Six Deadly Sins by bapbangme

Reviewed by WhisperOfTheSea

Title [3/5]

The title is very obvious from what I can see already. Although I won’t exactly go to conclusions on first impression, I can tell that the story may be about the six deadly sins; envy, wrath, sloth, gluttony, lust, and hubris. And after reading your story, I was right. Initially, I thought that the people you made having these sins were human beings, not demons, and they were doing the certain sin they were assigned by by you. I was wrong on that part so I’ve got to give you kudos on that!

Description/Foreword [6/10]

The description is good. It’s catchy and it describes heaven, the Golden Age, and hell, the Iron Age. This provides little information for the readers to know but not too much that it describes the entire plot. Although it equips the reader with information, I spot comma errors and a few confusing sentences.

Your version:

• Peace, love and harmony that the Earth radiated gave them strength to the Heaven, and all the angels that inhabited it.

What I don’t understand with this sentence is if you’re specifically saying that “Heaven” is definite with “the” in front of it. “The” is used to refer to a particular member of a group and in this situation, is “Heaven” a part of a group or is it just Heaven itself? If it’s Heaven itself, I recommend for you to omit “the” then because Heaven is sort of like a geographical noun and you’re not supposed to add in “the” before it. I am also confused as to why you put in “to the” instead of “in”. By using “the”, you’re saying a specific Heaven. If you were to replace “to the” with “in”, the meaning of the sentence will change but it would make more sense. You’ll be saying that “peace, love, and harmony from Earth radiated strength to Heaven” and not just “in the Heaven”. The comma after “Heaven” is also not needed because “all the angels that inhabited it.” is not an independent clause nor a contrast. (You only add a comma when the other half of the sentence is an independent clause or a contrast. “I was waiting at the bus stop, and a man started talking to me” are two independent clauses where you’ll have to add the comma. “I was waiting at the bus stop” and “A man started talking to me” can both end in sentences which is why they’re called independent clauses. “I like playing with water, not fire” is a contrast example.)

Correct version:

• Peace, love and harmony that the Earth radiated gave them strength in Heaven and all the angels that inhabited it.

I think you haven’t noticed this yet but there is a spelling error in “Nowdays, people like to remember that as the Golden Age.”. “Nowdays” is suppose to be “Nowadays”. “Nowdays” isn’t a word.

Another sentence I am also confused on is:

• The six of them rule six kingdoms, with the help of thousands weak fallen angels, and souls of deceased humans whose number keeps increasing daily.

I don’t understand why you added a comma between “kingdoms” and “with”. Actually, there should be no commas in this sentence at all. This is the same with what I said above: “souls of deceased humans whose number keeps increasing daily.” isn’t an independent clause nor a contrast so a comma is not needed before “and”. Adding commas around “with the help of thousands weak fallen angels” makes the sentence a parenthetical element which I’m sure that’s what you didn’t want. A parenthetical element is a part of a sentence that can be removed without changing the meaning of the sentence and makes complete sense to do so. Parenthetical element is also known as “adding information”. In this situation if you remove “with the help of thousands weak fallen angels”, the sentence will now be “The six of them rule six kingdoms and souls of deceased humans whose number keep increasing daily.” which makes sense, but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t what you were going for. So in the end, no commas are needed in this sentence. Adding in “six kingdoms” behind “The six of them” makes it seem obvious too. Of course, there are six of them so they rule a kingdom of their own. Right?

Correct version:

• The six of them rule a kingdom of their own with the help of thousands and weak fallen angels and souls of deceased humans whose number keeps increasing daily.

Other than the grammatical errors, the description has a hold of my attention already.

Plot/Theme [17/20]

I’m not a really big fan of supernatural, especially on Greek Mythology, but your story definitely piped me up! I didn’t expect to enjoy your story as much as I had.

The start begins with the sins and their daily lives which then transition to Asmosdeus asking the others if they wanted to go on earth. Seeing their perspectives really did help me understand why they were so bored and gave me background information as a reader. You didn’t just suddenly have Asmodeus drag the others to Earth but made a smooth transition yourself.

As Asmodeus (?) is looking at Earth, the POV changes to Chanyeol who is someone currently preparing himself for a job interview. With shock, Asmodeus had now connected with Chanyeol as Chanyeol started to hear a voice in his head. I felt a bit sad for Chanyeol since he was just some innocent tall guy looking for a job and was now followed by a demon/sin. Judging by the famous pairings in EXO, Asmodeus most definitely must be Baekhyun. Right?

In the next chapter, Belphegor is introduced by his POV. I really liked how you made him stroll down the street looking at foods. The transition of his view to Minseok’s pastry shop made exact sense to be there. You didn’t just plop in Minseok’s shop in the middle of Belphegor’s POV but actually set Belphegor’s attention on Minseok.

Although in the next scene where Lucifer, Zitao, Asmodeus, and Chanyeol were in it, it confused me plenty. First of all, there were many characters and many POVs you could set the scene in. After seeing that you focused more on Lucifer and Asmodeus’ perspective, it helped me a bunch. I still don’t understand the scene now but I was able to get an idea of it. What I’m confused on, though, is the situation they’re in. Of course, they all have different personalities but the wordings and dialogues in this scene doesn’t exactly help my confusion no matter how many times I read it. You don’t explain clear enough and the scene just seems to be made up by a bunch of dialogues.

