Paper Cranes [MT Challenge]

Title: Paper Cranes [MT Challenge]
Author: WZ
URL: http://winglin.net/fanfic/WZ7/

Reviewed By: Lone Ranger

Title
I can’t comment on a challenge fic title, can I?

Poster & Background : 4/5
No background, so it’s upon 5.

I liked the poster, the colours were well picked and the blend with seamless. Well, my own grievance would be that maybe more could still be done?

Forewords
Technically you didn’t have any forewords. And I decided against penalizing you for it.

Cast Used: 2/5
I felt your characterization lacking in this fic. More could have been said about how she felt or how he felt. Who he was and who she was. I was okay with you not naming your characters, but I felt no connection to your characters whatsoever.

Originality & Creativity: 6/15
Okay, faking a lie to leave a girl wasn’t the most creative of ideas. In fact I just did a review of a story like that last night. Neither was a third party intrusion. The only part that I would count as creative in your whole story would be that you decided to leave it as a sad ending. Ie: The girl and the guy did not end up together. But it wasn’t enough to warrant you a pass though.

Story & Plotting: 6/15
I enjoyed the ending due to my, sadist love of unhappy endings. But more than that, I enjoyed how the fic left me hanging of sorts. I liked how you left it in two lines instead of having to tell the readers word for word what had happened. And I liked how two lines managed to tie the whole story together. Kudos!

But apart from that, I had problems with your story. You didn’t do enough to brew the story (which would actually cut down the impact of your ending, but that’s beside the point) and it just felt lacking. I wanted to know more about her and him. Paint me the place, paint me the colours so that I would be feel absorbed with the story. The lack of descriptions also meant that it failed to elicit an emotion for me. You were supposed to make me feel something.

Very underdeveloped plot and thus very disappointing.

And and as creativity, I couldn’t pass you as your underdeveloped plot overwrote the impressive ending.

Spelling/Grammar/Vocabulary: 8/10
I liked your sentences. It just felt good reading a fic with a proper flow after all the junk that I had read. Vocabulary was pretty precise and showed some depth. Perhaps you could work on word play and other more advanced usage of the language to improve. Otherwise, nice =)

Flow Of Story: 4/10.
I could understand how the story went. But the main problem was that the story didn’t feel smooth enough. I felt that for a more emotional piece like yours, I needed to hear the melody of the story which I couldn’t. The story seemed to move a little too fast, you could have slowed down, ie: Put in more descriptions to freeze some scenes.

Writing Style: 2/5
ONE LINERS! I felt that this was a manifestation of your underdeveloped plot. It lacked impact and did not show the story well as a whole. And maybe due to that, it lacked voice. The 2 came because I did like some of your beautiful sentences.

Overall Enjoyment: 5/10
I enjoyed the ending (Ie the final two lines).But I felt the build up was quite bad which I would personally attribute it to the length of the fic. I liked where you were coming from but it lacked development. I felt that you could have went in depth in either exploring more emotions, ie a more descriptive piece and work on both of their innerthoughts and fine actions or you could add recollections to the piece to make it more whole.

A pity actually, it had a huge potential.

Bonus marks: 3/5
For the attempt. For the nice ending that did make me sigh. For the courage to write such a short fic =)

Total mark: 40/75 (53/100)

Additional comments:
Nice ideas. I enjoyed how you left me longing. But perhaps the main problem was the genre that this fic fell in. When you write an emotional piece like that, more emotions must be injected. I mean if this was a thriller, then perhaps this might be more acceptable. Always remember, your readers must feel something from it. They must be drawn. Let them cry if they may, because if they did, you had succeeded.

Reviewed by Lone Ranger (aka Jess_ @midnight-tree.co.nr)