The Katana Awards [Closed for Judging]

▬ιSHORT STORY RESULTS═ﺤ

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

The results for Short Story are here!

Please take the time to thank your judge, chocxlatelover! She's put a lot of effort into the judging!

We only have 3 participants for the category due to the failure to complete the payment! We'll be having only one winner this time, that is, only First Place will be given out!

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Nightmare by MeadowSterling 

Title (4/5): The title was very fascinating and got me intrigued by the story! It also fits the ending of the book. However, it didn't fit the genre very well.

Cover (3/5): The cover didn't fit the story well. It was just the MC's face with smoke in the background. I think the story could've added the female MC as well along with some more details from the book to give a better idea of the story.

Also, at the bottom, the author's name is blending with the smoke background a little, which makes it hard to notice.

Blurb (2/5): The blurb was very boring and only consisted of four lines, which wasn't enough to get a clear idea of the story. Moreover, two of these lines are dialogues from the book, which isn't a bad thing, just makes it harder to understand the crux of the story.

I think the blurb should be restructured completely and give a better idea of the characters and their motives.

Writing style (4/10): The writing style was very hard to follow. There were scene/pov shifts after every paragraph which ruined the flow of the story. Another issue I noticed, was that the actions performed by characters are included in dialogues.

For example, in chapter 16, y/n has this dialogue:

"I have an idea *smirks*"

Actions like smirking, gasping, sobbing and screaming are used in your story and are always mentioned between two stars (*). Writing the actions this way made me feel detached from the characters and didn't allow me to sympathize with them.

Grammar (4/10): While there weren't any spelling errors, there were errors in the punctuation. In certain areas, commas were missing or sometimes I noticed that a full stop was placed between a sentence. Bad punctuation ticks off many readers so I would suggest getting them edited as soon as possible!

Another thing I spotted was that the POV shifting wasn't very consistent. For example, in chapter 17, a paragraph is written in Taehyung's pov, however, the sentences in the paragraph as written in the third person.

Sentences like "He is angry at himself for doing this. He knows he messed up everything." should be rephrased to "I am angry at myself..."

Plot (4/10): The plot is very hard to keep up with because of the frequent scene shifts. In the last two chapters, y/n's death and Taehyung's guilt are revealed. However, the reveal was very rushed and it took me a few minutes to comprehend the scenes.

Another problem is that the story doesn't fit the "short story" genre. It is more fanfiction.

Characters (3.5/10): As I mentioned before, the writing style made me feel very detached from the characters and could never understand their actions, motives etc.

Another issue is that the characters felt very unrealistic, especially in the scene where Taehyung kisses his secretary. His wife is understandably upset and he runs after her, completely ignoring the secretary whom he kissed without consent. What makes it worse is that he acknowledges that what he did is sexual harassment but it's entirely disregarded. And somehow, Yeri is completely ok with this. There is one paragraph where she explains that she has worked with Taehyung for years and knows that he is not a bad person, which is alright, but there wasn't a hint of surprise or shock, she's just cool with it.