Review: Because I Love You... written by weirdkirbykpoplover

--title (4/5)

Your title fits the theme of your story well. Personally, I am not a fan of adding “…” to the end of titles, but it isn’t incorrect. The only thing I would have to say about your title that I didn’t like is that it sounds very generic. “Because I Love You” is a title you expect to see in fics like these. If you want to catch readers’ attention, I would use a more interesting or intriguing title.

--graphics / poster (2/5)

I really like your poster, probably because I play the violin. At first I didn’t think it fit well with the story. Then, you mentioned a violin twice in the story. I see its relevance, but the poster should be something that reflects the overall theme of the story, and I didn’t see that here. The violin isn’t emphasized in your plot, so it shouldn’t be the poster.

Your background is also very distracting. I suggest using a sold color or pattern that matches the poster, not the poster itself. The background should emphasize the poster, not overpower it.

--foreword / description (7/10)

I suggest putting the prologue in the forward, just so that there is a clearer distinction between the description and the prologue. As for your quotes, I like the second few, but the first ones concerning pebbles and waves was slightly confusing. I’m not sure why those were included. Unless they represent something metaphorically, they are irrelevant to the story. Do the pebbles represent the things that make Yunho start to detest Yoona? And the ripples represent his actions because of those things? So the wave represents their separation? If so, it still doesn’t go along with your story, because to me it seemed like there was only one thing that caused Yunho to despise her. So the “how many” in that case doesn’t really apply. But maybe I am just overanalyzing; I apologize.

Also, I don’t think it was necessary to include the paragraph starting “Yoona had a perfect life” because you already have the quotes. Then you go on and put even more quotes, and it starts to become kind of redundant. You only need one description, not many. However, that is your decision as a writer and this is only my opinion.

There is one line that bothered me.

I gave my everything to you..even my last breath…

To me, this gave away right off the bat that Yoona was going to die. You don’t want to do this, because it makes it so much more effective for that to be a surprise in the story. When I read that she had cancer, I was not surprised at all, so it had no emotional effect on me. Call me insensitive, but because you already mentioned her having a “last breath”, I didn’t think anything of her cancer.

The prologue used the perfect portion of your story. Good job here; I am so glad you used that part because it made me want to read the rest of your story. I was curious to see what caused them to pull away from each other.

--originality (7/15)

After reading the title and description, the story seemed very unoriginal. You did use some themes throughout your story that were new, such as the main guy character wanting a son, but for the most part your story wasn’t much different from the conventional plots you might find on AFF. I don’t mean to sound harsh, but I have read so many stories that involve the main character falling for the “popular” guy, losing her man to another girl, or dying from cancer, and it begins to lose effect after awhile. The story also includes many cheesy lines. For example:

When they first live there, that house became a home. It was full of love and caring.

These two sentences are sooo common. I don’t know how many times I have heard the phrase “The house became a home”. And the words “love” and “caring” are simply boring. You could really spice up the vocabulary here.

Still, you add your own personality to a lot of these cliché themes, which is a good talent to have as a writer, so if you could come up with your very own, never-before-seen plot, you could have a wonderful story. And I think this is possible with you; you just need to be creative and experiment with more vivid vocabulary.

--plot (23/30)

The plot kind of skips around a few times, which made it kind of confusing to follow. After reading the whole thing, I think that you have a nice plot, and you probably took a lot of time thinking about how to organize it. I like how you included flashbacks so the reader gets an idea of their relationship. You characterize the two main characters quite well but Jessica’s character is kind of undeveloped, which is why I found it strange that you ended the story with a revelation from her. It should have been Yunho, because the whole theme of the story revolved around him.

--grammar / spelling (11/20)

Some general mistakes in your story:

This /these: I would have ignored this if it happened once, but it was recurring.

“Why are you saying these?”

Here, the correct word to say is “this”.

Switching tense: I’ll give you an example first.

