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Review by Sunshine: Irony of Fate

Title: Irony of Fate

Author: Molokolulush

Summary: 4/5

Your summary starts off incredibly strong, and it has all the right things. It briefly introduces the protagonists and their goals, it introduces the horrors of the world, and it also finishes the summary off with some rhetorical questions to urge the readers to read on. Great work! I love the philosophical undertones present in the summary, because it introduces us to the writing style that we're about to witness for ourselves, and it also plays with the title of the story.

I wonder if you could be a bit more specific with the stakes. Your summary is rather short, so you do have the opportunity to introduce what the 'strange things' that you mention in your summary are. Maybe you can hint at how December will get himself out of there? Just a thought.

Also, I believe you spelt the word 'occurring' wrong. But, otherwise, great job!

Grammar: 3/5

First of all, I found a few run-on sentences here and there. In general, I do think the punctuation could use work - I found instances of commas where there should have been periods, and I found instances of missing commas. For example:

"That night as December was gazing at the smoky sky, he came to realise two things."

If I were to read this aloud, it sounds a bit clunky because there is a missing comma between the words 'night' and 'as'. I recommend reading your story aloud to find those sneaky pauses and include punctuation where those pauses are. In the above example, I would change it to:

"That night, as December was gazing at the smoky sky, he came to realise two things."

Another issue I found was tenses. For the most past, you were in past tense. But there were several times where you broke the fluency of the story by switching to present. For example:

"December thought to himself while wondering if Naomi was in any kind of trouble, which in any case, she most probably is."

Let's break this down:

"December thought to himself..." [thought = past tense]

"... she most probably is." [is = present tense]

I suggest going back and polishing that. And, finally, another error I found had to do with capitalisation after dialogue. Let's look at the following example:

"Why are we doing this again?" Said the woman.

The 'said' does not need to be capitalised because it is part of the dialogue. It's verbal tag, and it can be tricky since there is the question mark beforehand, but it still should be:

"Why are we doing this again?" said the woman. 

Character Building: 3.5/5

There were some fantastic moments of character building throughout your story. First of all, I absolutely loved Naomi – I found her dialogue quite comical despite the intensity of each situation. Her voice was a distinct contrast to December and his more quiet, calm and formal voice. Great work there!

I do think, however, that you do a lot of telling when it comes to characterisation. Sentences like 'he felt like he didn't belong' and 'people had a hard time cracking his shell' feel a bit too formal and a bit too much like an informative article about the character. Maybe you could find other ways to weave this into the story so that you can show it to the reader and make us feel December's loneliness.

Let's look at another example. When Naomi finds her stepmother, you broke down her and Naomi's backstory from beginning to end in the first few paragraphs. Why not try weaving all this information within the chapter, rather than all at once? Maybe try making Naomi see glimpses of the abuse, of the spite – that way, it won't just be a chunk of information followed by dialogue. 

Writing Style: 4/5

I love the descriptive writing, as well as the philosophical undertones that underpinned the story. The writing itself was character-driven, which I am an absolute sucker for, and the voices were handled exceptionally well, despite being in third person. I like the way the characters' thoughts seeped into the narrative, and I like how the way everything was described was manipulated by the character's voice.

I do encourage you to manipulate your sentence structure to make it a bit more playful. Your story has intense moments, as well as moments thick with drama and tension. Don't hesitate to flesh those out and make the readers really feel each moment of panic.

And, again, be more subtle with your backstories – weave it into the story in subtle, clever ways.

Plot + Uniqueness: 4/5

While I love the concept of 'Them', it isn't exactly the most unique trope. But, that being said, I think the characterisation was rather unique to the genre and I also like the direction of the story so far. It's hard to judge an overall plot when it feels like we have just gotten the wheels turning.

Worldbuilding is handled relatively well, though I do wonder whether, as mentioned previously, you could keep it more subtle. Weave everything in – including the backstory of the Them. I understand the info-dump when Naomi tells December about it because he is completely new to it, but rather than one chunk of information, maybe consider making December ask questions, make Naomi struggle to answer them, show the way they both respond to her struggle. It'll be a nice way to tie in some personality traits, as well as a subtle way to introduce the world through some banter. 

OVERALL SCORE: 18.5/25

Overall, a fascinating concept with an interesting pair of protagonists. Just work on your tenses, and you'll be good to go! I hope this review helps.