Stoplight by Summerdust

Reviewed by caramelmushrooms

Title [4/5]

Stoplight - I really like this title because it’s very simple, yet it has lots of implications. There are lots of analogies to stoplights in reference to your story, and your story also literally takes place at a stoplight, so this title was very appropriate for your story. It’s not typical either, so it evoked a reaction out of me; I found myself wanting to know more.

Description/Foreword [8/10]

Your description is quite effective; it’s succinct, it gives the basic idea of your story in a very simple, clean cut way. Because you keep yourself from giving away the entire plot and point of the story, it - like the title - leaves the reader wanting to know more. The rhyme is an additional plus, because it rolls off the tongue nicely.

I do, however, have mixed feelings about this description because your brevity sacrifices the actual content. It is, the way I interpreted it, almost contradictory to itself.

“They both waited for the light to turn red. But only one of them walked away and the other one stayed.”

My confusion is this - if they are both waiting for the light to turn red, why would one of them walk away? I may be taking this too literally, but I am having difficulty in grasping your maybe-metaphoric statement. In this case, by telling too little, you ask too much from the reader, and this takes away from the impact it would have had, had the statement been less confusing.

I do appreciate, however, that the last part “But only one of them walked away and the other one stayed” works for both characters, as they each think the other has moved on. This contrasts the reality of their situation, in which neither have been able to forget their emotions for each other in the past. In light of this, your description is again, very fitting.

Plot/Theme [19/25]

I did like the beginning portion of the plot. The way that it gradually built up the background story of their past relationship was really effective - the news article and the character’s subtle reactions to her past and current love really make it show and not tell that something was going on initially. And I’ll mention it again later, but I really liked the way you jumped back and forth between the past and present.

    The ‘middle’ was more of the tension building of the story, where more about the two character’s past relationship is revealed and more of their current distance makes sense. One thing I would watch out for is that, while I know you were leaking small portions of information at a time, it felt slightly redundant at times. I am addressing not the ‘past’ portions, but the ‘present’ ones - while the desperation of the characters grow, I feel as if the way you describe their want and need for each other becomes less unique the more you continue to do it, as you jump to the past and jump back more and more.

    However, I liked the ending just as much as I did the beginning - not so much in terms of character development (more on this on the next section) but in terms of the reality of the situation. While I am not a particular fan “oh, we love each other, but we can’t be together because of some obligation”, I did feel that it had significance and meaning in this story. And I think that was because the “unspoken obligation” was more of an unspoken incompetence of the characters to meet each other and display their affection for each other in the midst of time passing by. Which, again, was a sad but almost alarmingly accurate and true representation of some relationships in “real life” (aka not stories and dramas and fanfictions).

Character Development [7/10]

Given the fact that the story is a one-shot, I do acknowledge it is difficult to show drastic changes in character development. However, for the most part, the juxtaposition of their flashbacks to their relationship and their current state of mind and being work well to show that both characters have changed.

    One major reason I docked points in this category is because, while the characters seem to partially understand that they cannot live in concord as they have before, they reflect on this inability to be together with hopelessness rather than acceptance.

    Exhibit A - “He knows he will regret it later but as their coordinator noona said that all they can do now was to wait, once again, all he …”

    I find this conclusion rather incomplete characteristically. I would think, given that they have spent a considerable amount of time apart, that at least one of them would accept, not expect to regret, their separate beings and either completely move on or be brave enough to come back together. I may just be frustrated at this lack of bravery as a reader, but this overall frustration is what eventually led me to conclude that the ending of your story felt, in some way, incomplete.

     I do, however, feel that you did this in order to emphasize that their current roles in society prohibits them from continuing their relationship, and in that aspect the story is - again - quite real. Although never having personally been in that position (lol), more often than not people are unable to fulfill their love due to whatever cause, and you, as an author, were brave in that you chose to be more realistic than to give an happy and cliche ending which most readers (myself included in this case) would have wanted.

Flow/Writing Style [17/20]

There is nothing in particular which irked me about your writing style. I deducted points, rather, due to certain bumps in grammar which occasionally took away from the fluid reading of your story. This I will touch more upon on the actual grammar portion of this review!

The way you set up the story to have it flash back and forth was captivating, and naturally increased the intensity of the story itself. By building this “low-key” intensity, you’re able to keep the reader in focus and keep the story propelling forward. One thing that makes this not very effective if sustained throughout the whole duration of the story is the fact that it makes the whole story the same in level of intensity.

So in terms of music, your whole story is a fortissimo, and there are no mezo-pianos and pianos -- the volume stays the same. And it can be both mentally demanding and become mundane very quickly. I would advise you do be careful of this.

Regardless, i will give you high points for this category because I liked the way you - stylistically - switched back and forth between the past and the present. It gave hints of the past whenever there was a reference to it, and it felt real, making it easy for the reader to follow the thought process of the characters.

Grammar [14/20]

I know you informed me that you were not a native English speaker.However, there were quite a few incorrect verb tenses and phrases which took away from not only this section, but the fluidity of your writing. It may be because I read your story more carefully, coming from the point of view of being a reviewer. However, I believe that it would have been noticed by any fluent English speaking, close readers as well. I’ll just point out a couple of patterns I saw where the grammar slips were most notable-

1. The very first sentence: “Her current job was the main reason she has to leave Daegu-”

    Admittedly, this is not a large slip - I very much think the likelihood of this being a typo is greater than it being a mistake. However, I would advise you to watch carefully for things like this, especially in the very beginning of your story, even if it is a typo. Because readers tend to focus closely to every word in the story in the beginning and end, it’s crucial that mistakes like this are prevented - the beginning sets the tone, and this small mistake may have given many the impression that your English was going to not be up-to-par, and this initial perception makes it more easy for readers to point out future mistakes, since they are anticipating that such mistakes will exist.

    2. “When someone bumped into her shoulder, she was already about to yell, but even before she can react, the girl was already on the other side of the street.”

    This sentence in particular irked me, just because there were multiple slight issues all compounded into a singular sentence. The sentence is a run-on sentence, the “already” is misplaced, the ‘can’ should be a ‘could’, and I wish the arrangement had been a bit different. Singularly, these would have been slips most readers would just skim over, but when small things gather all into one, it becomes quite obvious. I appreciate that you were trying to change up your syntax with the longer sentence, but especially when things are changed, readers are prone to - again - notice these more, and you really want to avoid mistakes in these places where readers may notice more slip ups.

    I’ll only mention these two, because I think these cover the main types of slips you had - minor ones, but occasionally minor ones all accumulated into a larger mistake. I really do hope that you aren’t discouraged by this however, as language is something which improved with practice. Especially since, as I’ve said multiple times, the majority of your slips are very minor, I have certainty that you’ll be able to learn about your slips and fix them in no time!

Enjoyment [8/10]

Overall, this story was nice to read. I am not a fan of one-shots, just because I’m never fully content with short stories which finish just as abruptly as they started. I suppose this is what attracts others to them. However, its angst, its realistic frustrations, and its relentless sad ending was quite charismatic. I would just say, especially if you have audience members who are scrutinizing readers, to touch up on the grammar a bit. That was the one thing I would say was not the most up-to-par. Not everyone will be understanding of that fact that English is not your first language. ^^

Total [78/100]

Comment: Thank you for requesting at #1704!

Reviewer's Note: The character development section I definitely think is only 'lacking' due to the brevity of your story - if the story is short, you can't expect drastic change! 

However, I included it in the rating because it flips back and forth a lot, so there were some atributes of that I could comment on.  

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