title definitely connects to your description/foreword, I think that you ended up losing sight of the angst of your foundation as you wrote. The title/description/foreword gave me a sense of wondering whether or not these people were actually living their lives, but the plot of the story itself feels more like something about a guy who tries to run away from his past, fails miserably, but still manages to pull together a happy ending for himself.

Description/Foreword: (4.5)/10

One of the bigger problems that I have with your foreword is that there isn’t anything about it that particularly interests me. I’m usually all for short, vague descriptions, but to me, yours ends up feeling incredibly generic. There’s a guy running away from something and there’s a girl trying to find something and the question of whether or not either of them are actually living their lives is posed. In theory—especially when I sum it up like that—the description is interesting. In practice, however, it didn’t come off that way. I think that the description could be made a little bit better if you included some imagery instead of two generic sentences and removed the rhetorical question.

I’ll touch on this more in the grammatical section of this review, but I would also be careful with your diction and syntax on your description/foreword. Proper grammar, though pretty simple, can go a long way when it comes to making an impression on your potential readers. The commas in your foreword are unnecessary where they stand, and though I assume they’re there to force the reader to pause when reading your sentence, it simply doesn’t fit. If you want to create drama, do it with some imagery and not with your grammar—in my opinion, syntactical structure is one of the most difficult elements of rhetoric to understand (let alone perfect), so if you don’t know what you’re doing, stick to your conventions.

There’s nothing that really captures my attention in the foreword either, and in all honesty, it ends up feeling kind of repetitive due to the continuous usage of the pronoun “he”. I would also be careful with your typos, as you wrote “slid” when it should have been “slide”.

(Reading the rhetorical question of your description also makes me wonder if your title is even grammatically correct since you wrote “Does staying alive in the shadow counts as living?” when it should actually say “Does staying alive in the shadows count as living?”)

Plot: (10)/30

There are a lot of elements within this story that seem as though they have good potential, but the flow of the story is simply too rushed for any of it to really settle in. The quickened pace leaves a lot of room for plot holes that greatly damage the credibility of the story. How did Luhan manage to get into the place next door to Tiffany’s since no one lived there and it would probably be locked unless he had money to rent, which he doesn’t? Why would Tiffany allow her friends to leave her when she’s in Beijing if she doesn’t know the language? Wouldn’t she try to stick as close to them as possible, or is she just that ditzy? Even if Luhan’s wife was a traitor, she’s still the wife of the next triad boss so if she was pregnant with his child, she probably would’ve been spared for a while just because of the possibility of an heir if Luhan had bothered to say something, so why didn’t he try to save her life? If no one could find Kris, then how are Luhan and Yixing able to? Even if he chose to keep contact with the two when he left, Luhan probably would’ve tracked him down if he really did go “cold” like he claimed. And if Luhan knows that they’re being chased by the triad, why would he leave Tiffany by herself—if even for a short while—when he knows that she’s incapable of defending herself? Talk about plot convenience to the max.
 

Those are a couple of the more glaring offenders, but I noticed a couple of other smaller instances within the plot that seemed a bit sketchy to me. Plot holes aside, there were also a few things that simply struck me as unrealistic—most notably, Luhan’s escape from the triad members in Chapter Two. You’ve written that this guy was beaten to a bloody pulp, so how on earth does he manage to take two guns from two men that are much bigger than him? Even if he “saved his strength,” I have no doubts that being beaten saps a lot of your body’s strength to begin with. Luhan is unarmed, handicapped due to his injuries, and outnumbered. Him managing to escape in the manner that he did doesn’t make sense.

Believability aside, the flow of your story also inhibits the portrayal of your characters. It seems very odd to me that Tiffany’s completely willing to share all the secrets of her past when Luhan and her “first meet” one another. I get that she’s supposed to be the more optimistic of the two, but it still feels like a stretch that she’s willing to talk to him about something she’s never been able to talk about with anyone else before him, regardless of whether or not he used to know her. It hampers Tiffany’s character by making her seem incredibly flat and two-dimensional.

There were moments that I enjoyed in the story, however. I thought that the kiss scene in Chapter Five was really cute, especially with Luhan’s remarks.

