Congratulations to the winners!

There will be three placement winners and two honorable mentions, so five overall winners.

If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know, though I am not tolerating disrespect or hate.

Please read your review all the way through before asking questions since I sometimes take a while to explain, so your question may be answered by the time I finish up the review.

Next: I am working on best grammar and best ending.

Now that the contest is more than halfway complete, I am no longer allowing backouts. For some reason, this contest in particular has resulted in a lot of backouts despite it being mini and meant to be judged fast, so I am no longer allowing it since I will be completing this contest ASAP. Judging doesn't take long and I can normally judge one category a day, so I will be posting the next results ASAP to try and complete this contest on or before October 13th, when my next awards are releasing.

Also keep in mind writing style is very subjective, so some of this, like the placements, may just boil down to "I like it more on a personal level," though everyone will get objective critiques, as always.

This category was pretty tough, that's why it took longer than expected (that and this category being 10k words long lmao). Everyone did really good, and it was extremely difficult to pick winners. I think this is one of the overall strongest categories in the whole contest so far, and I hope everyone is proud since I enjoyed every writing style, and I'm not just saying that to say that, I'm being honest, otherwise this category wouldn't have taken so long. So congratulations to everyone!

3rd Place

The Collected Tales by Aravis-Brightspell

Review:

Let's begin with the grammar/spelling, since that's imperative to how readers understand your story/style. In this story [The Clan Elder's Lair], the grammar and spelling is overall good and does a good job keeping the reader engaged. While there are minor errors, they're nothing consistent and nothing that distract from the style, so you're off to a good start.

Moving into the core of the style, the first thing that stuck out to me was the choice to make the Clan Elder's mind-voice all in italics to make it stand out, which I thought was really cool and a nice style choice. It gave the text more flavor and intrigue that hooked me in, and I just wanted to start with this because it was what I noticed first while reading.

Another thing I liked was the overall word choice feeling dynamic and interesting to look at. Every sentence had fresh words to digest, and you structure them in ways that feel advanced without feeling over-the-top, like "They become the vessels of elemental magic in its purest form." This is a nice sentence that combines the more advanced words to form a cool meaning without feeling over-the-top or like I can't understand it, so I appreciate the balance and how you played around with your words without doing too much that it felt like you were trying to sound fancier than needed.

The last thing I'll mention before going to critiques is the sentence structure, like the word choice, is dynamic and never feels one-note or like too much of the same. That made the story far more enjoyable since you're constantly playing around/experimenting with what you're doing in the writing, which also reflects the fantastical/sci-fi elements present within the story that have more of that mysterious, experimental feeling, so everything feels like it matches.

I don't have much in the way of critiques. The only thing I have to say is there were some awkward moments that could be tightened, though not many, so it's not a big deal. Here's one example: "EDUARD, YOU OLD BAG OF BONES! DON'T JUST STAND OUT THERE AND LET HIM IN!"

I've been on record many times saying I'm not a fan of all caps, though that isn't really what this is about, and this is the one and only usage of all caps throughout the story, so it's no big deal and nothing I'm going to comment on. The thing is the second sentence, "Don't just stand out there and let him in!" I know what you're saying here and what your intended meaning was, though consider removing the "and" and letting the "Let him in!" be its own thing. I say this because it can easily be misinterpreted as literally them standing out there but also being let in at the same time because the "and" connects the two actions. It's a small thing, but something worth considering.

Overall, the writing style for this short was really solid and did a great job portraying the emotions in a short time. Other than a minor critique, I thought the style was great, and you did a great job with this, continuing to prove that you're slaying in my awards and as a writer/artist.

2nd Place

A Cup of Coffee, A Shot of Whiskey by _reichii

Review:

Let's begin with the grammar/spelling since that majorly impacts how readers view your story and style. The grammar and spelling throughout the short (Forget Me Not) is overall good. It does a solid job moving from point A to point B without readers needing to reread anything because they didn't understand your words, which means you're off to a strong start.

I overall really enjoyed the style and also the subject matter, but since this is about the style, I'll stick to that. I really like the writing style here and think it works well for the book. It's fluid, makes sense, and does a good job getting the reader invested in what's going on. It's never too complex, and you do a good job balancing the more advanced words with the simpler ones to get readers engaged.

Along with that, the dialogue is overall good, too, and has many impactful lines. To name one example: "Right now, the only thing I'm looking forward to is for the sun to shine again. But isn't that a reason enough to wake up and see if the rain will stop tomorrow?"

That line is very good and does a good job establishing the scene and themes within the narrative, and I think it was very well done. Pretty much every line of dialogue from the stranger was excellently done, and this is thanks to the style matching the theme and storyline so well with its serious tone that stays consistent, the strong word choice, and the dynamic sentence structure.

The whole thing flows very well, and no sentence or paragraph feels out of place. It's a short story you can read in one sitting, totaling under 1k words, and every sentence counts for something, which I find impressive. Once again, you have a strong story that does a good job giving the readers a lot to ponder, along with having a style that takes those ideas and elevates them to the next level.

When it comes to critiques, I don't have many other than to consider removing some words here and there. As much as I really, really like the "Right now, the only thing I'm looking forward to..." part, the one tweak I recommend is considering removing the "a" in front of "reason," so it'd be "But isn't that reason enough to wake up and see if the rain will stop tomorrow?" It's a small change, and there's nothing inherently wrong with including the "a" there, though I feel it's a little more natural for spoken dialogue to remove it, and it also flows better. If you read version one out loud with the a, and then version two without it, you'll notice it flows a tiny bit more naturally off the tongue without it. It's a small thing, but sometimes even one word can make a big difference.

