Story Title: One Last Dance (1 개의 춤)
Reviewer: chubyfaceDiVa
Author: YuukiHikari

FIRST IMPRESSION

How effective was the title?

The title was a good fit to your story over all, but as you probably already know, it’s a pretty common title. There are plenty of stories on asianfanfics itself with the same title. Hence, I’m not too sure it would really attract readers if one were to see it while scrolling past it. Still, it is a good title.

Poster and BG layout? (Only if you have one. If you don't have one, you will not be assessed on it

Your poster was nice. It had a sad feel and featured two of your main characters; however, it would’ve been a nicer feel if TaeHyung looked a little more brooding or sad in the picture. Still, since that was not in your power, it’s not all that important. :)

Foreword and description: Did it draw me into wanting to read more?

The forward was simple, short and to the point. If I was someone looking for angst, I would certainly scroll down to the description.

But, then I was a little confused by all the pronouns used in the description. There was too many ‘he’-s to actually trace who is talking about whom, especially since the narrative is in the 3^rd person omniscient view. It felt a little convoluted as I read the part. But other than that, the content was good enough. Someone left, and someone is tormented by the departure and is currently tearing himself up about it. Great!

Exactly what we expect from an angst story. And your wording is generally not bad, other than the confusing use of pronouns that threw the scene off.

But I will add something: divide your sentences more. There is no real credit in writing ridiculously long sentences when there is no need for them. When we superimpose too many ideas into one sentence, we are essentially reducing the impact of each idea to only a fraction of its original punch.

STORY

How was the plot laid out?

The plot is honestly very basic. Even I have two similar stories. But both my stories have different sub-plots. The sub plots add diversity to the original score and give it a new colour. But, this is a oneshot so I’m not going to stress too much on the plot and its uniqueness or foundation. I thought your story was a lightly somber story that I sufficiently enjoyed.

How was the pacing of the story? Was it draggy or was it rushed through?

The pacing was just right. Not too fast, neither too slow.

Was the characterization consistent?

I mostly understood Taehyung’s condition. He was killing himself with the guilt of not going in to save JongKook that day and the fact that he saw the dead boy was another source of turmoil for him. And it wasn’t a fight that was about to end soon. I liked how you also focused a bit on NamJoon and the other members. It gave the story a more holistic feel. So this was not too bad.

But, you could’ve really cashed in on the angst quotient if all the detailing you did to add depth hit me the way it was supposed to. The trick to writing good angst is in choosing just the right word. Short, vivid and impactful

Was the story flow fluent? Was it choppy or was it smooth?

I’m sorry. The story was anything but fluent. The fact that you didn’t mention Jongkook by name meant there was a lot of times he was referred to with the pronoun ‘he’. It was confusing at times to which ‘he’ you were referring to as TaeHyung was referred to the third person. Then there were the badly written fine detailing which again contributed to muddling up the narration of the events. By badly written I mean, the writing of the detailing wasn’t done well; the details themselves were actually good.

How did you organize your events? Was it in order or was it all over the place?

It was all in order. :) 

How effective was the ending of each chapter? Did it leave me wanting to read more?

The ending was complete. I have no complaints. :)

MECHANICS

Grammar and Spelling?

Grammatically, there weren’t any elementary-level mistakes. If anything, your general application of English is good. However, when you attempt to give it more depth or increase the difficulty level of the structure, the cracks begin to show. The first of which would be you’re over-meshing ideas to fit into a single sentence. There is honestly no need to do that. If you want things to sound deeper, write short impactful sentences. Long sentences can confuse the readers, the point you’re trying to get through, while even going to the extent of ruining your flow. Books or stories need to be able to be easily read. If I have to back up and re-read a sentence to understand what it meant, the writer’s not doing a very good job.

And then comes the mechanical part of sticking all these sentences together. There were strange breaks in the compound sentences that you used all over the story and I constantly felt the urge to re-edit the text. Rearrange it. Make it feel less choppy and abrupt.

Anyway, what I’m basically trying to say is that write smaller, simpler sentences to avoid showing the readers all the cracks in grammatical aspect of the writing. Try to limit yourself at sentences having one dependent and two independent clauses. Or two dependent with two independent clauses at most. 

After all, one can’t feel the character’s pain if he or she can’t read it properly. Also, separate your dialogues and the reactions of the speaker and person that is being spoken to. As a rule, while writing dialogues, one is supposed to make a new paragraph every time a different speaker says something.

So if a speaker says something - for example, “Taehyung?” – the reaction to the question (if any) should come in the next paragraph followed by the verbal reply.

Eg. ~

“Taehyung.”

Like a magnet, the mentioned boy’s head snapped up, and his eyes opened eagerly. “Yes, Namjoon hyung?”

The elder boy crossed his arms over his chest, nodding in approval at TaeHyung’s proper posture. What ever this is (…) Until then, you are dismissed.”

TaeHyung nodded, brushing his pants up as he stood up and stretched. ~

I hope you got what I mean.

Use of Transition Words? (It helps with the flow from paragraph to paragraph so it doesn't seem choppy)

Your transitioning was fine. The words were there, but the writing still appeared genrerally choppy for the aforementioned reason.

How did I like it overall? Further Comments?

Over all, I think this story is pretty great. It could, however, be amazing, with some tweaks here and there. Just pay closer attention to what I mentioned in the sections above and I know you’ll continue to write amazing stories in the future. I know I wasn’t the reviewer you originally requested, so I hope you didn’t mind my doing it. Still, if there’s anything else that you want to ask or want me to clarify, feel free to pm me. :) Have a good day

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