(December 2015)

Title: Phantasmagoria
Author: gakistalGakistal
Reviewer: eleutheromaniac

Title: (4.5)/5
The title is definitely a memorable one, and what I like about it is that it contains the same air of mystery that entices me to words with foreign titles, yet “phantasmagoria” is just  an obscure English word—same premise, a different means. I was pleased to see that you defined the word early on in your foreword.

There are moments when it’s really clear how your title relates to the story itself; however, the poetic language that emphasizes the dream-like state that your title references comes off as very forced at times, and, in my opinion, this weakens the connection between the title and the story.

Description/Foreword: (8)/10
This may sound odd, but I think that I was more interested in the foreword than I was in the description. In my opinion, elements of the description were structured in an odd way to the point that I was slightly turned off by the story due to the opening syntax alone. I’ve never been a fan of rhetorical questions either and tend to stay away from stories that seem as though they’ll rely on them a bit too heavily for my taste. In my opinion, removing the rhetorical questions will actually make your argument stronger.

I’ll deconstruct the description a bit here so that I can offer some advice on how you can make it better. For your reference, here’s the description as it currently stands:

Because, sometimes, beyond the woods or deep inside our dreams, the phantoms find their way back into our lives. The lives of these individuals are woven together by fate.

Suzy and Kris are best friends and hope to walk together down the path of life. However, not everything goes in plan for them. With Suzy being chased by a man who claims her as another, and meeting her secret stalker and Kris getting in touch with the woman who stomped on his heart in the past, they are forced to adapt to problems on their own.

What Suzy and Kris forget is that the world is thronging with phantoms and angels. Can Suzy stop a man from ruining her life? Can Kris accept a broken heart once again?

In the first paragraph, the transition from the first to the second sentence seems abrupt and feels very choppy. I actually think that if you chose to remove the second sentence, your description overall will read a lot smoother.

There are similar problems in the second paragraph as well as some choppy syntax. The second sentence should read: “However, not everything goes according to plan for them.” The final sentence of this paragraph is a run-on, and, while run-ons can be alright if they are rhetorically appropriate, that isn’t the case here. Saying that she “[meets] her secret stalker” is also a bit odd since she knows that Sehun is following her around, so he can’t really be called secret. At the same time, the sentence comes off as unbalanced since the description lists two problems that Suzy faces, but only one for Kris, which makes it seem as though he has less problems than she does (I don’t think that this is your intention). I think that you could actually restructure the last two sentences of this paragraph and meld them into one to make it read better. Here’s an example of a possible change:

Suzy and Kris are best friends and hope to walk together down the path of life. However, not everything goes according to plan: Suzy is being chased by a man who claims her as another and has to come to face-to-face with her mysterious stalker; Kris must re-open the wound given to him by the woman who broke his heart in the past and come to terms with the self that he’s been running away from all this time.

I don’t really think that Suzy is being chased by Jaejoong, but I’m not sure if that’s because you just haven’t gotten to that part of the story yet.

In my opinion, stating that the world is “thronging” with demons and angels sounds a little awkward.

Also, I usually don’t approve of character profiles, but I was actually surprised by what you chose to do with them. Rather than including information about your characters that should be explored more within the story, you only included a single sentence that provokes an air of mystery and thought. This is what enticed me to continue reading your story. I haven’t seen something like this before, so I definitely need to commend you for it.

(As a side note though,  Junsu’s profile appears in a different font from the others, so I would recommend fixing that up.)

Plot: (17)/30
I’ve only read Jane Eyre once, about eight years ago, so the events of the story are kind of fuzzy in my memory. On the other hand, Wuthering Heights is one of my favorite novels and I’ve read it on four different occasions, so I can definitely say that I’m very familiar with it. That being said, I was definitely able to see how much Brontë’s work influenced this story. In my opinion, the biggest flaws of this piece were its awkward flow and what I considered a lack of originality.