So overall, I only really had one critique for the style, and it was minor, showing the strength of the writing style here and how it effectively tells a story, a good story at that, without ever feeling dragged out or over-the-top, making for an engaging read and a solid writing style.

1st Place

Excavations by SeraDrake

Review:

Let's start with the technical stuff since grammar/spelling is imperative to how readers digest a writing style. The spelling/grammar throughout is excellent, making this part of the review off to a very strong start. Having that solid grammar/spelling makes for a good hook for the audience since they can easily understand the words and what you're trying to say in terms of its structure. The themes and messages within may be harder to decipher due to the nature of poetry, though that's natural and expected, and you make it easier on the audience by having solid structure. So right off the bat, the first impressions are strong.

Moving into the core of the style, I'd like to begin with the frequent experimentation, both with the core poetry style, and also within the word choice and structure. I like how you played around with punctuation throughout, utilizing colons and semicolons when needed to give more emphasis to certain parts of your text, which I appreciated. No one poem felt the same, and everything had its own unique voice despite being in the same compilation written by the same author, showing your dedication to experimentation and pushing your writing to new levels.

Another thing I enjoyed was how you opened many of your poems in a way that had so much style dripping from them, and also in a way that hooked me in. For example, from the Vegetarianism chapter:

I had the strangest urge today:

I was consumed by a desire to eat trees.

If that doesn't hook you in, I don't know what will. Those two lines immediately snatched my attention and made me sit down and read the whole thing, and that's only possible because of its structure and the way the words were placed so carefully to bring out the maximum effect, like using "urge" and "desire," strong words that give readers lots of emotions. In the poem right after that, This Is Just To Say (for Emma), the final line being (the plums weren't so bad, either) was another moment that intrigued me. Every poem had at least two or three lines that had me really, really interested, even the super short ones, like the Emma one I'm talking about now. All of them had some interesting idea to get attached to.

The last thing I'll mention is I like how you transition between sentences and make everything flow, where you're able to have those powerful lines I mentioned above without them feeling out of place or like you put them there since you knew they were powerful and that was the sole reason. For example, from the The Tender Danger... poem, there's the line "My wings of searing soul have become powder," which is pretty powerful stuff, but it's followed up by the line "Only the wind makes me hover, at your bed, by your side, over your shoulder...", which builds on the previous line and sets up what's yet to come in the poem. So I like how everything flows together and always feels like it has a clear purpose.

As for critiques, I don't really have any. Now, I'm far from the best poetry critic, but the structure looked good to me, the grammar/spelling was all good, and I thought you had good diversity with your word choice and subject matter. Everything felt fresh, the style was unique to each poem, and I thoroughly enjoyed my read!

Overall, Excavations has a wonderful writing style that feels diverse. No one poem feels the same and instead has a wide range of emotions. I personally recommended this to the Ambassador poetry profile as I work with the poetry team, so I hope they add it to their reading lists, though I unfortunately cannot make any guarantees, and reviewing can take a long time. That aside, I enjoyed the poems here, and I think the writing style is awesome.

Honorable Mention

Tarnished and Hurt by slytherclaw_seeker

Review:

To begin with the technical stuff, the grammar and spelling is solid throughout the short, which makes it significantly easier to judge the style since you're giving me a better chance to understand it without needing to reread anything or find anything confusing, which is great and puts the style off to a good start.

Moving into the style itself, I overall like it and think it does a really good job portraying the mental state of Ophelia and how it descends throughout the short story. You do a great job giving Ophelia many layers through the style that feels like it's so specific to her, which is probably my favorite part about the book.

Throughout the story, there were many lines that I enjoyed that I thought worked not only in context of the story, but also for anyone who hasn't read it who may just stumble upon the lines. Let me give a few examples of lines that I thought were great that could hook anyone in:

"She, effortlessly, was nothing."

"Ophelia looked back up at James. He just wanted to have s/x."

"None of the guys liked it when she kept them waiting."

"With a faint smile, she returned his gaze, silently acknowledging the unspoken compliment."

And three of those four are from the same chapter, that's how consistently there are cool lines. Out of the context, the lines are interesting and could spark intrigue. In context, these lines are 20x better and carry so much weight to them, particularly the first one. I especially like that you don't need to clutter your sentences full of giant words in an attempt to make the sentences look pretty. You're sometimes simple, sometimes elegant depending on what the scene needs, and I found myself deeply moved by many of the more "simple" sentences (in terms of their word choice). Like the "She, effortlessly, was nothing" sentence was more impactful to me than most sentences with the most advanced vocabulary I've ever seen. You have a good balance between the more advanced side and the simpler side that makes this so entertaining and engaging to read.

Another thing I liked was the very purposeful use of italics, particularly in the standard descriptions rather than the dialogue (not that there was anything wrong with the italics in the dialogue, though). I thought they did what they needed to to bring out the meaning you wanted without you needing to overdo it. You once again strike a great balance here.

I also like the choice to make this third-person instead of first despite the very, very personal look into Ophelia's life this shows. It would've been easy—maybe even easier—to write this in first as opposed to third, but I think the third is really effective here despite the personal nature of the book. Considering the whole book is about her feeling out of her body, and maybe even out of her mind, too, having us be separate from her mind yet so close to it at the same time via the third-person POV was a really clever move on your part. I think it adds a lot of layers to the story, and it also gives readers the feeling I imagine you wanted them to feel: slight discomfort from the nature of the plot being about what it is about, but also high intrigue at how Ophelia's life is going to change. All of that is made possible by the close examination of her mind without ever needing to see the word "I." So I thought that worked wonders for the overall style of the book.

