Friday, April 2, 2010

Summer Dream by eternalflower

Title: Summer Dream
Author: eternalflower
Reviewer: Kira @ http://thrashing-ideas.blogspot.com/


Title: 3/5
I usually don’t like song titles being used as a story title since it would not grab my attention on a normal basis if I was merely skimming through a bunch of stories. On the other hand, I am glad to find out that the title DID fit very well with the story itself. I definitely got the dream like feeling from the story, although I think “Stand By U” would have been a better title based on the deeper meaning of the story and the fact that the quote came from the song. But “Summer Dream” is not bad. (I realize that sounded a bit contradictory. All in all, your title is fine. I’m just being picky.)

First Impression: 7/10
I like the simplicity of the poster. It looks very nice with the black tint and sort of old movie like marks all over it. I feel it shows JaeJoong’s heart throughout the whole story quite well. However, the description threw me off a bit. I had a feel the plot was going to be very cliché and boring. One glimpse at the forewords and I decided to give it a chance. The format seemed interesting and well-written.

Forewords: 7/10
The foreword was very poetic. It was great how you used such colorful language to describe pretty much how JaeJoong was feeling for the beginning. The bolding of the two important parts was good. Not to mention it did a great job of catching my interest. My only issue is the description you put down. I feel as though that ruined pretty much the whole story. I already knew what the whole story was about before reading the story. I think if you got rid of the description, I think the forewords would be much better.

Plot: 10/15
Like I said before, the plot was very cliché. However, I liked how you wrote it. The story made me feel pretty warm and fluffy throughout the whole thing. The personality of JinHee was what made the story enjoyable. Because most of my points about the plot are also in other categories, I will leave it at that.

Creativity/Originality: 8/15
The plot has been done a hundred times over. It is one of the most easily used romantic plots. I could predict what could happen very accurately from the very beginning after I read the description. There were no twists or turns that surprised me. It was very straightforward and I am very big on originality. So this is the reason why your score is so low.

Flow: 10/10
The story flowed perfectly. Not a fan of cliché plots, but I do like the story because it was well-written. I saw no strange transitions in the story or anything out of the ordinary that had nothing to do with the story. Good job.

Spelling/Grammar/Vocabulary: 9/10
I didn’t have much of an issue with this. I am a stickler for this stuff though. So here are a few things that I caught.
For one thing, when you are quoting someone, you should only connect the sentences if the action is in fact a speaking action.
For example: Jaejoong raises his eyebrows, wiggling it up and down in flirting manner, “Want me to come with you?”
Since raising his eyebrows isn’t a speaking action such as “flirted” or something like that of some sort, there shouldn’t be a comma but a period. So the quotation would be a sentence on its own. And if the quotation has no relation to the action, then it should start a new paragraph. There also shouldn’t be more than two quotations in one paragraph.
So the sentence above should be either:
Jaejoong raises his eyebrows, wiggling it up and down in flirting manner. “Want me to come with you?”
or
Jaejoong raises his eyebrows, wiggling it up and down in flirting manner.

“Want me to come with you?”

Here’s another example:
“You deserve it, playboy! You’ve been seducing women with that finger, huh!” she stomps her feet, angrily, walking away from the pained Jaejoong.
I would fix it like this:
“You deserve it, playboy! You’ve been seducing women with that finger, huh!” She stomps her feet, angrily, walking away from the pained Jaejoong.

And here:
“Here. You dropped it.” He says.
Since “says” is a speaking action, “He” should be lowercase and the period should be a comma like this: “Here. You dropped it,” he says.

Characterization: 8/10
JinHee was characterized very well. I loved how you did not straight up tell me who she was but rather showed me through her actions and her words. I feel that proper characterization is making the characters unique to their personalities. The only issue I had was that I felt JinHee’s character was perhaps a bit bland. I felt that JinHee didn’t really have much flair to her. JaeJoong was done well. I liked how he seemed like a playboy but was really trying to get JinHee’s attention.

Writing Style: 9/10
You have a great writing style. I can imagine the scenes very clearly in my head with a bright sun shining down throughout. It felt warm and cozy. The point I took off was because of some of the dialog structure that I mentioned in the grammar part. I felt that it made the story seem a bit messy. Overall, keep up the good work.

Overall Enjoyment: 5/5
It was cliché, but I do like your writing style, which I think was what made all the difference and this story a success, a very cute couple too.

Sub Total: 76/100

Bonus: 5/5
I am a JaeJoong fan. XD Bad Kira for being subjective.

Total: 81/100

No comments:

Post a Comment