I’ll start with the obvious references to Wuthering Heights. The novel itself is mentioned numerous times throughout the course of the six chapters and is discussed in-depth between the characters. It was actually to the point that I felt that the story revolved too much around Wuthering Heights and could possibly turn-off potential readers who aren’t familiar with Brontë’s work. An example of this is Jaejoong’s character. It’s painfully obvious that he’s reminiscent of Heathcliff with the way he refuses to stop loving someone even when she’s dead. I’m not sure if a reader unfamiliar with Wuthering Heights would have caught on to this, but even if they hadn’t, it’s spelled out explicitly in a flashback when Victoria blatantly says that they’re two very similar characters. At the same time, for readers who are familiar with the novel, this story felt more like a modern-day retelling set in South Korea. In my case, the flashback scene between Victoria and Jaejoong seemed like a redundant portion of the text. This may be because the story hasn’t progressed too far yet, but there wasn’t anything that really hooked me onto the story. With the mini character descriptions that were included in the story’s foreword, it seems as though there’s a lot more than meets the eye, but, unfortunately, the development of these other plot points has been weak so far, so it’s hard for me to properly gauge their originality.

I was also bothered by the polarized opinions regarding Heathcliff, and wish that it wasn’t limited to the male characters thinking that he’s flawed and the female characters just thinking that he’s romantic. There are also a lot of characters who have similar names in Wuthering Heights, so I would be careful when you’re alluding to specific aspects of the book—make sure that what you’re saying is actually correct. In the first chapter, you say, “...A magnanimous sweetheart like Linton hiding all her sorrows in the warmth of his embrace,” but I’m almost positive that you mean Edgar, not Linton. Recall that Edgar is the one that Catherine chooses to marry while Linton is Heathcliff’s child who marries Cathy. I wouldn’t say that Edgar is able to “[hide] all [of Catherine’s] sorrows in the warmth of his embrace,” but Linton’s too sickly to really care for Cathy, so I’m almost positive that you meant to reference Edgar.

My bigger issue with the story is the pace at which it’s set. There are moments when I feel like the story is moving too slowly to raise any tension or build any suspense, but then there are movements that happen so quickly that they just leave me confused. Based on the description/foreword, it seems like there are supposed to be multiple storylines going on at the same time, but I don’t think this was approached as well as it could have been. It feels as though we get one person’s story, but then the story is put on pause in favor of a different story—versus all characters’ stories happening at the same time. I also thought the structure of the first chapter was a bit odd: it started with Jaejoong’s limited perspective (which was strange to me, since I had assumed Kris was the male lead), suddenly went back in time to Suzy’s limited perspective, and then continued from Jaejoong’s perspective with a slightly more omniscient narrator. Another example of an awkward shift in perspective was in the second chapter when we’re introduced to Kris for the first time. For a moment, I wasn’t sure if we were seeing things from Jaejoong’s perspective or from his brother’s, so I think that it would’ve been a good mood to establish who the “he” was at the beginning of said section. I read a story very similar to this once, in the sense that there was a large cast of characters who each had their own personal stories that needed to be told within the overall story. In said example, there was a more frequent narrative shift to what each of them were doing to create an effect that made it seem like it was all happening at the same moment, so perhaps you could try something like that as you move forward in this story.

I also found the beginning of the fifth chapter to be a bit odd (the scene in which Suzy visits Sehun to give him a good luck charm). It seemed out of place in the flow of your story when the main focus seemed to be the cast getting ready to attend the Dior fashion event. Suzy had just literally gotten beat up amidst her desperate search for something to wear to the event, but she somehow found the time to buy Sehun a gift and deliver it to him? It seemed very random and a little implausible.

I was also a little curious about the part in the first chapter where Jaejoong basically leaves his car in the middle of the road to chase after a vision he saw. The scene immediately transitions to him eating at the restaurant he saw the vision enter, and the night is concluded by him being picked up by his brother. What happened to the car?

The biggest issue with the plot of your story is its execution, so moving forward, I would try to pay some special attention to that. Though I haven’t seen anything too original yet, your story’s still in its early stages so I’m hoping that you’ll get to more unique aspects soon.

Characterization: (8)/20
In the few chapters you’ve written so far, I think that I’ve only gotten a good grasp of Jaejoong and Suzy’s characters—perhaps a little bit of Kris’ as well. That isn’t necessarily a bad thing since it’s possible that the other characters are just meant to be in supporting roles, but I felt that the lead characters weren’t all that impressive. As I mentioned previously, Jaejoong has many aspects of Heathcliff’s character, which is interesting, but not entirely unique. At first I found Suzy to be somewhat likable, but as the story progressed, she began to seem more and more like another Mary Sue to me. In the more recent chapters, the reader is exposed to more of Kris’ struggles, and, while I was excited to learn about what was going on with him, I felt that his problems were introduced too abruptly.

