○splash○

 New Moon 

 

 

Title: Careless Misunderstanding

Author: splash

Chapters: One

Status: Complete

Reviewer: yingjumeihua

 

Title: (4/5)

Your title does attract attention from readers but it isn’t jaw-droppingly, “I have to read it.” It’s a very literal title and readers can almost immediately make their predictions of what the story is going to be about. In terms of relevance to your story, it becomes clear the further you read that the main characters went through a really careless misunderstanding which is nothing compared to their friendship/romance. The title suits the story but I think a catchier title would have made your story seem more interesting. I am not going to suggest one because I have not read the manga. If your title was somehow related to Soul Eater, that would be a plus. Overall, your title was pretty good in all aspects, it just lacked in capturing people’s attentions.

 

Foreword/Description: (7/10)

Your description is really well-described and a tad poetic but there isn’t much of an ‘I-have-to-see-what-this-is-about’ factor. It consists of six lines. The first three lines are something that grabs readers’ attentions and have a certain poetic-ness about them that makes them really well constructed. Your last three lines could have been improved slightly with only slight changes to the vocabulary which will be shown later in the Vocabulary section.

Your foreword has information about your story which adds a nice touch. It lets readers know what they are in for before they start reading. It is a great idea to put that there. Overall, your foreword and description are well-constructed, make sense, tell us what the story is about but it somewhat lacks that ‘hook’ to pull readers in.

 

Plot and Originality: (15/20)

The plot is pretty simple and straight-forward but because the genre of the story is also slice-of-life, the plot isn’t all that important. When there is a slice-of-life story, there is not much that can be said about originality because originality isn’t really significant in slice-of-life stories. So for this section, plot isn’t all that important and neither is originality. It doesn’t feel right to give you zero for the scores because while the plot is not dynamic, it is nice and heart-warming to read about and the story really focuses on the aftermath of the misunderstanding which is an added plus.

 

Characterisation: (14/15)

Because I have not read the manga, I have no idea what the characters in the manga are actually like. Therefore I cannot give a comparison on the manga characters compared to the characters in the story. However, it is very clear to both of the main characters that they are very dependent on each other and care for each other a lot. Both of them got angry over a simple misunderstanding and in the heat of the argument, they said things that should never have been said. While there is nothing about the characters or the emotions they had that made them forever hold a place in a readers’ heart or made them stand out, they are, however, relatable characters and everything they experienced is something that everybody would have experienced. The characters do not have a lot of layers but at least, readers can empathise with them and their emotions.

 

Flow: (13/15)

In terms of pacing, your story was a touch slow but that was needed for readers to understand what the characters were going through. By doing this, readers can feel the regret that the characters are feeling; Maka’s sadness and Soul’s need to make sure that Maka is safe. However, in terms of the way words and paragraphs flow, there were places where it flowed really well and there were areas where the story didn’t really flow because of either grammar, spelling, punctuation mistakes (which, unless extremely obvious, when reading fanfics are skimmed over) and certain vocabulary issues. However, there weren’t many mistakes nor were they that obvious so it did not hinder the flow too much.

 

Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation: (18/25)

*Note: all suggested changes are in red.*

There are a few grammar mistakes, two spelling mistakes and a few punctuation mistakes as far as I can see. Let’s start with grammar.

When describing something and there are two adjectives that are referring to an object/noun, there has to be a hyphen in between. There are instances where the hyphen is not added where it is needed.  Here are a few examples with corrections in place.

‘Maka swirled her spoon around in her chocolate-coloured coffee.’

‘She stood up, leaving her mug still half-full and walked out.’

‘They got hot-headed over a simple misunderstanding.’ (‘Over’ is a vocabulary issue but because the sentence needs a hyphen in between ‘hot’ and ‘headed’, it gets placed here.)

There is a sentence where there is a missing preposition so when readers try to imagine what the characters are doing literally, it doesn’t really work. This can be seen in the first example where ‘in’ is in red. However, this only happened once.

Sometimes you switch tenses however I think it is purely accidental. These corrections are done in past tense, considering that most of your story is in past tense.

‘She had thought that some air and space would be best for her, but it had only made her feel much worse.’

‘The apartment felt lonely.’

There is an instance where the sentence structure is not perfect because there are three different phrases which are put into sentences which, on their own, do not make sense.

‘She thought about all the adventures they went through; all the times they spent together as partners, whether it was on the battlefield or at home, when they would laugh together and when they would argue.’ (These are also the only punctuation mistakes that were there.)

 There is a similar instance where the sentence needs a word so that readers can understand the sentence but it was lacking the verb that would enable readers to understand the phrase.

‘The only one who could him with his life and the one he could depend on at all times.’ The only one who could what with his life?

The sentence shown above is not the only time you have suggested that Soul is not only a male but also a female but I believe he is a male.

‘He always appreciated everything Maka did for him…’

There were only two spelling mistake that I could find, which could have been a typo.

‘Maka thought about bringing the group here, just to hang out sometime.’

The words ‘hang out’ are separate words and the word ‘sometime’ does not need a space between because it is referring to another time in the future whereas ‘some time’ refers to an amount of time in time. The one that Maka is referring to is the first one as it fits in the sentence.

Overall, your grammar, spelling and punctuation were good. These were simply minor mistakes that most readers would skim through and not notice.

 

Vocabulary: (4/5)

There were a few issues with the vocabulary, however there were not many.

Two partners who were made for each other.

That’s why they will always stay together.

By changing those sentences in the description of the story like the ones shown above or to something similar, your description would flow better and also fit in with the majority of the mood that you have created for that paragraph.

The words from earlier this morning had hurt too much.

This is what he loved about her.

These sentences make more sense and they would help the story to flow better.

These are the only examples I could find, but this is nothing major. Most of the time, you use the right vocabulary to invoke the right emotions out of readers. Your vocabulary choice was not overly complicated but making that choice suits your story better than using complicated words and sophisticated language.

 

Bonus Points + Overall Enjoyment: (4/5)

What I really liked about your story was your characterisation and the pacing of the oneshot which really made readers feel what the characters were reading. These were very well done and it made the characters very relatable which in turn, made your story very nice. In terms of first impressions, the story does not seem to attract attention but ultimately, to most that should not matter at all.

 

Total: (79/100) | Grade: B

Note: This review is meant for constructive criticism. However if the opinion in this review has negatively affected you, your feelings or your writing style, please tell us. You deserve an apology even if it is unintentional.

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