LUST
Review shop since 06.29.14
somewhere, I stumbled up a hole, and drowned
Taemin is in a coma but his soul is wondering around the town with an empty memory.
reviewed by: exoexoexolellel
Title (1/5)
Your title is longer than most titles, and the disadvantage of that is everyone's used to glancing at short titles. I myself felt a little tired after reading your title, which may sound weird but it's true. It's definitely not a dull title, but if you can think of any way to shorten it, or perhaps simple rename it (which would cause you to get new graphics, unfortunately) it would be a far better option than leaving it at your current title. I'm not sure how long you want to make your story go for, or whether you intend to reveal the meaning of the title right to the end, but just make sure the story revolves around the title, and that you will show your readers why you chose the title somewhere in the story. It is up to you how you'd reveal it, but I'd suggest the best way is to leave small clues in early chapters, and then explode the meaning right in the reader's face later on. That would not only make the story so much more interesting and significant, but it w also increase the chance of a reader remembering the story and how much of a good read it was. Just a few grammatical things, the 'u' in "Upon" and 'a' in "A" should be in lower case. Your title should read this:
"Somewhere, I Stumbled upon a Hole, and Drowned."
Graphics (3/5)
The blue and red strongly contrasts with the black and grey of the poster, which is definitely a plus. I think it's smart that Taemin is transparent to show that he is a ghost in the story. His gaze on the readers promotes a powerful meaning. To me, it reads "You. Tell me who I am, where I am, and what I am doing", and that's really impactful. Taemin does spend some time on the streets in the story so it's good that streets are used for the background. So far, I have no idea why "drowned" is underlined and in red, and this links to the fact that you haven't show us readers the meaning of the title. I'm not sure why there is a crowd behind Taemin, and what that means. I'm thinking along the lines of those who are already dead and are trapped. . . people like Jinri? Also, maybe using lower case for the quotes of the poster looks better, but it's grammatically wrong. So if you can, try and get the first letters of the sentence boosted up to upper case.
Description and Foreword: (6/10)
I absolutely love how you've italicised strong questions, and then answered them through a confused man. I'm also rooting for the repetition of the first two answers. Some good attention-engaging techniques in your description. This is a neat-picky thing - to better divide them into their separate question-and-answer aspect, you should lessen the space between the question and answer. Shift+Enter creates half the space of what an Enter does. Tighter and closer look much more appealing than spread out. There is a grammatical error, and this is also found in the poster: "She call me Tae" should be "She calls me Tae".
I love how you have character pictures that possess the same background as your poster. It's very effective that you haven't included the character's name or any other information; it's all in the quote. One major problem is that you need to specify who said the quote. Before I read your story, I thought it was the character's own quote, but since they have their names in the quote, my thoughts went to Taemin - maybe he was saying these sentences about each character? But that wouldn't have made sense as Taemin has his quote with his nickname in it as well. Looking back after reading your story, most have been quoted by Taemin, but two belong to Jinri, I think. I feel a little odd by this imbalance, but whether you choose to change the quotes because of what I feel towards this imbalance or not, you should still either state who said the quote as shown below:
"I can't let go of you again, Jinri."
- Lee Taemin
OR, you could make the quote of each character something that they themselves have said in the story.
If you haven't noticed already, you should be using quotation marks for the quotes, not apostrophes.
Story Layout: (1/5)
I don't think that it's correct to italicise the sentences that comes out of a ghost's mouth, but it does single it out from a living's. Nevertheless, you should unitalicise them, but I know that would be a pain so I guess just continue italicising the ghosts' sentences. Something I realised is that you're hitting Enter too many times. Yes, using short sentences in separate lines are effective and can possibly create a suspense throughout words, but keeping doing that in every chapter, and the effect will disappear altogether. Using short sentences in paragraphs will not lose the impact of the subject. Whenever you are unsure of whether to create a new line or not, just ask yourself "am I introducing a new idea here?". You have to be careful with this as a new idea can range from the biggest to smallest of things. A big chunk of description of a bathroom can be separate from the description of a person. I have used the opening of Chapter Eight as an example (I have also fixed up grammatical mistakes):
"
Anger is blinding me, yet I couldn’t express the rage I feel. I hate Jinri for lying, for apparently cheating on my back with my cousin when I was alive. I just couldn’t understand how could she and that freaking cousin do such a thing; was I that worthless to them? Did they just use me because maybe I was too blindly in love with her to mind it?
My mind is filled with so many questions that are left unanswered.
I walk into the office and find Jinri there, watching Jongin as he sulks at the couch and stares into space. He taps his finger continuously on the surface of his office, and when I look up at the wall there are a lot of framed pictures of me, some in black and white, others screaming luxuriousness, and they all seem to be taken by a professional photographer. With an amused face, I take a look at all my pictures and ignore the way Jinri turns to stare at me.
I had made a deal with myself before walking in here; I would just ignore her like she doesn’t really exist: she's just dead like she actually is."
I noticed the significant change of font between chapters before Chapter Seven, and Chapter Eight. This caught me off guard. Chapter Nine's font is completely different as well, and you left Chapter Ten to the classic font. You should make every chapter the same font, as our eyes get used to one font throughout the story. People who are keeping up with your story and read according to your updates may not notice the change of your fonts, but others who start later will notice the dramatic changes, like I did. It would be much easier if AFF allowed us to access the classic font, but unfortunately they do not and so you would have to choose one font and go through every chapter to edit it (that is, if you choose to follow my advice). It's best to keep it consistent, and if you follow what I suggest, you'd end up going through most of your chapters to fix up grammatical mistakes anyway. Tedious, but it would be a more comfortable read for readers.