I think that my biggest problem with Jaejoong is that I can’t really think of any characteristics he has that Heathcliff doesn’t have—except maybe his looks? Other than that though, they’re both rich (though I suppose that Jaejoong was born into money while Heathcliff was not), arrogant, in love with someone who is dead, and like to watch others revel in misery. I haven’t really seen Jaejoong doing that last bit, but I suppose that it was slightly introduced when he tried to get Jinah and Jongin to talk to one another. I’m not sure if his mirroring Heathcliff’s character was done for a symbolic purpose since the story is still in its early stages, but, even if it is, it would be nice if he still possessed a certain uniqueness to him.

When characters are designed for the reader to feel pity for them, I think that it’s hard to make them seem realistic and not Mary Sue-like. Suzy’s history of being an orphan who was adopted by her uncle and then cared for by an “evil step-mother” was way too reminiscent of Cinderella for me, and the decision to cast Sulli and Shindong as the “evil step-siblings” pretty much sealed the deal. Sulli going far enough to refer to Suzy only as “peasant” for no good reason also bothered me. I think that unexplained meanness makes a remote amount of sense in fairy tales, but, in stories like this, it just seems like a huge plot hole. At the same time, Suzy’s blind trust in absolute strangers (Sehun) seems completely unrealistic in this day and age—she’s grown up in an abusive family, how does she not have trust issues? The fact that she’s at the center of some kind of love web (not really sure what geometric shape to use to describe this, to be honest) only increases her Mary Sue-like quality and makes her an undesirable, two-dimensional main character.

Kris hasn’t been featured as much as Suzy and Jaejoong, so my opinions on his character are pretty limited. It’s clear that he has a past that he really doesn’t want to remember, so I’m assuming that these emotions are supposed to be reflected in his “alter ego,” Yifan? I don’t even really know if “alter ego” is the correct term since it seems like “Kris” is just the new identity that he created for himself in order to escape his past.  When Yifan suddenly appeared in Chapter Four, it felt very sudden. There was no buildup of tension to that moment; it was like Kris went into the bathroom and suffered from some kind of episode. The scene was abrupt, and not in a good way.

While we’ve gotten glimpses of Luhan, Sehun, Jinah, Amber, and Junsu, I don’t feel as though any of their characters have been developed enough yet in order for me to comment on them. If you choose to continue writing this story though, it’ll be interesting to see how their descriptions on the foreword come to life within your story.

Grammar: (13)/15
For the most part, your grammar was pretty spot-on. Most of the mistakes I noticed were pretty minor, though I did think that you occasionally had some odd word choice going on every once in a while.

There are moments throughout your story during which your word choice doesn’t really make sense. I’ll list some examples of this when it occurred in the first chapter:

“It didn’t last long --not when he perceived a white shape flutter irregularly at the edge of his vision.”

I’m not exactly sure what you were trying to say in this sentence, and it’s mostly due to faulted word choice.

“The only person who could beat him in his own game was his father, the other being Haejin.”

This is incorrect because it’s stated that there’s only one person that can beat him when there are actually two (this can be fixed by saying “[...] beat him at his own game, besides Haejin, was his father.”). At the same time, it would be “beat him at his own game,” not in.

“It wasn’t everyday where female celebrities displayed…” (Chapter One)

“Everyday” is an adjective, so “every day” is more appropriate for this sentence. At the same time, “where” should actually be “when”.

These weren’t the only examples in this story, and I noticed several other moments throughout the story during which incorrect word choice could possibly confuse readers, so do be careful.

When a major work is referenced, its title should always be italicized or underlined. Wuthering Heights, when mentioned, should have that specific formatting. For future reference, the titles of minor works are put in quotation marks.

Writing Style: (7)/15
I’m not sure if this is the style in which you normally write your stories, but I’m going to assume that this is a new writing style you’re trying out. In your request, you noted that you’d like some feedback on the poetic descriptions you used within your story. My first impression of them was that they came off as forced, and didn’t possess the natural flow found in the writing of people who normally write this style. There weren’t any descriptions that stood out to me as being as elegant as you probably intended them to be.

While there are more examples of this sort of forced description are throughout the story, I only pulled from your first chapter to cite a couple of examples of what I believe sounded forced.

