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Granted By: macchiato-

Title: Monochrome Technicolour (A Series of Kaixing Flash Fiction)

Author: xiuflake

Note: Hello there! Before you start reading the following review, I just want to let you know that I replaced the shop’s rubric with my own because the story happens to be a collection of drabbles. Hope you’re okay with that.

Title

Monochrome Technicolor: Two words: extremely intriguing. The way you juxtaposed two, opposite words together gives the title a glamorous kind of feeling that enhances its power in pulling the readers in. It makes me wonder as to how a technicolour can be monochrome (if that even makes sense) or the other way around. On top of that, I love the fact that you pick Monochrome Technicolor as your collection’s title. It relates well to the overall theme (which I’ll break down in the next section) and it is, again, very intriguing. However, the addition of “(A Series of Kaixing Flash Fiction)” is not my favorite. I know that you intended to tell people that the story is a collection of drabbles, but it can actually be told in the foreword/tags. It just seems to ruin the beauty of your title, but of course, you should remember that it’s just me being picky.

Colours That Don’t Exist: I would like to commend you for not naming this certain drabble as ‘Invisible Colours’ because that surely would decrease the originality and beauty of the title. Colours That Don’t Exist relates perfectly to the plotline and the incommon title you chose is something I need to praise.

Ouvrez Grand Vos Yeux: You surely have taken a full grasp on creating titles that I could not find anything to be criticized. Although this certain title was taken from a prompt, I still like it nonetheless. Good job for putting the English translation of the title too.

Sunset Glow: I was about to finalize the review when I checked the story again and noticed that a new drabble was posted. Sunset Glow, despite the simplicity of its title, intrigues me a lot. The title is one thing (I mean, great job, I don’t have anything to complain); the plot is another – I’ll break it down in the following section.

Theme and Plot

Monochrome Technicolour managed to impress me. A lot. The thing that amazed me the most is your language fluency and high range of vocabulary. I am not, by any chance, a native speaker, but I do enjoy reading stories that use high vocabs and yours is not an exception. However, do note that some people might find such difficult and incommon vocabularies as burdens. I’ll elaborate moer on this in the Structure and Mechanics section.

Onwards with the plot development: I love it. I love the idea. I love the theme. I love the approach that you took. I love the fact that you started the story by focusing on Yixing and Jongin’s differences, creating an impression of how the two men are opposite to each other. I love the way you expand monochrome and technicolour as something so metaphorical and at the same time so beautiful. I love the part where you stated that “Yixing likes the technicolour of Jongin” and “Jongin likes the monochrome of Yixing”; it basically wraps the overall message that you want to deliver. Two different opposites, two different persons – they merged together with the thing called passion in between, and to such belief, they managed to complete each other perfectly. Beautiful.

On the other side, the second drabble, Colours That Don’t Exist, did not manage to blow me as much as Monochrome Technicolour did. The idea is still brilliant, but it did not amaze me for it used the same and similar approach with the previous one. Upon reading this drabble, I noticed that there are quite a few similarities between it and Monochrome Technicolour; from the style of your writing, the theme, up to the message. Do note that it’s not a bad thing. It just affected me as a reader. It did not hold anything new to surprise me, so it was actually kind of a pity. I love it overall though: the last line is especially beautiful. “Every morning, Yixing reminds Jongin to blink away the vivid hues. And in turn, Jongin reminds Yixing to breathe in the shades of pastel.” I mean, what do you expect? Me getting over that certain sentence? No way. It’s too beautiful. It strengthens the moral behind the plot in an indirect manner. Keep up the good work.

Ouvrez Grand Vos Yeux paid off the slight disappointment that I had upon reading Colours That Don’t Exist. Although you said that you strayed a lot from the prompt, I still think that it relates just well. What I like the most from this drabble is the way you broke down the simplicity of the overall plotline into something that emerges complicatedness and strong messages. Let’s be honest: how simple is the plot? Despite so, you managed to throw away the simplicity from this drabble and altered it into something very brilliant, very genius. I can’t praise you enough for your ability in digging a proper depth of your story. Oh and I don’t know if it was intentional, but the line “Yixing gives Jongin an adventure” is very beautiful. It leaves me in a maze of awe because I don’t know – when I interpret it, the sentence creates a circle of various meanings that appear very resplendent to me. That got to be my favorite line from the drabble.

