My Dearest Deer (Story Review)

 

 

Title: 6/10

The title's okay, and it seemed to connect with your story fine, only the way you wrote it was odd. The comma at the end of "deer" was ticking me off and I honestly didn't understand why you decided to place it there. I seldom see titles with commas so yea, I did find it weird. If this was a mistake, I'd deduct one more to your score in this section. It's utterly unprofessional to make a really obvious mistake, let alone the fact that it was the title. Please do something to fix this. It left me an impression that your story was not worth reading, and we both know that you don't want your other readers to feel the same.  Also, the title made it appear like the story revolved on Lu Han and him alone, but that's okay since it kind of did, and the way you placed "my" as the beginning of your title hinted that someone was talking about Lu Han and it gave the idea that the story also goes with another character.

 

Foreword & Description: 7/10

You described the change of the OC in your description, and I thought that it was fine, but I think it left me hanging. I wanted to find something unique about the plot of your story but the phrase "that is until one day" prevented me from doing so. If you really were planning to make your readers curious of what's going to happen next, you should've added something like a question after the phrase I mentioned and not just leave it on a period, because that's grammatically wrong (I will discuss more about this later), and I believe that it would appeal your readers more.

 

Plot: 17/20

I hope you get that your plot's cliché, but I really don't mind about that since what matters most is if you're gonna be able to make it unique in your own way. I don't know about this but (*insert awkward laugh here*), maybe add a little drama? It's only a suggestion though! But yea, don't worry about it. Your story's just beginning so you'll have plenty of time to figure it out.

 

Characters: 9/10

Your characters were acting like how you described them on your foreword, and that's good since they're developing well, unlike some other stories where in the characters' description was contradicting with how they act as the story goes on. Although yea, here's the thing. Try to change your characters' attitude at some point, since it'll be nice to see how they would develop as their problems arise. It would be boring to not see any changes after some time, especially when your plot twists take action. But other than that, this aspect's good. Keep it up!

 

Flow and Execution: 15/20

I thought that this story was going to be written as a diary entry since the title made it look like it was, but maybe I'm wrong. Well, am I? You wrote something on your last chapter where in Lu Han was reading the main OC's diary, so I began to think that the next chapters will be written in that manner. Also, about the comma I ranted about earlier... I believe that it's still odd despite the fact that you might be writing your latest chapters as diary entries. So yea, do something about it, I guess? Like just change the title and  just add "My dearest deer," as the beginning of your foreword description (italicize it and separate it from the rest of the description so the readers will know).

Anyway, going back. I thought that your pace was going too fast at first since Ji Eung already saw Lu Han again right in the first chapter, and it seemed quite off since that was not what I really expected. But then again, here's my prediction: You italicized everything in the 5 chapters for a reason, and it was because you were planning to have a sad ending (like Lu Han leaving her again and whatnot), but yea, that's just a guess. I mean, Lu Han read her diary so he wouldn't have left because that's the main scene you've been waiting for right? I don't even know now haha. Nonetheless, I thought it would've been better if you started off with an introduction first in your first chapter instead of adding something that would overwhelm your readers.

 

Spelling and Grammar: 11/20

I noticed that you were constantly changing your tenses in your story, like when you jumped from present to past, and it's confusing and uncomfortable. You also had multiple fragments and that was honestly annoying, and you misplaced some punctuations here and there. And another thing: You kept on using the same words (like using another "you" after the other, therefore causing redundancy) and reiterating similar thoughts and it's ticking me off. Saying once was enough. You didn't have to repeat it all over again.

Sample: (red - wrong punctuations, fragments, and wrong tense, wrong word, blue - redundancy, green - revised part)

After leaving Korea in your childhood to live in Sri Lanka, you lost contact with your one and only best friend.  Who was a male.  After a few years (,) you became less talkative. You interacted more with girls than guys. You found yourself mute in front of the opposite gender. When you were small you talked so much someone had to shut you up. Yes, you even talked if it was a boy. Then you moved to Sri Lanka and you became really shy because everything was new. After winning a scholarship to one of Korea’s best universities you thought you’d meet him again, but even though you have been in Korea for a few (you don't say something like "a few" if you want someone to think that you're tired of waiting for someone) months there was no sign of him. That is until one day.

After leaving Korea in your childhood to live in Sri Lanka, you lost contact with your one and only male best friend. Years passed and you changed because of this. You became less talkative, and only spoke when it was someone from the same gender, unlike when you were young where in someone had to shut you up for talking so much. And yes, you weren't very picky when it came to talking, since you also had long conversations with boys and not just girls back then.  After winning a scholarship in one of Korea’s best universities you thought you’d meet him again, but even though you had been there for months there was no sign of him. Well, that was until one day...

I tried making changes but kept it the closest way as possible to the original since some changes I did might cause a contradicting idea to the plot. I hope this helps and I hope you get my point in here. And yea, two last things. The way you formed your paragraph was messy, and this was because you added the dialogues and your descriptive sentences together. If you could, separate them from one another. And also, the title wasn't capitalized. You might have again, did that because of the diary entry thing I mentioned earlier, but it's not grammatically correct. Here's the right one: My Dearest Deer.

Sample paragraph: (red - original, green - revised version)

You spent the entire breakfast that went for more than an hour talking and laughing mostly instead of eating. As you said you helped him clean. Luhan watched how fast you clear up the table in amusement. You saw his reaction and laughed. “Living with 4 other people I’ve gotten used to cleaning fast.” You said making your way towards a room. Luhan followed you. “Where are you going?” he asked. “Oh! To the library!” you said. “When did you have a library?” he asked scratching his head as he tried to remember. “It was made a few months ago. Come on its awesome.” You said opening a door and steeping aside to let luhan in.

You spent the entire breakfast that went for more than an hour of talking and laughing instead of eating. As you said, you helped him clean. Lu Han watched how fast you cleared up the table in amusement. Upon seeing his reaction, you laughed.

“After living with 4 other people I’ve gotten used to cleaning fast,” you said, making your way towards one room.

Lu Han followed you.

“Where are you going?” He asked.

“Oh! To the library!”

“When did you have a library?” He asked yet again another question, scratching his head as he tried to remember.

“It was made a few months ago. Come on, it's awesome,” you said and opened the door, stepping aside to let him in.

 

Overall Enjoyment: 7/10

Because of the mistakes you did, I lost enjoyment as I read some of the chapters. However, the interaction of the characters were fun to imagine, and I was able to see that you're really trying hard to develop their personalities, and that for me, was the good part. I enjoyed how both of your main characters  treated each other (tbh I actually got the hang of ignoring your mistakes since both of them were so adorable *insert muffled squeal here* haahahah).

So yes, just make some revisions and you'll be fabulous! I suggest having a beta-reader and proof reading your chapters more than once before publishing them, so you'd be able to see your mistakes and change them before it's too late.

 

Final Score: 75/100

I'm really sorry if I was harsh. I often tell the ones who ask me for a review to prepare themselves for some criticisms here and there for I would really avoid being too considerate (this was the main purpose of the review, right? To point out your mistakes so you'd improve on them, and I personally think that it's stupid to sugar-coat matters like this so yea), and I apologize if I did not inform you. I hope you were able to learn from this though. Good luck with your story!

 

 

Comments

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blissfulcoconuts
#1
Thank you! its okay that you reviewed my story like this it helped me a lot! hahahaha it seems like I need to improve a lot!
vinthisworld #2
I am just read a bit, your review was so cool! (y)
I am also loving and willing to review the whole storyline, especially when it comes to the punctuations and vocabs (but only in my language).
How I wish I could improved my Eng better >_<