A Sweet Black Day - Ginny

A Sweet Black Day by Ginny

Review by x3_strucked

Title: 4/5

I must say but your title is quite an interesting one, it is also quite a confusing one. As a reader, the first time I saw this title I was quite confused, I wondered to myself, is this story angst? Or was this story a ‘black’ humour? Or was this story a ‘sweet’ romance? These are one of those titles that really mess up with your head because you can’t tell what the story portrays when reading the title. And that’s a good thing because you want to keep a good level of suspense for the readers, in doing so, readers will want to click on the title to read the story. If I was one of these readers, I would pretty much do the same, so good job.  But I do hope that this title somewhat represents the plot of the story, because as much as titles go, random titles are a bit on the down side.

Appearance: 3.5/5

I can’t exactly say that the appearance of your entire fanfic was appealing, but it was simple and that is a good path that you as an author has chosen to set forward to. The thing I’m most bothered about when reading winglin fanfics is that most fanfics have backgrounds that are so complicated that it completely overshadows the text of the story. I myself don’t think readers would bother wanting to read a fanfic with such colourful backgrounds because the text clearly becomes unreadable. Yours was exactly not the case, the background was a simple black colour and the text was pink, simple and it also in a way represents the poster and plot. But looking at the background, I sort of felt that it would be a dark/angst sort of story seeing the black background.

Your poster was a bit shabby in a way, there weren’t really much colours to really appeal to me and adding the dull and moody background that represented it, I clearly did not find it very attractive. But after much thought, it was still attractive in a way, I guess the simplicity of the poster and the colours in it represented the plot in a way. The poster didn’t grab my attention but it was soft and gentle in my eyes and I quite enjoyed the overall appearance of it even though the colours were quite basic.

Forewords: 7/10

The foreword is quite an important part of the story, it brings together everything and conveys the plot in a simple and straightforward manner without leaving too much spoilers. Your foreword was something that I’ve seen a few times but usually quite rare, I mean it’s quite rare to find a foreword entirely focused on the author’s note without giving any details on the plot or characters. That’s not a necessary thing, don’t worry, it’s not in the fanfic law to have a description and plot in the foreword. But I definitely think readers do need to have a clearer idea of the plot before reading the story. But I guess in a way, your story doesn’t exactly NEED a plot description in the foreword since it’s quite a short-chaptered fic. And plus, it creates more suspense together with the rather interesting poster.

Storyline: 13/15

I quite liked the storyline and thank god that the plot and the title connected with each other. Well anyway, yes the plot of the story was quite an original I have to say. It’s quite beautiful how the story is all centred on a certain day and even ended with that same day. And that gives it its uniqueness because this day is the significant day where they discovered their love and it ends with the day where love finally conquers all. In a way, this day in the story is quite unique as the day itself is based around the celebration of “singleness” not love or “togetherness”. It is only because of this day that they had realized their love for each other and thanks to this day, they had finally ended together.

I guess I could say that this is a cliché-like storyline but it has its own uniqueness and originality as a plot that most stories don’t have.  

Flow: 12/15

The flow of the story was I guess, quite pleasant and readable. I must say that as a romance story based on two characters only, there should be more screen time for both characters. When I read the story, it felt like I was just reading from one person’s perspective and that was Ginny’s. I guess that’s okay but as a author you should include both perspectives of the main characters so readers can relate to them in an equal manner. Because Jaejoong had been away most of the time in the story, it was hard to develop a connection with him, it was hard to understand his character because there really wasn’t much described about his past. But otherwise, the flow I must say was pleasant and straightforward.

Character Development: 11.5/15

As I have said from the top, there were bits here and there that felt quite empty that could have been filled up in the story. You gave us the past moments shared between Ginny and Jaejoong, but you never shared with us their personalities, their emotions and how it all affected their life and their love. In the story, Jaejoong was portrayed as a cold and private guy, who only opened up to Ginny. But there was no clear description on why he was like this, did he have personal issues? Did he have a family conflict? And why did he open up to Ginny out of every girl in the world? I understand that he felt sorry for Ginny since she got bullied in the school, but I feel that “pity” would be a poor explanation on how he fell in love with her. But I guess questions like those matter and don’t matter in a way, as long as the character is there and is portrayed well. And your story did it swiftly and quickly.

Descriptions: 7.5/10 

A story has to have a balance between description and dialogue, description is the more important one as it is the main thing that describes all the emotions, the setting, the appearance and the conflict. The dialogue just guides the description in a way, but both have to have a balance in order to get a good fanfic. An uneven balance is a big no, too much description will easily bore a reader, and too much dialogue will easily look too much like a script. The key is finding the balance.

Your story had a balance between description and dialogue, a bit uneven but it was there. I found your story leaning a bit too much on dialogue but it was good, because I think too much descriptions wouldn’t really contribute much to the story. The story needed dialogue more because there were more talk than emotions and descriptions. Most of the descriptions were already described in the first chapter because all the past events were had been taken place.

Correct/Spelling Grammar: 4/5 

Your spelling and vocabulary were quite nearly perfect, I don’t think I found any mistakes in your spelling during the chapters that read. Though I must make a strong note about your grammar, it’s okay I have to say, I can’t say your grammar is correct or absolutely fabulous because it simply can’t be defined that way. What I can say is that your grammar can be improved to get to being perfect, the thing that’s stopping you is your mix up with present and past tense.

Take this for example:

Why did I let myself lost the bag?

It should have been…

Why did I let myself lose the bag?

Because of your incorrect use of present and past tense, the sentence may not look its best since it doesn’t make sense. What you should start doing is to either start getting a beta reader to read over your chapters for you or get a spell checker. But the most important thing is TO KEEP WRITING, because that way you will improve your writing AND grammar!

Keeping Interest: 8/10 

I totally don’t know what this category is but I think I have a vague idea. Well if this is asking me if your story kept my interest in it stable and flowing, then I must say it did. It really did, I guess it’s because of the absence of Jaejoong that motivated me into reading into the end. I would have anyway, but the fact that Jaejoong never returned until the end of the chapter was what kept the suspense going, it motivated me and kept me going.

I must say that the middle chapters were quite dull, but were quite important towards the plot and the past of the story so I found it quite important to understand it before getting towards the ending. And I must say, the ending was perfect, a bit of a cliché with the ex-girlfriend thing. I felt the situation with the girlfriend was quite a forced way into proclaiming Jaejoong’s love for Ginny. Maybe a conflicted situation would have been more suited to the ending, maybe an accident? Or something romantic? Situations like these are good ways to round up the ending, I feel that the ex-girlfriend would have best been of conflict during the middle chapters of a fanfic.

Ending: 4/5 

Simple, straightforward and rounded everything to a point. Pleasant I must say.

Bonus: 5/5 

I wanted to add this bonus for such an interesting setting for a plot, this whole black day situation was what drove the story. It drove their love, and it helped them get together in the end. What an interesting way to describe the happenings of a relationship between a guy and a girl, common ways would be love at first sight or opposites attract. Yours took it to a different approach, good job.

Total: 79.5/100

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I hope that this result won’t make you lose your hope in writing, I did my best to provide a honest and constructive review and honestly, I believe this mark is a very good mark to begin with. What you need to do is just improve on it, so please don’t let this get in the way of you writing. Remember no fanfic is perfect, every fanfic has its ups and downs. Remember to practice and write more because it WILL help you improve.

x3_strucked

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Review done by x3_strucked at Eternal Happiness

[www.eternalhappiness-ww.blogspot.com]