Tears I Shed For You

Title: Tears I Shed For You
Author: Annyong_
URL: http://www.winglin.net/fanfic/Annyong_/
Reviewed By: Keleos

First Impressions
Title: 6/10
I didn’t see how the title actually worked for the story by the time it was the first chapter, to be perfectly honest. Later, it became clear where the title was coming from, and I guess it did work out to be rather effective in the end. It’s a bit normal, the title. It doesn’t stand out amongst the fancy letterings and the creative titles of the many other fics out there, so it appears rather average. I guess there’s nothing really much you could do about this one.

I gave it slightly higher marks since it was written in good language (with everything in caps and all) and it suited the mood of the title.

Poster and Background: 7/10
I can’t see the picture, so I’ll score for background. To be honest, I don’t like background pictures because it takes the focus away from the writing. Yours doesn’t do that, so that’s really great, but I think what it needs is a more interesting font colour. The problem with the whole thing comes in two parts. Firstly, the fact that the black font and sepia colouring tends to put people off to sleep after a while, and secondly, the fact that your pictures are a bit too dark, and it makes the words overlapping them a tad hard to read (at least, on my screen they’re a bit hard to see).

I guess what you wanted was the emotional feel. This one this just that for you, but I wish it could have been a bit jazzed up. Ditto about the poster though, you might want to check your link. 

Foreword: 8/10
It’s a pretty wow foreword by you, with all the introductions done and stuff. There’s nothing really more I could ask out of it, other than the fact that maybe you do some characterisation and stuff. I really like the idea of character voice, which is what you did in the start, but later in the foreword you fell into the normal, average listing of characters like all other fics do. Maybe next time, you could just do character voice for every character? It makes the foreword a lot more attractive and interesting.

Upon closer examination…
Cast Used: 3/5
I have absolutely zero idea who your casts are so… Sorry. (I thought Won Bin was the Korean actor -_-) Erm. I guess you kind of scored more highly on characterisation, since I don’t know who they are, but your characters were vague in the early chapters. The later chapters were better and the personalities eventually became clearer and more established, but they began to appear a bit clichéd. So I think you could basically work out on that a bit more.

As for the cast people, I’m dreadfully sorry I have no idea who they are. I tried to do research and stuff, so at least I know how they look like. But other than that, it’s rather limited. My apologies!

Story and Plotting: 9/15
I think you did kind of do some sort of story planning, but I’m a bit confused. I appreciate the intertwining storylines, but I don’t think this is something that anyone should attempt to read and understand the first time if he or she is in a tired state of mind (a bit like your truly now).

Story can be summed up in a single word. Clichéd. Or more strangely, you took the plots of various Korean dramas, cut them up into bite-sized pieces, and then threw them into your fic. I see elements of various dramas inside, each of them with their own cliché, and it all rolls up into one big cliché bomb in this fic. A tad strange here, but it’s like trying to tell too many stories in one single story, which just basically kills a lot of it lost. The standard, telling elements: arranged marriage (Goong), blind after an accident girl (Stairway to Heaven), cold prince charming (practically all the dramas out there), adorable, loving brother/cousin sidekick (most obviously in a myriad of Taiwanese idol dramas, from Hana Kimi to the recent Bull Fighting), and basically rather limp schemes to get the guy. It all appears here, and I don’t know what to make of it, creative, or just plain clichéd.

Plot wise, you did well in the plotting and stuff. So that’s great!  The ending is a little strange as well, a bit too sudden for my liking, actually. It’s another one of those schizo things that you do throughout the whole fic. O.o

Language: Spelling/Grammar/Vocabulary: 7/10
Not too bad for language, really. There’re some crazy grammar mistakes here and there, and from your normal language, I don’t think they’re meant to be deliberate…are they? Just run them through Word next time, and I think everything could be sorted out. I like the emotional passages, because the language really shines there. Well done at those parts.

All in all, alright here. Just be more consistent.

Flow of Story: 7/10
I’m penalising not for the general flow of the story, but more for the front parts. It seems terribly patchy, the initial three or four chapters of the story, which are the most important for attracting the readers’ attention and setting the pace and characters for the rest of the story. Later it gets better, but the first three chapters are a real pity. They don’t seem to fit in the rest of the story at all.

Writing Style: 3/5
Your writing style is a bit strange. It fluctuates between extremely beautiful emotion passages to plain-speaking, detached narration, to cliché oddity within a matter of one chapter. You might want to look into that again. It kind of affects the whole mood of the story, and the nice tone you set earlier (meaning to say that the jumpiness of the whole thing makes the mood a bit spoilt).

Kind of a pity.

Overall feel…
Originality & Creativity: 9/15
Like I said, I’m not sure what to make out of this fic, because it’s really something that’s clichéd rolled into one from various sources. Well… I’ve seen fics with one or two, or even three elements, but never one like yours, with so many of them. The thing is, strictly judging on Originality, yours is nowhere near the mark I’ve given you. But based on simply the fact that this one is just so… Weird to the point of being special, because of the multiple elements, I think it kind of deserves what it got.

I’m a little insecure about this, but what the heck. -_-

Overall Enjoyment: 6/10
Alright, I really, really loved the emotional parts, and I found myself tearing a bit (no, not because I was yawning). But I was really tearing (yawning) at some of the parts that I fast-forwarded: emotionless narration that really, literally bored me to tears. But nevertheless, this fic falls somewhere in the middle, and it’s pretty readable as a whole, so I gave it to you. *g*

Bonus marks: 3/5
Three from linking, otherwise nothing else. 

Total mark: 68/100

Additional Comments: It was a pretty OK fic, nothing really special about it, except for the bursts of spectacular writing that littered the fic. Those were really good, and I wish there could have been more of those.

Anyway, a relatively good try here, and I’m hoping to see a better fic in your next round! Aja! 

Reviewed by Keleos@midnight-tree.co.nr