Title: The New Chapter of Us

Author: artemisbreeze

First of all, thank you so much for requesting a review from me for a second time! I always feel a little warm on the inside when I see someone request a second review from me. Also, thank you so much for your patient. You're the last client who I accepted before closing forms to catch-up, and while you are receiving your review on the exact date that I promised you would receive it, I really appreciate your patience – three months is no small wait, and you've been a champion about it. Thank you! 

Summary: [no score – not added to final score]

Similar to your last story (Anagata, I believe it was?), your summary isn't a traditional summary and, thus, is very hard to review. Rather, you have chosen one of those one-liner aesthetic summaries that are vague and intriguing. I like how poetic it is, and I know many people adore these summaries, so well done! 

Grammar: 2/5

The biggest issue I noticed here – and I say it was the biggest because it actually disrupted the flow of the story – was the constant switching of tenses. You kept moving from past to present tense inconsistently. I'll discuss this more in writing style, but for now, here are some other things you need to look at.

If dialogue is followed by a verbal dialogue tag (such as 'he said', 'she whispered', 'she exclaimed' – or anything referring to how the character says the words), there should be a comma before the closing inverted commas. If it's anything else, this comma should be replaced by a period (or a question mark for a question and exclamation mark for an exclamation). For example:

"I mean, it's been a while." he said.

It should be:

"I mean, it's been a while," he said.

While we are still on dialogue, be aware of writing new paragraphs when the same character is speaking. You either need to include a verbal tag to make it clear that it's the same character speaking, or you need to change the punctuation marks to indicate this. For example:

"Alana Jeanne Naberrie, and yes, I still remember your full name. I like you. I liked you from the first place. I liked you since the first day of school. I liked you since we became best friends. I liked you since we entered the school team. I liked you since I knew you're a Star Wars freak too. Well, you're not a freak, I am."

"I liked you since we invented our code names. I like you, God, I really do. I never told you because I was afraid at first. And..."

To indicate that it's still Jacen talking, you should remove the closing inverted commas at the end of that first paragraph (or simple add a he continued in the second paragraph). It should be:

"Alana Jeanne Naberrie, and yes, I still remember your full name. I like you. I liked you from the first place. I liked you since the first day of school. I liked you since we became best friends. I liked you since we entered the school team. I liked you since I knew you're a Star Wars freak too. Well, you're not a freak, I am.

"I liked you since we invented our code names. I like you, God, I really do. I never told you because I was afraid at first. And..."

Next: capitalisation of proper nouns. At first, I thought you were intentionally leaving proper nouns uncapitalized, but you didn't keep it consistent. Names such as Kurt Cobain, Jacen Solo, Han Solo, Leia – all of these should be capitalised. Additionally, you had instances where your sentences were not ending with full-stops, so I suggest revising that.

I already mentioned tense inconsistencies, but you also need to be careful of the form of words after auxiliaries. For example:

It really did broke my heart.

It should be:

It really did break my heart.

Or, it could be:

It really broke my heart.

Characterisation: 3.5/5

Your character voices are incredibly strong throughout the letters, and I really admire that. We feel Alana's butterflies when she speaks to Jacen, and when we do see Jacen's perspective, we catch glimpses of his devotion from the moment he first saw Alana and thought she was different. In fact, their bits of awkwardness, their nervousness – it's all so precious. I have to congratulate you – you only had two chapters in this short story, but we genuinely feel their love for one another by the end of each letter. Well done!

I do think there was some lack of cohesion when characters switched mood. For example, when Jacen is talking about his first day at school, we see him high-fiving Luke and telling him they were going to smash it [school], and the next chapter starts with: "I immediately felt tired and unmotivated."

That's a very sudden switch in mood, which can be jarring for the reader. I understand that this switch in mood occurs when he realises he has maths first up, but the reader needs to understand that transition as it happens. Consider something like:

"We're going to smash it!"

And that's when I looked at my timetable and realised that, dammit, I had maths first.

Just like that, my heart sank.

Obviously, that's a very rough draft – but it shows how there is a quick sentence to lead into the change of mood. 

Writing Style: 3/5

I absolutely adore the fact that these are letters, but they are written as if they are narratives. The structure is also nice – we have smooth transitions of flashbacks that lead into a romantic final moment. Well done!

There were some moments that I wished you fleshed out more descriptively. I loved the way you described the sunrise, and I adored the symbolism of it being a new hope, a new beginning, and a new day. However, let's go back to when Alana takes the tour around the castle – that would be a perfect moment to really help the reader immerse themselves into the setting. Show us that castle. Take us there. Bonus point: show us that, even though Alana thinks the castle is beautiful, she can't quite keep her eyes off Jacen. It would be an impactful moment.

Now, I mentioned it above in grammar, but I'll discuss it more here because this is what dragged down your writing style: your tense switches. It was very jarring jumping back and forth from past to present tense, even when we were in a single moment. For example:

I can feel her smiling in between our kisses and suddenly she wrapped her legs around my torso.

If we break this up, it goes:

I can feel her smiling... [can = present tense]

... she wrapped her legs around my torso. [wrapped = past tense]

I don't even know what to correct it to, since I can't work out which tense you were trying to be in. However, here are solutions, nonetheless:

If you want your story to be in present tense: I can feel her smiling in between our kisses and suddenly she wraps her legs around my torso.

If you want your story to be in past tense: I could feel her smiling in between our kisses and suddenly she wrapped her legs around my torso.

Plot + Originality: 3.5/5

In all honesty, I find these stories really hard to review. Because, truth be told, there isn't much of a plot. There are just two letters from opposing characters who were separated, but then find each other, share their love for each other, and then get together. In this story in particular, there wasn't any conflict or tension driving the letters forward.

However, I understand that is the purpose of these stories. There isn't supposed to be tension or suspense. We're not supposed to think they won't get together. It's supposed to be a clean, happy, hopefully series of letters. So, if that was your goal, well done – you've achieved it!

If there was something I would change, it would be the structure. In the first letter, by Alana, we see Jacen basically confessing his feelings to her and telling her about how he loved her from the moment he met her, on that first day. And then, in the next letter, we see all of that in narration form, and it feels a little redundant. We just saw him saying all of that, so it's quite repetitive.

However, what you can do to really pull on our heartstrings is to make Alana completely oblivious throughout her letter. Then, end it with Jacen confessing – however, he just says that he loved her from the first day. Then, the second story launches into that, and explains how and why he fell in love. That way, it doesn't feel like a repetition of his dialogue, but feels like it was led into it.

Of course, that's just my thoughts on it. I still do think it's quite sweet the way it is. 

OVERALL SCORE: 12/20

Overall, a short and sweet about losing and finding love. Just work on keeping your tenses consistent, and you should be good to go. I hope this review helps! 

And, now that I'm finally caught up with my waiting list, I think I'm finally ready to take on requests again (I'm just finishing off reviews for another reviewer who needed the help). However, as I plan on taking another short break for Christmas (the last break... did not end up being a break), I'll only be accepting four more requests before closing again and reopening when the new year arrives. Thank you for everyone's patience! I had never closed my forms before in my life, but considering it took three months to catch up... I'm glad I did!