Poodle vs Dino by PureBride

 

Title [2.5/5]

At first I was a little bit irked by the fact you used hangul in your title since hangul is really pointless in fanfics, but realized it was actually a requirement for the contest so I won’t mark off any points for that.

The only thing I marked off points for was that it didn’t quite suit your story. I mean, the “Poodle” and “Dino” fit perfectly, but the “vs” didn’t.

Your title was misleading. I thought it was going to be some kind of love-hate relationship because it’s “Poodle versus Dino,” but it’s really not. Well. Unless you count the part where they’re fighting for the bathroom, then you could say “versus.” Was that why you had chosen it? It kind of makes sense, now that I think about, so I don’t think I’ll really take points off for this. But the “vs” in titles seem to be really common lately. I see a lot of them, which is why I will mark points off for your title.

 

Poster and background [5/5]

I think the poster and background were really good; really high-quality, too, and the quote was related to the story.

 

Description and foreword [6/10]

I don’t think you’ve used your description correctly. In your description you had an excerpt from your story. From my knowledge, that’s not what a description is used for; the foreword would be the most appropriate place of the two to have an excerpt. Then, if you do do that, you wouldn’t have anything in your description, so I guess it’s okay.

Everything else was in the correct box, so that’s good.

You chose a really good excerpt to use in your description though. It picks at the reader’s curiosity, which is good.

In my opinion, though, the excerpt is unncessarily long. I mean, when you include an excerpt, you want it to be short and simple so that you intrigue the reader. It’s somewhat short, but could be shorter. Just leave only the dialogue, starting with “You have got to be kidding me” and ending with “Tell me from the start, I want to know everything.” Only the dialogue – nothing else.

Plus, there are a few grammatical errors in your description, which I’ll point out later.

PS: I don’t think that flag/view counter thing you have is all that accurate. It says you have over 2,000 views while AFF says you have only almost 700.

 

Content and main plot [16/20]

I think your plot is just so ridiculous. But in a good way. I found the restroom scene just so… if I may say, “lol-worthy.” It was so ridiculous that I couldn’t help but just laugh.

Honestly, I have read pretty weird stories like this. It’s not that original to me, especially Jonghyun teasing Luna. I mean, there are so many relationships in fanfics where the guy is always careless and loves to tease the girl and blah.

Then you used the whole fangirl concept. Luna’s a huge fangirl of Jonghyun. The “fangirl meets bias” is very common, even if she is an idol. And the whole collaboration/duet thing is very common, too. I’ve seen it plenty of fanfics where the two leads get to get together and sing this whole duet.

I also find it a bit unrealistic. I mean, it’s all too coincidental for Luna to be on her period and having gas problems while Jonghyun is having stomach problems from the food he had eaten. But it’s a story, and stories aren’t supposed to be that realistic anyways, so it’s fine I guess.

 

Characterisation [12/15]

I think the way you displayed your characters was… okay. I just didn’t like how you tell us Jonghyun was a “romantic Dino with a careless mouth.” (PS: “Dino” and “Poodle” in the description don’t need to be capitalized.) I don’t like it when authors directly tell a character’s personality trait, especially this particular trait because it’s the reason for the story. When we actually read the story and see how his dinosaur mouth can’t contain itself from making humorless jokes, we can therefore infer that he’s a bit careless and big-mouthed.

Like I said earlier, their relationship was a bit cliche and expected, and their personalities were a bit overused. Luna, the weird, crazy girl; the rookie idol who gets to meet her number one bias. Jonghyun, the misunderstood dinosaur who seems jerk-ish and rude because of his big mouth, but is caring and sweet.

It’s good that Jonghyun has flaws. Real flaws. Not Gary Stu flaws [Gary Stus are guy characters who are too perfect to be realistic/very cliche]. I’d say his biggest flaw would be that he’s always spilling secrets. I haven’t seen many guys in fanfics with this flaw, since the main flaws I see in fanfic characters (for males) would be arrogance, ignorance, coldness, mysteriousness, etc. He’s, in a way, realistic since I know a lot of people with big mouths (unfortunately. Tsk, and they wonder why I never tell them secrets...).

And I’m glad Luna’s not a Mary Sue [female version of Gary Stus]! Well... She doesn’t seem to be? It’s a two-shot, and the story’s not so in-depth that I can truly dig into the characters’ personalities that well.

She’s, like you had said in the story, a perfectionist. I consider that being a flaw because perfectionists tend to go overboard, tend to work too hard, tend to strive to always be perfect when they should realize that nobody is perfect. Being a perfectionist isn’t a Mary Sue flaw, in my opinion, since most Mary Sue flaws are clumsiness, stupidity, denseness, etc. It’s a pretty realistic flaw that many people I personally know have.

She seems a bit over-exaggerated though. Especially during the bathroom scene. Yes, I get that she doesn’t want people to, you know... hear her farting, but the loud singing that she does while she’s in the bathroom and the loud music she plays is an obvious giveaway that she’s trying to cover up her farts, and because of that I assume she’s not exactly the smartest improviser in the world.