Sunset Glow happens to be my favorite piece so far. From the first words to the last line, you got me awestruck, literally. An 8pm on Monday mornings and a 3am on Friday nights meet to form 6pm sunsets – that is just genius. Really. I can’t praise you enough for the metaphorical sentences.

In Sunset Glow, you are back revolving around the same theme used in the previous drabbles, which, again, is not at all a bad thing, since the message is very strong when interpreted. But I think it wouldn’t be harmful if you try to expand your plot ideas. Try different prompts, stray from the idea of differences and opposite attracts kind of thing. I’m sure you’ll do well in other themes as well. You’re good so far though. No, scratch that. You’re awesome. Keep up the good work!

Structure and Mechanics

You must have spent some time to proofread your story as I barely found any typographical errors. Keep doing that. When your story have only a few mistakes, it is more pleasurable to read, and I truly, genuinely enjoyed reading yours. That aside, I don’t have anything to say in regard to your language fluency except for one:

“He’s never been outside of Seoul, except once when he was young and he went to Incheon to visit family, but that barely counts.”

I think it would have been better to rephrase this particular sentence with:

“[...], except one when he was young, when he went to Incheon to visit his family, [...]”

or:

“[...], except one when he visited his family in Incheon, but that barely counts.”

Past that, your language fluency is flawless.

Going onwards: just now in the Theme section, I said that I would break down the thing about vocabulary here. Like I said, some people might take it as a burden. Some might not want to spend time thinking as to what each word means or to spend some effort to look up for the words they don’t understand in the dictionary. I suggest you to set your targets; that’ll help. As a writer myself, I have the tendency to write with incommon vocabularies (some have considered it wide, too) and some fellow reviewers have pointed out the same thing I said to you. From then on, I started setting my targets; who will read my story; who will enjoy my story. You should do that too. It would be fine if you aim for people who enjoy reading this kind of writing style (don’t worry coz I do!)

On a side note, have you ever thought of giving your collection a poster? Since the drabbles are focusing on a particular pairing, I think it’s not a bad idea to give it a poster. Request somewhere, there are gazillions of talented graphic designers out here. It’ll definitely enhance the beauty of the overall appearance.

Character Analysis

The characters here in the collection of drabbles are very consistent and that is a very good thing. From the first story up to the most recent one, both Yixing and Jongin performed with the same auras, the same individualities – basically they appeared as the same persons from  one drabble to another.

The way I see it, Yixing is identic to monochromic square; to gray-scaled image; to a colorless life, and while people see it as a depressed role, Yixing doesn’t appear that way because he was always supported by the character of Jongin, who was set to be the complete opposite of the former.

Jongin, unlike Yixing, is genuinely identic to colors. He owns the spotlight. He owns the brightness of life. On top of everything else, I see him as someone who believes and even leans onto fate. Now, these significant differences are actually just what you need. It strenghtens the morals that you want to tell your readers: opposite attracts, just like puzzles, like magnets. It also gives an idea that despite thousands of differences, one can still complete another. Yixing and Jongin’s friendship is beautiful and enviable for it stands on two main things: one being the differences, the other being the same passion that they shared.

My interpretations might not be correct (because seriously I have a limited range of imagination), but overall I can just say that the presentation of your characters are properly done. You did not fail to amaze me in this aspect because although these are mere drabbles, you still managed to build and sketch very relatable, consistent, and realistic characters.

Comments/Enjoyment

I love it. I truly, genuinely love it. You can see how many times I repeated the words brilliant, beautiful, love, like, and all those positive adjectives in the review because wow, I love it. I’m not really into drabbles (and I’ve never actually reviewed one), but yours just won me over. I’ll definitely recommend this collection on my thread once I’m back from my semi-hiatus.

That aside, I’d like to apologize for taking too long to finish this review. I really hope the contents of it can satisfy your needs. I am sorry, too, for giving only few criticisms as your story is near to flawless already that I barely found any room for improvement. Do not hesitate to ask if I happen to confuse you with the review (wrote this quickly so there might be a lot of mistakes in regard to my grammar lol) and to drop a comment if you have any feedbacks. Thank you for requesting: don’t forget to credit us in your foreword and make a wish again anytime soon. Have a nice day!

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