○daeguknamahForever○

 New Moon 

I offer my sincere apologies for completing your review so late. I kept delaying because I had other stuff. I am terribly story. Thank you for waiting so patiently. 

Title: (3/5)

Your title is interesting and definitely captivates the reader’s attention. I would click on it to see what it is about. Those who don’t have an interest in supernatural or fantasy genres, the title would not appeal to them. However, the title is compelling and does make readers want to see what the story is all about.

In terms of wherever the title of your story fits the story is a different matter.  You only find out in chapter eleven, why the story is called Demon Stones. The story is called Demon Stones because Kain has demon stones inside of them due to Jarin’s father who implanted them into him in the first place. While the title does become vital to the plot later on, it did not seem like the most important thing throughout the whole story. The demon stones only became integral to the story after Jarin joined the bandits and started to get to know Kain, while I felt like the emotional/love struggle that Jarin went through seemed to be more significant than the demon stones and the magic, etc.

Foreword/Description: (4/10)

Any description is meant to draw in the reader and make them want to continue reading the story. Your description, on the other hand, is one sentence long and explains the majority of the plot. For readers to be attracted to a story there must be an element of mystery that will keep them guessing as to what will happen next. Readers are given a tiny bit of detail about the actual story and a ‘hook’ to catch their attention. Your description reveals a bit too much detail and it doesn’t sound very interesting or exciting. The sentence sounds like summary. Possibly making it longer or more ambiguous might give the description the ‘hook’ that it needs.

Your foreword is an excerpt of chapter four. It can be split into two parts. The first part of your foreword is about Jarin trying to get over Breely but he cannot. I understand that you wish to express those reminiscent times; however there are issues with flow which will be discussed underneath that section. The second part of the foreword which is where Jarin wakes up, is meant to, I believe, create suspense and tension for the chapters coming up. The ending does not really give it that feel, except that it ends. Both of the foreword and description do not create a ‘hook’ to interest readers however it does enable readers to know what the story is actually about and sets a bit of the tone for the story and chapters to come.

Plot and Originality: (10/20)

Your plot is quite ambitious. You have a lot of ideas that you want your plot to incorporate but you don’t lengthen out each one which makes your plot somewhat flawed. To summarise: your plot consists of the main character, Jarin, after falling in love with a fellow male soldier, Breely, meets Kain (who he technically did meet before) and his group. Jarin ends up travelling with the group who are threatened by Jarin’s father. This plot alone is a very big plot. There are a lot of elements that have to be tackled in order for the entire plot to work. The plot was a bit rushed and subsequently, there were quite a few things that I was unsatisfied with the plot/setting. They are listed below however; keep in mind that these aren’t major issues.

First of all, in this alternate universe: is it normal for men to be gay? Is it normal for Jarin, after meeting a stranger even if he is handsome, to be blushing hotly? Is the other boy supposed to be feeling his cock twitch when he sees how Jarin’s body reacts to his touch? Are Jarin and Breely supposed to do that so quickly? Also, why are most of the men in this story gay? Personally I think that in this alternate universe, it is socially expected for a guy to be with a girl (seen when Jarin and his father talk about Jarin’s arranged marriage). So is it normal for men to be gay?

Another one that bugged me was how dangerous the mission was to retrieve the spell books. It was implied in Jarin’s and Breely’s conversation that the mission to retrieve those objects was very dangerous and that Breely may not come back alive. This danger should have emphasised earlier, prior to the conversation so that readers could see it and also feel worried about Breely’s safety. The danger was only briefly mentioned but it should have been emphasised a lot more. This did not happen.  This would have made it more obvious to readers that Breely was going into something dangerous and the possibility of him making out of it is slim. This would have made Breely’s fight/struggle with the wizard a bit more climatic and make it feel like the story has lost an (so far) integral character of the story.

I have one last issue with the plot: the ending. I was really hoping for an amazing ending (because this story is after all about magic and spells) but unfortunately, that wasn't really granted to readers. The ending is kind of a bunch of statements that summarise what happened afterwards. The ending almost loses its story-telling quality that every fanfic/novel/piece of writing should possess. In my opinion, the ending was a bit… plain. Other than that, there is one other thing that I am also frustrated about with the ending. What happens to Breely? Seriously, he helps them defeat Jarin’s father and then removes the demon stones from Kain, and he doesn’t get a proper ending? I don’t even know what happens to him at the end. So what does happen to Breely? Does he stay by Jarin? Does he wonder elsewhere?