Yoona let out a shaky breath as she stared at her reflection in the mirror she was holding since this morning. The sun had already arisen but she doesn’t mind.

In the first sentence, you establish that it is written from past tense with the words “stared” and “was”, but then you say “this morning” which is present tense. Then in the second sentence, you use past tense again with “had arisen” (which should be “had risen”) and change yet again to present with “doesn’t”. You do this so often in your story, that it was hard to tell what tense you were writing from.

Use of semicolon: I see this mistake very, very often. A semicolon is used to separate two independent clauses. This means each side must be able to stand on its own.

Those thick eyebrows, deep black eyes and sharp nose; even if she closes her eyes, she would never forget his face.

This is not a correct structure for using a semicolon, and you do this more than once. The first clause “Those thick eyebrows, deep black eyes and sharp nose” is a dependent clause, because it is not a complete sentence. You can easily fix this mistake:

Those thick eyebrows, deep black eyes and sharp nose became features about Yunho she grew to love and never forget.

Or

She loved his thick eyebrows, deep black eyes and sharp nose; she would never forget his face.

Incomplete sentences: A lot of your sentences are incomplete. For example:

He is new. A transferee, perhaps.

The sentence “He is new” is complete. But the second is not, because there is no verb. You can reword it as this:

He is new, perhaps a transferee.

There are a lot of simple solutions to your mistakes. There were other mistakes, mostly small ones, that didn’t detract from the story much, but I won’t mention everything. I think those were the main things that I noticed.

--flow (5/10)

To me, the themes that I felt you wanted to reveal in the story were not stressed enough. I wasn’t sure whether it was Yunho’s want for a child or Jessica that made them split up, and I wasn’t sure why he disliked Yoona so much. The overall organization of your ideas was slightly messy. I’m still unsure what tense your story is told from. Too many unclear skips in time made the story as a whole choppy. I’m not a fan of saying things like “a few weeks later” or other subtitles like that, but I think you can make these time discrepancies better by using the correct tense you are intending the part to be in. Also, many of the moments that could be really special are merely mentioned, and it makes the general pace of the story seem very rushed. Let me give you an example. After Yoona and Yunho first kiss, things happen very abruptly.

She will never forget the feeling of those lips pressed against hers. They both knew that it was official and things started to get serious.

You say she will never forget that feeling, but you never describe the feeling. Then all of a sudden you say that things will get serious. It makes the whole kiss kind of feel rushed, even though, after rereading it, the kiss scene wasn’t rushed at all. If you add more detail to some of the scenes like this, it will strengthen the scenes that do have a lot of detail, and then the whole story will feel so much more natural. Even the way Yoona tells Yunho about her cancer, and accepts his relationship with Jessica feels abrupt because there is little detail surrounding their conversation. Right now, certain parts are slow and some are rushed, so it feels uneasy and awkward.

A lot of your sentences are very monotonous. Try to use a variety of sentence structures. For example:

After their honeymoon, they moved into new house. Yunho bought it. She was surprised. Yunho told her that before his Father died, he left him an inheritance.

These sentences all use the simple “subject + verb”. If you reword it and combine some sentences, the sentences will flow better, and it won’t feel so broken.

After their honeymoon, they moved into a new house, which Yunho bought using the inheritance his father left following his death.

I just combined four sentences into one, while still saying mainly the same thing. I don’t think you needed to include the “She was surprised” part, but if you wanted to, you could just add it on to the end. I think if you fix the grammar mistakes and add some more description in some places, the flow should be really nice.

--neatness (5/5)

The story’s overall clarity was good. The font size was nice, and you used paragraph breaks nicely for the most part, so I won’t dock any points here.

--total (64/100)

Note from Reviewer: I really like your story. Please, don’t be offended by anything I’ve said, or the scores I gave. I’m not too great at putting a score on certain areas, so I hope you will consider the comments I’ve given more. I hope my review has helped you, and that you will continue to write more in the future!

-Marie (kpoplover819)