[Review]☆ "I don't like you because you are a player" by kpop_keylover ☆
♪Opening
●Title- 2/5/5
The first thing I want to address would be the mechanics of the title. I just couldn’t help but spot at the end of the story title- there should be a full stop after the word ‘player’! I’m a little word sensitive when it comes to trivial matters like this I guess.
And second of all, the title in a way seems very typical, and me as a reader wouldn’t choose to click on this story because it just simply does not sparkle my interest. It’s not fresh, and almost straight away it reveals the outline of the story! O_O
●Poster & Background- -/5
You won’t be graded here since you don’t have both~ :) But I do suggest you request for some pretty graphics! :D
●Description & Foreword- 4/10
Personally I really find the Description and Foreword extremely puzzling in a way. Although you basically told me what is the story going to cover on I’m still getting no basic information like the background of both the plot and the characters; etc.
“And they also add Top 5 players”- what do you mean first of all that a poster of ‘Top 5 Players’ is posted up every month? I thought they are the ‘Kingkas’ all along? Does that mean their positions would change? So this is what I mean by getting perplex information that’s unclear. “You met the 5 kingkas/players but ran away from them. They decided to play a game.”- I was literally scratching my head as I read through your D+F. Very unclear and imprecise, as a reader I dislike misleading or confusing information from the start, so I graded here a little lower…T_T
>>Total: 6.5/15<<
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♪Contents
●Creativity/Originality: 3/10
I don’t really have to explain myself here I suppose. There’s about thousands of stories out there that all contain the same elements as your story: 1) Based in a High school; 2) SHINee as the ‘kingkas’; 3) All (or some) of them are jerk like players; 4) the female OC is a nobody that no one cares about before, and then suddenly gets noticed out of the blue; 5) The whole ‘betcha-she-will-fall-in-love-with-me-game’ thing.
The list can honestly go on and on, but I’m just going to summarize my points - really, since your story has no chance standing out amongst the thousands out there unless its written EXTRAORDINARILY, you really need to try and stress a LOT of surprising twists and turns – at this point it doesn’t even matter if those surprises are totally ridiculous. Because readers need something new.
●Plot- 9/20
Remember when I say your D+F section is very indirect and confused me in the first place? Well the story itself did not really impress me in that field either: “I turned around and grabbed the ice-cream. I passed the girl my money. I ran away and heard laughter. They were laughing. Laughing at my stupidness. I am just so stupid.”(chp1)
To me, it looked like you were trying to force the storyline to happen from the beginning so everything can ‘naturally’ fits in – A well-developed start is vitally significant for capturing readers’ attention as well as preparing for future plot expansion. The whole event here seemed awkward and undeveloped with the absence of details therefore I couldn’t really get an insight of the actual event, and the thoughts of the characters.
Talk about the lack of development:” The teacher came as everyone went quiet. The lesson was kind of boring. “ & “Mr park came in as we all quieted down. It was a boring lesson.”(chp2)- If those two sentences were to appear in separate characters then I wouldn’t even be this bothered – but the same thing happened again in the chapter and I felt like they were nothing but a waste of space… Try not to repeat ideas like this – I don’t mind if occasionally this is to happen, but twice in the same chapter is just a bit too much. It seems to me that you’re running out of ideas in the first place, or that you did not prepare well enough before you even created this story.
The tenses and grammar are HUGE issues here which I’ll further expand on in ‘W.S’ – but there were too many mistakes so it made it difficult for me to concentrate on the actual plot even.
●Chapter Titles- 3/5
GAHHHH! Titles NEED to be capitalized girl! (not every word, just the starting letters) but it’s really important to follow this rule you know~ Since you mostly produce your chapter titles based on a conversational tone, remember suitable punctuation marks need to be added in as well ! E.g. Chapter 2 – “They are weird”
Although the rudimentary mechanics in the titles need to be brushed up a bit- they do weirdly enough fit into the content well! So keep that up ~:D
●Flow-7. 5/10
Well since we’re basically talking about how fast/slow the story is advancing, in general speed does flow in a nice way~! Events after events are relevant enough to be connected, and I wouldn’t say there are any skippy moments or that sort.
But in a way, I feel like I’m rather reading a really dull diary, then an actual meaningful novel.
Nothing literally happened: nothing was exciting, nothing surprised me, and it was plain and dreary to read to be honest.
>>Total: 21.5/45<<
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♪Expression
●Characterization- 9/15:
Well since there are only 3 chapters it’s hard for me to imply a detailed analysis on the characters introduced so far, but the information given in the D+F are very vague and in a way the plot reflects that in a negative manner.
1) OC- she overall is provided with very general character description from the start – and no background information of her world was supplied to me and so I couldn’t understand her that well. She did not stand out as a protagonist.