In terms of originality, the plot does seem a bit over-used. The main character turns on their father because they find out that he is evil and goes against them. It is a bit of cliché plot that is commonly seen in novels and films of adventure/action genre. The main character falls in love with the person who their father especially hurt – that isn’t really anything new either. What I think is a bit unique is the fact that you used guys… (Or maybe it’s because I don’t really read yaoi).

Characterisation: (7/15)

Right, characterisation: it was a satisfactory job done here. The characterisation was okay at times, sometimes it got better and sometimes it got worse. But usually, it got worse before it was justified and then the characterisation seemed somewhat realistic. Let’s focus on the main character, shall we? Note that I don’t have many issues with Jarin but these issues are quite small.

There were two things that I really did not like about his characterisation. The first one is that Jarin is quite easily distrustful of his father. Why is this a problem? No matter what his father has done in the past or what his father has done to Jarin in particular, this person is still his father and has been and will forever be his father for his whole life. It is very hard for Jarin, his son, to accept that his father is cruel and is doing morally wrong stuff. It doesn’t matter who or how bad their relationship is, every child has at some stage in their life looked up at their father and considered them as a role model (especially boys). He should not be so distrustful of his father, no matter how his father treats him or how distant and strained their relationship is. Jarin should not easily believe someone who he has just met saying something controversial (but true) about his father, someone he has known his whole life and is the very reason that he physically exists. And even if he has a strained relationship with his father and doesn’t like him, it was never stressed prior in the story. So when his father decides to have him marry a girl, his father forces him to marry her anyway – his reaction shouldn’t have been so strong. That should not have been the final straw that convinced him to leave. I almost could not believe how easy it was for Jarin to turn against his father and be completely distrustful of him. It is another matter altogether to have a ‘spy’ tail his father. This signifies that Jarin no longer acknowledges his father as his father and instead, as an enemy to have a spy stay behind and investigate. That happens far too soon and it makes Jarin’s characterisation very unrealistic.

The second thing that I found really weird about Jarin’s characterisation is the romance (now that you mention it, the entire romance in the story which all revolves around Jarin, anyway). Now that I think about it, there are a lot of issues involving the romance in the story and how that was developed. First, a homosexual guy very easily and almost instantly falls in love with another guy. In a society where most are heterosexual, it almost seems quite easy for Jarin to accept that he likes guys. That personal fact that he discovered about his sexuality is so easily accepted by him. Would he not freak out as to why he acted in such a way? When people discover that they are homosexual and they were raised in an environment where it was socially acceptable to be heterosexual, this personal fact should not be so easily accepted.  Jarin goes through no stage where he thinks, “Hang on, what’s happening to me?” The fact that he doesn’t is a character flaw and makes him an unrealistic character.

Continuing on with Jarin’s romance/emotions, I don’t think that Jarin possesses a photographic memory so how does he remember Kain after five years of not seeing him? Come on, this is five years we are talking about! Granted that you remember the person who saved your life and Jarin was also infatuated with him for a while (like a couple of days); it still makes no sense that Jarin, having already fallen deeply in love with Breely and unable to get over him after five years, would remember Kain. It is inconsistent to Jarin’s character and what he should be feeling at that time. Another point is that Jarin is already jealous of Anna who Kain was hanging out with for a couple of hours. After months of being in love with Breely and years of trying to get over him, he is already jealous of someone who is spending a little bit of time with Kain. Why does he like Kain already so much, physically and otherwise? He’s supposed to be in love with Breely, has been for the past five years and no one can get over that in a couple of days. It is emotionally impossible for someone to be able to get over the person that they have loved for five years in a couple of days. And poof, would you look at that? Breely and Jarin are making out and giving each other hand jobs. Really? That is way too quick – way too fast. So after their night together, thank goodness Jarin runs away and starts to think of Breely! Hooray! Good and consistent characterisation right there, the rest of it – not so much. But the next morning, he is like “I wanna be someone you can trust.” Really? Really?!  Thank goodness, that later Jarin feels guilty because of Breely – shows that he is somewhat realistic and human.