I only have two criticisms. One is sometimes you'll fall into a pattern where you'll write the sentences in the same way where it starts and then stops with no interruptions, and the sentences tend to be short action statements. By that I mean, you'll have sentences like this: She went to the store that day. She bought some lettuce. She went home after buying the lettuce. See how all those sentences just kinda start and then stop with mostly actions going on? That's what I mean. But to explain my point further, I'll give an example directly from the text below.

From chapter 1: Anya also agreed that Ophelia looked exceptionally gorgeous that evening. That was when Theodore walked into the room. His presence alone made people turn to look at him. Theodore sat with the Slytherin gang of students. Ophelia heard a couple of girls giggle looking at him. Theodore looked tired and angry. There was a rumour that he had just broken up with Ariana Flint.

See how seven sentences in a row are written very similarly? They're mostly about actions and start and stop with not much in between in terms of experimentation with the structure and word choice. This only happens occasionally, so it's not a huge deal, but it is something worth pointing out, and if you're interested, consider playing around more with what's going on in these sentences here whether it be with punctuation and combining some sentences (for example, the last two sentences could be combined with a semicolon, though I typically caution against semicolons since they risk overcomplicating sentences), or another way by keeping the structure but making the sentences themselves more interesting. For example, instead of having Theodore sit with the Slytherins and there being people looking at him and giggling, consider diversifying that. Girls giggling and people looking at powerful figures like Theodore is something that's done a lot in storytelling, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that, but to give the writing more engagement, consider playing around with what's happening in the sentences, like maybe instead of everyone just looking at Theodore, everyone looks and goes quiet as if they're terrified of making him mad. Maybe a kid accidentally makes a noise and tries to hide themselves after that. Maybe the girls start fixing their appearances. Those are just a couple of random ideas and not anything I'm saying 100% will work for the story, they're more there to help inspire other ideas, but those are a couple ways you could potentially take it, if you're interested.

That being said, I don't think this tactic is inherently a bad thing, and there are times I liked its usage, like in chapter 4 when Ophelia is coming to terms with Theodore liking Lily, and she's having snappy, one sentence thoughts. I thought its usage there was good. So I'm not saying never do this since, for things like choppy character thoughts and action scenes especially, it can be effective. All I recommend is consider playing around with it at times.

That actually ties into the next thing: sometimes there were many paragraphs and/or sentences in a row starting with pronouns, particularly "she." There were areas I liked it, though, like in the area I just said in chapter 4 with the snappy thoughts. I think it was used good there, so it's not inherently a bad thing by any means, it's just that there were times you'd have three, four, five, or even six paragraphs in a row starting with pronouns, particularly she. It's not a big deal, but considering there are many sentences within the paragraphs themselves also starting with pronouns, it's still worth mentioning. For choppy character thoughts and revelations, I think it works (for both of my critiques), so even within the two critiques I have, it's not like every time they appeared they weren't good, I just recommend considering playing around with it wherever you see fit, if that makes sense!

Unrelated to the core of the review since this isn't about the style, but I love the story idea and how infatuation can lead to dangerous feelings, twisted mental states, and conflicting decisions. Okay, I admit, listening to Diet Pepsi while reading this only amplified that, but even without the music, the story concept works really well, and it had me feeling for Ophelia right away, so I just wanted to take a moment to point that out, even though this review is supposed to be focused on style.

That was the last thing I wanted to say, but all in all, the style is pretty solid and does a good job setting up the deteriorating mental state of Ophelia, and I think you did a good job with this short.

Honorable Mention

Abducted by AraMathew

Review:

Before we get into the meat of the review, I just wanted to say I like how you mixed what idols are part of this, making it feel really diverse and more interesting to read, giving a bunch of different fandoms a reason to get excited. It got me excited to read when I read through the idol list, that's for sure, so I think you did a good job making a diverse cast of characters that will appeal to a lot of people. I just wanted to mention that, even though it doesn't really have to do with the style.

Moving into the core of the review, let's start with the technical stuff since it impacts how the style is perceived. The grammar and spelling is overall okay other than a handful of things, but it's not a big deal for this specific review since the grammar errors don't really take away from the style at all, which is good. I won't go into detail since this isn't a grammar review. There were only two things that ever got distracting. One was the frequency of missing end punctuation in dialogue. Like from chapter 16, you have these lines:

"H-Hyung"

"Yes Jeno-ah"

"Shhh Chan-ah, I am fine now. Hyung is fine"

See how the ending of those dialogues are missing periods/full stops? That's what I mean. Sometimes you'd have periods/full stops, other times you wouldn't, so I would just suggest more consistency since that can get distracting. There were also frequent comma errors, like "You are not disgusting Hyunjin-ah" (chap 19). It should be: "You are not disgusting, Hyunjin-ah." If you're ever unsure about comma placements, I'd recommend reading out loud since that can help you identify natural pauses, and/or using a free grammar checker, like Grammarly or QuillBot, though I don't think you need to use these all the time since your overall grammar/spelling is okay. Other than those two things, the grammar didn't take away from the style and was overall okay, so let's move more into the specifics of the style.

To start with what I enjoyed about the writing style, there were quite a few moments throughout the book that I enjoyed reading about due to the language, like the opening of chapter 18, that opening paragraph. What I liked about it was "...above him was a lightbulb that was swinging from the ceiling." I don't know why, but I just really like the lightbulb swinging. It's endearing to me, but even beyond my personal bias, that first part does a great job establishing the scene. Going beyond that chapter, in many chapters, you have good establishing paragraphs that show the locations early on in the chapters to give readers a good sense of the environment. At the same time, you don't overdo it and keep a steady balance between too much establishing of the scene and too little, so good job there.

