Intro:
Love Damned At Midnight was written by qyooke. It is a mature novel that follows main characters, Garam and Jungseok, on their unlikely journeys. Jungseok has a dark story following happiness and protecting what little of it he has left, and Garam struggles with financial difficulty.
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What Worked:
The point of views are very clear and easy to understand. I appreciate that you use the method where you put the POV name in the chapter title. For my original stories, that's the method I like to use, and it's nice to see someone else use it. I honestly haven't seen many do this on Wattpad. It may seem like a strange thing to praise, but POVs being clear is imperative to a reader's comprehension of the story. I've read many novels where the POVs were unclear and therefore hard to follow, but this book doesn't have this problem, and I appreciate you for that. It made reading and reviewing easier!
In general, the story is pretty clear and easy to follow. You don't unnecessarily over-complicate it or keep too many things in the dark. You sprinkle hints in to help us understand some plot points, and the plot unfolds in a way that the readers can process without feeling overwhelmed. That's another reason why reviewing this story was so easy!
Jungseok and Garam are interesting protagonists. They have their own unique motivations, both of which relatable at least to some extent. If you were to ask me my favorite, I would say it'd have to be Jungseok simply because he has such an interesting background and the way he handles conflict is always fun to watch. Well, maybe not fun, but I think you get what I mean: entertaining.
While on the topic of characters, Jungseok's introductory chapter is super intense and gripping. I really liked the decision to start his character off as the polar opposite of Garam's with deep character struggle. While Garam is also struggling, his chapter has levity and fun moments that give the reader smiles and laughs. On the other hand, Jungseok's intro was dark. However, there was still a balance that didn't make the chapter feel like tonal whiplash or anything like that.
For that reason, right from the start we can tell the main differences between our protagonists and we can make inferences for how they're going to interact in the future. It gets us excited for their eventual discussions since we can tell they're going to have some disagreements and they'll challenge each other. In a way, they're foils to one another, and that makes for an engaging dynamic.
That's also why Jungseok is my favorite. His chapter is super intense and shows us who he is without you needing to give us too much exposition. I like Garam too don't get me wrong, I just found myself cheering a liiiiittle bit more for Jungseok.
The maturity level is consistent throughout, and I'm glad the mature themes in the story are taken seriously instead of played for laughs or anything like that. Like I mentioned earlier for Jungseok's intro chap, the tone was consistent. In general, throughout the whole novel, I didn't notice any tonal whiplash where we were feeling one emotion then ripped out of the moment and taken to a different emotion, which is important for a book like this.
I like the way the characters interact. While I do have some criticisms for the dialogue, even with those criticisms I still think you did a good job giving the characters interesting and believable dynamics. No character is exactly the same, so they bounce off each other due to their varying interests and ideas.
I mentioned earlier that Jungseok and Garam have an engaging dynamic, but I think that applies to every duo in the book. There are no weak interactions or groups of people that I think are less engaging than the rest. They all pull their weight and contribute to the narrative.
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What Didn't Work:
Be careful with word choice. For example, in the first chapter, the opening segment uses some form of "shift" five times. One time, shift was used twice in the same sentence. While I understand finding a synonym for a work shift may be more difficult than other words, there are ways you can trim it and make the word choice a little more engaging.
For example, the sentence, "My manager shifted slightly into her seat...". The "shifted" in that sentence can be changed to at least bring the total number down to four uses of "shift" instead of five. There are many synonyms for shifted in that situation. Like "stirred."
Another example is shrugging and nodding. The characters shrug/nod a lot, and the story could benefit from incorporating different movements and actions into their conversations. Similarly, there are times you're using too many words to describe actions.
So, for example, "shrugging my shoulders" or "nodding my head." The acts of shrugging and nodding already imply that the shoulders and head are moving, therefore saying "my shoulders" and "my head" is not necessary, especially when this happens quite often when the characters shrug or nod. I hope that makes sense.
There are tense issues where the text flip flops between past and present tense incorrectly. It doesn't happen too often, but keep in mind since you're writing in past tense, present tense is very, very rarely used.
While on the topic of grammar issues, there are two additional errors I'd like to bring to your attention. There is incorrect capitalization. Along with that, dialogue tags are done incorrectly.
Sometimes random words that are not proper nouns are capitalized (even though they are not starting a sentence). For example, "Hwa, How did you get this..."
The "how" isn't a proper noun, and it isn't starting the sentence. That means it needs to be lowercase. This happens a lot in dialogue where you'll capitalize a word that comes after a name. You don't need to capitalize it because the name (in this case, "Hwa") starts the sentence, not the second word (in this case, "how").
As for dialogue tags, sometimes you end dialogue with a period when there is a tag, and there are also times you capitalize the tag even if it's not a proper noun.
A proper dialogue tag is this: "I missed you," he said. Or: "How are you?" he asked.
NOT: "I missed you." He said. Or: "How are you?" He asked.
Dialogue tags are continuations of the dialogue, which means they need to be lowercase unless they are a proper noun, and the end punctuation for the dialogue itself should be anything other than a period.
Some of the dialogue feels a bit stiff at times due to the lack of contractions or too many words being in one line.
For example, "Yes it is! I know how much you have been needing 1318000 by the end of the month so I did something exciting!"
This sentence feels very wordy and unnecessarily expository. You don't need to repeat the exact amount of 1318000 (it's also a bit hard to read this number w/o commas, so I would suggest adding commas) for two reasons.
One, it makes the sentence feel unnecessarily long when you can simply say, "I know how much you've needed money, so I did something exciting!" or something similar. Two, it feels expository since there's no reason for Hwa to repeat the number in this context. We already know the number (it was mentioned earlier), so I didn't see the reason behind repeating it here instead of cutting down the words in the sentence.
I would also recommend incorporating more contractions into speech. It's one thing if one or two characters don't use contractions, but when everyone speaks like that, it can get a bit much, especially in casual conversations between friends.
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Summary:
- The story is very clear
- Garam and Jungseok are interesting characters; similarly, their intro chapters are intriguing
- Consistent tone
- Character banter is fun
- Be careful with repetitive word choice
- Grammar errors (tense issues, capitalization, dialogue tags)
- Some stiff dialogue
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Overall:
Love Damned At Midnight has an intense storyline with vastly different protagonists. The stakes are set up right from the start and will hook you to the main characters. If you're someone who enjoys character-driven narratives with clear themes and motives, then Love Damned At Midnight is the perfect book for you!
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Thank you for submitting your story. If you have any questions or would like any additional reviews, please let me know!