(August 2015)

Title: trainwreck love
Author: skyblueroses

Reviewer: eleutheromaniac

Title: (4)/5
It’s definitely an interesting title and the lapslock is a nice touch that really captures the mood of your story. I usually don’t comment on a story’s poster, but I felt that it was worth saying that the words that you chose to include on it really had an impact on how I perceived the title; while it doesn’t outright explain the meaning behind the words, it alludes to it in a vague matter that really hits home for me. My only concern would be that it isn’t something that I feel captures the essence of your story, given the alternate setting that it takes place in.

Description/Foreword: (8.5)/10
While the content of your description is enough to entice me, I think that it’s my job to awkwardly admit that I like the excerpted version on your poster more than I like the version that made it into your description, haha. At the same time, the reappearance of the words seems a bit redundant. The text in your poster is the same size as the text in your actual description, so it’s not something that a reader would typically skip over.

In the latter half of the description (after the break), the syntax takes on a bland sort of feeling since your structure is kind of repetitive. It’s a small excerpt, so the more variety you include, the better it reads.

(And this may be more of a personal thing, but it bothers me that your foreword is in a bigger font than the actual description of your story.)

Plot: (14)/30

While the idea of this story feels to me like a very original one, the plot ended up being hindered by what I felt was quickened pacing that ultimately obstructed the believability of certain elements of the plot. I found that Jongin and Kyungsoo’s introductions to one another were much too rushed, and the fireworks scene for me seemed a little too fast-paced as well. One of the reasons that the flow felt so fast may be because the lack of character/relationship development throughout the duration of your story, but I’ll touch more on that later.

There were little moments that popped out to me as being kind of odd, like the governess taking so long to notice the rose behind Kyungsoo’s ear (because it’s literally right behind his ear and is bright red, like how do you miss that), but what bothered me more was the fact that everyone’s really accepting of gay relationships—and with servants! From the setting that you described and its emphasis on the kingdom and castle-life, I imagined this to be a Medieval European AU. Not only were homoual relationships considered incredibly taboo during this era, but a relationship between a royal and a servant was considered almost equally awful. The prince/servant forbidden love thing is kind of overused, but that doesn’t mean that there’s no truth to it. Even if we were to assume that relationships were accepted universally regardless of gender, being a castle actually elevated your status a bit? If you’ve seen era shows such as Reign, people who up royalty are able to get away with having certain privileges—yes, they’re still looked down upon, but if everyone knows that Sehun has some feelings for him, then it shouldn’t be so surprising that Jongin knows how to read and he wouldn’t be grouped together with the servants. He’d be in a category of his own.

I’m going to admit that when I first started reading your one-shot, I was kind of annoyed by the fact that I was reading the same collection of words from the poster and description/foreword again, but I’ll admit that you gave us a nice twist by adding in the final line of that section telling us that someone had died and that Jongin was to blame for it. However, I was totally expecting said deceased prince to be Kyungsoo, simply because I wasn’t paying attention to the big difference that the word “crown” makes in that sentence, haha. In my opinion, the story would’ve proved to be a lot more intriguing if it had been Kyungsoo that had somehow died within all of this, but that may just be me. It’s worth noting though that Sehun is constantly referred to as Kyungsoo’s step-brother, and since he’s also the king’s son, I’m assuming that he’s illegitimate. Even if the King was very attached to Sehun, Kyungsoo’s still his ultimate successor as crown prince, so if he had approached the situation with a more level-head, he probably would’ve been able to bargain with his father if he truly loved Jongin. I’m kind of surprised that it didn’t come to this since he seems so focused on his responsibilities as his father’s heir—negotiations would definitely fall into that, wouldn’t it?

I guess it’s because of the emotions that he’s experiencing and the nature of his characterization as well, so I’ll touch up on this more later.

What probably bothered me the most when reading this story was Sehun’s death. During my read-through, I had assumed one thing and then told myself that it couldn’t be said thing since it wouldn’t fit with the style with which your fic was written. However, I snooped around a bit, and when I saw that you confirmed that Sehun’s suicide was directly tied to the line, “Who treats a drug addict with another dose of their addiction?” I was facepalming like crazy.

