flight of time

katakatica

reviewed at ✰ Wishing Star ✰ Request Shop (ღ )

Title

Although the title doesn’t really captivate my interest, it was capitalized perfectly and matched well with the plotline. It was not a cliché title that one could often find in this site as well, so you did a brilliant job. The only reason as of why it didn’t captivate my interest was because I am somewhat a very picky reader, so don’t think too much about it.

Foreword/Description

To be quite honest, the description didn’t intrigue me either. It seemed to be describing a story of life that I had come across to pretty often. However, the last bit of sentence that contrasted with the whole paragraph did make me questioned a few things: what sort of tragedy happened and would his friends or lover stay by his side? You did a great job in summing up the story in one, sole paragraph, and you also might have caught many readers’ curiosities so that they continued reading the story. Despite so, I couldn’t brag around saying that it was a perfect description. It’d be better to write it by discarding the spark of clichés because they were the part that put me off.

You put an excerpt in your foreword. You picked the right one, I must say. It talked about a boy who was ill and was predicted to have a mere year or less before his body fall to cease. Aside from the grammar, I don’t have anything against the excerpt. You had done an excellent work. Oh, but can you please remove the song playlist? It was set to turn on automatically and it might have surprised the readers; moreover, an automatic playlist might have turned some readers off, too. At least change the settings so we could play them manually and decide by ourselves whether or not we want the songs to play.

Appearance

The poster and background poured this sort of angst vibes all over the place. The poster was really pretty and relate well to the plot. The background, too, matched well with the tone. You might want to adjust the foreword, though, for the credits of reviewers looked a little bit messy. Other than that, you also used compact and simple fonts. Well done!

Plot

I couldn’t say that your story was original or fresh. The originality remained, of course, but it wasn’t as fresh as it could’ve been. Stories about a person who’s in the edge of his life – struggling over an illness that for a length of time had grown within him – were not rare. But fortunately, you haven’t reached the ending yet so I suggest you to put a twist or some sort that could mark your story different from the others. I am not in a place where I can say this, though, because the story is yours and I do believe that you have planned everything beforehand, therefore take this as a mere reminder. I would love to see what kind of plot turn you would make.

As I read the chapters, I came to a conclusion that this story was written with no other mood but angst. The sentences were worded with full of sorrow and it gave just the best effect for the story. With this kind of writing style, you managed to convey the emotions of the characters (which I will talk about in the Characterization section) and at the same time, you brought the readers into a maze of sadness. I must praise you for that. However, you focused too much on these emotions. In a way, it’s not wrong to convey emotions. I even had told many writers whose stories I had reviewed to convey more of the characters’ feelings and emotions, but in the other side, it could also disadvantage your plot line. Up until the fourth chapter, I wasn’t able to see which road the story was running in. I couldn’t see the footsteps that the plot left. In the fifth chapter and so forth, you managed to give me an overview of the story’s pathway, as of where the story was going. But then you lost the track and I was, again, left confounded. It happened because you focused too much on Kibum’s emotions, therefore the plot seemed to stay in only one point. It was lacking of events and occurrences, whereas these things were important to make the plot alive and real. If you hadn’t put that part where Kibum met a little girl suffering from Leukemia, I would have thought the plot was lacking by way too much. In the further chapters, I recommend you not to lessen the characters’ emotions – because despite everything, it’s an important aspect – but to build the plot by giving more events, actions, and describe them clearly so that they don’t appear like blurry scenes.

Grammar

Is English your first language? If not, I do really have to praise you for writing such a beautiful piece in a language that you’re not completely fluent at. If yes, then you had done a great job. But language isn’t an excuse, so I still have to spot some loose parts in your chapters.

First of all, you do have excellent English. You chose the right vocabularies to match the angst tone, and you had less grammatical mistakes (theoretically). English isn’t my first language as well, and I don’t even have the confidence to say that my level is way above yours, but as I read throughout the chapters I feel like some sentences could’ve been worded more efficiently. Since you disallowed text selection, I was thinking of not correcting the mistakes because heck I’m just too lazy to type everything, but I decided to write a few so I hope you don’t mind putting more attention to this section.