Another thing I liked was how you stayed tonally consistent with your language. Considering this is a serious story with a lot of mature topics in it, including r/pe, it's imperative to keep a consistent tone, which you do, which is only possible through strong language style. It's more important than a lot of people realize, so I just wanted to take a moment to appreciate it before moving into the next thing.

The last thing I'll mention before moving into critiques is Nathan and how he's written. I know it probably seems weird to bring up a character in a style review, but the main reason I'm bringing it up is because the writing style is able to effectively paint him as such an evil villain. You make it super easy to hate him, which is obviously what you're going for here, and the style reflects that through the way his dialogue is written, along with his actions, all of which being handled with the seriousness I mentioned in the previous paragraph. So that was another part I wanted to appreciate, even if it may seem a bit odd to address a character in a style review.

As for critiques, I would suggest not using multiple ! or ? since it can take emotion out of the moment, and there's also nothing more than one ! or ? can do that one can, especially !, since ! are telling over showing, and while there's nothing inherently wrong with telling over showing and using !, using !! or !!! or even more can come off as overdramatic and can take some of the emotion out of a scene, hence why I suggest avoiding using more than one, like !! or ??.

Another critique is about passive voice and considering downsizing where possible. I understand the usage of passive voice in reference to the idols. As much as most authors are against overusing passive voice, I can see it being effective in some scenarios, like in this scenario where you're using the language itself to show the idols are mere passengers and are unable to do anything, so I actually do like that part. What I'm talking about is considering downsizing on the passive voice when you aren't talking about the idols. For example, as much as I love that opening from chapter 18, it is an example of what I'm talking about where you say the lightbulb was swinging. Consider: "...above him, a lightbulb swung from the ceiling." Or you can do this, and while it's still passive, it eliminates the "that was": "above him was a lightbulb swinging from the ceiling." So I did like that part, though I didn't feel the "that was" was needed, and also that the passive voice wasn't needed, if that makes sense.

Overall, the writing style throughout the story does a good job portraying the horror of the idols in this situation, carrying tonal consistency and doing a good job getting the reader ready to, well, read. I had a couple of critiques about the grammar, punctuation, and passive voice, but otherwise enjoyed the style.

ALL REVIEWS:

Her Cursed Prince by ParkAaimin

Review:

Before we begin, let's address the elephant in the room: this book (at the time of reviewing) was last updated on July 9th. July 9th is my birthday. Awwwh author, you wrote me a birthday gift, thank you! I appreciate that! I'll try not to let any bias show in the review, especially since this is a Jin fanfic, and I love reading it and will support it all day every day. We need more Jin fics, especially ones with interesting ideas like this one has.

(I know that update wasn't written specifically for me, but shhh, let me be delusional)

Moving into the serious part of the review, let's start with the technical side since the grammar/spelling is really important for getting readers hooked on your style/story. The grammar and spelling is overall okay, though could use some tweaks. The main tweak is the script format, but I'll talk about that later, so I won't bring it up here. Otherwise, the grammar/spelling is okay. There were errors here and there, but nothing that took away from the style.

Now let's talk about the core of the style instead of the technical stuff. To begin, I liked how you played around with your sentence structure and made it dynamic. You weren't afraid to experiment with punctuation and different types of clauses to create a more interesting creative experience for the reader. I never found myself bored during my read and thought that the sentences were always engaging since none of them felt the same or like you were falling into patterns. You were pushing yourself to try new things, but also not in a way that felt forced. The experimental sentences still felt natural and not like you were playing around with them for sake of playing around and being different, but instead for a specific narrative purpose, which was very enjoyable.

Another thing I like is related to what I just said, but I like how you play around with your descriptions, too. Your descriptions are overall pretty creative, like the sentence structure. I mean, I don't think any Army on this planet would ever say no to descriptions of Jin and how he interacts with the world around him, so maybe I'm biased in that sense, but I honestly really liked the descriptions and thought they fit in well with the chosen genre of the book, and your style has a sense of elegance without feeling over-the-top, striking a good balance between the prettier side of prose and the simplistic side of storytelling.

The last thing I'll mention before moving into critiques is I like how you present environments to us. You're able to give us vibes just by setting the scene, like the snow falling in chapter two was very calming to me when you described Jin watching it with his mug of coffee. You used your words to build a clear picture of an environment and also present us with immaculate comforting vibes. That's just one example, but the environments throughout the story felt like they were presented to us well and in a way where we could picture everything clearly and understand the intended emotion for the scene.

I have a handful of critiques. Let's start with the small things and then get into the larger thing. To start, there were some times where you resorted to cliche descriptions that felt like they weren't needed, like "their words cut deep," "like a knife" (when used as a simile, as this is a very common simile) "a wave of ___ washed over me," etc. There's nothing inherently wrong with using cliches, though since you have such creative descriptions as I mentioned before, many of those cliches felt out of place. So I'm not saying never use cliches since they can be used in effective ways, but be careful with overusing them, if that makes sense.

The second thing is another small thing, but consider cutting down on how many pictures used. I say this because A) like I said before, your descriptions are really good, so I don't think you need to rely on them, and B) you use a lot of them. I don't mind pictures, and many of the pictures you provided were very pretty, so that's fine and nothing bad by any means, it's just that you use them super frequently to the point where it gets distracting and can distract from the style. You use around 8-10 photos (on average) per chapter, and since the chapters are about 10 minutes long (on average), that's almost one image per minute, and that combined with a lot of the images repeating themselves throughout the story (like the red cake photo being used once in chapter 8 and again in chapter 9) made it so sometimes it got a little distracting, if that makes sense.

