The Lightning Awards Season 3 [IN SESSION]

Evanescence

Judged by Lyn (SoarLikeTheWind)

Category: I'm Not A Mary Sue

[ Author: Snowwhitewolf09 ]

Title (5/5): Titles comprised of a single, fanciful word like "Evanescence" are to be employed with caution--and you certainly do. It's meaning quickly becomes clear and of relevance to the themes of the story as the book progresses. I appreciate how you stick strongly to the word you have chosen to represent your novel. Additional props for the carefully chosen chapter titles.

Summary (10/10): I'll elaborate more on your tone and pacing later, but for now, I'm going to say simply that your summary does its job spectacularly at drawing the reader in. As soon as I read the first four lines, I knew I would like your summary because it follows an hourglass structure. The hourglass structure opens with something unspecific--"A mysterious grey-haired stranger who knows him."--and cuts to the core--"The Kurogane family." The hourglass then broadens once again at the end when you address, "But just like ash blown into the wind, what one believes can evanesce as soon as the truth comes to blow it away, and the remnants may not be as pleasant as one hopes it would be." What I think you can improve is to clarify a little more of the mystery. I do not mean that you should necessarily include spoilers, and rest assured that your summary does not read as confusing, but a better balance of mystery and exposition may be easier for a new reader to consume.

Plot (21/25) -> [16.8/20]: In all honesty, I really enjoy reading Evanescence. Although the initial similarity to Glass Coffin concerned me (which I noticed was mentioned by a commenter as well), it is so interesting to see how a very different character would fare in the same situation. The differences quickly multiply, especially the circumstances that put them in the hospital in the first place, and I found myself eager to follow Suabara around some more. I always enjoy a good character-driven story. Unfortunately, I am only able to access the plot of the contents published thus far, which have not developed the full range of tones to constitute a proper narrative arc. I will cover a little more of the plot in Originality.

Characterization (17/20) -> [12.75/15]: I appreciate how this story has a fully fleshed-out cast of original characters beside the canon characters. The diversity in age, from young, naive Shun to old, wise Shimozuru helps distinguish your original characters from each other conceptually. Age diversity is something that writers often forget, yet makes a huge difference in creating contrast and variation. You rely on actions for characterization, which is an indicator of sophisticated writing. However, the speaking patterns of your characters could use a little more differentiation through the consideration of ticks, vocabulary level, jargon, and the presence or lack of filler words. I believe you can still improve your cast by adding more dynamic characters, since it seems that everyone beside Suabara at the moment is a static characer. I do acknowledge that this interpretation may simply be because there are no significantly developed character arcs yet due to the current state of the work, like with Plot.