 

 “Still, sometimes, the boy wondered how Jonghyun was going to react when he would be told the truth,...”

Correction: “Still, sometimes, the boy wondered how Jonghyun was going to react when he was told the truth,…”

 

 ““Not long…”would the boy say with a soft voice and slowly, he would break, the mask he had put on weeks or even months before finally shattering only until the tiny, fragile boy would be left, sobbing in his boyfriend’s, his soul-mate’s arms.”

Correction: “Not long…” The boy would say with a soft voice and slowly, he would break. The mask he had put on for weeks or even months would finally shatter until only the tiny, fragile boy would be left, sobbing in his boyfriend’s – his soul mate’s – arms.”

Notes:

✰ Would the boy say with a soft voice is a structure for a question, not a statement. Therefore there should be a rearrangement for the word ‘would’.

✰ The reason why I stopped the sentence right after he would break is because the whole sentence appeared too long and it’s not efficient. A period is needed somewhere and that seemed to be the right spot.

✰ The missing of preposition ‘for’.

✰ The missing of verb or adjective to support the sentence before finally shattering until only a tiny, fragile boy would be left made the sentence confusing and not proper.

✰ The use of massive commas could’ve been replaced with dashes.

✰ Soul-mate should be placed as soul mate instead.

 

““Not now though.”The boy thought with the faintest of smiles as he finally reached their home, a soft, relieved sigh leaving his lips as he had grown quite tired during the short walk.”

Correction: “”Not now, though,” the boy thought with the faintest smile as he finally reached their home. A soft, relieved sigh left his lips as he had grown quite tired during the short walk.”

Notes:

✰ Punctuation mistake (I will break this off right after).

✰ The use of preposition ‘of’, which is unnecessary.

✰ Again, long sentence that could’ve been marked with a period to make it more efficient.

 

“”Is really everything alright?””

Correction: “”Is everything really alright?””

 

“Kibum could feel the pressure on his chest get bigger, a tiny gasps escaping him when he realized that this time, he could barely breath.”

Correction: “Kibum could feel the pressure on his chest got bigger; a tiny gasp escaped him when he realized that this time, he could barely breathe.”

Notes:

✰ Inconsistency of verb tense. It might have confused you but the verb following could was feel, therefore, the word get should’ve been written in the according tense.

✰ Gasps is a plural form. There was an a that remarked the noun as a singular.

✰ In some cases, using verb –ing might not need the usage of was, were, is, are but in this sentence, the rule does seem to give an effect so it is better to leave it in its second tense.

✰ Breath is a noun, breathe is a verb.

 

“And still, now as finally Kibum was back,...”

Correction: “And still, now that Kibum was finally back,…”

 

“Her smile the brightest he had ever seen.”

Correction: “Her smile was the brightest he had ever seen.”

 

 “Such a serene sight was what the elder wanted to wake up every day for the rest of his life.”

Correction: “Such a serene sight was what the elder wanted to wake up for everyday; for the rest of his life.”

Final Correction: “It would be nice to wake up every day and greeted by such a serene sight for the rest of his life.” || “It would be nice to wake up every day and see such a serene sight for the rest of his life.”

Notes:

✰ You can see I wrote two corrections. The original sentence was missing preposition for to make a sense out of it, so I put it on, but it resulted in the repetition of words for. Therefore I changed the structure a little as you can see in the final corrections. It is more efficient without altering the meaning of the sentence but please do correct me if I misunderstood what you were trying to imply.

 

Now, onto punctuation. I don’t know but I can guess that the other reviewers had spotted some punctuation mistakes for you. There are some rules that you have to take not of, most importantly about dialogues.

