candle in the rain
Story by sparkyuling
Reviewed by amber_rose

Title [2/5]
I could understand where the title was coming from, with the candle representing the relationship between Kyuhyun and Sungmin and the rain being the circumstances that made it difficult for their relationship to survive; however, I didn’t find it particularly outstanding in a way that would attract me to read this story. Also, besides that single line in the foreword that made reference to the candle in the rain, there were no other references to this imagery in your entire story, which was a little disappointing. If the story could have ended with a rainy scene, perhaps it would have fit the title a bit better.

Description/Foreword [2/5]
The description and foreword felt too brief to be able to convey anything unique about the plot of the story, beyond the fact that Kyuhyun was a ghoul. From what was written, I would have pinned the ghoul character as the main highlight of entire story, beyond which it just came across as though it would be the same as any other dramatic love story. Given that the description and foreword play a critical role in hooking the reader’s attention, it would have been helpful if there had been a more in-depth glimpse into what we could expect from the story. There was somewhat of repetition in the essence of the description and the foreword, the same thing said in two slightly different ways; this meant that the foreword didn’t add very much else and seemed slightly unnecessary. A suggestion would be to change your foreword to perhaps replace the second half of it with a short snippet from the actual story itself—I would have chosen a couple of lines from when Kyuhyun and Sungmin first met when they were kids. That particular snippet would have given an interesting look into where their story began, and given that some foreshadowing about the ending has been provided in the description, it would have stirred some interest in what happened in between to have made their relationship evolve from a promising beginning to a potentially tragic end.

There were some grammatical errors in your description and foreword that you might want to look out for. In general I thought your language use was fine for most of the story, so you might have just overlooked a thing or two. An en dash was used in the first sentence of the description and also in the foreword where it should have been an em dash, since what you were trying to do was to achieve a break in the sentence (more of that in the Language section). The spelling of the word ‘till’ was also incorrect in the description.

Plot [18/30]
The story started off strongly, with a super interesting first chapter that introduced us to the two main characters. There were many elements in the opening chapter that got me curious, beginning with Kyuhyun’s obsession with that one chocolate bar he was eating, and then Sungmin strolling in with a dead body in a canvas bag. I found it highly amusing how a corpse had just been dragged in through the door, yet both of them seemed more concerned with the fact that Kyuhyun had been caught eating chocolate when he wasn’t supposed to. It was a smart choice to have started the story this way, because it’s quirky and the reader immediately gets to see what’s unique about the two characters; they get to realise that Kyuhyun is a ghoul (and also what a ghoul is, for those of us who might be unaware) and Sungmin as a seasoned killer. Placed in any other situation, no one would go near a ghoul who eats humans nor a homicidal maniac with a ten foot pole, but the way the dialogue between the two of them has been written makes light of their rather dark identities and introduces an element of fun into the story.

What I also liked about the story was that the main plot was actually extremely simple, exploring the tensions and insecurities that are part and parcel of any relationship. However, it was made interesting by the fact that they were not your ordinary couple and they were 1) pursuing a relationship that was socially forbidden and 2) trying to keep that relationship alive while constantly being on the run. In a way there were some aspects of their relationship with which you could draw parallels to real life, such as how relationships were once frowned upon in the not-so-distant past (and possibly still so in certain societies today), resulting in couples needing to resort to eloping in order to protect their love. In terms of portraying the subtleties in Kyuhyun and Sungmin’s relationship, I think you did a great job. There were also some underlying themes within the story such as the exploration of societal pressures and stereotypes which I thought were quite interesting and added some depth to the story. The concept of how the rest of human society scorns and discriminates against ghouls for what they are without caring about who they are is one that is very relatable because it reflects a very real problem in our society. No one gets to choose their parents, yet there are many out there who are discriminated against by virtue of their appearances and the stereotypes we associate with them.

I liked the foreshadowing that was planted here and there, especially when Kyuhyun and Sungmin were on the plane discussing their relationship and alluding to literary characters such as Romeo and Juliet, and Orpheus and Eurydice. Both allusions were chosen well because these couples shared something in common, in that one of them was too eager and as a result ruined their chances of a happily ever after. In Romeo and Juliet’s case, if only Romeo had waited a while longer he would have realised that Juliet was not truly dead; for Orpheus and Eurydice, if Orpheus had been more patient and waited until they were out in the light before he turned around, he would not have lost Eurydice forever. I wasn’t certain if you picked those two couples for that reason or if you chose them only because both of them met with tragic ends, but I thought it would have been even better if Kyuhyun and Sungmin’s eventual end more closely mirrored that of the two couples cited with one of them making a wrong move because he was overly eager, and as a result dooming their relationship to failure.