Characterization: (7.5)/20

As I mentioned before, the fast pace of your storyline made it difficult for the characters of the story to feel realistic and three-dimensional. It didn’t feel like there was any development at all; Tiffany finds a strange boy and takes care of him with absolutely zero qualms like it’s the most normal thing in the world—what? I can understand the concern, but she leaves a stranger alone in her apartment like it’s the normal thing to do when most people nowadays would be much more apprehensive. Tiffany has no apprehension at all, however, and her complacency with everything makes her come off as ignorant.

Luhan comes off as a Gary Stu at the beginning of the story, but he probably had the best development out of the cast—though it wasn’t much. While I still feel like his background may be a bit much, he did show signs of having a clear, vivid personality with his snark that occasionally pops up throughout the story. (Though I am curious about why a Chinese high school student bothered to even learn Korean in the first place, but I’m just going to assume that it’s because he had to as the son of the triad leader or whatever.)

Your only other character was Kris—and I suppose Yixing, to an extent—but there was no development that really occurred with either of them and it seemed like they were only there in order to further the plot.

Grammar: (5)/15

Most of the problems with your grammar have to do with your word choice over your punctuation errors, but I still want to point out that you need to be careful with how you use your semicolons. They’re more abundant in the beginning of your story, but it’s still very important that you use them correctly. A quick (and cute!) explanation can be found here. Also be careful with your punctuation within a character’s dialogue. Repeat their words to yourself the way you’ve written it, and ask yourself whether or not it sounds like the way said character actually would’ve said it: would they pause that often? for that long? is a pause even necessary at all?

That aside, there are a lot of moments in which the text switches between past and present-tense or  when there’s a clear mix-up of your singular versus plural words.

In the case of the former, I’ll use this excerpt from Chapter Two as an example: “‘Did anything… Anything that is out of the norm happened lately?’” In this quote, Luhan is asking Tiffany about what is currently going on in the apartment (?), so the present-tense should be employed. “‘Did anything… Anything that is out of the norm happen lately?’” Tense issues like this (especially in the characters’ dialogue) are abundant throughout the text, so do be careful.

Less frequent is the mix-up between singular and plural verbs, as seen in Chapter Three: “‘I doubt you got the wrong people, because I’m the one who forgets everyone.’” Here, Tiffany is talking about only herself, so they singular noun should be used. ‘“I doubt you got the wrong person because I’m the one who forgets everyone.’”

(Grammar aside, Tiffany’s memory issues seem to be exclusive to her past memories and don’t seem to affect her ability to create new memories. Unless she’s just a naturally forgetful person, the line should actually be: ‘“I doubt you got the wrong person because I’m the one who’s forgotten everyone.’”)

You have other diction issues of the same nature, so I would read up on not only the aforementioned grammar rules, but also on your adverbs and overall word choice.

As a side note, remember that you should always spell out your numerals instead of using their digits because doing otherwise is considered a convention error. For example, in the final chapter of your story, it should be “twenty” rather than “20”.

Writing Style: (4)/15

It’s pretty difficult to possess a unique writing style if you don’t already possess proper knowledge of the rules of the English language, so don’t be too discouraged by your score here. I would focus on developing an understanding of grammar before trying to develop a writing style. Once you reach that point, however, I would pay special attention to varying your syntax as most of your sentences are just the same repeated structure over and over again.

Personal Enjoyment: (1.5)/5

I have to honestly say that I didn’t really enjoy reading this story. Despite the emotional turmoil of the characters, I didn’t feel any sort of attachment to them at all due to the rushed nature of your storytelling and questionable moments of believability within the plot. The redeeming factor for me was ultimately Luhan’s occasional sarcastic remark because it ended up showing me that he had the most personality out of all of the character you had written, hence the additional half-point.

Total Score: 35/100

Reviewer’s Comments: I genuinely apologize for getting this review to you so late! It’s been about two weeks now, so I really have to thank you for being so patient with me. While I think that the story could use a bit of sprucing up—especially when it comes to grammar and development—it still has an air about it that boasts a hint of originality. The basis of the story is an interesting one, and I think that once you learn how to bring all of your ideas together in a cohesive timeline, you’ll go on to write wonderful stories.