If a dialogue is to be followed with a phrase, the dialogue should be ended with a comma (,) and the phrase following it isn’t capitalized. For example:

“Yeah, sorry Jongie, just the check-up was a little tiring.” He said quietly as he kissed Jonghyun’s cheek softly,…

Correction: “Yeah, sorry Jongie, just the check-up was a little tiring,” he said quietly as he kissed Jonghyun’s cheek softly,…

 

You also have the tendency to write long, endless sentences that could’ve been marked with a period (like I have mentioned previously). There are a lot of other punctuations aside from commas, too, so you should try to use them more often. Not only to gain variations, but also to affect the sentence in a good way.

Dashes, for instances, are used to replace commas to set off words and phrases that interrupt one sentence. I’ll take an example from the previous:

“…, sobbing in his boyfriend’s, his soul-mate’s arms.”

Correction: “…, sobbing in his boyfriend’s – his soul mate’s – arms.”

 

Semicolons are used to connect two main clauses.

“Kibum could feel the pressure on his chest get bigger, a tiny gasps escaping him when he realized that this time, he could barely breath.”

Correction (excluding the grammars): “Kibum could feel the pressure on his chest get bigger; a tiny gasps escaping him when he realized that this time, he could barely breath.”

 

I think it would be wise to re-read your chapters and revise these mistakes. There were a lot of inefficient sentences and wrong punctuations­­­­­. The story would be more pleasurable to read if these flaws were reduced. Don’t worry. I lack in these kinds of flaws, too. I can totally understand the difficulty but proofreading and revising would certainly help. All in all, I really like your writing style – the angst mood marked my total weakness – so please don’t be discouraged. Keep on writing and that itself would help you to improve.

Flow

Like I said in the Plot section, the story seemed to be in a momentum, like it was staying in one, sole point. That is pretty much why I would say the flow was missing. The lack of events and occurrences gave no flow toward the story, so I couldn’t really determine whether it was running in the right pace or the right track.

Characterization

Kibum’s development was amazing. Not only that I could imagine him being a real person, I could also walk over the bridge that connected the both of us. In another word, you wrote Kibum’s character in a way that I could completely relate to him. The difficulty of characterization was mostly in making the characters relatable. Building realistic and believable ones were not as hard as creating a bridge for the readers to connect with the characters. You, though, did an amazing job in conveying Kibum’s emotions. At first, I thought Kibum was just that typical boy who suffered from an incurable illness and lived an empty life, but the fact that he was scared to die – that he even lied to his lover in order to make another lively world – made my sympathize him. It was actually nice to know that Kibum was neither giving up nor remaining strong. He was in between, and that just made his character real.

Jonghyun, though, didn’t develop as much as Kibum had. His character remained constant. It showed not enough emotions and actions so I couldn’t see him that well. I couldn’t relate to him as much as I wanted to. I understand that the story was mostly talking from the side of Kibum – that’s why Kibum’s character stood up the most – but Jonghyun was also a main lead and his point of view was shown only starting from chapter nine. Before then, there were no sparks of backgrounds or perspectives from Jonghyun’s side. It was such a waste because every character needs depth, even the minor ones. And Jonghyun was one of the main characters so it would be great if you could explore more about him in the upcoming chapters. I could also see how you didn’t put any background about these two aside from Kibum’s illness and their relationship, but it wouldn’t be wrong to put more background of their regular life. It would build and develop the characters more.

On a side note, Minho and Taemin were said to be the characters too, yes? But up until the eleventh chapter they didn’t appear and I guess they were not the main leads, so I think it would be better to discard their names from the tags and Characters section. The highlight of this story was the romance between Jonghyun and Kibum, so the mention of other minor characters wouldn’t be necessary, moreover when they were not mentioned after so many chapters passed. That’s a personal opinion, though.

Comments/Enjoyment

If the story wasn’t , I might have said that I totally had a good read. Again, that’s a personal opinion so don’t take it to heart. Keep up that spark of emotions that your characters have, but don’t forget to dig more of their depth. Also, if you keep on writing with this style (by of course, improving the grammars), I think you would be able to immerse the readers onto each word you wrote. Overall, very well done! I’m sorry the review took too long to be posted; there were other stories I was working on, so I hope you didn’t mind the wait. Thank you for requesting and don’t forget to credit the shop!

 

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