Pick Up - Edragonista
DEATH N♔TE Review Sh♔p [CLOSED/Finishing Request]
Author: Edragonista
Reviewer: LavenderAlisa19
Chapters 1-19
Title [5/5]
You definitely scored full points in terms of appeal. ‘Petals’ are generally associated with flowers—a nature element that is soft, serene and feminine. While ‘punches’ is commonly treated as an aggressive one. Putting these two totally opposite elements together would certainly attract AFF surfers, and they might even give your story a shot. The title was original and related to the story too. Good job!
I also loved how you put each chapter title in the chapter itself. This way, no spoilers were given upon viewing your foreword page.
Description & Foreword [9/10]
The description was fine as it is; it gave enough information and introduction to the story. However, it was told through Luhan’s perspective, which was quite misleading because the story turned out to be told through Nana’s point of view most of the time.
And personally, (this is just merely my opinion) I would prefer you list out Luhan’s positive traits first, then the negative ones.
Your version:
Heart throb Luhan who excels in almost anything and everything.
But the key word here is almost.
He is the epitome of a perfect male; it would be injustice to clarify it out into words. An angelic voice that trembles the very being of the listeners, a face verified to agree with the 'Oppa will always be prettier than you' catch-phrase with a muscular, medium framed body, he does not lack in any area.
Except relationships that basically starts with the 'L' word. With zero experience, he's actually branded a 'Romantic Romeo' for no absolute reason.
That is until he met Shim Nana; the wallflower.
Suggestion (with some modifications here and there):
Luhan, a heartthrob who excels in almost anything and everything.
He is the epitome of a perfect male; it would be unjustifible to clarify it into words. Possessing an angelic voice that trembles every listener, a face that is verified to agree with the 'oppa will always be prettier than you' catch-phrase, and a muscular, medium framed body, Luhan definitely does not lack in any area.
Luhan, the heartthrob who excels in almost anything and everything.
But the key word here is almost.
And that’s when she met Shim Nana, the wallflower.
If you revealed his ‘negative’ trait right from the start (‘but the key word here is almost’), there would be less suspense. Then again, this is just my suggestion. You are free to take it or not.
Plot [12/15]
The story was quite common: beautiful female lead and handsome, heartthrob male lead, both of whom were infatuated with each other from the first moment they met. The plot seemed to be fluff-centred as well, with a few conflicts inserted here and there.
Despite the storyline’s commonness, I definitely loved the inclusion of Nana’s passion in drawing flowers and her ‘talent’ in hapkido, both of which were two strong and genuine elements in your story. They definitely set your fic apart from the rest with the same storyline. So good job on this :) You seemed to have a wide knowledge in these two areas as well, seeing how well you described the processes during the drawing and sparring in the story.
I have some thoughts regarding the conflicts though, particularly the Yixing Mama and Xander-Audrey ones. They were quite under-developed, in my opinion. I’m not sure if you were planning to include these conflicts into your story the moment you outlined it, or you came up with them as the story progressed. The fact that they were in the very last few chapters of the story, it was as if these conflicts were added as an after-thought so that the fic wouldn’t be monotonously sweet and fluffy. And the fact that they were in the very last few chapters as well, it made no room for the solutions to grow. Hence the solutions were made rather quickly and easy in my opinion, making the conflicts seem less intimidating and the solutions less engaging.
That aside, I loved how Luhan and Nana’s first meeting occurred. While it was usual to mistake a person for the opposite gender, you made a slight twist by making both of them think that the other person was of the same gender as them (Luhan thought he was dealing with a guy, while Nana was sure she was about to face a girl). I also admired the fact that Nana used to be in a juvenile school before; that was unique. Oh and I liked how you made Luhan kiss Yixing! Ahaha. That was quite unexpected and we could see how Yixing Mama was freaked out by the sight. Poor soul :’) The way you introduced Audrey to the story was one to be admired as well, and how everything seemed to connect when Luhan assigned Minseok to investigate about her.
Characters [11/15]
In all honesty, the two main characters, Nana and Luhan, had the same characteristics as found in the characters in other fluff-genre fanfics. With their beauty, (or handsomeness for Luhan. Or is it beauty for him too? Haha), their angelic voices, Luhan’s wealth, and other sweet personalities. Even though Nana’s character was more developed than Luhan’s—since the story was mostly told from her perspective—quite frankly, their overall personalities were still quite shallow.
I must say you described Nana’s character very well in the beginning chapters, like how she rolled her eyes in annoyance every time Mira was around. I really adored that. I finally felt, “Ah, finally some strong character we have here.”