There were several plot points that I felt were a little unrealistic—even though the world you are portraying isn’t exactly the same one we live in (given that there are ghouls walking the planet)—it still shouldn’t veer too far away from what is reasonable and plausible. The entire premise of them jetting from country to country after committing murders to feed Kyuhyun’s thirst for human flesh is quite a stretch, especially when they don’t seem particularly discreet or skilled with the way they go about things. For all these countries, especially one like the USA which you started off with, I’m not convinced that it would have been so easy for them to escape the authorities and hop on a plane so easily. It might have been more reasonable if they were just running within a country instead of across borders, because all that jet-setting would suggest that the border controls of all these countries are a lot more lax than they actually are. While we’re on that point about them running from the cops, for them to have mugged a random man on the street and robbed enough money off him to fund two plane tickets is also highly unrealistic. Also, they crashed a car and Sungmin was bleeding from the head—I am amazed that he didn’t need any medical attention because his concussion and all that blood made the injury sound more serious than it seemed to be.

With regard to the scenes, I can’t say that I really understood why they were necessary. The presence of physical intimacy is a important in a committed relationship, so I could argue that the first scene where Sungmin gave up halfway could have been there to signal the tiny cracks in their relationship which got on Kyuhyun’s nerves, since he clearly wanted something more from Sungmin. The airplane toilet I felt was wholly unnecessary because it didn’t seem to serve any larger purpose, or perhaps that purpose just wasn’t portrayed clearly enough. When introducing scenes into stories, I think it’s always important to take a step back and think about why you’re putting it in and how it drives your plot forward. If it serves to show development in the relationship of your characters then it would be perfectly alright, but if it is just there to satisfy readers who want to see some action then maybe not.

Plot-wise, things started going downhill after Kyuhyun was arrested and put in prison for attacking Sungmin. Firstly, for Sungmin’s family to have called the police (and I assumed it was them because there was no one else in the house) seemed strange given their mafia background. The police would likely have been the last people that they would have called because people with illegal dealings don’t typically like associating with men in uniform just in case they get implicated. If they were outraged by what Kyuhyun did, there would likely have been a gun lying around the house that they could have used to solve the problem themselves—if Sungmin had all the tools he needed to commit all those previous murders then I wouldn’t put it past the rest of his family to have the know-how to do the same. Next, I couldn’t understand why it was that the police needed to keep Kyuhyun alive for a certain period of time before they arranged for his execution. If they knew that Kyuhyun was a ghoul and a murderer then there was no reason for them to delay the death sentence. Even if they did, to sentence another prisoner to death by letting Kyuhyun eat the poor man seems like a grossly inhumane thing to be doing, even if the latter was already on death row.

Everything that transpired in prison felt like fillers that were just needed to get us from point A to point B, where point A was Kyuhyun losing his mind and injuring Sungmin and point B was Sungmin breaking Kyuhyun out of jail. What was the purpose of introducing this new character Taekwoon? It felt like he should have played a more pivotal role, possibly saying something that would give Kyuhyun a eureka moment, but that never came. This entire section of the story was driven by plot—you needed to move the characters from one to the next—however as a result of that there were numerous moments in between where it felt like the characters were doing and saying things just for the sake of getting us from one point to the other, and not because there was any deeper purpose in all of it. The earlier part of your story was driven very strongly by characterisation, with the characters carrying the plot along. Therefore even when they were doing mundane things like talking about eating chocolate, I could still gain some insights into the characters and their relationship through these episodes; in the later half of your story that seemed to be absent and the meaning behind the little things that the characters said and did got lost in translation. I would suggest that you review the back half of the story and ask yourself what each little detail is meant to do, what did you want to convey to the reader by having that particular line there. If there are any moments in the story that seemingly have no purpose, then you might want to edit it and weave in some meaning into those parts.

The ending was disappointingly anti-climatic. Given that it was a tragic ending with both your main characters dying, to have added that final scene with Donghae assassinating Henry to get revenge for the murder of his brother felt entirely unnecessary. If it had ended with a flashback to a happier moment in their lives I might have cried, but with that random assassination scene thrown in I felt like there wasn’t even enough time for the reader to stew in the tragedy before they got rudely yanked out of it. As a result, there wasn’t that sense of closure for the story that I would have expected.

My final peeve with the story is that I never got to find out why exactly it was that Kyuhyun could eat chocolate when he couldn’t eat any other sort of normal food. Why chocolate?

