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Masked Swan
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Author :: blaze-bangtan

Reviewer :: Jiminandhisjams9

First Impression :: 8/20

»Cover :: 1/10

No offense but the cover is atrocious; laughable to be exact. The edit looks like a joke... It’s just the way that Jimin’s picture has a different “texture” from the other pictures looks very weird and the overall thing just doesn’t work. The cover you previously had, in which both Jungkook and Jimin were present, was much better in my opinion. 

»Title :: 4/5

This title is pertinent to the storyline. It also inspired some curiosity from my side. I wouldn’t say it’s a never-seen-before thing, but it’s not cliché either. I feel like your story would’ve allowed you to pick something else as a title, something more arcane and characteristic, nonetheless, this one does the job just fine too.

»Blurb :: 3/5

The blurb is okay and I think it does leave some suspense. I feel like the blurb’s biggest destitute quality is the grammar. In regards to the actual content, I’d say it’s nothing special, it’s just sort of average. It simply doesn’t have a feeling that would pull me in, and that’s pivotal; having a reader pulled in is key. I think starting with fixing your grammatical errors would help a lot.

”Consent”, what a sexy word…

Park Jimin, an undercover agent gets acquainted with Jeon Jungkook for a case that causes a frenzy of fear to burst amongst the citizens. (as I will mention later on in the grammar section, you sometimes miss some parts of speech like prepositions, articles, etc; in this case, the lack of “a” before “frenzy” is a great example. I also thought that adding “to burst” would make the sentence sound better.  Additionally, because you added Jungkook’s surname, I’d feel like it’d be more reasonable to add Jimin’s surname as well).

Infatuation arises between the two. Yet they oblige themselves to suppress their desires and focus on the uncanny case that they were assigned. (in here, your usage of “as” along with the comma was inaccurate, so I thought changing up and completely rephrasing your sentence would be more suitable. Also, “mysterious” is an almost childlike and boring word that I’d definitely replace with a synonym if I were you.)

Little did they know that someone had always been watching them with a masked identity. (The comma before “with” is incorrect. “white masked identity” doesn’t quite make sense but in case you wanted to use something along those lines, I made another option of how you could fix this sentence.) Little did they know that someone had constantly been watching them with a white mask and a secretive identity. 

The truth gets unveiled and hearts get shattered in two. (I just felt like adding an article before “truth” would sound better.) Truths get unveiled and hearts get shattered in two. (However, if you’d like to keep “truth” without an article, I’d suggest you put it in plural so the next sentence will resemble it.)

Can the unrequited love bring them back? (I am unsure of what this sentence exactly means. An issue that breaks the main characters wasn’t mentioned.)

Beginning of a new start :: 7/10

You had an interesting way to begin the story. The identity of the character is kept secret and the readers are perplexed yet intrigued. I was surprised to know that the man was killed, and frankly, suspected him to be Jungkook for some reason. Nevertheless, later on, we are obviously introduced to the real main characters of the story. We see the main leads meeting each other, and that’s a pretty standard way to start off a story. I feel like there isn’t much to say, rather just summarize that the introduction, meaning the first few chapters, was satisfying.

Concept & plot :: 20/25

I think there is a huge issue with not specifically your plot but rather with the way it is delivered, it’s too quick-paced and flummoxing. The confusing particle isn’t something you have to worry too much about, your story’s genre is a mystery after all, but about the pace… that’s where your attention should be at. I believe it is very evident that you know what you are doing with this plot, I might be mistaken, but it feels like everything or at least the majority of what I read has been greatly planned out. So because of this, the pace is too speedy—because you know exactly what’s going to happen. And maybe, just maybe because as I said, I might be wrong, but you are trying to get to that one exciting moment that you are awaiting. Now certainly, the reason for the overly swift pace may differ as well, this is just a speculation of mine.

Why is this an issue?

I will elaborate more in the sequent section about this, but just to say, it blocks the readers from empathizing with the characters. It also makes people feel uninterest because they don’t have time to comprehend the events that take place. Still, why is your score pretty high? Because it’s not bad, it could be actually very good, but it requires just as good improvement.

