○jj_maple○

 New Moon 

 

Title: How to make a sandwich

Author: jj_maple

Chapters: One

Status: Completed

Reviewer: yingjumeihua

 

Title: (3/5)

Your title is really self-explanatory. When readers first see it, they can instantly tell what the story is going to be about. So in terms of relevance to your story, it’s actually perfect. Does it intrigue me? A little, especially when the title starts with ‘How to...’ and the rest of it isn’t cheesy, and it makes sense. Does it have a massive ‘wow’ factor? No, it doesn’t but it’s enough to have me thinking that this might be something worth reading. The problem with your title is that it kind of gives away the plot for your story. (But then again, it’s up for debate if your story actually has a plot.)

 

Foreword/Description: (6.5/10)

There is nothing in your foreword/description about your story or anything that intrigues me. You’ve only left readers a little message under ‘Description’, commenting that readers should read the title to know what the story is about. There isn’t really much else there that can tell readers what your story is going to be about except for your title (which is pretty self-explanatory, really). And if I was looking for a really good story to read, I wouldn’t continue because it sounds like something that might be (if I was in that mood) a waste of time. But if I’m bored (which is majority of the time I’m on FFO), then I would be interested as to what your story is about, and have a little bit of a laugh. There’s actually nothing about your story that makes readers cringe or go ‘I cannot read this’ as soon as they’ve seen your foreword. Maybe some readers wouldn’t like the capitals that you put in, but most readers generally wouldn’t have a problem and would click the ‘Next’ button.

 

Plot and Originality: (14.5/20)

It is arguable if your story actually has a plot or not. If making a sandwich is considered a plot, then you have a very well-developed plot in your piece of work. In terms of your originality, you have plenty of it. I swear that I have never seen a fanfiction, or any story online for that matter, that’s about sandwiches and a set of instructions about how to make them. There probably is one out there somewhere but the number of these types of pieces of work are very few. Therefore, your story is 100% absolutely original.

 

Characterisation: (8/15)

Your story has very little characterisation. All that I know about your character (which is you) is that they’re terrible at making sandwiches, rely on their mums too much and thinks that using a blender to make a sandwich is actually a good idea. There is almost no characterisation in your story and readers cannot relate to your characters in depth. (But then again, there isn’t much you can do since your story wasn’t meant to have a lot of characterisation in the first place.)

 

Flow: (9/15)

I’m not sure how I’m supposed to judge this because your story doesn’t really have a flow. I mean, yes there is a flow and pacing, but there’s not the flow that you get from a story/fanfiction/drabble/piece of work (because I’m not entirely sure what to classify it as so I’m putting my bets on the last one). But does your story actually flow; I guess that yes it does. Is it rushed? No, because your steps describe all the steps there are to making a sandwich superficially (but that suits your story).

 

Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation: (20/25)

There are no grammar and spelling mistakes in your piece of work. Since your story is very short, there is hardly any room for error and therefore, if you actually did get a grammar or a spelling mistake then I would have been shocked. But you didn’t, so it’s all good. I did find some punctuation mistakes; and the percentage of punctuation mistakes compared to our amount of writing is a bit more than expected. Throughout steps 3-8 and 10, there are no full stops at the end of the sentence. This isn’t really a big deal for readers but everyone knows that at the end of your sentence, you put a full stop there or whatever punctuation mark is supposed to go there (e.g. exclamation mark, question mark, etc.)

Another punctuation mark that I picked was that at the end of the ‘Step 1’, ‘Step 2’, etc. there was no colon (:) at all. There is supposed to be a colon because that’s the way you break up your sentences. It’s just the way it is. Whenever you have steps or instructions, you have to make it really clear that there are two parts to the sentence. Books normally have the ‘Step 1’, ‘Step 2’ part in another font, size and colour. Most just use a colon. I know that you’ve made it clear that there are two parts to the sentence by putting them on different lines, but that’s not really how you’re supposed to do it. You need to put in colons after the ‘Step 1’, ‘Step 2’ and so on.

Also, in ‘Step 9’, where it says:

‘Tell mum to make you a sandwich, pronto.’

There should be a comma between ‘sandwich’ and ‘pronto’. There’s supposed to be a pause there (not when you say it but when you read it) and otherwise, the sentence sounds really weird.

The last punctuation error is in ‘Step 10’ where it says:

‘Eat your hard-earned sandwich.’

Because ‘hard’ and ‘earned’, in this case, are both adjectives (verbs describing a noun), there should be a hyphen between the two words to show… I’m not sure what it is to show, but that’s the general rule.

Other than that, there were no other punctuation mistakes.

 

Vocabulary: (4/5)

I don’t really have any problems with your vocabulary. The words you use aren’t sophisticated and meaningful; however, they do convey the message that you’re trying to bring across to readers very clearly. The vocabulary is very simple, but it suits your story because your story is meant for humour. There is one problem I have with your vocabulary which is found in ‘Step 1’.

‘Get a bunch of random pieces of bread, spreads and other decoration things to eat.’

What are ‘decoration things’? This is really bad vocabulary. You could have said … *thinking*…‘things you put on bread’. (I know that ‘thing’ is a really bad word to use, but in this case, it is okay to use ‘thing’ because there isn’t really anything else to describe what you’re trying to tell the reader.) I just have a problem with ‘decoration’.

 

Bonus Points + Overall Enjoyment: (5/5)

For one of your tags, there is ‘laughs’ and ‘comedy’ which your story does have. It does make readers laugh, and it also is comedic. It is very hard (well, personally) for the story to be tagged as one genre and then continue with that genre, especially if its comedy or mystery. Congratulations – because you’ve pulled it off wonderfully. Your story was overall funny and I enjoyed it. Yes, I would go back and read it over and over again and yes, I would recommend it to someone if they needed a bit of a laugh.

Total: (70/100) | Grade: C+

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