Characterisation [20/25]
The greatest strength of the story was in the characterisation. The two lead characters were portrayed in a highly interesting manner that made both of them come across as distinctive individuals, especially with the way the dialogue between them was written. Although both characters had rather unique circumstances, with one being a ghoul and the other being the son of a mafia boss, they still managed to come across as extremely human (the irony) in terms of the way they interacted with each other and the way they reacted to situations, which was something that I particularly enjoyed about the story. You also included little details about their habits and preferences that I thought were useful in portraying them as realistic characters, such as Kyuhyun’s love for Lord of the Rings and StarCraft and Sungmin’s habit of nagging about tiny things like not sleeping with wet hair. Something I wasn’t so keen about was the use of terms of endearment when they addressed each other (“Kyuhyunnie” and “Minnie”) because those were slightly cringeworthy.

Kyuhyun: My first impression of Kyuhyun was that he came across as far too weak and needy, which didn’t really appeal to me very much. However, as the story progressed it became clearer as to why Kyuhyun displayed the traits that he did, which was a job well done. Given Kyuhyun’s ghoul identity and his experiences as a child (with his parents being killed and him being ostracised by society for being different), it was perfectly logical why he became extremely dependent on Sungmin and a lot more of a scaredy cat. I particularly liked that Kyuhyun was insecure, because that was the one characteristic that made him seem more human than some of the other characters in the story who were the actual human beings. He often needed reassurance, he cried, he didn’t like being alone — for a ghoul to be displaying such normal emotions highlighted the fact that you didn’t need to be human in order to be “human,” if that even makes sense. That he actually came across as more compassionate and empathetic than Sungmin was something that brought forth this aspect even more.

There were some inconsistencies in Kyuhyun’s character towards the end of the story which didn’t seem to align with the image of him that had been portrayed earlier. Given how he was usually the more sensible and timid of the two, for him to have agreed with Sungmin’s plan to break him out of jail seemed a little off tangent.  

Sungmin: Sungmin’s devotion to Kyuhyun was something that came across very strongly throughout the story, from the first chapter where he dragged in the dead body right till the very end when he chose to break Kyuhyun out of prison even though the chances of them escaping alive were so slim. What made it interesting was the way that Sungmin displayed this sort of devotion, which was often unorthodox and could sometimes appear as counter-intuitive. Sungmin’s character came across as slightly aggressive and authoritarian, always wanting to do things his way with complete disregard for what Kyuhyun felt, yet at the same time you could tell that his intentions were good and he made decisions based on what he believed to be the best for Kyuhyun. I liked the contrast between Sungmin’s twisted thinking and apparent disregard for other human beings with his sensitivity and rationality when it came to matters concerning Kyuhyun. However, unlike Kyuhyun’s case where it was clear why he relied so much on Sungmin, it was less clear as to why Sungmin grew so attached to Kyuhyun.

What I would have liked to have understood better were the reasons behind why Sungmin came to develop this particular set of behaviours and mindsets. Although he came from a mafia background where killing could have been the norm, not enough was shown of his background to sufficiently explain why he was capable of doing gruesome deeds like chopping people up and disposing of their limbs in such a cold and methodical manner. The way he behaved was more synonymous with that of a serial killer like Hannibal than of a gang member. I felt like those insights could have been provided through his interactions with his family members, yet the existing interactions only managed to portray a rather close relationship between him and the different members of his family, and that seemed too normal to be true. As such, it failed to explain how Sungmin came to be the person that he was.

As a final minor point on characterisation, I thought I’d also mention that it was a little odd for Sungmin to be “giggling” fairly often. With Sungmin being a cold-blooded murderer, the giggling definitely feels out of place. The only reason why I might imagine him doing that is if he were mentally unsound, which he technically could be given the things he’s been doing and his slightly unstable mood swings, but there were also times when he seemed fairly rational and normal, so I couldn’t quite conclude whether or not he was supposed to be truly psychotic or not.  

Language [11/15]
There were no major issues with your language for most of the story. It’s clear that you have a fairly good grasp of grammar and there was also good variation in your sentence structures. Occasionally there would be the odd description or two that didn’t quite seem to fit, so you might want to look into adjusting some of those word choices so that the sentences don’t conjure up strange images in your readers’ minds.  

E.g. “The block of white sweet appeared as he peeled the foil back with a long index and thumb. Pink lips nibbled sparingly at the top of the bar.”  

E.g. “... he savoured the tangy, succulent taste...”

