This is a review for When the Night Falls by Nikkawaanjai.

The first three parts of this story that we are going to review are Chapter 1, Chapter 2, and Chapter 3.

I appreciate the Introduction part of the story. It gives a little insight about the characters that we are going to meet in the next chapters. Although, I don't find this part of the book necessary (because the story itself or narration has the duty to describe, to show and tell what kind of characters we are going to encounter), I still kind of liked the way the Introduction is written.

I wasn't familiar with the people that this story/fan fiction is inspired from or based from, but their names ring like those that came from Thai BL series love teams, which excites me because I see a lot of tweets about these type of series being commended by a lot of its viewers. From this, I was expecting to have the kind of experience these viewers had when I read the first three chapters of this story!

CHAPTER 1

• I like that this story is written in English. Refreshing for me after reviewing five stories before this one, all of them written in Tagalog/TagLish. Hats-off also to Filipino authors who can pull off a creative work using a foreign language.

• For this chapter, (this is usual with previous stories I reviewed and when it comes to first drafts, btw) the author should do some series of proofreading. Some grammatical errors needed to be corrected like the tenses:

++ I made my grand entrance... (past tense)

++ I smirk... (present tense)

++ I stride my way to the boardroom... (present tense)

++ The MG Empire was under ruckus... (past tense, must be in present tense because the problem still occurs unless the story focuses on the narration of past events, which is not yet clear because the tenses in this chapter are all over the place).

++ I was browsing the submitted documents... (past tense)

++ I ask her... (present tense)

++ I heard a soft voice... (past tense)

Also, few of the punctuations are doubled, like the double quotation marks here:

And some dialogues are too lengthy. Or maybe, it is the wrong punctuation (preferring to use comma instead of period split the dialogue into separate sentences). Due to this, the dialogues felt too long that the character would run out of breath before they can even finish talking.

The dialogue in the picture above can be rewritten this way

"Good afternoon everyone. I don't want to waste my time or yours. How about you tell me? How did he manage to get away with the money?"

It will help a lot if the author will read the dialogues aloud in order to pinpoint when to start a new sentence.

• Also, the author should watch out for redundancy like this one:

Anxious (which is misspelled here, too) and worried meant the same thing. (They are synonymous), so there is no use to add the other word in order to describe how the main character's employees feel. Writing 'I know they feel anxious.' will do.

• Aside from the technicalities, the author needs to work on properly transitioning the scenes:

In the screenshot above, the character was still in the meeting when it was immediately cut and moved to the next scene. We are not sure if he is in his bedroom or office because the previous sentence talks about the character, craving to lay down on his bed. Moreover, he was about to fall asleep. Then, all of a sudden, his secretary was present in the premise and reminds him of his next appointment.

To remedy this one, the author should help the readers visualize what the character did after the meeting. He was craving for sleep. Why deep in his thoughts, what was he doing? Where did he go? Simply saying that he headed back to his office and almost fell asleep in his swivel chair before the secretary shows up will do.

• The author also needs to add a little more in the chapter that will help the readers visualize the scene. What does the male lead look like? What's the color of his suit? Is he wearing suit in the office or simple pants and button-down shirt? How is his hair styled? Some things that will emphasize how handsome he looked. The setting needs to be described too. How does the office look like? Contemporary minimalist? Intricately detailed interior? Describing the scene helps boost the readers' impression of the character. Modern design could mean that the CEO's company is ahead of its time or goes with the flow/trends, has an updated system. Intricately detailed interiors or vintage designs, could reflect that the CEO inherited a legacy and wanted to preserve it.

• There's also a case of characterization contradiction in this chapter.

In this part of the chapter, the speaker/lead character claims that he values trust so much. But it is contradicted by him also confirming that he doesn't have friends. Not having friends meant he trusts no one. How could someone say they value trust if they do not embody this virtue? Someone had to be trusting, to have the entitlement to go batshit crazy when that trust was broken. To remedy, the character could have said, he puts a high value on trust that's even if his friends are few, they were tested through time and proven to be trustworthy. Something like that.

• The first chapter is pretty short. Fast-paced but it encourages the reader to check out the next chapter or find out what happens next. The author executed a good cliffhanger chapter ender pretty well.