Then a couple of chapters later down the track, Breely reunites with Jarin. I am going to assume that in the past five years (because they loved each other) that Breely loved Jarin for quite a while. But after a while of not seeing Jarin, it is understandable that Breely's feelings may have diminished. However, Breely should be happy to see Jarin and Jarin should as well because they were once someone very important to one another. Yet, we don’t see that pleasant surprise anywhere. Shouldn’t they be jumping up and down? (Yes, Jarin may like Kain, but regardless) they haven’t seen each other in a long time and they were completely in love with one another. Also, now that Breely is here, it seems as though there is absolutely nothing between him and Jarin anymore. It’s like that one month of being really deeply in love with each other completely disappeared into thin air. They don’t talk to each other about their feelings or what happened. They don’t even catch up or anything. Another thing is that in the previous chapter Jarin felt guilty because of Breely. However, for some strange reason, that guilt evaporates into thin air because Jarin proceeds to do it with Kain – really?

The main character was Jarin so I mainly focused on Jarin; and it is safe for me to say, he has quite a few character flaws.

Flow: (7/15)

The overall pace of the story seemed a bit rushed because the plot was quite huge and to be able to pull off a plot of that size and complexity well, the story needs to be slowed down, rather than progressing at the speed that it did. To slow down the pace; the best way is to add more detail in. One instance where slowing down is vital is, in general, when writing romance. The process of the two people (or one person) falling in love must not be too rushed. It must be written at a suitable pace because people do not fall in love at first sight. If that happens, then the character/person is incredibly shallow. Now, while I understand that romance can be developed very quickly in one month and that in duration of that month, it is quite easy for Breely and Jarin to have deep feelings for each other; however, those deep feelings weren’t mentioned a lot in your story. Readers were not able to see that relationship develop from mutual attraction to love. This is why for Jarin and Breely’s relationship; it seemed a bit rushed. But from the reader’s current point of view, their relationship progresses very quickly that you don’t see quite how much they love each other. The overall plot was also rushed with them going to find the wizard and fighting against Jarin’s father.

Another scene that in my opinion needed more detail were the fighting scenes. There were generalised and everything seems to completely go over you because it wasn't described in enough detail. With more detail, the scenes could have been more suspenseful and it would not seem as rushed. Also if there was added detail, readers would also be able to sympathise with the characters and feel scared with the characters as they face a dangerous threat. Readers would see the danger that it would cause to the characters and be scared for them.

As for the flow of the story, which is whether everything flows onto another naturally or does the writing seem choppy. By maintaining a good flow throughout the story and not having it disrupted, readers are immersed in the story and they read the story more enjoyably and understand what the characters are going through and what they will face in the future. To be honest, there were times when the story was choppy and there were times when the story flowed fine. The flow was overall okay.

Grammar, Spelling and Punctuation: (20/25)

*Note: all suggested changes are in Chapter 1 and in red.*

All throughout the story, there were a couple of grammar, spelling and punctuation mistakes. The first one that I spotted was spelling.

 ‘…but was encouraged to continue…’

Punctuation, now!

 ‘…light-haired man…’

This actually happened quite a few times. Just remember that when you are describing a person (noun), it is an adjective. When there are two adjectives that correlate to each other, they are joined using a hyphen (-) to show that they are related to each other and they are referring specifically to the same feature. In this particular example demonstrated above, the adjective is referring to the colour of Kain’s hair and therefore must be joined by a hyphen.

Grammar overall seemed fine but there was one mistake that I found occurring during the first few chapters. Towards the end of the story, however, this error was no longer spotted which is a good sign. Despite this, it is important to note that new speaker new line. Whenever someone different speaks, their dialogue/speech is put on a new line (the line below) to the previous person who spoke. Don’t put all the dialogue of every person who speaks all in the same paragraph. Why? Because that’s the way that people write English. Remember: new speaker new line.

Vocabulary: (4/5)

Overall, your vocabulary that you used seemed okay. I only had one issue with vocabulary in your story. However, the type of words you used seemed to suit your story just fine.

‘He turned to shoot a lightning bolt…’

The first time I saw the original sentence (which did not have the word ‘lightning’ in it), I was like ‘what is a bolt?’

Bonus Points + Overall Enjoyment: (3/5)

This story is not something that I would usually read but it was a pleasant story to read, nonetheless. While there were times when I felt really frustrated with Jarin’s characterisation and the way that he acted, I liked the plot twists that you did – especially with Breely. I kind of predicted that one and then it happened and I was clapping like a seal! But your story is still a nice story to read.  

Total: (58/100) | Grade: C

Note: This review is meant for constructive criticism. However if the opinion in this review has negatively affected you, your feelings or your writing style, please tell us. You deserve an apology even if it is unintentional.

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