While it’s a very beautiful line, it’s also very metaphorical. I’ll talk about this more in the “Writing Style” section of this review, but the style with which this is written isn’t imagery based at all; in fact, it’s super dialogue-heavy. There are instances during which we get some heavier description (most notably, the bloody hands scene and, to an extent I suppose, the fireworks scene), but outside the context of your story, said descriptions are still incredibly simplistic and in another story, certainly wouldn’t be considered an attempt at imagery. These aforementioned scenes are supposed to be symbolic or very meaningful in your story, but they carry no resonance.

Kyungsoo finding Sehun’s body is probably the of it all, and throwing in a single metaphoric line to explain the reason behind his step-brother’s suicide definitely isn’t going to work when you’re alluding to a metaphor that’s only been mentioned once before in a confrontation. It’s because of that lack of resonance. It feels almost as though all of these elements of an emotional story are strung together, but the knots are so sloppy that the entire piece just comes off as lackluster.

(And to be completely honest, the ending of the section before Jongin’s execution makes it seem more like Jongin and Kyungsoo are just infatuated with one another than them actually being in love—but more on that in the next section.)

Characterization: (4)/20

Like I mentioned before, your writing style in this story is very dialogue-heavy. In stories like that, it’s a lot more difficult to develop your characters; it can be done, but there has to be a clear emphasis on each of their individual voices, and that’s not what happens here.

Kyungsoo and Jongin’s characterization starts off rocky right off the bat. They’re introduced as stock characters at best: Jongin’s the bad boy who falls in love and Kyungsoo’s the innocent guy that he falls in love with. It’s not uncommon for well-written characters to feel stock-like at the beginning because authors will usually take the time to develop them into more three-dimensional personalities with clear, distinct voices. However, you didn’t take the time to do this at all. The single trait that Kyungsoo possesses that I feel is outside his stock personality is that he seems very devoted to his studies and responsibilities as crown prince—but even that’s a bit of a stretch and doesn’t retain much weight. Like, despite all of the philosophy that I’m sure he’s had to read, he still says something like, “But- Even if he’s a terrible person he deserves to be with the one he loves, right?” The scholar that the aforementioned trait hints of would know that the world doesn’t work like that at all, and Kyungsoo ricochets back into his stock personality despite only approaching the line of three-dimensionality.

Sehun’s character isn’t much better than Kyungsoo and Jongin’s, and in fact, I thought that his was even worse. His presence in the story is strictly for the purpose to serve as fridge stuffing and his only appearances within the text are to set him up for such a role.

The nonexistent character development makes it even more difficult for any real relationship development to occur—and in my opinion, it doesn’t. And in the end, the kaisoo relationship looks more like infatuation or very unhealthy emotional reliance. Either way, it’s certainly not love.

“It’s not sweet, it’s not romantic, it’s nothing brilliant, and Kyungsoo doesn’t feel butterflies or gentle breezes--  definitely not fireworks.

Instead, he tastes nothing but bitter regret and broken promises on Jongin, and Jongin tastes nothing but heartbreak and poisoned sugar in Kyungsoo.”

I’m not sure if it was your intention for it to seem like they ultimately fell out of love, but that doesn’t seem to be the case based on Kyungsoo’s emotional outburst at Jongin’s execution and the latter’s ultimate referral to their relationship as a love that he doesn’t regret.

Grammar: (10)/15

The biggest issue with your grammar would probably be your occasional moments of awkward phrasing. There are a couple of instances in which you have some tense issues or punctuation errors, but there wasn’t anything I noticed that truly obstructed from your story. I would take care of some of your spelling mistakes, capitalization, and some unnecessary typos, but most of these mistakes seem more like typos rather than a misunderstanding of grammar.

One example of your odd word choice would be Jongin’s “Wow, for such a young prince like yourself, such wisdom from your mouth?” Not only can I not imagine anyone actually saying something like this out loud, but “wisdom from your mouth” isn’t even a common phrase to excuse the strange word choice. Your point still comes across fine—Jongin is complimenting the young man for being wise—but it’s such a strange way for it to be said.

