╭⋟───────────────╮
Under the Moonlight
╰───────────────⋞╯

Author :: YOON_YOON_1

Reviewer :: Kim_eats

First impression: : 11/20

» Cover :: 7/10

I really like the cover. The colours and the pictures you used worked well with the background. The blending could be a little better though and I just feel like the pictures could be a little bigger and brighter. The faces of the idols are quite hard to see, especially Soobin and Felix's. If you just work on that a little, it'll be perfect.

» Title :: ⅖

The title is actually a very common one. It fits the story though, since it involves the prince of the moon, and Y/N seems to have a connection with him. The fact still remains that it is a very common title and it might get lost in thousands of other stories.

» Blurb :: ⅕

I think the length of your blurb is perfect and the mention of HIV is sure to attract much attention while surfing. However, it is very revealing. The moment I read it, I already had an idea of what might happen. There’s no exciting element to it except the mention of disease that might interest the readers. I would suggest, you make it more exciting by not giving away all of your plot. Maybe you could just mention the HIV part and how everyone in Y/N’s life discards her and she starts struggling with life but it turns upside down when a mythical creature gets involved. As of now, the blurb is very revealing since you mentioned all the key points without hiding even one element. Even the first half of the blurb is enough without adding the second half. Except that, there are grammatical mistakes as well. I'll cover those in the grammar section.  

Beginning of a new start :: 4/10

You began your story with Y/N’s fiance breaking up with her after his mother found out about her disease. While the starting is very catchy, the first chapter itself has many plot holes. On reading the first chapter, I had a lot of questions. How did the fiance’s mother get her results? How did Y/N contract the disease? Why did she get her blood tested? A lot of questions. And I can assure you that I wouldn't be the only one to notice this and start questioning things.

Also, you mentioned Y/N's parents being dead in the first chapter. While it is not wrong to do that, but the way you put it, in between her monologue about how her fiance broke up with her, wasn't the right way to do it. Don't try to cram everything about your character and their life in the very beginning. It breaks the link of a well flowing scene. Take it slowly, one at a time.

Coming to the second chapter. I thought you'd show Y/N heartbroken but still trying to pick up the pieces of her heart, which you kind of did but I was a little disappointed when you made the point of HIV AIDS as a mere reason for ridicule instead of spreading awareness. You could have shown her visiting a doctor after finding out about the disease and getting counselling done and getting the necessary medication because without it, her health would worsen and she’d soon die. I felt like you didn't do the topic justice and rushed to introduce the fantasy element.

Overall, the first three chapters were very rushed and poorly described. It would be better if you paid more attention to details, like the visit to a doctor and proper involvement of Soobin to boost up Y/N’s morale instead of just being the sidekick friend who is in love with her. I also suggest you to do proper research over such sensitive topics before writing about it because throughout the eight chapters, AIDS was portrayed as a valid reason to outcast and bully someone. Though it hits the point of AIDS, it shouldn’t be made a point to completely throw away someone, it wasn't properly described. That's another point, be more descriptive. Even if it's all in first person pov, it lacks description. So, you'll need to work on that as well.

Another thing I'd like to point out is the second page of the book titled ‘Achievements’. I get that you'd want to flaunt all the achievements you have received with the book. However, including them in the very start might not be the wisest decision. I don't know what others might think about it but it kind of puts a damper on me. As a reader, I would want to jump straight to the story rather than scroll through all the awards you have received now matter how great it is. The reader wants to read your story. So, instead of adding it in the start, mention them after the book is over or mention it in the blurb like a lot of other writers do.

Concept and plot :: 15/25

I really like the concept of your story. I don't think a lot of people pick up HIV as their main topic and merging it with the fantasy element was something very new. But, it was very poorly executed. Like I mentioned above, you rushed to introduce your fantasy elements and the disease part was thrown into a dark corner. Also, it made me question, if Y/N is indeed an outwardly creature, how did she get a human disease? So, in all, even though the concept is really very good, it looks very messy and as if it hasn't been planned that well.

Talking about plot, you can't go wrong with fantasy. I never knew this Yokai thing and myth even existed. I still don't know what it is exactly but I learnt something new through your book. I can clearly see that you did quite a lot of research for it. I can't really say much about the plot since the book is incomplete, so I'm still questioning why AIDS was mentioned. I guess you are going to explain it in future chapters. But, overall taking the Yokai legend, you definitely made your plot interesting.

Character and emotions :: 5/15

I don't know how to put this gently but I'll still be honest. I'd describe the characters at best as childish. As far as I understood, Y/N and Soobin are both supposedly twenty-two-year-olds but they don't behave like that at all. I know everyone is different and not everyone is supposed to be mature but throughout the eight chapters, I just kept seeing them as teenagers instead of two adults who have been living on their own for a long time. You can clearly tell the difference between a person who has had their parents support and help as opposed to someone who lost them and had to figure out their way in the world on their own. Creating a character is not just about giving them an appearance, a motive to follow. It's also about how they behave, how their past and present affects their behaviour towards others and how they present themselves. If you find it hard to make your characters and how to bring them to life, you can make a character sketch for them and make them behave according to that. The characters are an entity of their own. Even if you are the one writing them, your personality shouldn't reflect in them because they have a personality of their own.

