Interested in some constructive criticism? Want to know what awards I've judged? This is the place where I'm keeping track of informal feedback requests, detailed scoring for awards, full book reviews, and anything else of that nature. If you're int...
Full title: 𝐜𝐨𝐥𝐝; 𝒌𝒔𝒋 ✓ by homiekook Source: ᴬʳᵗⁱˢᵗⁱᶜ ᴱˣᵖʳᵉˢˢⁱᵒⁿˢ ᴬʷᵃʳᵈˢ by janefanfics Category: Brushstrokes of Feelings Mature: N Status: Complete Special note (judging): I had five books from this category, and the other judge, Saramitra_, had five books. Score: 81/100
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Blurb: 4/5 I'm back and forth on this because on the one hand, I love short blurbs, but on the other hand, this may be too short. But this is also a short story, so...I think it's probably fine. You don't want a blurb longer than your story, after all. That would be silly. (And probably something I would do, since I can't write anything short to save my life.😉)
I'd move the quote down, though, so that logline is the first thing a prospective reader sees when they click your book title and get that pop-up box. And the first letter of "why" should be capitalized, since it's the first word in a sentence.
Creativity & Practicality: 3/5 I'm impressed by how much you packed into just a few words and how deeply you dove into this, but this plot isn't really unique. Couple everyone's against gets married, he starts working longer hours, she feels neglected and cheats on him with his best friend, she gets pregnant, he finds out about her cheating and doesn't know who the father is, he starts cheating (or flirting with the idea of cheating, anyway), and when it all comes out, he leaves her. The only reason this is a BTS fanfiction is because the male names are those of BTS members. Otherwise, they could be anybody. The way to make a used plot new and yours is all in the details, usually descriptive, and there's just not enough detail here to distinguish this from the pack.
Grammar: 3/5 Generally clean writing, but there are some awkward or clumsy phrases here or there, usually just because of extra words that cloud the meaning. For example, "sat on his knees" could just be "knelt," and when she says, "We both know how much we had gone through," you should simplify "had gone" to "went." There could be more commas here or there, especially with longer sentences, and an instance of colloquial phrasing within the narrative that probably should be swapped out for the grammatically correct form: "He kept the test" should be "he set the test."
Side note, I'd never encountered using "kept" in place of "set" until the past week or two. Within that time period, I've read several books that use "kept," and it's really weird to me. "Kept" means you have possession of something, you keep it with you or close, so why would you use that when you're setting something down and therefore giving it up and not holding onto it anymore? But I guess that's how colloquialisms are. They often make no sense for people outside the group.
Anyway, when she says she's "exhausted of his behaviour," the preposition should be "by," and there's a missing period after "I yelled." When she says she "had always been a selfish person but I had no idea that my selfishness will break," it should be "would break." And there's a missing t in "don't." So just standard proofreading stuff, nothing major.
Plot Development: 5/5 Like I said under the creativity section, you pack a lot into a few words. You give us these brief snapshots of key points in this pregnancy and relationship, and just those quick images are enough to paint the larger picture in the reader's mind. This is all about the emotional deep dive here, which I'll get into below.
Style, Tone, & Feelings Factor: 60/70 So, yeah, this entire piece is about emotions. The tense anticipation while waiting for the pregnancy test. The relief and tentative optimism when it's positive. The sudden downturn when his attention and affection leaves her, and the pain she feels, wondering why he's so cold. And then the sucker punch to the gut when she realizes he knows about her cheating...and, finally, the knife to the heart when he says he'll provide for her, but he's not staying with her. And we can see through her perspective how this affects him. There's an anger in the distance he keeps between them, and when he tells her what he knows, there's a deep sadness and pain because she cheated. He hates what has happened, and he hates making the decision to leave her, but she hurt him too much for him to stay. And then the story ends. We don't know if they split up, if they reconciled, if the baby is his or his friend's. It's all speculation.
My general complaint about style and tone is just that this is way too short, which I'll get into in the next category.
Component Compatibility: 3/5 This is just too short. The exploration of emotions and the short vignettes are good, but there's no room for description, no room to make the plot your own. I struggled to decide scoring because I want to go higher, but when I weigh any issues against the amount of words in the story, there's no room for error. For example, if this were a longer story, I would have given a 4/5 for grammar, but the error per word count is too high for me to give a higher score than a 3/5. Deciding how to even describe what I'm seeing and feeling is difficult when I have so little to work with. I'm pretty sure this feedback is already longer than the story.
Overall Rating: 3/5 This was better than I expected. I saw the reading time of less than five minutes and wondered how on earth a story with multiple chapters could be that short, and, as I said before, I ended up being impressed by how much you packed into so few words. But it's good enough that it leaves me dissatisfied. Not the ending, which is supposed to be dissatisfying. The vague allusions to all they'd gone through to get to this point. That's repeated multiple times, and the only explanation given is a vague statement about his company not wanting them to get married. It's just too vague in general. It could stand out, but it doesn't. And maybe this is just me. I'm not as big on short stories as others are. But this just leaves me wanting.
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