CHAPTER 2

• In this chapter, the same comments from the previous chapter must be applied here. Some proofreading, corrections when it comes to technicalities like when to italicize phrases or words, the tenses, what punctuation marks to use, etc.

• The first part of this chapter should have been included to Chapter 1 and be labeled as Mew's POV. So that for Chapter 2, it will be labeled as Marcus' POV. This will prevent confusion among readers at the sudden shift of tone of narration.

• Plot hole: The company is big. In order to track how they lost the money, past records must be reviewed as well. (In assumption that MG Empire's accountant had been corrupting money months or maybe years before being discovered). Tallying records and accounts would not just take weeks! But maybe, Marcus is just overpromising something so that he will be able to keep his current job. I give the author the benefit of the doubt, though for me (who had worked in Accounting Department for about three years before), this kind of promise (one week of assessing the records of a big company) is a little too impossible for only one person (like Marcus) to accomplish.

• On the good side, I love the chemistry between the two characters. Reading their thoughts about each other (especially Mew) just makes me smirk. It's very flirty, the kind that is appealing and affects me as a reader, so great job on that! It's good that these scenes effectively make the reader (me) feel the way that the character is also feeling.

• There's also an improvement here when it comes to descriptions.

Remember that I commented on Chapter 1 that the author should describe the characters and setting a little, to aid the readers' visualization of the scene. In this chapter, I am glad that descriptions are present although it should be improved a little bit more.

Because, we all know that Nattarine is Marcus. But I need a more convincing detail on how Mew barely recognized Marcus. In this chapter, Nattarine is described as:

Based from this, I cannot grasp something unique or a feature that could help Marcus alter his original looks or features to the point that Mew could not recognize him. That's why the descriptions need a little bit more of work here.

CHAPTER 3

• This is the last chapter I will review from this story (as promised, this collection of reviews is limited to the first three chapters of each story!) and so far, the things that the author needed to watch out for remained consistent— the technicalities, transition of scenes/POV, and descriptions.

• Although the sx scene felt kind of rushed, the detailing is accurate. The way the inner thoughts of the character was written really explicitly and effectively displays their emotion (lust, excitement).

• In this chapter, it is still not clear for me how Mew did not even recognize that Nattarine is actually Marcus. There's nothing specified in the first three chapters what made Marcus' looks hard to decipher. No indications if he wore wigs or did some kind of make-up. Mew can also identify that he had a one-night stand with a man. This bit has to be specified to polish the story and avoid being questioned.

***

SUMMARY:

Overall, When The Night Falls, is a fast-paced page turner but...

- It needs improvement when it comes to technicalities like grammar and punctuations. Even if the story is understandable, the author must be able to narrate it clearly to avoid misinterpretations and confusion. This is for the ease of reading on the side of the readers, which the author should always put into consideration.

- Some plot holes has to be ironed out— what makes Marcus unrecognizable to Mew when he turns to Nattarine?

And also...

- The author's story and characters, so far, are more consistent. The little contradictions found in this story are easy to remedy.

- The use of active voice is well-executed by the author. This is also the reason why each chapter felt like a fast-paced page-turner.

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CONCLUSION:

I hope we all learned the following from this review:

- Description of the characters and settings is important. It helps the readers see what you are seeing in your head. It helps the readers see your characters and the places they go to the way that you see them. For a reader, reading stories tickled their imagination. For an author to activate that imagination and make the reader fully feel like they are in the story, they must be able to visualize what they're reading.

- Polishing on the technical side of the novel plays a huge role in helping the author express themselves clearly to the readers, as well as helping the readers fully grasp what the author was trying to say or narrate to them.

- I perceive the kind of plot that the story wants to lead to. The plot is promising as well. But it wasn't enough that the characters have chemistry, that the idea is exciting, and that the pacing is good. The story must be represented to its fullest— well-plotted and properly written. Not missing some parts of it.

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LEARN FROM THE AUTHOR:

- If you want to excite your readers, (and keep them turning to the next page for more) opt for a fast-pacing when writing the scenes in the chapters of your novel! You can also observe from When The Night Falls how to effectively use an active voice in narrations or POVs.

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Had some realizations about writing that is not mentioned in my list? Have more questions?

Comment here!

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