The other characters that you introduced, Felix, Jin and Kai, are the same. Out of all of them, Felix seems the most mature, which is appropriate since he's a prince. While you did a very good job at showing Jin and Kai's fun personalities, I still can't say much about them since they were newly introduced.

When it comes to emotions, you did a really good job at showing Y/N's emotions. Her emotions were strongly felt throughout. While some places could use a little more description, for the most part it was good.

Tone and style :: 6/10

You opted for the first person pov, which is avoided while writing a Y/N story but it is still good since the second person pov can sometimes make it harder to write. Your writing style isn't necessarily bad but there are a few things you can work on. Like I pointed out above, be more descriptive. Description is a majorly weak point for you and since you are writing a fantasy story, descriptions need to be focused on more to create the kind of world you are picturing in your head.

I also feel like you could experiment with the third person pov since I found you writing as if Y/N could read other people's minds. It was especially noticeable in this one scene where Felix was flying with Y/N and there comes a line, 'he said remembering the past' something along this line. See, when writing in first person pov, you can't show if the character understands everything. They wouldn't be able to differentiate every emotion and situation perfectly. It will always be a 'If' condition; ‘as if remembering the past’, like this. So, you need to pay attention to that. If you really want to express everything from an eagle's eye, you'll need to write in the third person pov instead of first person.

And if you do decide to change the pov, don't jump between different povs. Keep it uniform to make your writing look refined.

Grammar :: 4/20

You need to improve a lot in grammar. There were a lot of mistakes regarding correct sentence structuring, proper punctuation mark usage, dialogue tag, and overuse of capitalized words.

The first noticeable mistake after opening the book is tense inconsistency. You started with present tense but switched to past tense. This has repeatedly happened throughout the eight chapters. It's best to stick to only one tense, either past or present, whichever you feel the most comfortable writing in but don't switch it so much.

The next would be proper use of capitalization. Almost everywhere you wrote ‘AIDS’ in small letters when it should be all in capital letters because it is an acronym for Acute Immune Deficiency Syndrome. Acronyms are always written in capital letters. I also noticed how almost all of the dialogues are written in capital letters. I think you did it to show that the speaker was shouting those dialogues. While chatting, we often capitalize our words to indicate screaming but while writing a book, things change and we have to follow the grammar rules. One of them is not using capitalized words unless it is to stress a certain word or a word of a brand or acronyms like I mentioned before. So, it would be better if you wrote the dialogues as we normally do instead in capital letters. Instead use words like ‘scream’, ‘shout’, ‘exclaim’ to express the action of a person screaming.

Next up is the usage of  ‘Flashback’ and ‘Flashback end’. Well, while writing a book we don't use words like flashback to indicate the scene has already happened before. You could italicise the flashback part to indicate that the scene is different from the ongoing scene and use sentences like, ‘Remembering the past events brought more tears to my eyes,’ to indicate how the events affect your character and bringing the flashback to an end smoothly and without breaking the flow of reading. Also, the trigger warning you put was thoughtful, I'd suggest you give such warnings in the start of a chapter, again to avoid breaking the flow of reading. It's important to maintain a good flow to keep your readers engaged in the story.

Next is proper sentence structure, dialogue tag and use of commas. I'm covering these three together since your mistakes are related to dialogue writing. Firstly, what is a dialogue tag? A dialogue tag is a small phrase either before, after, or in between the actual dialogue itself.
I'll explain with an example. It is a dialogue from your book, chapter one.

“CANCEL THIS NOW! MY SON ISN’T GOING TO MARRY A GIRL WHO HAS AIDS!” She yelled as taking his son away from me.

The above is the unedited version.
The edited version:

“Cancel this now! My son isn't going to marry a girl who has AIDS!” she yelled, taking her son away from me.

You can easily notice all the changes I've made to the original text. The ‘she yelled’ part is the dialogue tag and I added a comma after ‘yelled’ instead of ‘as’. You can use ‘as’ if the sentence goes like, ‘she yelled as she pulled away her son’ but if you are using ‘taking’ which is in present tense then there is no need to use ‘as’. Also, if the dialogue is followed by a dialogue tag, you should end it with a comma even if it's a complete sentence except if the sentence ends with a question mark and exclamation mark.

Another common mistake, overuse of exclamation marks. In the second chapter when Soobin is scolding Y/N, you've used tons of exclamation marks, which is wrong. Use any punctuation mark only once. Like I said before, written language is different from speaking or chatting language.

There are a lot of spelling mistakes too and you seem to be confused with homophones. Try proofreading your draft before publishing your chapters. This way, you can avoid silly mistakes and give a more refined result. As for run on sentences like the first sentence of the blurb, just make shorter sentences. I know it happens in the flow of writing but check it after you are done and add commas and full stops at appropriate places. Try writing your sentences differently, it can help too.

I would also like to suggest that you read published books rather than wattpad books, especially fanfictions to better understand the art of writing and notice the grammar. I can see a heavy influence of fanfictions, youtube and wattpad both in your writing and reading published, well edited books will help you a lot. Also, make use of Thesaurus for vocabulary and Grammarly for improving grammar.

Extra Note :: I see a lot of potential in you and I really loved your plot and I can see it easily getting famous. But you need to work hard to make that happen, but I can assure you, the results will be good. I hope you look at this review positively and hope it helps you.

Total :: 45/100