But when she came to the campus and met Yixing and Luhan, somehow she made a 180-degree turn and became one of those typical girls who fell in love. Honestly, I was taken aback when Nana casually followed Yixing and Luhan everywhere around the campus—accepting their offers for a ride and the like—without the fear of being judged. Especially when these two guys were quite well-known in their campus. If I’m not mistaken, it was already mentioned in the beginning chapters that Nana wanted to be alone and she didn’t believe in making friends. “At some points, ‘friends’ would backstab you,” she said.
Even though she couldn’t avoid Yixing’s offer at the first time, I thought she would be a bit more reluctant the next times—like declining the guys’ offers and Luhan’s invitations to spar, or find alternative route to travel from one part of the campus to another, or just avoid these two guys at all cost. I honestly felt like she opened up a bit too fast to both Luhan and Yixing.
You included Yixing in your tags and his picture in the main poster; I thought they would mean something big. Like, there would be a rivalry between Luhan and Yixing in getting Nana, or Yixing could be a serious threat figure to Luhan and Nana’s relationship, but no significant thing happened within him. Yes, there was Yixing Mama as the conflict, but like I said in the Plot section, the conflict wasn’t really intimidating because in the end, it was Yixing himself who resolved the problem.
Maybe you did have some big role for him, but due to the chapter limit that you had to obey, you changed your mind in the middle of the story, which, in turn, Yixing only became one of the side characters.
However, I loved how you included Nana’s habit of rubbing her left wrist every time she lied. It was a subtle thing but I actually found it endearing. And I adored how Luhan already envisioned his future with Nana during their bungee jumping. That was really sweet of him.
Grammar [10/15]
In general, you had a good command in grammar. There were no serious glaring issues. You definitely knew most of the rules, like when to use inifinite verbs (verbs that are in their original form) and I must applaud you for that. However, I did spot some of your repetitive mistakes in the story, which I will list out below, with some of their examples.
Note: The ones in red are my corrections/suggestions.
1. I noticed that you had the love for using semi-colons (;). It was definitely a nice addition to the story since AFF authors rarely use them in their fanfictions. However, there were times when commas (,) could have simply done the purpose. Bear in mind that semi-colons do not simply replace commas—they do have their own purpose too. Here's a link on how to use semi-colons correctly.
Chapter 1
What you did: Packing two sets of scrambled egg sandwiches for herself; the girl left the house before the owner wakes up and walked off to school.
Correction: Packing two sets of scrambled egg sandwiches for herself, the girl left the house before the owner wakes up and walked off to school.
[The phrase ‘packing....for herself’ is not an independent clause, so you have to use comma instead of semi-colon]
Chapter 11
What you did: The cute yet feisty one; Byun Baekhyun, the adorable yet dorky one; Park Chanyeol who turned out to be Yura’s little brother, the tall and handsome one; Ahn Jaehyo and a cute baozi-like guy; Kim Minseok.
Correction: The cute yet feisty one, Byun Baekhyun; the adorable yet dorky one, Park Chanyeol, who turned out to be Yura’s little brother; the tall and handsome one, Ahn Jaehyo; and a cute baozi-like guy, Kim Minseok.
Chapter 4
What you did: “...Figure you’d ask. Pack your things; we’re going back to the group tour. You’re missing out a lot.”
[NOW THIS IS THE CORRECT USE OF SEMI-COLON! YAY!]
2.
Chapter 9
What you did: She had always liked purple, but this time around, Yura had chosen pink theme instead of purple.
Suggestion: She had always liked purple, but this time around, Yura had chosen (the colour) pink as the theme instead of purple.
Chapter 12
What you did: The hug lasted a few minutes and Nana was still there, stock still, when the older male left.
Suggestion: The hug lasted for a few minutes and Nana was still there, stock still, even after the older male left.
What you did: Luhan pleaded as he looked at the lifeless girl.
Suggestion: Luhan pleaded as he looked at the lifeless-looking girl.
[If you leave it like the original, it implies that Nana was already dead.]
Chapter 17
What you did: It was labeled as the year’s ‘Art Festival Winner’ and stared at the painting longer than needed.
Suggestion: It was labeled as the year’s ‘Art Festival Winner’ and Luhan/he stared at the painting longer than needed.
You had the tendency to leave out some words, such as ‘that’ and ‘who’. In Malay, they kinda represent the word ‘yang’.
3. I also noticed that you loved using ‘as’ as your conjunction. However, there were a lot of places where other conjunctions were more appropriate to use. To the best of my knowledge, ‘as’ is normally used when two actions are done at the same time.
Chapter 10
What you did: “I d-don’t think my…” Luhan began as Nana cut him off, “that’d be cool, I guess. What do you say to that, Luhan?”
Suggestion 1: “I d-don’t think my…” Luhan began but Nana cut him off, “That’d be cool, I guess. What do you say to that, Luhan?”