“Fate. It was a rather strange specimen. It coiled around the soul, strings and threads attached to many others, and connected humans together against their wills. It wafted like insubstantial mist, one that he never saw, everywhere he breathed. Through this fog, the images of his future usually scintillated in distorted waves, but that was only if he peered from a certain angle. The images caught by this sea of air were disconcerted, incorporeal and indistinguishable. Neither were they welcoming or comforting.”

“Of course, with his expensive suit and aristocratic face, Jaejoong was used to the attention from a young age as breathing was to man.”

“However, he wondered what it meant to be unoriginal; another dot in a painting that only pertained to the greater picture.”

“Their consternation flowed through the tips of their fingers and mingled with the flares of their nostrils.”

The main similarity in all of these excerpts is that you try to draw comparisons to things that don’t really mesh well with one another. In the first example, you use gentle words like “threads,” “mist,” and “fog” alongside more harsh words like “specimen,” “scintillated,” and “distorted”. While creating juxtaposition is a rhetorical strategy that can leave a good impact on your readers, it seems as though the focus here is on creating poetic imagery rather than the juxtaposition. Try to finish establishing the image you create before moving on to the next one, and then work on making each of your images cohesive to one another. The best sorts of poetic imagery are when each little bit of a description comes together as a whole in order to invoke emotion in the reader. A really good example of this can be found here. It’s important to note that more often than not, the simplest images invoke the strongest emotions.

The beauty of poetic descriptions is that they enable the reader to directly connect with the emotions of the text. In the case of this story’s “poetic descriptions,” I didn’t really feel any sort of emotional connection at all. At times, it felt like pretty words strung together to form not-so-pretty sentences. In my opinion, forced manipulation of one’s writing style doesn’t usually end up well. Writing style is something that’s developed after years of practice, so trying to change the way you write to fit the theme of one story may end up seeming unnatural. There were moments during which I think I was actually turned off from reading because of some of the awkward phrasing, so I think that it might have been better if you wrote this story the way you typically write your others.

Dreams, sunflowers, and the woman in white are obviously very important symbols within your story, but you emphasize them so much in such a short period of time that they end up feeling forced as well. In the case of this story, it seems as though the idea of these symbols is most strongly resonant in Jaejoong’s thoughts and actions, so by having other characters bring them up so often makes these symbols seem less significant. I would be more careful with your usage of these symbols.

On a more minor note, I noticed some occasional moments with minimal variation in syntax that can be avoided when you read over your text, so be sure to pay extra attention to that when you edit. While you have a wide range in diction, there are moments when words were repeated unnecessarily (“He feigned ignorance instead, choosing to scruitnise [sic] the flickering stars instead” (Chapter One)). I also noticed that the word “physiognomy” popped up a number of times throughout the chapters of the story.

(Also, in Chapter Four, you described Suzy’s aunt’s voice as “baritone” which seemed pretty odd to me. When describing the range of female voices, the terms “alto,” “mezzo-soprano,” and “soprano” are used. “Baritone” and “tenor” are typically reserved for men, with baritone being between tenor and bass. Describing Suzy’s aunt’s voice as baritone seems kind of unrealistic to me.)

I skimmed through some of your other pieces, and it seems like this is a writing style that you don’t typically use. My recommendation would be that you write how you usually write instead of forcing yourself to orchestrate a piece full of poetic descriptions that don’t feel natural to you. If this is a writing style that you’d like to achieve one day, I would recommend that you start with smaller doses; for example, instead of trying to make an entire chapter sound poetic, start by only injecting it in the first parts and then growing from there. Another way of looking at it would be trying to determine what you want each paragraph to mean rather than just each stringing together meaningful words. Once you have an idea of the whole image that you want to create, you can utilize deeper words in order to achieve said idea.

Personal Enjoyment: (3)/5
I’m torn because I feel as though the story has a lot of potential for being something greater, but as it stands now, its execution is kind of weak. I noticed that you’re not sure if you want to continue this story or not. If you choose to do so, I would suggest that you re-structure what you’ve written so far in order to bring more attention to the suspenseful moments and build tension as your story progresses.

Total Score: 60.5/100

Reviewer’s Comments: It’s clear that you know your tech in regards to the basics of the English language, which is great! It means that you have a good foundation for being a solid writer and can progress quickly with more and more practice. As I mentioned before, I’m not sure if this story is truly reflective of your talent as a writer, but I’m definitely interested in reading your other pieces.