Now onto the more major critique, which is the script format dialogue. In chapter two, you have some standard book format dialogue, like "I can't believe they let someone like that in here," and then you'll have script format for the majority of the story with lines like this:

Waiter: Need anything else?

I would advise against doing this for a few reasons. For one, the flip flop between the book format dialogue and script format dialogue is a little confusing, so consistency is important here, but the main reason is because it doesn't feel like it fits in. Script format dialogue is just for that: scripts. For books, it doesn't mesh as well because it looks out of place and like it belongs in a different style of story. Especially for a book like this with more advanced vocabulary and descriptions, the script format took me out of the moment, and that's because the whole point of script format is that it's supposed to be plain and in some cases even boring so actors can read it and have a blank slate to work with. So that's why I suggest not using it, though if you'd like to write scripts, I'd recommend using the free version of Celtx since it automatically formats everything for you. I personally use Celtx for my scripts, and it helps a lot! So if you're interested in doing some scriptwriting too if you don't already, I definitely suggest trying Celtx!

Overall, the writing style is strong throughout this narrative, utilizing strong descriptions and scene set pieces to craft an engaging style that will make readers excited to keep going. My personal favorite part is the experimentation present throughout. I had a few critiques for the style, though it was overall good. This was a tough decision, and this was a runner-up for honorable mention, so I would like to give a follow to you to show my appreciation for your hard work, and I encourage you to keep writing since I like your style a lot!

BTS: An Introduction of My Angels by wordenchanter

Review:

For starters, before I get into the core of it, I just wanted to say I like this idea for the poetry to be centered around each member of BTS. I don't think I've seen someone do poems for the members specifically, and I think that was a cute, nice idea, and I'm glad you did it! I encourage creativity, and I think this was a really creative idea.

Now, let's begin with the grammar/spelling since that impacts how the readers view your style. As this is poetry, you get a bit more leniency with grammar since you can play around with typical English grammar more for stylistic reasons. The overall grammar and spelling is okay, though there are some awkward errors here and there. For example, in RM's poem, maknae is spelled as makne. It's not a big deal since the Hangeul is 막내, so the 애 sounds like ne anyway, but considering you spelled maknae as maknae throughout the poems, I'd suggest consistency there. In Jin's poem, you have the line Cuz I just see I child in you, and the second "I" should be "a." I'd also advise against spelling cause/because as cuz, simply because poetry tends to carry a more elegant style to it, so the sudden use of cuz felt a little off, in my opinion. So the grammar is okay, it's just the spelling that could use some tweaks so there's more flow to the style, if that makes sense. But grammar/spelling is just a small part of style, so let's move into the more important parts.

Getting into the core of the style, like I mentioned earlier, I like the choice to make this about the individual BTS members, and I think that shines through most in your style with the way you reflect upon their accomplishments, nicknames, inside jokes, etc. I think that gave a lot of charm to the poems, and I think many Armys will find them endearing and fun to read about. I actually wanna say that if you're an Army reading this review, I encourage you to check this out. It's a short read and will bring you lots of smiles, so I think you should definitely check it out, not to mention it's a unique idea with each member getting their own poem, so I think Armys will really like that.

But that aside, another thing I like is the endearing language. I mentioned the nicknames before, but when it comes down to the specific style itself, I like how endearing you are toward them, and everyone reading it can tell it's a very affectionate tribute to the BTS members, meaning you got your intended emotion across: charm and maybe even nostalgia, especially with poems like Jimin's and Jin's, where the language reflects a lot on their accomplishments and age. I'd say Jimin's was my personal favorite (because I'm totallllyyyy not biased), though all of them reflected the members well, and the endearing language made the poems just as endearing and fun to read.

The last thing I'll mention before I get into some suggestions is the humor and contrast present throughout the poems. You often will take two things and contrast them, like calling Jin the eldest yet the youngest in his poem and things like that, which is not only humorous but also creates a nice contrast. I like when contrast is used in poetry. I'm not sure why, but I've always enjoyed seeing it, so that's something I personally enjoying seeing within the poems. As for the humor, you have many jokes, teasing moments where you yourself tease the members for things (like mentioning Jimin's "tiny" hands), and other lines where you use things like onomatopoeia to bring more joy and entertainment into the words, which I found very beneficial for the poems.

I have a couple of suggestions. The main one I have that's most important for poetry and style is to consider diversifying your language and how you're ending your lines. For example, in the Jin poem, you end many of your lines with "you are," "now," and "you." Four end with "you are," two with "now," and two end with "you." Repetition isn't inherently a bad thing, especially in poetry, though consider diversifying this since there are so many things to say about Jin and all the BTS members that I feel you could experiment with it a little, and too much repetition can become, well, repetitive. That applies to the whole poem, though I wanted to specifically focus on those endings.

The next critique I have can be seen as both a compliment and a critique: I wanted to see more. Like I mentioned earlier, I enjoy this idea and think it's really cool, so I encourage you to expand on it in the future, if that idea appeals to you, since I think you have a lot of subject matter here you could expand on. I'd love to see you expand in a grander way where you play around more with word choice and metaphor, giving us more prose or a more flowery look at your view of the BTS members, since every Army has their unique interpretation of the members, so I encourage you to expand on it, if you're ever interested. I think this is a good idea, and I would love to see you add more lines, or more stanzas, or play around with the style more and maybe try a sonnet or a haiku or something of the sort depending on which member you're writing about, if that makes sense.