Suggestion 2: “I d-don’t think my…” Luhan began as Nana spoke, “That’d be cool, I guess. What do you say to that, Luhan?”
Chapter 14
What you did: With a cheerful hello! Nana was seated at the passenger seat as the car cruised its way down the unfamiliar roads of the Seoul streets.
Suggestion: With a cheerful hello! Nana seated herself at the passenger seat before the car cruised its way down the unfamiliar roads of the Seoul streets.
4. Capitalization and punctuation errors in dialogues.
Chapter 9
What you did: Igniting the engine, Luhan looked at her and smiled, “you were so confident that you could win against me. What happened, eh?”
Correction: Igniting the engine, Luhan looked at her and smiled. “You were so confident that you could win against me. What happened, eh?”
Chapter 14
What you did: Nana looked up and smiled back at him, “oppa, I thought that you of all people would know how I feel about him.”
Correction: Nana looked up and smiled back at him. “Oppa, I thought that you of all people would know how I feel about him.”
Generally, we use a comma before or after a dialogue when action verbs are used, ones that are directly related to the dialogue (said/exclaimed/shrieked etc.)
Besides these, there were a few run-on sentences as well, and tense inconsistencies. I could see that past tense was mostly used in this fic, so please be consistent. As a side note, shortenings such as ‘that’s’, ‘they’re’ and ‘it’s’ are generally treated to be in their present tense: ‘that is’, ‘they are’, and ‘it is’.
Writing Style and Vocabulary [7/10]
Upon reading your story, I noticed that, wow, there were a lot of big words! Words like grandiose, zephyr and cryptic. I’ve never encountered such words before, so it was nice to see such additions to your story. I was so impressed that I don’t feel like checking the dictionary for every single second, haha. All I can say is that, I hope you used them for the right purpose :) Even though your vocabulary became simpler as the story went on, it was still decent and became much more understandable, especially for a non-native speaker like me :3
At some places, however, there were other words which were more appropriate to use in place to the ones you were using:
Chapter 4
“I guess it was too much of a walking. Well, I am tired as hell too since this place is enormously unnecessary.”
[I'm not sure if this is a typo or it’s what you really meant. Unnecessarily enormous?]
Chapter 8
she saw the gleaming red Turbo cruising by and she fastened her steps.
[quickened. Because fastened means tied.]
Chapter 9
She was taken to shops after shops to try on uncountable outfits which Yura made her put on.
[countless]
Now, onto your writing style. In the first few chapters, you tend to use the style that was a bit complicated, where you squeezed as many description as possible in one sentence/paragraph. An example would be the very first paragraph in the first chapter.
A manly yelp resonated from the dojang situated with the rest of the sports amenities scattered around the sports complex of Hanyang University. Located between the sparkling blue Olympic-quality swimming pool and the four connected tennis hard courts, which were presently empty, Hapkido practitioners were present for their weekly scheduled practice. Sweat glistened from dark brown baby hairs across the wide temple of the heart-shape face feature of the male who currently had another male pinned right below him.
The reason why I say this is complicated is that, ‘manly yelp’ and the surroundings were two totally different subjects. At first, I was like, “okay, the author’s introducing the uni’s sports complex now”. When I arrived at the ‘dark brown baby hair’ part, my mind was confused for a second: “okay, why suddenly– There’s a dark brown baby hair as one of the facilities too?” By the end of the paragraph, I actually forgot that there was a manly yelp.
Another example would be:
With his incomparable eye-catching beauty feature of golden brown short hair, heart shaped face profile with a cute semi-concave nose, average puppy brown eyes and perfectly ordered pearly whites that could melt the hearts of any sane girl.
Not only was this sentence lengthy, you also included a lot of adjectives for each of his facial feature. And honestly, by the end of the sentence, I couldn’t recall how his eyes looked like, lmao.
Nevertheless, the complicated writing style only dominated the first few chapters. It became simpler and much easier to read as the story progressed. Which is a good thing.
At one point in Chapter 12, your writing style was surprisingly casual it betrayed the seriousness of the current situation—Nana fainted after meeting Xander.
1. Hearing his name called by the honey sweet – pause, yet manly, play – voice,
2. Well, Luhan might be excused since the patient was in his car, and the others might have to stay back since they have no absolute reason but just following the speed he was going at. Anyway, as they reached the hospital,
I personally feel that if you omit these highlighted words, the sentences still flow perfectly.
There were also times when your style became expilicit or too straightforward. An example would be in Chapter 11.
Going through introductions, Nana tried hard to remember all of their names. The cute yet feisty one; Byun Baekhyun, the adorable yet dorky one; Park Chanyeol who turned out to be Yura’s little brother, the tall and handsome one; Ahn Jaehyo and a cute baozi-like guy; Kim Minseok. Jaehyo and Baekhyun were the only ones who participated in the training; the other two were there to just join in the fun. Yixing was there as well, talking animatedly with his friends. Training hours were over and they all headed off to the cafeteria to fill themselves up. It was really noisy that day.