Plot: (30/30)
It's interesting to see that Taemin is in the middle of living and dead, plus the fact that he has twenty days to remember everything he has forgotten, which is his whole life. Frankly, you have set this out pretty well and I am satisfied with the rate at which you've developed each situation and unravelled (or close to unravelling) the answer. I think the storyline is as beautiful as it can get, and I have no issues with anything which is odd because I seem to always pick out at least one small, if not, tiny, flaw. Though small and not as effective as it can be, there are some plot twists revealed, such as the confusion and misunderstanding of which male Soyeon belongs to, and how family-by-blood can actually see Taemin (which makes me realise something . . . if the last part of my sentence is true, if Soyeon can see Taemin but not Jinri, is Jinri not the mother of Soyeon? :o ;D). I am trying my hardest to rack through my brain to pick out a flaw in the plot, but I can not scrape one crumb, so you should feel really proud of yourself, because this has never happened in my many months of reviewing.
Characterization: (8/10)
This is similar to the previous category. Each character have their own flaws, and none of them raise a question mark in my head. What I am disappointed to see though, is that the characters are so imperfect, that they are perfect - what everyone expects of a standard character. Of course the amnesic ghost is going to feel confused and his feelings are spontaneous in different situations. Of course the dead ghost will act like she's strong since she's experiened but seeing those who are precious to her will immediately break her down. Of course those who can hear or see the ghost themselves will automatically freak out and tell themselves they are hallucinating. We've all seen that, read that, been that. We're looking for something new. Don't take this the wrong way, there is nothing wrong with your characters, except the fact that they have been overused. We need new personalities, different thoughts, unique reactions. Maybe you could enforce this later in the story and start steering each character away from the standard expectations. This may sound difficult right now, and it's a lot harder than it sounds like, but it's definitely a challenge for you, and hey, we all hope to improve, right?
Content Description (8/10)
Your description of the setting, people, and actions are standard. It's not detailed, but it's not dull and short. Simple would be the best word. This is fine as it's not one of the major problems you should be focusing on. Once you have your title, description, story layout, grammar, and the improvement of characters ticked off, you can circle back to this if you want and practise detailing your descriptions.
Flow: (5/5)
Your chapters are shorter compared to other stories I've read, and to me, I loved it. Now that I look back on your story, you have given us so much in ten chapters and a prologue. This is something that I don't have. Despite your short chapters (not to mention the overused breaks between sentences) and the amount of information and incidents revealed in the story, what should have felt like a way-too-fast pace felt like a perfect one. I think it's because that the plot is so simple, and there are numerous of stories linked to yours, and maybe you have a talent for it (if not, heaps of experience), that it's just natural for you to create a steady flow without lacking any information and situations. Whatever you're doing, keep it up because it's amazeballs.
Grammar: (6/10)
Your English looks fluent, but the sentences are broken because you lack some basics.
The most important issue is the conflict between past and present tense. Your chapters have shown a dominance of present tense, and this is actually harder to acquire because most conversations people share are on the topic of what happened in the past, and when we talk about what happened in the past, we are using past tense. I've noticed that there is always the missing 's' in a lot of the words that are used in present tense. Below are some examples:
Quote: Jinri stiffen, she look away and purse her lips in one line.
Correction: Jinri stiffens and looks away, pursing her lips into one line
Quote: Naeun press her fingers against her temples, she's clearly annoyed of that man. ‘I'm not taking over everything, I'm just keeping my brother's work going, is that a problem?’
‘Yeah,’ Jongin folded his arms. ‘He wouldn’t want you to do that, he wouldn’t want you to do anything for him.’
I furrow because I don’t get it, am I in a tiff with my sister as well?
‘What do you know, Jongin?’ Naeun scoff, she give away a smirk. ‘After all, it's you who put him on that situation, I'm sure he wouldn’t want you to do anything with him.’
Jongin's face paled, Jinri next to me chew at her lower lips and a great part of me knows that whatever Naeun meant by that was true.
Correction: Naeun presses her fingers against her temples - she's clearly annoyed at that man. ‘I'm not taking over everything, I'm just keeping my brother's work going, is that a problem?’
‘Yeah,’ Jongin folds his arms. ‘He wouldn’t want you to do that, he wouldn’t want you to do anything for him.’
I furrow because I don’t get it, am I in a tiff with my sister as well?
‘What do you know, Jongin?’ Naeun scoffs, giving a smirk. ‘After all, it's you who put him in that situation, I'm sure he wouldn’t want you to do anything with him.’
Jongin's face pales, Jinri next to me chews on her lower lips, and a great part of me knows that whatever Naeun meant by that was true.
Another thing that bothered me was your use of "stun". This can really only be used in either "to stun her" or "she was stunned".
Quote: I left her behind and walk towards the door to leave the apartment, but Jinri uttered again, causing me to stun at my place.
Correction: I leave her behind and walk towards the door to leave the apartment, but Jinri utters again, leaving me stunned.
I did find some typographical errors in some chapters, but they aren't frequent enough to affect the story which is good. If you go through your chapters again and patch up the present-past-missing-'s' problem, then hopefully you would also come across the typos as well.
Taste of the Story: (8.5/10)
I wouldn't say that I was hooked onto your story, I'd say I was fairly interested in it. But then again, I am a tough one to please, and I did read the first half of your story with my eyelids drooping. Again I'm going to compliment you with eliminating all possiblities of me picking out a flaw in your plot, and the smooth and highly progressive flow of your story. Just fix what I mentioned in the title, description, story layout, grammar, and characterisation categories, and your fanfiction will no doubt turn into a very successful read.
TOTAL: (76.5/100)
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