The last critique I have I saved for last because it combines my two points about repetition and wanting to see more: repetition within the subject matter. Sticking to the Jin poem, you mention his age a lot. Here's the full poem:

The eldest !
yet the youngest you are,
The mature yet so immature you are,
Vocalist yet a rapper you are,
How come you're like this,
Cuz I just know the JIN you are.
Realising that you in your 30s now,
How is it even possible now,
How come you are 32,
Cuz I just see I child in you.
Pink slippers ready to fly all the time,
Just a stare is enough
To make boldness fly.
Ughhh!
How come you're 32,
Cuz I just see
A child in you☺☺.

See how often you mention his age? The first three lines are about it, and then the lines "Realising that you are in your 30s now, How is it even possible now, How come you are 32, Cuz I just see I [a] child in you" are about his age too, and then you mention it again for the last three lines. So 10/17 lines are about his age, and that's assuming we're counting the Ughhh! as a line since that's more of an onomatopoeia, which would bring the total down to 16 lines, so 10/16. That's significantly more than half of the poem about his age, and it also shows in the transitions since there are some transition issues where you go from talking about his age and him being like a child to suddenly the pink slippers, and you could benefit from some more diversity with what you're talking about here. Maybe you can talk about his songs, like Super Tuna (would be a great opportunity to add more humor), or you can really get sentimental here and talk about how he's cared for the boys, especially Jungkook. So those are just a few ideas, but I encourage you to play around with it and find more diverse things to speak about within the poems. I hope that makes sense!

Overall, this poetry compilation has a strong idea where we follow all seven members of BTS on their own individual poems, which is very charming and works great for Armys, who I think will be attached to this poetry book. I had a few recommendations for the structure of the poems, though I overall hope you continue writing more poetry like this since it's very unique and endearing.

8:15 PM by Amerlin8608

Review:

Let's start with the technical side of the story, since that's important for how readers engage with and understand your text. The grammar and spelling are overall solid throughout the short, and that makes it easy to digest the story and the style. So you're off to a good start with strong SPAG, or spelling, punctuation, and grammar.

Moving into the specifics about the style, what I liked about the style is how it blended in with the concept of the book, which is imperative to generating engagement. Your story idea is quite perplexing, but in a good way since it has readers staying on their toes, and that's reflected in the writing by you keeping it vague yet specific at the same time. You keep the readers guessing with overall interesting word choice other than one thing I'll mention later, and it really puts us into the mindset of our main character, which is great.

Another thing I liked about it was the overall length of the paragraphs and sentences, often going for a choppier approach since there's a lot happening here in a short time, and it increases the pacing speed to get the reader reading faster. I like how you will sometimes split off lines and make them their own thing instead of in a paragraph, like the line She cried until a man approached her and asked her if she was okay. That line is separate from the rest of the paragraphs to give it space to breathe and have more impact. You don't do it too often, but enough to be noticeable and to give some lines more weight.

The last thing I'd like to point out may seem strange, but I like how you stray away from a lot of the usual cliches and avoid using too many ! or a lot of telling over showing, instead opting for more direct actions and letting the words speak for themselves. I think that shows a strong promise of creativity and intrigue, and it makes the style more interesting as a result since we get to see you use your words and sentences in unique ways that appeal to a wide audience, so good job with that.

I have three critiques, and two of them tie into each other, so I'll start with those two. To begin, sometimes it felt like some sentences were split unnaturally. For example, from the first half: "Exhausted, huh?" Nila asked. To which Akshara just leaned on the counter and pretended to fall asleep. I was a little confused by the choice to make "To which Akshara just leaned on the counter and pretended to fall asleep" its own sentence instead of using a comma. So that's one thing to consider: making sure when you split sentences, they need to be split. I liked some of the times you split the sentences, like Being a doctor is not easy either. But a doctor has a better life than a nurse. I didn't mind that split and thought it added more emphasis to the second part, which I thought was nice, so that's not to say never split sentences that could be one, but rather consider why you're splitting them and if they need to be split, if that makes sense.

Moving into the second thing that's somewhat connected, the word "just." Your word choice is overall good, though sometimes you overuse the word "just," like in that segment. That's the first "just" I noticed, and you use it three more times back-to-back after that with "Nila just chuckled..." "I just logged out" and "Nila just nodded and looked at her." That's all within two short paragraphs, so four uses within eight short sentences, making up half of the short sentences, therefore making it very noticeable.

The last critique I have is to consider being careful about how many sentences you start with pronouns, particularly "She." There are many times you'll have she used as a sentence starter three or more times in a row, and that when combined with many sentences having pronouns to start makes it so it can sometimes get repetitive. Not always, and I sometimes like the choppiness of it to represent the mental state she's going through in the moment, though consider downsizing some uses of it, wherever you see fit.

Overall, 8:15 PM (which is a nice title, by the way) has a strong style matched with strong grammar/spelling to keep the reader engaged. I had a few critiques revolving around the way some sentences were split, the word "just," and some pronoun stuff, but I otherwise liked the style.

Loyalties Lie by DragonRose25

Review:

Starting off with the technical side of things, since that impacts how readers perceive and understand your style, the grammar/spelling is really good throughout the entire book, making it easier for readers and myself to read and understand your story and style. So you're off to a good start with strong grammar and spelling that's consistent throughout the text.