The paragraph was mostly descriptive, but the last two sentences were too straightforward. It was an abrupt change from the previous ones that were detailed, which in turn made the overall flow seem rushed.
Logicality [9/10]
Seeing how Nana was with Luhan at almost 24/7, I was quite surprised that she wasn’t threatened by any of Luhan’s fanclub members. Especially when Nana was still a freshman. Maybe you wanted to avoid the clichè queenka scenes, but still, it was quite surprising that everyone seemed to be welcoming the relationship between Nana and Luhan. There’s also Nana’s character that was not quite believeable, but I’ve already penalized you for it in the Characters section, so I won’t be deducting anymore points in this.
Other than these two, everything else was quite believeable :)
Flow [8/10]
The flow was a bit draggy and slow during the sweet and fluff moments, but it was rushed when the conflicts were introduced. Like I already mentioned in the Plot section, this was probably because of the fact that they were in the very last few chapters. And there were times when the flow was rushed as well, particularly during the straightforward sentences.
Presentation/Structure [3/5]
The font size that you used was too small. On Google Chrome, I had to zoom in to 125% for comfortable reading and analyizing. I think for Calibri, the considerable smallest size to use is 14; it is also the font type and size I'm using for the review.
It also seemed like you tried to even out the length of each paragraph as well. While this contributed to your story’s neatness, you committed the repetitive grammatical mistake in the story, which is squeezing two speakers into the same paragraph.
Chapter 15
What you did:
“That’s true, but, I don’t know. You know how Yixing’s Mama is like at times. Right, Kris gege?” Tao asked as he slung an arm over the passenger seat to hug Kris’s neck. “Yeah, Luhan. You know how Mrs. Zhang is. I just hope you have the right plan in time,” Kris agreed and he pouted at the two who were not being his fans at that moment. “Tch! You two,” he mumbled and drove on in silent. You could almost hear the “Almost paradise ~” tune when 9 hot males climbed out of the row of luxurious international brand cars. Beat that, Geum Jan Di. Nana smirked as she remembered one of the K-Dramas she watched.
Correction:
“That’s true, but, I don’t know. You know how Yixing’s Mama is like at times. Right, Kris gege?” Tao asked as he slung an arm over the passenger seat to hug Kris’s neck.
“Yeah, Luhan. You know how Mrs. Zhang is. I just hope you have the right plan in time,” Kris agreed which made Luhan pout at the two who were not being his fans at that moment.
“Tch! You two,” he mumbled and drove on in silent.
You could almost hear the “Almost paradise ~” tune when 9 hot males climbed out of the row of luxurious international brand cars. Beat that, Geum Jan Di. Nana smirked as she remembered one of the K-Dramas she watched.
Other than these flaws, your story was definitely neat, consistent and organized.
Enjoyment [3/5]
Personally, I’m not a mega fan of fluff, but that doesn’t entirely mean that reading your story was a bad thing. To be honest, it was during the conflicts that my interest was totally invested.
Bonus: [+3]
Total: 80/100
My notes:
Bear in mind the correct uses of semi-colons (do not overuse them!) and your missing words. Also, please do not be afraid to break down your paragraphs into much smaller paragraphs. Trust me, by breaking down paragraphs, not only will you omit the grammar mistakes, you could also put emphases into good use.
As a non-native English speaker, I understand the struggle of explaining and describing things in English, thus the occasional complicated writing style. But you progressed well in this aspect as the story went on, so props to you!
It’s a shame that the contest put a limit to the number of chapters. Otherwise, I believe you could execute the solution to each conflict perfectly. I was still a bit disappointed when there was no mention regarding Xander afterwards, (like, umm, what happened to him?) and also Luhan. What happened to him after being shot? Was there no side effect at all?
Even though the story was a bit common, it was still a decently written one. I could see how much you babied this story as well, seeing you editted the chapters even after a few months you originally posted them—some were even re-editted! Your effort was definitely admirable, and it showed from the neatness of your story, so keep up the good work!
Seeing as the contest is in its judging phase, I'm not sure if you're allowed to make the suggested changes, but hopefully, they'd be useful for your upcoming and ongoing projects.
Good luck on the writing contest and for your future writing endeavors! If you need any clarification regarding the review, feel free to leave your comment on the shop or PM me. I'll be looking forward to your feedback. (I'm sorry for the long-a** review though, orz. I swear I tried to cut it down, but somehow it was still this long T.T)
Thank you for requesting at Death Note Review Shop! Don't forget to credit this shop in your foreword :)
Alisa/LavenderAlisa19
27th April 2014, 18:45
Comments