IT IS TIME FOR JEMM AND THE MYSTERIES
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Author: Emerald
Title: IT IS TIME FOR JEMM AND THE MYSTERIES
Reviewer: Scorpio, SaMaNtHa
Site: Sunset Avenue
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Title: 4/5
I think your title sounds interesting, it can make people wonder who or what Jemm actually is. Furthermore, it does not really give away the plot besides the fact that it is a mystery story. I do not like titles that give away ideas and let readers know what to expect, I would prefer a more general title that can actually mean a few things. Like for example, a story titled “Victory” can mean victory over sports or matches, or it can mean winning in the context of winning a girl over as the guy’s lover or such.
Poster/Background: 7/10
Poster is pretty nice as the colours are neutral, but I think there’s too many characters cramped together at the left and their shapes are also slightly distorted as it turns out long and hence, improportionate. Background has matching colours and not contrasting so I think it’s a good match, but it’s kind of plain. It would be better if it has a few designs to liven up so that it’ll look more attractive, but not too much until its distracting.
Forewords: 3/5
Your foreword is good, but below it you included character introduction. You could have made do without them and let readers find out the characters’ personalities themselves so that it can create more suspense and readers will be more interested in reading. Furthermore character introduction lets readers know what to expect already. Although you also hinted or gave away the character pairings, I like the way you wrote it in the form of questions so I did not penalize you for that. Well done!
Plot: 9/15
Your plot is pretty interesting. But it wasn't very good, as in it wasn't the best as it could have been. Due to the lack of descriptions. In order to be able to write a mysterious and action themed story it requires LOTS of details, which your story lacked. If you want to enhance your story line, try putting more excitement, and try to describe the crime scenes more. I felt that you just skipped them and didn't really give the readers a insight of them. AND the cases, were solved too quickly and casually. Put in more suspense.
Flow: 8/10
Your flow was okay, it could have been better,
You tend to write in short and many sentences when you can actually use commas to join them together. It will make the flow better. You also tend to skip forward a lot, skipping many details. I disliked that fact, if you would have explained more of the scenes then skipping forward would work. But you don't use a lot of details you explain just enough then skip to the future.
The flow would be better if you explained more and try to reduce the fast fowards.
Spelling/Grammar/Vocabulary: 10/15
Your grammar is fine, I find it okay as long as the story is readable – and I have to say I’m pretty strict about this aspect. I cannot stand stories that clumps everything into one big paragraph and lots of grammatical errors. It will affect the flow too as readers will have to figure out the correct form of the words and make sense of the story as they read it, which is annoying and turns people off. So great job! Your vocabulary is also not bad, the way you describe things is not repetitive so it won’t be boring. However I realized that whenever there is speech from a person, you tend to always start a sentence with it with the “ open inverted commas. This is repetitive because you do that all the time and I feel uncomfortable and weird as you have quite a lot of speeches too.
Chapter 1: "Watch we're you’re going nerd!" It’s not we’re, its where.
“the hallway became deathly quite” It should be quiet, not quite.
Spelling errors like this can be spotted, though not much. Do read through your chapter and check for spelling errors before you post them.
Characterization: 8/10
There were quite a lot of characters. I did not really connect with any of the characters. I knew they were detectives and very skilled at their jobs. But their characters were too perfect, and had no flaws so they seemed fake. I didn't really connect with their personalities. They were kind of bizarre. BUT I will give you points for the number of characters. I admire that you had a lot of characters, you managed to write them out so I admire you for that! Most authors stick with 2 or at most 4 characters, and you had more than that. Plus the minors and supporting roles were good. All your characters had a purpose and connected well with the story.
Originality: 15\15
The story was pretty original. I liked the idea of the girls wearing skin masks and having forbidden feelings. The originality was pretty nice, even if you wrote some ideas from movies it was still very nice.
Writing style: 3\5
After every paragraph, you might want to leave another line to distinguish that they are 2 paragraphs and make it neater and clearer. And again, longer sentences will be good. The way you write is more like what a primary school kid writes, do improve on it.
And please try to minimize your usage of dialogue. By having too much dialogue, it takes away the details and information. It seems like a script rather than a actual story. By using a lot of dialogue it makes the story less interesting, since its missing a lot of important details and descriptions. Its also pretty boring.
So try to use less dialogue and use more descriptions.
Overall enjoyment: 7/10
I, to be truthful didn't enjoy it, as much as I thought I would. The story was a drag to me because of the long dialogues and lack of details, but I did really love the story line. Its very interesting.
Overall score: 76/100
Note; we're sorry for the long wait, I hope the review helped you. Please don't think of this review negatively. We just want to help you improve, to become the author you know you can be! Thank you for requesting at Sunset Avenue!
Labels: review