Raspberry by MustafaAsad6
Title: RASPBERRY - A Short Story by MustafaAsad6
Source: ELGANZA, INC. | AWARDS by TheCieloCommunity
Category: Short Stories
Mature: N (blood, death, loss of a loved one)
LGBTQIAP+: N
Status: Complete
Special note (judging): I had five books in this category, and the other judges (BANGTANHOLIC_FICS and Lunatic_Twilight) had five books each.
Result: 50/100
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*****
Rubric:
- Title: 5
- Book cover: 5
- Description (blurb): 5
- Plot & storytelling: 15
- Character development: 10
- Writing style: 10
- Grammar: 10
- Originality & creativity: 10
- Emotional impact: 10
- Pacing & structure: 5
- Accuracy (if non-fiction): 5
- Overall enjoyment & engagement: 10
Total: 100
*****
Total: 50/100
Title: 5/5
Sure. I like raspberries. A little sweet, a little tart, and judging by the blurb, this story will be, too.
Cover: 5/5
I love this cover. It's a good example of simplicity at its best. The silhouette of a boy sitting beneath a tree; a simple title in a neat cursive; and your name. Also, this is a cover that looks like it was made for stickers, which is rarely the case, but that stickers works well here.
Blurb: 3/5
Note: The following is all based on my first impressions before I read the story. I left it here so you could see what I initially got from the blurb, and at the bottom will be an addendum with my revised suggestions after reading the story.
The first sentence makes it sound like the reader already knows who the boy is and enough about his background so that we can make a judgment call about him being cursed or not, which obviously isn't the case, so I'd reword it to introduce the boy and the concept of the curse. But this sentence also feels out of place. I'd probably move it to its own paragraph at the end of the blurb, because I think that would help strengthen your hook, too. Rewording to something like "Are the boy's stars really cursed?" would have a nice shock/punch effect right at the end to push the reader into starting the story.
As for the rest of the blurb, the sentence starting with "The only unbreakable" doesn't make sense. First, it slips into the past tense, whereas the previous line was in the present tense, and second, who is the old man? It almost sounds like nature develops into an old man, which I doubt is your intended meaning. My next thought after I discarded that one is the old man is a new character, but again, I think that's wrong. I'm guessing you're trying to say the boy develops into an old man, and his love of nature remains, but you said, "Welcome to the childhood" in the previous sentence, and the next sentence is about his childhood again. So, it doesn't make sense to talk about his development into an old man in between. I think I'd flip that second and third sentence around, and then you could reword the third sentence to something like "The only unbreakable love that persists in his heart as he develops into an old man is his love for nature."
The other sentence, the one that starts with "His childhood had more," also has the past tense issues, and it has some comprehension issues as well. I'm assuming you mean "turns" as in a plot twist or a surprising turn of events, but "than one faced" makes it sound like you're comparing the turns of his childhood to one specific incident later in his life, one that was more surprising or shocking than any other event. Also, the "his/her" feels strange to me. You refer to the character as a boy and use male pronouns before and after this point, so I think there needs to be some sort of explanation for why you're mixing pronouns here. If that's not something you want to get into, then I'd just use "his." Anyway, this is one way you could reword this sentence to be clearer: "His childhood had more twists and turns than the rest of his entire life."
Then we get to the last paragraph. The first sentence is fine, but for the last sentence, it feels like you're trying to ask a question here, but the word order isn't quite right, and the ellipsis is less effective at hooking potential readers than a solid ending punctuation mark like a question. So, I'd probably flip it around to something like "Or will he lose it all once again?"
And then we're back to the first sentence (if you decided to move it here), and after working through the rest of it, I think I'd change that to "Are his stars really cursed?"
As for the content of the blurb, it's rather vague, but I think it's fine. You introduce the main character and his love of nature, and you prepare the reader for what sounds like a bittersweet life story. It doesn't sound like it will have a happy ending, but maybe I'm wrong. And I won't know until I read.
Addendum: So, clearly, that was all wrong. I think saying his only love was nature is incorrect, because it seems like he loves raspberries, not nature as a whole, and since there is a separate character who is an old man, I'm revising my suggestion to something like this: "The only unbreakable love that persists in his heart is for raspberries until he develops love for an old man."
And I now realize you were saying his child had more twists and turns than an average person's entire life, which is why you used his/her, so here's my revised suggestion for that: "His childhood had more twists and turns than the average person has in their entire life."
I'd also move the first line, the question, to come before the paragraph starting with "Will he get back," and I'm revising that suggestion to "But are his stars cursed?"