On the other hand, the next chapters contain more and more character development as the situation is being introduced. You’ve done a great job on that, making the sins get attracted to a certain human being and introducing the relationship to the readers. The one thing that I cannot remember and get straight in my head are all the names. I won’t judge too harshly on that since your story is on-going, but I’m pretty sure your readers would get used to it as you keep updating.

Flow/Writing Style [13/20]

I really like the way you pair up your sentences. It is really neat and the flow is smooth although there were a few sentences that were very long. Those sentences are suppose to end with a period, but you just keep continuing them with commas. I will talk more about that in the Grammar section.

Although your sentence transitions are in good condition, your paragraph structures are not. At first, I thought that the story was third person limited. But while continuing reading, you suddenly change POVs from Chanyeol to Baekhyun and I was left tilting my head in confusion. I knew right at that moment that your story was third person multiple; but the way you made the transition was too abrupt and hurried. I had to pause for a moment to clear my confusion before continuing. It seems that you’re still new to third person multiple by the way you switch from Chanyeol’s POV to Baekhyun’s in that one scene. You are confusing the readers doing that because they’re still in Chanyeol’s perspective but then they’re pulled into Baekhyun’s perspective without a smooth transition. It is both startling and complicated. I do understand that you want to introduce the sins, but changing too many POVs and jumping into too many heads can make the reader confused and disinterested. Think of who’s POV is the most important in a scene first before writing so you wouldn’t be jumping back and forth, for example, between Chen and Minseok’s POV and then suddenly into Lay’s POV.

There were some dialogues that needed to be made into a new paragraph.

For example, take this paragraph:

Once he was alone with his invisible friend again, Zitao opened his drawer and took out a tiny bottle of medicines. “Goodbye.” He said into the air, swallowing four or five pills at once. Now that he’d taken them, he was sure he’ll go back to normal, but he let out a fearful gasp as demonic laughter resonated against the white walls. “Wh-what the…” He whispered slowly. He was diagnosed with anxiety, but it was not supposed to be this serious! Usually, a pill or two would do the trick and let him go back to normal.

My corrected version:

Once he was alone with his invisible friend again, Zitao opened his drawer and took out a tiny bottle containing pills.

“Goodbye.” He said into the air, swallowing around five pills at once. Now that he’d taken them, he was sure he’ll go back to normal but let out a fearful gasp as demonic laughter resonated against the white tile walls.

“Wh-what the…” Zitao whispered slowly. He was diagnosed with anxiety but it was not supposed to be this serious! Usually, a pill or two would do the trick and calm him down.

Character Development [13/15]

The introduction of the (sin) characters are too quick. They’re introduced to the readers, but there isn’t enough information to tell who’s who (which sin is which EXO member). While reading, I always get confused on which EXO member is which sin. This is probably because the characters are still showing their traits. But after finishing Chapter Five, I still see no progress in the character development to the readers. The development with the other characters, on the other hand, are perfectly fine. They make sense, but there were a few times it felt hurried like you wanted to quickly introduce all the characters already. Throwing in too much information at the readers can make them perplexed and puzzled.

That is only one con about the characters (human beings) for the sins so you don’t have to worry too much about that. I can tell that you’re struggling to help the readers know who’s who after reading your A/N so I really wish you good luck on that!

Grammar [13/20]

There were many misused commas and a few misspelled and missing words here and there. For example, in this sentence in Chapter One:

• Chanyeol splashed his face with water in restroom, waiting for his turn to go to the director’s office for a job interview.

I really think you meant:

• Chanyeol splashed his face with water in the restroom, waiting for his turn to go to the director’s office for a job interview.

A word missing can make the sentence have an entirely different meaning or just make no sense whatsoever.

You’ve also misunderstood the difference and use between “its” and “it”s”. Like in this sentence (same chapter):

• He’s been waiting really long for an opportunity like this, and he had to make it work!

Using “He’s” means “He is” so the sentence would be this:

• He is been waiting really long for an opportunity like this, and he had to make it work!

This sentence makes no sense since it is past tense, but you’re using a present tense in the beginning. To make the sentence correct, you would have to remove “ ‘s “ to “had” since “had” is a past tense.

• He had been waiting really long for an opportunity like this, and he had to make it work!

Do you see the difference now? On the other hand, for example, “its” is referring to the possessive “it”. Examples are  “Do you know its name?” and “This pillow is too big for its case.” while examples for “it’s” are “It’s so not cool!” and “It’s right, I know.”.

Enjoyment [8/10]

Despite the many mistakes, I was able to awe at the way you made references to the Greek Mythology. There were times I would get confused if you were talking about something specific or something in general but with the help of your little notes (at the bottom of the chapters), I was able to understand and catch up. You did an excellent job on that, making the reader able to understand your references and didn’t just throw it at their faces.

Total [73/100]

Comment: Thank you for requesting at #1704!

I am so terribly sorry for the long wait on the other hand!

I was also doing another review while doing yours and it took more time than it should’ve.

I really hope this review was worth the wait though!

I know that English isn’t your first language so

I pointed out both small and big mistakes to help you.

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