Intro:

Fragments of a Silent Symphony was written by A_desperate_Lover. It is a poetic prose book inspired by the song K by Cigarettes After Sex. It takes place over the course of ten months, or ten letters, and it follows a couple dealing with heavy stress after a medical issue drastically changes their lives.

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Detailed Feedback

What Worked:

First and foremost, I love the idea to draw inspiration from the song "K" by CAS. Not only do I love this song and recognized it immediately, but I love it when authors take music and expand upon their meaning and possible interpretations. It's a really cool idea that made me intrigued as early as the blurb. I'm glad you took the risk of translating one medium into another while also giving it originality and your own specific style.

And to follow that up, you do a good job capturing the feel of what the vibe of the song was. The tone is consistent throughout the story and the writing style never drastically changes. That makes it far easier to immerse ourselves in what you're trying to say since we're not worried about the tone going out of whack or anything like that. It really feels like a book rendition of CAS songs, particularly K.

This is a small detail I won't spend too much time on, but I liked how every chapter started with "My dearest K." The use of "dearest" I can tell was very purposeful, and it's a small thing, but it stands out. While on the topic, I liked how there were core "chapters," then the in between that showed the relationship and gave more context to the letters. It was a neat back and forth where you'd expect the chaps showing the relationship to be labeled as chapters 1, 2, 3, etc., but it was a reverse where they were like bundles of information floating in limbo while the letters are the chapters. It's almost like the relationship scenes were a beautiful lie while the letters were the painful truth. Those are two small details, but they give the reader a lot to think about.

Moving back into the core elements, I like K as a character because he's honestly more of an idea and place of comfort than a character, and I mean that in a good way since it ties into the theme of time and loss and also the bittersweetness of their relationship, knowing there's a clock but not being sure what to do about it. K feels like he represents beauty and life, but you can't keep K. K has to go at some point, whether it be because he leaves or you do, it's going to happen eventually. It's tiring, and it wears on the main character. K is like a constant reminder that the cancer is still there, slowing ticking away their clock more and more by the minute. I'll talk more about time in the below paragraph, but K as a character is like a walking idea: the idea of what it means to be alive. K is like that representation of that one last good thing someone has left while they're at the verge of breaking. That's why I liked K throughout the story. K was a force of nature and was far more than just a human.

Lastly, I'd say my favorite part about the story is the emphasis on time. Like I mentioned above about K and how time is constantly there, it's like time is the antagonist of the story. You take time and make it a character impacting the lives of the main characters more than any physical person ever could. Time is single-handedly changing their lives and making them more and more tired. It's like time is an omniscient eyeball able to direct and narrate the entire book. Without time, there'd be no story. Although you could argue the cancer is the antagonist, and I'd say cancer is one of them, but I'd also say time is the main one because it's what's driving the two leads crazy thinking of ways to best utilize the time they have left together. The letters are a reflection of that. What I mean is that with the remaining time, these letters are written and presumably stored away until after the cancer wins the fight, like a timeless being that is the only solution so the protagonist can live on. Maybe not forever, but at least the protagonist will get one last laugh at time thanks to the letters.

Most of what I've said here is me bringing my own interpretation to the book, so I could be totally wrong and nothing here is what you intended, but that in itself is a good thing since it means you're getting readers to think and walk away with their own interpretation of the story. Prose in particular is meant to do that, so that means you're genre matching well.

All in all, the story has a creative and interesting message with a cool inspiration point to work off of. Readers will be interested in the epistolary form but stick around for the in-depth look at what it means to lose everything while simultaneously having it. Losing without control, is what I mean. I think that's a fascinating message covering a topic many have struggled with or are currently struggling with. In summary, it's a solid read that does a lot with its short runtime, which is always good when a story can make use of its time well.

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What Didn't Work:

I've been on record many, many times saying I don't like purple prose, and there are plenty of recent reviews I've done that go into why I think purple prose should be avoided; however, I am more okay with it here. Your writing is purple prose, but it's a poetic prose book, so I'm okay with the language being flowery and metaphorical, and also packed with figurative language.

If I'm saying that, you're probably wondering why this is in the "didn't work" section, and it's because although I'm more okay with it here than in most stories, I still caution you to be careful about going too over-the-top. As much as poetic prose has more emphasis on being pretty and being very stylized, I suggest being careful with going too far to the point where it's almost impossible to understand what it's about. I'm okay with stories being open to interpretation and maybe even vague, but consider some clarity in the writing in some areas.