Plot & storytelling: 3/15
The first chapter is extremely confusing. I really didn't know what was going on. It sounded like his mother was cooking with raspberries, maybe? That's the only reason I can think of to explain why he thinks he's burned. But then he's playing cricket? And there's something about him being a 'big boy,' which makes me think he's larger than average, and the part with the stick makes me think he's a bully. But then we're back to his mother and the raspberries, and then cricket again? And he's splashed by dirty water, so now he's neat and tidy? That doesn't make sense at all. Then he takes off his waist? I'm guessing you mean whatever piece of clothing you defined as "waist" earlier, but since you introduced the word and defined it, you should use it, because it sounds like he takes his entire midsection off here, which is, of course, impossible.
Then, his mother is washing oranges, although his grandpa didn't bring oranges, so I don't know how that's happening. And I guess Yash doesn't want to eat them because he sees her washing them, so he thinks they're dirty? But then it turns out she's washing raspberries, which he was already eating when the chapter started, so he knows what they are. Why does he not know what they are here? Or are they even raspberries?
What is LBW?
Basically, there's a lot of jumping around, a lot of scene changes, a lot of "Once" and "One day" and flip-flopping from the past tense to the present tense, a lot of details mentioned as if they're important but never mentioned (or at least never given importance) again, so I don't know what is happening now, what happened in the past, or anything of what's going on. I was doing a lot of scrolling back and forth and re-reading, trying to make sense of it, and I couldn't.
Fortunately, that wasn't the case with the following chapters. A storyline that follows a normal chronology begins with chapter two, and the only important detail I can really salvage from the first chapter is Yash's grandfather introducing him to raspberries. Then, there's an interesting pattern of him losing people who bring him raspberries, and whoever brings him raspberries next becomes his new favorite person. He never seems to feel anything for any of these people, though. He only loves the raspberries, and if someone can replace the last raspberry person, he's happy. So, that's probably why the final chapter feels anti-climatic to me. He comes back to his childhood home and falls in love with raspberries again, although by the sound of it, he was a successful, well-to-do man who could certainly afford to buy them, so I don't really understand why he's that happy to see the raspberry he planted take root.
That's a big plot hole, actually. Raspberries don't grow on trees. I was pretty confident about that point, but I did some research just in case, and yes, they're shrubs. They're usually not even as tall as a person, although there are some varieties that can get up to nine feet tall.
Character development: 2/10
I don't see any character development in Yash. Like I said above, it seems like he's in love with raspberries, not the people who give them to him. He initially gets upset when the source of his raspberries dies, but as soon as another person resumes the supply, he forgets about the previous person and moves on. And I don't see that change, even as an adult. He stops by the old woman's house because she was his last raspberry supplier, but then he simply notes her death and moves on, looking for raspberries, just like he did as a child.
The character development I do see happens in the raspberry suppliers: his grandfather, the postman, and that old woman. They're kind and take time out of their lives to talk to Yash and give him raspberries. The interactions clearly mean something to them, even if they don't for him.
His parents are basically not present, except for the scene where they kick his grandfather out of the house, and then when they tell him they're moving. These spotty appearances make it seem like he lives an unsupervised life, and since they don't care about him or model how to care for others, he doesn't care about others, either, so he can be the cricket bully and the selfish raspberry-obsessed boy.
Writing style: 4/10
This actually reads like it's from a six-year-old's perspective, which is a good thing, since it is. It can be hard to write children. And your writing style changes and matures in the last chapter to match a twenty-six-year-old Yash, which is also really good. Many people have trouble adapting their writing style for different ages, characters, and situations. But as I discussed above, the first chapter in particular is extremely confusing and unclear, and Yash's words or actions often appear to have no discernible reason behind them. Why would he be happy about a letter and then run away to play cricket? It's those kinds of things that made it hard for me to connect to him as a character and understand the scenes.
Grammar: 6/10
As I noted in Go, Die, & Come Back, verb tense, awkward phrasing, and dialogue tags are an issue here. You also have a tendency to overuse commas (so do I), and there's one part where you say "five-six," which you should spell out as "five to six" or, even better, "five or six." Otherwise, the grammar was pretty good and didn't impede reading too much.
Originality & creativity: 10/10
Using raspberries to highlight events in a boy's life is an interesting concept, and while there's a lot of this story I didn't understand, it's a unique story with plenty of creativity.
Emotional impact: 2/10
This is really because I couldn't understand or connect with Yash as a character. The characters with the most empathetic potential for me were his raspberry suppliers, but since they're viewed through his lens, and he isn't particularly emotionally attached to any of them, that doesn't really happen for the reader, either.
Pacing & structure: 3/5
After the first chapter, everything is fine, and the structuring of each chapter makes sense. The last chapter feels rather abrupt, though, like there isn't a sense of closure, at least for me.
Accuracy (if non-fiction): 5/5
Free points. Yay! 🙂
Overall enjoyment & engagement: 2/10
Since I had so much trouble with the first chapter, and I couldn't connect with Yash at all, and I didn't really get engaged with the story. I think straightening out the first chapter and focusing on exploring Yash's emotional attachment with the people who come along with the raspberries would help that, because I'm pretty sure he's supposed to get attached to them, but I just don't see it right now.
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