Monkey In The Middle

Title: Monkey in the Middle
Author: hellome
URL: http://www.winglin.net/fanfic/hellome0/
Reviewed By: Lone Ranger

Title: 9/10.
I felt it was a pretty successful title as firstly, it was fresh and secondly it got me scratching my head. So what was it about? And yes, it was definitely a cute title to go with a comedy.

Poster & Background : 3/5
No background so it’s upon 5. Artistically wise I had no problems with the poster and I felt the little monkey pretty cute. My only grievance would be that, the poster didn’t look as comedy/light hearted as I would have liked it to be. But anyhows, at least it was pleasing enough to the eye and that was good enough.

Forewords: 7/10
Let’s start with the pluses of your forewords. I liked the quotes you had picked for your characters and it showed that you had planned the story pretty well. The little preview was just funny. I found myself smiling at how Winston dealt with grasshoppers. And although you gave some hints to what the story was going to be like, you didn’t let out the whole story, keeping me and your readers in suspense.

I had a problem, however, with the presentation of your casts. The listing bit put me off a little and I felt it could have been better if you were to weave the personalities of the characters alongside your preview or something instead of leaving it as a list like you did.

Cast Used: 3.5/5
Well, I guessed your characters felt a little one sided. BUT, I did you expanded the one sidedness well enough with adequate examples showing Nic’s mischief. Kudos to how you characterized Winston as well. You did enough to qualify for a good story but I felt more could still be done because while your characters stand out, they did not jump at me and since you were writing a comedy, you could have exaggerated more parts of your characters.

Originality & Creativity: 11.5/15
I think this was the highest I had ever gave to a fic in terms of creativity. First, you decided to away with the cliché love story (YIPPIE) and second, you featured a monkey. Some of the incidents that you had included were fresh as well. Like how Charlene had to had the monkey stuffed under her shirt.

I liked how you ended the story with “Let's start over.” Which did away with the boring-o-happy ending.

My grievances come from the final incident at the jewelers. Somehow the whole Charlene got captured and Nic rushed the rescue thing with the Winston coming in at the nick of time was a little cheesy for a final incident. Though so, I must say, Winston going into the jeweler’s for a golden banana cracked me up.

Story & Plotting: 9/15
I liked how the story’s a build up of small little incidents between the leads and the monkey and it made reading rather easy. But I felt that while the ending itself was pretty creative and interesting by itself, the buildup to the end was a little unsatisfactory. Well, perhaps it was just me, but I felt the comic relief which had made my reading enjoyable till chapter 4 lost towards the climax. And it began to felt a little bland at the whole jeweler scene. It was not really funny, but neither was it exciting. I felt that it could be better if you could work on making the climax the epitome of the humour? Just a suggestion though.

Another problem I had was the overall feel of the story. Like I said at the beginning, small incidents made the story easy to read, but when the whole completed story surrounded only a few incidents, it felt a little wanting on my side. A story always had a beginning, a build up, a climax and a resolution right, but your story seemed to have a good start, an okay build up and a not-very-good climax and a good resolution. Perhaps you could work on it.

P.S: It could be because all you did was to edit the chapters that you had already posted and you couldn’t remember what you had in mind when you first posted the story in 2006. A little tip though, keep a notebook of your plans for your stories. It would be good for backtracking.

Spelling/Grammar/Vocabulary: 8/10
I thought I spotted a few negligible mistakes in your language, otherwise it was almost perfect. Vocabulary wise, I must say that you did well in your usage of them to either evoke emotions (mostly laughter) or paint a picture of the scene in my head.

Flow Of Story: 7.5/10
I didn’t have trouble following your story in general. Your changes of scene were pretty smooth. I liked how you worked the 3rd person perspective to your advantage but actually bringing the readers to different scenes to witness the events instead of narrating it from the lead’s point of view. I felt that you had also successfully integrated the past, present and future well in the beginning of the story where instead of a long boring introduction, you managed to bring me/the readers right to the scene of action without compromising on some of the facts.

However like I had mentioned, towards the end, your story began to flow like a very linear one with nothing spectacular which was why it dropped to a 7.5.

Writing Style: 3.5/5
I must say that I enjoyed how you went about writing your story. It was comical, definitely, but I felt that you wrapped the comic relief with a certain style of your own. There was something that spelt distinctively you. But I had one problem, which was this : “*Nicholas' Bedroom*”

I felt that you could have weaved the change of scene in a better way. At least use a sentence? Because by using asterisk to denotate the change of scene felt a little amateurish.
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Overall Enjoyment: 7/10
You could have gotten a 8. But I was a little unhappy about the last bit, the climax bit at the jewelers, so you got marked down for it. But in general, you fic was funny, light hearted and a good read.

Bonus marks: 2/5
For sending in a completed fic I guess. It made my marking easier =) And another bonus for the monkey.

Total mark: 71/95 (75/100)

Additional comments:
Definitely a good attempt! Fresh ideas and good language. I guessed I liked it overall. But well, work on the climax. That was, I daresay, the only pitfall in the story.

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