There are occasional tense issues as well, such as this line: “Jongin throws his head back and laughs, but it wasn’t happy nor sweet, but the sounds of a broken boy.” This story is told in the present-tense, so the corrected version should read: “Jongin throws his head back and laughs, but it isn’t happy nor sweet, but the sounds of a broken boy.” I would actually restructure the sentence so that you don’t have the same conjunction two times in a row, but that may just be me.

Another mistake I noticed was when Jongin was telling Kyungsoo the story about the boy who changed himself so that the other guy would like him back. If someone’s dialogue extends into the next paragraph, you don’t put the closing quotation marks at the end of the former paragraph to signify that it’s the same person talking. Here’s an example:

“They talked through the night, and the kind boy fell in love with him. But however, the king insisted on waiting for the beautiful boy.”

“Well, two nights spent talking to the dirty boy later, there was still no sign of when the beautiful boy was coming. But, the governess found the dirty boy sleeping in the kind boy’s bed, and pulled him out for a wash.”

The corrected version would be:

“They talked through the night, and the kind boy fell in love with him. But however, the king insisted on waiting for the beautiful boy.

“Well, two nights spent talking to the dirty boy later, there was still no sign of when the beautiful boy was coming. But, the governess found the dirty boy sleeping in the kind boy’s bed, and pulled him out for a wash.”

Notice the absent quotation mark after the first paragraph.

This is more of a personal thing, but please know the difference between your en dashes and em dashes. The em dash is probably my favorite punctuation mark at the moment, so it always bothers me when I see that someone is using an en dash in their place.

Writing Style: (4.5)/15

Alright, I’m going to be frank here: your low score here is mostly because the writing style with which this fic was executed doesn’t seem to fit with the story itself or the vision that it seems you had in your head. I talked about this a lot in the “Plot” section of this review, but with the nature of the storyline, it seems as though the inclusion of heavy imagery or a “poetic feel” would have made this story a lot better than it is. This comes off as very odd to me since it’s the first time that I’ve truly encountered a scenario like this—especially when your description/foreword boasts the writing style that would fit this type of story while the actual content itself doesn’t. It honestly felt like the person who penned your description and the person who penned your story were two different people entirely.

For example, the image of bloody hands from taking thorns off a rose is a gorgeous one, but the words you used for the scene were so bland that it was hard to envision the weight of what Jongin had done until you repeated the word “bloody” multiple times. The lack of imagery may come from your story being so dialogue-heavy, but at the same time, said heavy dialogue only highlights your repetitive syntax even more. Your diction also comes off as repetitive as well during certain moments. So I would advise you to try to maintain some variety within your text.

It’s not really until Jongin and Kyungsoo first talk to one another after Sehun’s death that some of the nice imagery I had expected from this story makes it way in. Since it’s something we’re exposed to in fragments, I can’t help but think that maybe you’re trying really hard to mold your writing style here and that’s why there’s such a conflict between one writing style and another. In my opinion, writing style is something that is created naturally and trying to force it into one direction over another can lead to an unenjoyable read. Stories with beautiful poetic imagery are awesome, but stories that are more dialogue-based can be great reads too; it’s all about writing what comes to mind in the way it comes to mind and then going back to tweak the little things until your story reads the way you want it to read. Sometimes trying to force your writing to come out a certain way does more harm than good—trust me, I’ve definitely been there.

You mentioned that this story is one of your older ones, so I hope that you’ve succeeded in finding a unique writing style that suits you.

Personal Enjoyment: (1)/5

I’ll honestly say that my scoring for personal enjoyment may be a bit harsh, but I think it’s because I started out with very high expectations for this story based on the description/foreword and in the end, said expectations fell flat. With the sudden shift in writing style and the flat characters, it was difficult for me to attach myself to anything in this story which is vital to the enjoyment of any tragedy.

Total Score: 46/100

Reviewer’s Comments: In my opinion, this story had a very interesting premise but the execution of the overall idea felt underdeveloped and weak. However, you did say that this is one of your older stories, so I’m sure that as you’ve continued to write, you’re closer to achieving a style of writing that comes off as more natural and fits your stories better.