The reveal of the killer was interesting, I was surprised to hear about Taehyung’s duality. The way that the murders were going and the whole constellation thing was very interesting. I also liked the reference to Korean since Byeol means star in Korean. It was a memorable factor because I like to appreciate small details too. I do not think the plot is predictable, however, it does follow some cliché-ish pattern which might, and take note of the word ‘might’, make the next events predictable. However, I do not think everything was predictable at all. Plus, let me add that the way the killer killed people was an intriguing aspect of your story. 

Characters & emotions :: 9/15

I didn’t exactly see well-developed and clear personalities, they were just kinda there, just kinda okay. Maybe it’s because I didn’t read the whole story, but throughout half of the story, the characters still didn’t have an impact on me—no impression. 

I think the main reason that the emotions are unfelt, despite the alluring and thawing descriptions of all those sentiments, is that your plot is moving too fast (as I had mentioned formerly). The readers don’t have time to see Jimin’s and Jungkook’s relationship grow. They don’t see them slowly growing fond of each other, it’s just attraction, infatuation as you said, yet the characters claim otherwise? They feel attracted at first sight and obviously, there is this mystery of Jimin, Byeol, and Jungkook, but I don’t think that works as a justification. When Jimin was “dying”, Jungkook mentioned all the moments that he and Jimin had shared together… fact is, the readers aren’t aware of them, so they can’t empathize. They can’t share the characters’ sorrow and that’s a huge no-no. 

Unmistakably, once again about this mystery, we don’t know what happened. So you could’ve just inserted some moments in which we notice that they are falling in love; not just them joking around a couple of times and checking each other out. The emotions were described pretty well, but once again, unfelt because of the uneventfulness of their sentiments.

Tone & style :: 6/10

Despite having more than just a few grammatical errors, I thought your writing style was pretty good. It is quite simple at times in a not-so-good way because the narration inspires monotony. Notwithstanding, the descriptions of feelings and some other things like locations were close to a poetic level—which is good. I’ve also seen you making regular use of literary devices, especially similes. You’ve got some catchy vocabulary but I am sure you could’ve applied that more to your writing, and especially to dialogue tags. One thing that I think is a flaw in your writing style is tense inconsistency, make sure that the chosen tense is kept throughout your whole piece of writing, with the exceptions of dialogues, flashbacks, etc. 

Your writing sounds a bit monotonous because of the constant use of solely dialogue tags and short sentences after dialogues. I suggest you describe the characters’ movements or actions more often, therefore use more action tags. Another thing that I wanted to mention is that your dialogue can be childish and the way the characters come to conclusions is too. As an example, when Jimin and Jungkook were coming to various conclusions about the killer, it would’ve been better if their dialogue was more professional-sounding.  

Grammar :: 15/20

Your grammar wasn’t terrible but it still requires help. Firstly, one of the most basic things. I understand you may have not edited your text yet, but you have too many typos such as not leaving a space between quotation marks and the next word. Plus, you often don’t capitalize words that clearly need capitalization such as “chim”, “kookie”, “Thanos”, etc... To make it short, beware of typos. And as I mentioned earlier in your blurb, you sometimes miss prepositions and articles.

Returning to the topic of capitalization, however, this time with me assuming it is not a typo, “mom” and “hyung” require capitalization when they are used as a title/name. For example, the boy at the beginning doesn’t call (obviously) his mother by name, but calls her “mom” instead; the same thing with Jimin addressing Namjoon or Jungkook addressing Jimin as “Hyung”. “Yes sir,” also requires a comma and capitalization. Therefore it should be written as “Yes, Sir,”. In conclusion, just like typos, pay attention to capitalization.

You don’t get “your periods”, you get your period. Several people define period plurally and I sincerely don’t understand why, but it doesn’t matter. Fact is, this word is put in the plural when used in another significant, for example: “On Thursdays, we only have four periods to attend,” In this case, the speaker is referring to school periods (or classes). 

Lastly, I’ve noticed a common way to introduce names in your writing is this: “My name is Jin; Kim Seokjin,” which is wrong. A semicolon is needed to join independent clauses instead of conjunctions, therefore here it is unnecessary. A comma does the job just fine.

TOTAL :: 65/100