Moving into what I liked about the style, I enjoyed the word choice and how flavorful it was, often including fun, vivid words, like "floral," "glittering," "slinked," etc. So many fun words that had me smiling throughout the text. At the same time, you also had the darker word choice, and I like how both of them blended together to create an interesting, engaging experience where the same words weren't repeated and we instead got fresh word choice throughout.

Similarly, I like your combination of words and how you combine different fun descriptions. I think it's interesting how this story is really dark with heavy mature themes, but you still have those fun, vivid descriptions. Despite the heavy subject matter, it actually makes sense; Mina hasn't seen much in the way of luxury, so I'm sure it's only natural she pays far more attention to her surroundings, and whenever she's around anything luxurious, of course she'd notice more, so I think it fits in well with the characterization of Mina, too.

There was also good usage of figurative language without it ever feeling over-the-top, particularly with alliteration, like "shoveling soup" and the repetition of the "s" sound there (from chapter 7). Alliteration is my personal favorite device (aside from personification, of course), so maybe I'm biased in saying that, but I noticed you use alliteration quite a few times throughout the text, and I really liked that you included it, but at the same time, I never felt like you overused it or forced it to make words sound better. It all felt natural, which is awesome.

I have two main critiques. One is that sometimes the paragraphs are a little lengthy. There's nothing inherently wrong with long paragraphs, and I myself write a lot of long paragraphs, so I understand, though some of the paragraphs are 20+ lines long, like the opening paragraph in chapter 1 is 26 lines long on laptop, and if it's 26 lines long on laptop, you can multiply that by about 2 to get how many lines long it may be on phone due to the significant screen size difference. This is especially important for the first chapter since that's your hook, so starting off with that long of a paragraph may not hook readers in, which is why I'm suggesting shortening it and making sure that if you're going to use those 20+ line-long paragraphs, all 20+ lines are related to the main topic of that paragraph. There were many times the long paragraphs had multiple different main ideas in them, meaning it may be stronger to split them so the ideas don't get lost in one another and instead have their own space to breathe.

For example, from the first paragraph, you can cut it into more than one paragraph as early as the "Floral, fruity, and herbal scents..." sentence since the sentences before that were introducing Mina as our lead and establishing that she was alone, and now we're getting into describing the environment with the "Floral..." sentence, so you could make the "Floral" part separate from that first part. To break this down more simply, let's look at the original, and then a potential alternative.

Original:

Mina leaned her head on her hand, swirling the tea around in her cup absentmindedly as she waited for it to cool down a little. It was a long night at the tea house, but the shop out front was basically empty, leaving her alone with her thoughts. Floral, fruity, and herbal scents criss-crossed in the air from the various different teas that she had brewed throughout the day, and the crackling fire gave the room a comforting warmth and orange glow. Wrapping her shawl tighter around herself, she sipped at her drink while watching the shadows from the flickering light dance on the ceiling. She always preferred quiet nights because most customers that came were far from the nicest, often leading to unsavory comments being thrown her way or rowdy crowds making a mess of the shop. Of course, that was to be expected considering that tea wasn't actually the main appeal of the establishment. It was the girls in the back that they paid real money for, and the kinds of people who came gladly spent bucketloads. They served everyone from lords to dukes to counts and every once in a while, an occasional prince. The soldiers and guards who accompanied them gladly partook as long as they happened to have coins to spare. Mina considered herself lucky that she mainly had to run the tea shop, and it was nice to serve and talk with the random people who just wandered in looking for a drink, unknowing of the secrets of the back rooms. It was the other girls who had the tough work, being subjected to whatever the patrons desired. Part of her job was to assist them after the day was over and to clean up and reorganize the rooms for the next day, and for the most part, she was happy to help them in any way she could.

Potential alternative:

Mina leaned her head on her hand, swirling the tea around in her cup absentmindedly as she waited for it to cool down a little. It was a long night at the tea house, but the shop out front was basically empty, leaving her alone with her thoughts.

Floral, fruity, and herbal scents criss-crossed in the air from the various different teas that she had brewed throughout the day, and the crackling fire gave the room a comforting warmth and orange glow. Wrapping her shawl tighter around herself, she sipped at her drink while watching the shadows from the flickering light dance on the ceiling.

She always preferred quiet nights because most customers that came were far from the nicest, often leading to unsavory comments being thrown her way or rowdy crowds making a mess of the shop. Of course, that was to be expected considering that tea wasn't actually the main appeal of the establishment.

It was the girls in the back that they paid real money for, and the kinds of people who came gladly spent bucketloads. They served everyone from lords to dukes to counts and every once in a while, an occasional prince. The soldiers and guards who accompanied them gladly partook as long as they happened to have coins to spare.

Mina considered herself lucky that she mainly had to run the tea shop, and it was nice to serve and talk with the random people who just wandered in looking for a drink, unknowing of the secrets of the back rooms. It was the other girls who had the tough work, being subjected to whatever the patrons desired. Part of her job was to assist them after the day was over and to clean up and reorganize the rooms for the next day, and for the most part, she was happy to help them in any way she could.

Do you see how much easier it is to read when it's split up? So that's what I suggest considering: splitting up the paragraphs more to increase readability and flow. I hope that makes sense.