These sentences describing chocolate from the first chapter came across slightly awkward. Firstly, Kyuhyun is supposed to be eating chocolate and the image that first pops into a person’s mind when you think of chocolate is likely a brown slab of Cadbury’s and not something that is white. When you described the chocolate as “the block of white sweet,” I had to do a double-take and actually think about it before the thought of white chocolate came to mind. Also, while it is not wrong to call chocolate a sweet, it is also not instinctive for someone to immediately think of chocolate when you hear the word “sweet.” Putting all that together, the entire phrase “block of white sweet” comes across as trying a little too hard to describe something as chocolate in an unnecessarily different way, which may not be needed. The action of nibbling is also done by teeth, so Kyuhyun nibbling with his lips isn’t quite right. Later in the same paragraph you also describe the taste of the chocolate as “tangy” and “succulent,” both of which don’t seem to be the right word choices to use. The word “tangy” is used to refer to something with a strong and sharp flavour, like the taste of lemons perhaps, and ‘succulent’ refers to something juicy—I don’t think either of those words accurately describe what chocolate tastes like.

In a separate instance, you also described an airplane as a “metal cylinder.” It’s an odd way of describing a plane and comes across as a little forced. In general, you might want to exercise some restraint with the need to use different ways to describe common objects so that you don’t come across as overdoing it. Sometimes, saying things simply is the best way about it!

There were some instances when you used semicolons incorrectly in your story. A semicolon is used to link two independent clauses; both of these clauses should be related to each other and must both be able to stand on their own as a complete sentence. In the following examples, you should have probably used a comma instead of a semicolon since the clauses on either side of the semicolon don’t function well as standalone sentences. A rather cute comic guide to the use of a semicolon can be found here.

E.g. “Kyuhyun’s eyes snapped open; cringing at the words he had used to describe the half devoured chocolate gripped in his hand.”

E.g. “It took a few swings; with Sungmin grunting in effort each time he pulled the stool back.”

Throughout the story, your use of the en dash has also been incorrect. It is a common error that many writers make, since it’s easy to confuse the en (–) and em (—) dashes; to put it simply, one is shorter than the other and it makes a difference when you use them. En dashes are used when you want to denote a range of numbers or scores, or link connected words to one another. In contrast, the em dash is the punctuation that you can sometimes use in place of a comma, parentheses or colon, which makes it a very versatile and useful punctuation for introducing variety into your sentence structure.

E.g. “Kyuhyun could barely make out Donghae’s broken words through the phone - there must not be very good reception in the middle of the alley.”

E.g. “I read online there was going to be a lot of people sun tanning, but that’s ok - I just want to swim.”

There were minor mistakes here and there in tense usage as well, but nothing that couldn’t be easily rectified if you were to read through your work once more or got someone else to help proofread what you’ve written.

Structure and Style [11/15]
I reckon you are well on your way to establishing your own writing style, and your writing generally flows well which makes it easy to read. I particularly enjoyed the way you’ve written the dialogue between the characters because it’s well-paced and the exchange is also witty at times. The dialogue was what lifted the characterisation of your main characters and without it, the story might not have been as compelling as it was. Other than that, it’s good that you’ve tried using some rhetorical devices such as similes (“There was a sharp pain pressing at his stomach now, like a dull knife being forcibly pushed through his body”) and rhetorical questioning (“Did Sungmin think he wasn’t trying? Did he just assume it was as easy as eating?”). Moving forward, you might want to experiment with other forms of more complex rhetorical devices!

As mentioned in the language section, what could be improved would be your descriptive prose, which can sometimes come across as being overdone. Descriptive writing goes a long way to helping readers conceptualise imagery in their minds, so that while they read they are able to concurrently watch the story unfold in their mind. Therefore, it is very useful to be able to do this well. You’ve definitely made many attempts at descriptive writing and there were instances when it was well done, for example when you were describing the room that Kyuhyun was sitting in in the first chapter of the story. However, it’s currently a bit of a hit-and-miss situation, where the descriptions sometimes work and sometimes don’t. I would pay more attention to the choice of words and phrases when it comes to describing things—make sure that the words you are choosing to use are accurate and don’t confuse the reader.

In terms of structuring the story, I thought things were pretty much in order. The placement of flashbacks were good and helped to introduce some insights into the background of the two characters without disrupting the overall flow of the main storyline. The tiny indents at the start of each paragraph made the overall presentation a little messy, but it’s not a major issue. 

Personal Enjoyment [3/5]
I think I would have enjoyed it more if the ending had been better put together and a little more realistic, because the story had an otherwise interesting premise and I had really liked how the little details about their relationship were being conveyed to the reader.  

Total Score: 67/100

Reviewer’s Comments:When you submitted your review request you asked feedback on plot and character development, so I hope I’ve given you some useful things to think about for those areas! The story has great potential, because you’ve taken a fairly simple storyline and introduced a number of novel elements that make it interesting. Do continue writing and experimenting with new plot concepts and rhetorical devices!

The permanent copy of your review can be found here: x