September 7th, 2010 at 10:49pm
Thank you for entering our contest and submitting your entry in on time! (:
I loved your banner. It was simple and adorable and it worked out quite nicely. I suck with making banners at times, especially if they involve character pictures.
You had very few grammar errors and those that you have could easily be caught if you were to go back and re-read your entry. However, there are two things I'd like to point out. Instead of saying "me and James" you should say "James and I." Also, you started a lot of sentences with 'but,' when you should have just out a comma and continued the sentence. Only specific types of sentences can start with the word 'but.' Also, the part where you were explaining the seven minutes in heaven bit, you kept switching from past to present tense. My best advice is to keep it in past tense or put it in present tense surrounded by italics so it's obvious it's a memory, dream, or flashback.
I think you portrayed his anorexia well enough. It's not easy to do that since it's basically a form of a mental illness.
The entire scene where James told him he loved him was a bit abrupt and a bit cliche, though a bit of cliche is needed in every story to make it good. However, I admire how you basically had Mika stay in character, not believing James and still hating on himself. Also, I'm completely in love with Mika's name. I just had to put that out there.
Your description of James was very strong and I felt as if I could actually see him in my mind. Well done. That's definitely one of your strong points.
You portrayed your secret strongly in the beginning of the story, so that's commendable as well.
Thank you so much for joining. It was a refreshing read. (:
Fist, I am so sorry for not reviewing this sooner.
I guess Mibba messed up, or maybe I skipped over it by accident.
Anyways, I apologize for not getting to this sooner.
Thank you so much for entering our contest,
and also for getting your entry in so soon.
We definitely appreciate that a lot!
I thought your banner was absolutely adorable,
and I wish that I could make one as good as that!
It was cute and tied in with your story nicely.
Great job there!
I also liked your layout.
The colors were mellow and went well together.
Overall, I found this to be a simple and refershing story.
I liked how well you described your characters,
and I definitely think you employed your chosen secret well.
I thought you did a good job portraying anorexia.
It's definitely a challenging illness to describe, and you pulled it off.
The scene where James confessed his love came off as being
slightly hurried and abrupt. I also found it to be a bit too cliche,
but I understand cliches are needed to make a story good with
subjects like this. Maybe you could have toned it down a bit, though?
I think that if you had taken a little bit more time to describe the event,
and to make the actions flow a little more fluently, this problem could
have been avoided.
There were a few, but not too many, grammar issues.
Lili pointed them all out in her review already however,
so I won't go back over that.
You definitely do have a way with character description,
that is a strong point with you.
Lastly,
thank you again for joining,
and I very sorry I didn't review this sooner.
Good luck!