2)SHINee- Normally you’d see me branching the individuals that are involved in the story but for this story its’ hard to do so because SHINee’s members are so similar to each other! Maybe they will develop in the future, or not, but readers should be able to receive a sense of distinctiveness from each character from the start so they can identify them as a human being, no an idol member. “You and 4 of your friends are stalkers”(chp3)- I fell like that’s exactly what they are…. XD●Writing Style- 2.5/10
Please forgive me for assumping here: English isn’t your first language right? If so then I understand. It’s not really your fault in the first place, but remember all of us have room for improvement~ :)
1) Tenses: I often spotted sentences that involved grammatical mistakes in areas like tenses, or just simple structural errors. Remember all the actions need to be in past tense, if your story originally started with past tense; otherwise no excuses other than for dialogues, or certain character thoughts. “Again I see 5 boys: Minho, Onew, Taemin, Key (was it Key or Lock?) and the other two that I don't know their name. Each of them arms' were wrapping around the girl's waist. And it was 5 different girls from yesterday.”(chp2)
2) Lack of Development: “she waved back. She sat on the seat next to mine. Mr park came in as we all quieted down. It was a boring lesson. I kept yawning and yawning. I stretched as I walked out of the classroom.”(chp2)- this for example: I get the point that she’s in high school and that classes were waiting for her to attend, but the way you’ve included this classroom event made the whole thing so pointless since you just put it across in such a brief manner! There’s no point even mentioning it in the beginning right?
Furthermore, I couldn’t feel… emotions, feelings. If they are described then I’m not getting any effect of them: “I walked back into my room and put all my stuff into a bag. I got out of the house and felt so relax. I hissed the fresh air. I started walking on the street. “(chp3) I care more about how she felt about the first day, rather than what she did after school on the first day, do you get what I mean? :)
3) Limited Vocabulalry: "Krystal, how many time do you hug Nichkhun in a day," I asked smiling. "Not really much, about 10 times," she said smiling innocently. "10 times, that's not much?" I asked smiling and she smilled back.
-How many times did the word ‘smile’ occur in those 3 short sentences? O_O LOL the word ‘smile’ is relatively an easy word to replace along with different emotions! Like grin, smirk, giggle, laugh, snicker etc. There are lots of common words I found throughout the story, so make sure your sentences stand out and avoid those typical vocabulary!
4) Emoticons: they are a big NO NO in stories! “His name is Key not Lock! Remember that! :):):):):):):)”(chp3)
●Mechanics: 2/10
I really just can’t give any higher than 2 in this section…
*Mistakes:
“ a poster is being post on the school noticeboard.”(D+F)- should be ‘posted’;
>”You are nice, pretty but feeling awkward around boys. “(D+F)- should be ‘feel’;
“As I got to the Ice-cream stall, I spotted 5 boys who arms' were wrapping around girls.”(chp1)- this sentence sounds awkward… how about: “As I got to the ice-cream stall, I spotted 5 boys whose arms were wrapped around some girls.’;
>”I don't know their name but I do know one,”(chp1)- should be ‘names’;
>”she'll probably just going to fall for me by my cute action(s),”(chp1)- *crossed out unnecessary words*;
>”Mr park came in as we all quieted down.”(chp2)- should be ‘Mr Park’;
>” I stepped out of the class and hissed the fresh air. It was so relax but not anymore until someone stands in front of me. “(chp2)- should be ‘relaxing’ & ‘stood’, and the word ‘hiss’ just doesn’t fit into the context here…;
>” "I do until you came," I said.”(chp2)- should be ‘am’;
>” "I am Jonghyun, what's about you?" he asked.”(chp2)- ‘should be ‘what’;
*Tenses:
>”I ignore them and just went to get my ice-cream. “(chp1)- should be ‘ignored’;
>”someone said but I can't be bother to turned around.”(chp1)- should be ‘turn’;
>”5 boys bursted into laughter.”(chp1)- should be ‘burst’;
>”Dad drove me to school because it is the same way as his working place.(chp2)- should be ‘was’;
>”he waved and then run away. “(chp2)- should be ‘ran’;
>” I quickly take my book and equipment out from my bag.”(chp2)- should be ‘took’;
>”Nichkhun came and sit beside her.”(chp2)- should be ‘sat’;
>”It was pretty quiet until someone came and interrupt. “(chp2)- should be ‘interrupted’;
>”Again I see 5 boys”(chp2)- should be ‘saw’;
>”Krystal turned to gave her boyfriend a hug then walk in to class. “(chp2)- should be ‘give’ & ‘walked’;
*Punctuation:
>” They were listed in the "Top 5 best player in Shinhwa school. “(chp1)- You need to close the quotation mark.;
>”Why did I have to run away from them.” & “Do you know that she's in the class which is 2 blocks beside us,“ (chp1)- should be a question mark (?) at the end;
The thing is, all those mistakes were picked out from the first two chapters (and I even let some slip)! I just couldn’t bother picking out more mistakes after chapter 2 or else it would’ve taken me ages to write up this review, but if English really isn’t your first language, it’d be wise if you can find a native English speak to help you proofread – trust me, it’d go a LONG way and it’d make a HUGE different to your story.
>>Total: 9.5/35<<
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●Bonus- 2.3/5
To be honest, I didn’t really enjoy this story. The mechanics going so wrong at some point it made me lose concentration on the actual story line when I was busying correcting those errors.
>>>TOTAL: 42%<<<
(out of 95 marks)
D3
To be honest, I didn’t really enjoy this story. The mechanics going so wrong at some point it made me lose concentration on the actual story line when I was busying correcting those errors.
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