The second critique I have is you have a tendency to overuse introductory clauses, which can make some of the sentence structure a bit repetitive at times. For example, from chapter 2, there's a long paragraph a little over 3/4 of the way through starting with "Magnus opened his mouth to protest...". In that paragraph, there are five introductory clauses, and there are eight sentences, so more than half of the paragraph is made up of introductory clauses. Like long paragraphs, there's nothing inherently wrong with using introductory clauses, and I myself like them, though keep in mind that these sentences frontload actions and/or descriptions before getting to the subject of the sentence, which could create rhythm but also repetitive structure, depending on how often they're used, so my critique would be to consider cutting down on some introductory clauses, particularly when you're using three or more back-to-back, like in the previous example, four out of five of the introductory clauses are back-to-back (Without another word... Backing up... Feeling a heavy weight forming in his chest... Climbing up the many flights of stairs...). I hope both of my critiques made sense.

Overall, the strength of this story's style is its word choice always feeling fun and fresh, giving readers a dynamic experience that will keep them engaged. All I recommend is considering splitting up some paragraphs to make them easier to read and digest, and also considering cutting down on the introductory clauses, that way the sentence structure can feel just as dynamic as the word choice.

Could I Stay Over? by Jinleen5

Review:

Let's start with the technical side of things since that's a big determinant in how readers can comprehend your style and story. The overall spelling/grammar is good. There were errors here and there, but nothing that I felt took away from the overall style, which is the focus of this review, so that's good and it means you're off to a good start.

Moving away from grammar, let's move into the things I liked about the style. For starters, I liked the word choice throughout the story, with a lot of words standing out to me, like "ominous," "whimsical," and things like that. You choose the right words for the right situations, and you have a pretty clear author's voice where you write the story uniquely. Like I mentioned just a second ago, the word choice. That's what makes the voice clear, and the same could be said about the overall sentence structure. While I do have a critique about overstuffing sentences, I overall enjoyed the structure and thought it worked well.

I also liked the various character thoughts (the direct ones; the italicized ones) present throughout the narrative. The areas they were placed and the way they were written were good, particularly Lindsay's, and I know that's a smaller thing to point out since there aren't too many character thoughts, but it shows more variety within the writing style, which I appreciated.

The last thing I'll mention before moving into critiques is that I liked Hoseok's dialogue in particular due to the flair and style that he had. His dialogue was so unique from the others, and I liked it throughout the entire story. The other dialogue was all good and unique to the individuals too, but Hobi's was my absolute favorite, and I loved how clearly we could see his personality, and that's of course thanks to the writing giving it that flair that made it stand out and made me love it so much.

I have a few critiques. To begin, I'd recommend using less exclamation marks (!) in standard descriptions since it can come off as over-the-top at times. There were some chapters, like chapter 16, where you used a bunch of them in the descriptions. I think it's okay to use them every once in a while in descriptions, and it's okay to use them in dialogue of course, but I advise against using too many in descriptions, otherwise it can risk coming off as over-the-top, or it can even remove the emotion from the scene. Since ! is telling over showing, the more you use, the less impact they have later, and also the more telling over showing you're doing. There's nothing inherently wrong with telling over showing, and sometimes you even need to do telling over showing, so I'm not saying don't use telling over showing at times, more be careful with how often it's used, if that makes sense.

Another critique I have is be careful with how much you're putting in one sentence. I'll give you another example from chapter 16 so you don't have to play musical chapters and jump around to find what I'm talking about. From chapter 16:

No one wasted anytime and didn't dare to delay the simple task of handing over their papers because each and every one of them just wanted to rise to their feet and check whether their butts weren't completely beaten up after having had to be seated for hours on end in one place.

That is all one sentence, and if you read it out loud, you may be able to catch that it's a bit awkward and could benefit from being broken up and reworded since there are a lot of unnecessary words in that sentence making it longer. Here's one alternative:

No one dared delay the simple task of handing over their papers. Each and every one of them just wanted to check if their butts were beaten up from having to be seated for hours on end [in one place].

I put the [in one place] in brackets since it's optional and I don't think it's needed, but it could be added without impacting the sentence much. Do you see how much I was able to cut out and still keep the overall meaning the same? So that's what I mean when I say consider slowing down in some areas (while editing) and reading sentences out loud or with TTS so you can hear how the sentences sound. I personally use TTS to edit my work, and it's super helpful for me.

The last critique I have is consider using less adverbs, particularly the -ly adverbs since I'd say they're overused here. For example, in chapter 26, in the first section alone, only counting -ly adverbs (and not other common adverbs, like "just," "very," "enough," "still," etc.), there are 49 adverbs. Again: that's 49 adverbs only counting the first section of that chapter (so about a little over half of the chapter), and also not counting the other adverbs that aren't -ly adverbs, of which I saw quite a few as well but did not count them, so I'm guessing there's 60+ adverbs, if not even more, in that first section alone. You also repeat some of those adverbs, like "gently" and "firmly," so consider downsizing. Your overall word choice is good, though when it came to adverbs, I did notice you repeating them often, and I suggest downsizing on how many adverbs you use.

The reason is because adverbs are inherently telling over showing, and while there's nothing wrong with using them, the general "rule" of thumb is no more than one adverb per 300 words, though I personally think this is too forgiving, and I personally try to stick to one adverb per 500 words, but every author has their own preferences, and it also varies from story to story depending on the genre/tone. So the "rule" of one per 300 isn't really something you need to 100% follow, but it is something to try if you find yourself struggling to remove them. In many cases, when there are adverbs, you can simply delete them from the sentences and it won't change anything. Sometimes, you may need to change the sentences around to make it work, but other times, all you'll have to do is delete it, so those are some ways to remove adverbs. I hope that makes sense.

Overall, the writing style throughout the story starts strong with good grammar and continues that good streak with good word choice that will keep readers invested. I had some critiques for punctuation and being careful about overstuffing some sentences, though the style is all in all good.