The Sacrifice Of Love (One-Shot)

Title: The Sacrifice Of Love (One-Shot)
Author: ratana
URL: http://www.winglin.net/fanfic/ratana_2205/
Reviewed By: Keleos

First Impressions
Title: 5/10
I won’t pick on it. It’s nothing to shout about, the title, but at least it appears in proper English, with each of the first letter capitalised. I understand where the title is coming from, after reading the whole fic. I think the title is overly sappy and too clichéd, and I could sort of guess the plot after seeing your title.

Then again, the title is nothing much sometimes, and I guess it’s forgivable.

Poster and Background: 6/10
Poster’s alright, I really like Calvin’s picture in this one (and I’m not a fan of Calvin, haha). Only problem is that the poster isn’t really emotional enough. Granted that the fic is rather angsty (we’ll get to that later), but the quality of the writing doesn’t quite bring out the emotions that the poster is trying to convey. So the poster eventually threatens to overwhelm the story.

Coupled with the dark background, the whole thing gives the impression of something that’s more intense and passionate and angst than sad and tragic. And the background get distracting, especially with the font colour. It’s just too bright against the black background.

Foreword: 3/10
Uh… I do not appreciate flippant forewords. I know this is terribly hard to put across to people, because forewords are supposed to introduce the characters and stuff, which is exactly what you did. But to me, forewords are meant to set the pace for the story, regardless of whether you actually introduce your characters in depth or not. Like kind of a movie trailer for a movie. Your foreword is a trailer, and your fic is a movie. It’s supposed to (like the title and the art, that’s why they’re in the same section) attract the reader into continuing.

That’s the reason why your little foreword didn’t work out at all for me. It did nothing for the characterisation (meaning, personalities and stuff), nothing for setting the story pace or mood, and absolutely nothing for attracting the readers. In fact, it reveals too much already. Listing is not doing any of those three things. Really.

Upon closer examination…
Cast Used: 2/5
Once again, I’m giving 2 for the cast and 3 for characterisation. You didn’t do any characterisation, and I like the cast, so it’s imbalanced. I have absolutely no issue with you using Hebe-Calvin-Arron as cast members, and in fact, I’m rather in love with the pairing as well.
BUT! You failed in that you didn’t do anything to develop the characters at all. I was disturbed (yes, the word is disturbed) by the lack of emotion in your characters in such an emotionally charged story. And all I wanted to do after clicking on the foreword and reading it was to just click the “Next” button.

Story and Plotting: 3/15
I was struggling with myself over the mark to give, and I finally settled on three. 1 mark for the semblance of a story, 1 mark for making sure it actually ended, 1 mark for courage and bravery on actually daring to post this.

I won’t sugarcoat my words. I promised you that I won’t be sarcastic in this review, but I’ll be brutally honest.

It sucks.

You see, the plot is not really a plot. It’s a serried of events being thrown together in the most clichéd fashion possible and then being labelled as a story. In reality, if you watch idol dramas (which I suspect you do), this fic looks like the main, interesting parts of idol drama being dug out from them, then written into a fic. Just events, without any form of train of thought or idea connecting them together. It was good that you probably tried to put together a story or sorts, but really, this REALLY doesn’t make the cut.

As for the plotting, I think you did some, but how much you did is really betrayed in the story flow (which will be talked about in a later section).

Language: Spelling/Grammar/Vocabulary: 6/10
It’s not bad, really. For spelling and grammar, you did quite well and there weren’t major errors in the fic that kept reappearing. Which is good! Vocab wise, I suggest that you go and expand your diction. The lack of vocab made things a little tough to swallow because it just wasn’t interesting enough.

Watch your speech phrases, though. They have the tendency to sound colloquial, which is something that shouldn’t be appearing in a good piece of writing. 

Flow of Story: 2/10
Uh-uh. Just not there. I feel like I’m reading a series of individual events thrown into one, and things just happen suddenly. I’m sorry to say this, but I was laughing out loud when I was reading your what-was-supposed-to-be-emotional first chapter. It’s just so weird. I can’t explain it, but really, your story flow needs serious work and improvement, if not the whole thing will look like a joke. Just as this one was.

Order your events and give the whole thing an entirety. What this was lacking is the general trend of thought that a story should have. It’s almost like you wrote the story, then took out the non-interesting, bridging parts and then posted.

And by the way, script doesn’t work well for this section either.

Writing Style: 2/5
This is so wrong. I’ve explained the problems with your style in the previous few sections already, and I’m giving you a 2, just to be nice.

Overall feel…
Originality & Creativity: 4/15
This idol-drama type thing is not original. I repeat, it is not original. I suppose the marks go into the fact that your ending was strangely… disturbing in a way. Erm. It wasn’t romantic, I promise you, it was very disturbing.

The story ideas are just basically coming from all the idol series and whatnot, so I don’t really see the point to writing any more in this section. All I can say is… Dream up a story of your own.

Overall Enjoyment: 2/10
Nope. I didn’t like this one bit, and I didn’t enjoy it. Other than the fact that it could have been a good laugh. But I’m sorry for saying that.

Bonus marks: 2/5
For replying your readers.

Total mark: 37/100

Additional Comments: I can’t say much. All I know is… I was really being very honest in this review, and I was really trying my best to give you constructive comments and ideas that you might be able to use to improve any future writings. This was a failure; there’s no other way I could review it otherwise. But I guess, you could really try your hand in a different manner and a different fic the next time round.

Reviewed by Keleos@midnight-tree.co.nr