Title: The End of Everything

Author: DontYouWantToKnow

Reviewer: awesomeSTG

Since this is a short story (and the first time I've encountered one), some criteria such as plot and realism may be very short and not befitting to the type of context that I do. So what I did was just scrap that stuff and make a new criteria altogether.

Summary: 4/5

For starters, the summary is awesome. It has so much depth, so much grief and sadness radiating from it that the one liner is like a punch to the gut. It piques the curiosity, it makes us want to wonder what would it feel like if our parents are dead, and how we would cope up with it. 

Very powerful and interesting summary, it really pulled me in. Kudos!

It's a shame those emotions in the summary never got to the rest of the story.

Description: 2/5

You're using simple and easy to understand words, which I both like and (just a little) dislike. I like it because it gives the imagination more roaming area, which applies to the term less is more, but then as I had stated before, I didn't quite like it, too. Why? (Subjective and personal preference comes into play when tackling these matters, please remember that.) Well, there will always be a specific word to describe the scenario of your setting and characters. There was repetition (redundancy) in both narration and dialogue that made the overused word stiff and just tiring to see. Soft is one of the most overused word in there, with usages such as "she smiled softly, she said softly," and etcetera. They're just so soft all the time. Are they sundae swirls or something?

There was way more telling than showing, which might raise a few questions for me because the story itself is supposed to be talking about being able to cope with the death of a mother, so merely "telling," us about it is kinda boring. Six times out of ten I've stopped reading The Aftermath because I felt like the characters, Ari and Ce, were just floating in a blank white space, not doing anything, just hovering in there, reading a bunch of flashcards and then feeling sad, and then getting relieved, and then feeling sad all over again, and then repeat.

There's a part in the story where she states something about feeling regret, but then after that single paragraph everything's over. Regret is a very strong, very powerful emption, but it is never portrayed properly. You can't just say regret without showing us how it feels. Heartbeat going faster? Knots in the stomach? Cold blood, cold sweat, cold everything? And then it's gone just like that after "shaking it off." What about that emotion you just told us? Did it just simply vanish? How can you even shake off a feeling of regret? You can certainly pretend it's not there, yes, but you can't stop it from happening. This is an inconsistency to the story, since if Ce could do this all along she wouldn't have consulted a shrink to begin with.

Also, I don't know what Ce looks like. Is that bad? Maybe I forgot. Yes, I know, this story is all about Ce trying to cope up with the death of her mother, but in my defense, if a character has no physical description whatsoever, they are just invisible talking blobs in our heads. I don't remember where I've read this, but it shows that there should be at least hints of what the character looks like (especially the main) along the first to third chapters.

Well, since this is a short story, Ce's hair and eyes or figure and facial structure would've been more than enough. Some of the examples of how a scenario would've been better if shown and not told is in the Grammar section, so I hope it helps let you see where things started going down.

Grammar: 2.5/5

First off, the tenses. This is some of the most common problems in the story, 'cause it just happens. The tenses are all over the place, jumping from past to present and then back to past again.

Blue here are the instances where you used present tense. The red underlined words are the past. So yes, as you can see, you're very much shifting back and forth. You can choose one tense and then stick with it, preferably the past in this one because I think it's a little easier to manage and is appropriate for the story. 

Also, as I had said in the description, there's too much telling going on that I don't get to feel the suffering of the MC. This picture here is an example of that. So what if she broke down? Why should we care? I certainly don't, especially with us not even knowing what reminded her of her mother. Like I had said, show us how everything is reminding her of her mother. Let us catch glimpses of her face, let us feel some parental heartstrings tugging at us! Because boy, talking about a dead person with no face just gives me an excuse to want to leave.

Moving on, we're going to tackle the big chunks of paragraphs that hadn't been cut off properly. This part just makes me think that Ce was the one talking because she was there to give an action after the statement. It'll just give them confusion. The underlined in red should be in a separate paragraph of her own, while the ones inside the bracket ought to be separated as well, preferably with a dialogue tag like, "Ari continued, or the shrink added," to give us clear perception on who's really the one talking. 