The reason I say this is because a common theme I see with purple prose is repetitive word choice. The more advanced vocabulary you're using, the more noticeable it is when you're repeating words, and it can get confusing at times. For example, purple prose writers overuse words like "tendrils" and "adorned," and you have the same issue where "tendrils" and "adorned" are used many times throughout the story, sometimes multiple times per chapter. Considering the chapters are short and, like I said, the vocabulary is complex, it's more noticeable than it otherwise would be. "Solitude," "chambers," "fragrance," and "canvas" are other words you use often. More specifically, I'm pretty sure you use fragrance at least three times in chapter 2 alone, and considering it's barely three minutes long, that's why it's noticeable. That's also not factoring in the other chapters before chapter 2 where you also used fragrance. That's why I suggest considering downsizing at times. You can do this by either incorporating sentences that aren't necessarily plain, but at least simpler so the word choice has an opportunity to be more fresh, or downsizing the chapters themselves and picking and choosing what needs to be there versus what doesn't and cutting out what doesn't.

All of my next suggestions have to do with dialogue.

Let's start with a personal opinion, then I'll get into the more objective dialogue error.

I strongly suggest not bolding dialogue. There are a few reasons for this. First and maybe foremost, it limits who can read your story. When bold and/or italics are used in excess, it's hard  if not impossible for readers with conditions such as dyslexia to read. In general, it's hard to read. I don't have any conditions, but bolded dialogue hurts my eyes to the point where I need to switch devices in order to even be able to see it without eye strain. I had to switch from my laptop to my iPad just to be able to read this. Bolded dialogue does nothing for the story, hence why I suggest not doing it. There are no pros and only cons to doing it. It hurts reader's eyes, the vast majority of readers hate it (just look at guide books on Wattpad talking about bolded dialogue; there are hundreds if not thousands of commenters agreeing that they will put down a book as soon as they see bolded dialogue), and it also can come off as you being condescending to the audience.

For example, let's look at the Percy Jackson show. A lot of fans criticized it for being condescending toward fans because the overuse of exposition, almost like they didn't trust fans to pay attention. For bolded dialogue, it can come off as you not trusting the audience to pay attention to the dialogue. Like I said, I can't really think of a single benefit to using bolded dialogue. I'm a screenwriter, and even in screenwriting where the whole point is to make dialogue as noticeable as possible, we never bold it because it's distracting. I'm not saying I thought you were being condescending because you used bolded dialogue, but what I am saying is it can come off that way depending on context and how often it's done. So that's why I recommend not bolding dialogue.

But that's my personal opinion, so let's move into the grammatical error. Dialogue tags are done incorrectly.

From the Wilted Melodies chapter: "Have you ever tried making a cake shaped like a unicorn?" He asked.

This is incorrect. Dialogue tags are continuations of the dialogue, not new sentences, so they're treated like they're part of the dialogue. That means that unless they are a proper noun, they must be lowercase. So this is what it should be:

"Have you ever tried making a cake shaped like a unicorn?" he asked.

Since you wouldn't capitalize Random words in sentences, the same applies to tags like "he asked," "he shouted," "he said," etc. It's a little weird that I capitalized "Random" in that sentence, right? The same applies to dialogue tags. Even when the end punctuation is ? or !, the tag is still lowercase unless it is a proper noun. 

Similarly, sometimes you'll have a tag but will end the dialogue with a period/full stop. When using a tag, you can end the dialogue with anything other than a period/full stop. So not this:

"I missed you." He said.

This is correct:

"I missed you," he said.

I hope all that made sense!

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Summary:

- Cool inspiration

- Good job capturing the vibe of the song + keeping the tone consistent

- K works well as an idea pushing the plot forward

- Interesting emphasis on time

- Be careful with clarity

- Consider not bolding dialogue

- Some dialogue tag tweaks

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Overall:

Fragments of a Silent Symphony is a unique story on the site in a niche genre that deserves more attention. It raises awareness about the true horrors of what time means and how cancer can impact relationships. If you're someone who enjoys slow burn stories with a mix of book form and epistolary form, then this is the perfect short for you.

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Thank you for submitting your book. If you have any questions or would like any additional reviews when the shop reopens, please let me know.

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I'm going to start leaving this new note at the end of all reviews since Wattpad removed pms.

If you would like to keep in contact with me and ask me for more feedback on your work, I have a Discord server for all readers, writers, and friends. I'll leave a link in the inline comment here for anyone who would like to join.