This next one is a bit of a long and mixed, so there's a ton of different colours all over the place. First off, there's the paragraph inside the red bracket. This is the one I had mentioned in the description section, the one about feeling regret and all.

The second one is pretty much obvious. It's all over the story, and it shows up in those flashcard questions nine times out of ten. In my opinion, it would've been better if the questions in the flashcards were italicized instead, but you usually fix this by putting a comma after the dialogue tag (if it's placed before the quotation marks), and turning that lowercase letter into an uppercase one. There are some exceptions to this rule, such as when someone is talking and there's a dialogue tag at the end that says something like, "she paused before adding/continuing," then the next statement is more likely to continue with a lowercase letter. 

The words underlined in purple are redundant. It doesn't look well since it makes it seem like Ari doesn't have any other things to say so she repeated it.

The last one, those turquoise (are those turquoise?) underlined words are just downright out of context. Okay, hear me out. She's in grief. She's numbed with pain. And then... she laughs at some sentence we don't even get? I mean, so what if Ari's life story isn't very interesting? Am I... am I supposed to laugh here, too? It just gets confusing at times.

In my opinion, it would've been more relatable and realistic if the shrink laughed but Ce didn't, because she didn't find it amusing. (Okay scratch that, maybe I just don't have a sense of humour.) Then Ari would stop, pause, hold her hand or something, and tell her that it's okay to let loose and speak up if she wants to.

Anywho, I guess that's it for this section, hope those pointers I mentioned above helped.

Overall Development: 3/5

This part of the short story is where I'll discuss the happenings and whatnot, as well as what goes on with the character interactions, pace or flow and etcetera. Like I had said in the previous section about description, Ce and the shrink weren't all that appealing to the imagination because of too much telling. Actually, if done right, only one memory of Ce's mother would've sufficed. The dialogue during that part was just unnecessary and ended up dragging and bogging the story down. It's a story, for goodness sake, not a talk show. It's alright to have a flashback to show us what really happened.

I don't know if it's just me (maybe it is just me since I've been skimming), but I don't recall hearing the name of the mother? I know, she's dead. However, since the story is literally all about the fact that her daughter can't cope up with her death, I think getting to know her is part of the deal. I mean, how are we supposed to feel Ce's regrets and grief if we don't even know a thing about the person she's mourning for?

The journey to her recovery just hurts me mentally, if I'm going to be honest. Someone's death just can't be told. And if Ce's not breaking down or sobbing just a bit by the stories she's telling Ari, then it just doesn't sound consistent at all.

Here's my take on the showing and telling part of the story about them going to the lake:

"Her raven black hair seemed to shimmer underneath the sun's shivelight. She turned to me, smiled, and beckoned for me to join her in the lake. When she laughed, the crow's feet on the sides of her hazel eyes would become more visible, but to my eyes, she looked much, much younger, almost timeless.

She held out her hand to me and told me not to be afraid. The lake was deep, and it went on until my feet could no longer feel the bottom. The cold, cold waters went up to my chin, and as I flailed and thrashed around like a helpless cat, she grabbed my wrist and pulled me to her, safe and warm. She urged me to practice swimming, and she nagged at me when I went swimming for too long. As the skies dimmed and faded into darker hues of purple and blue, she took me back to dry land, and we laughed at cheesy little jokes under the guise of the stars.

She kissed my forehead and gently rubbed her hands against mine, her warmth slowly seeping to my cold skin. "Take care of the boys when I'm gone, alright?"

Who would've known."

It's just a short version of what might've happened, with the description taken from what I personally viewed her to be. Anywho, grief makes much more sense here because we know just how sweet and loving she really is. We now know something about her in that single memory alone. Well, what do you think?

Overall, this story has a nice touch to the things that may happen in reality. Accidents happen, death can't be avoided, and maybe now Ce has a trauma of riding cars. The story has great, great potentials when revised more, and it has the ability to make the readers think about their parents, how things would change, and how you would no longer have someone to lean and rely on. It's a sad fact, but that's the painful truth. I'm glad Ce's brave enough to try and move on, not just for her family, but for herself as well.

OVERALL SCORE: 11.5/20