 

Basic grammar/spelling [11/15]

Yours [Descript.]: Jiyeon, coughed…

Corrected: Jiyeon coughed…

Reason: You would never ever use a comma to separate a verb from its subject. I’ve noticed that you tend to do this very often throughout your story, so be sure to go through your chapters and look for places where you had used a comma to split a verb from its subject.

 

Yours [Descript.] Luna, her friend, nodded sadly, “No”

Corrected: Luna, her friend, nodded sadly. “No.”

Reason: You’d always have to have some kind of punctutation at the end of your sentences.

 

Yours [Descript.] Jiyeon voice raised…

Corrected: Jiyeon’s voice raised…

Reason: The voice belongs to Jiyeon, and an apostrophe s is therefore needed at the end of her name.

 

Yours [Descript.]: …as she realized other costumers in the café they were in, looked at them interested, she sat back in her chair.

Corrected: …as she realized other customers in the café they were in looked interestedly at them, she sat back in her hair.

Reason: “Costumers” would be people who wear costumes. “Customers” would be people who buy stuff, and I’m fairly sure that’s what you’re trying to say.

I’ve noticed that you sometimes overuse commas. You would rarely, if not never, use a comma to separate a prepositional phrase from a verb.

“Interested” is an adjective. Adjectives only modify nouns and pronouns. In your sentence, “interested” is used to describe “looked,” which is obviously a verb and cannot be modified by an adjective. You’d have to use an adverb, which is why I changed “interested” to “interestedly.” I also moved it closer to the verb because when you have an adverb, you want to make it as close as possible to the verb it modifies.

 

Yours [Ch.1]: “Joking. It’s fine, she’s used to it.” The man, his Hyung apologized to, said.

Corrected: “Joking. It’s fine. She’s used to it,” the man his hyung apologized to said.

Reason: Firstly, I think it’s better to put the part in red as two different sentences. With a comma, it seems like a comma splice (which isn’t good).

Secondly, you do your dialogue incorrectly. I’m surprised the other reviewers didn’t catch this, but they probably didn’t know.

Whenever you have a dialogue tag, you would never ever capitalize it unless it is at the beginning of the sentence/before the dialogue. Dialogue tags explain how the dialogue is said. They’re the “he said/she said” stuff, which is what this sentence is, which is why you wouldn’t capitalize it.

There are lots of rules to dialogue:

Each speaker gets a new paragraph (which you already do correctly, from what I’ve seen at least).

Dialogue tags are never capitalized, except if they’re at the beginning. If there’s a dialogue tag before the dialogue, then you would use a comma, like this:

She said, “This is the example.”

If there’s a dialogue tag after the dialogue, then you would have to end the dialogue with a comma, a question mark, or an exclamation mark, like this:

“This is the example,” she said.

It must never end with a period, which I’ve noticed you do sometimes so you might want to fix that, too.

If the sentence before a dialogue is an action, then you would capitalize it and never use a comma, like this:

She walked around the classroom. “This is the example.” She pointed to the board.

The same goes for if the sentence is after the dialogue.

 

Spelling Erorrs (“yours/correct” format):

Chapter One:

Herr/Her (the chapter title in the layout);

I’m sorry for his behaving/I’m sorry for his behavior (“For” is a preposition and prepositions can only be followed by a noun or pronoun, which is the object of a preposition. “Behaving” is a verb, which means it cannot be the object of a preposition. “Behavior” is the noun and is also much more commonly heard);

got panicked/panicked (“panicked” alone would be better);

snorted with laugh/snorted with laughter (“laugh” is a verb and “laughter” is the noun form, which is what you need because “with” is a preposition, and prepositions must be followed by nouns [the object of the preposition]);

slurp/slurped (should be past tense)

Chapter Two:

incase/in case

Teamin/Taemin

 

Honestly, your grammar is pretty good for a non-native speaker. It’s all still readable and understandable, so don’t worry too much. Most of your mistakes were common in both native and non-native speakers.

 

Writing style [7/10]

The fonts you use are readable and not overly-bright. The layout is really nice and pretty, but I don’t think it matches your theme. Because of the light colors and the roses thing at the top of the chapter layout, it seems like the layout is made for more light-hearted romance stories. Your story, however, isn’t a light-hearted romance; it’s a romantic (?) comedy, so I suggest you change the layout to make it more fun and cute or just simply get a new one.

I like the way you write though. You include a good amount of dialogue, which is good because I don’t like it when authors use too much dialogue. Dialogue isn’t the best way to describe a character’s emotions, but are still a very good way. I think the best way to write would be through details in actual sentences that aren’t dialogue. It’s good that you include both a good amount of dialogue and a good amount of imagery, figurative language, different sentence types, etc.

 

Flow of the story [10/10]

I think the story flowed pretty well. The first chapter was a good introductory, and the second chapter was where you showed us the of your story. You used a nice sentence variety (because, yes, the sentence structures affect the flow). I actually have no complaints about the flow, which is rare because I almost always have something to complain about, especially when it comes to one/two-shots. At first I was worried because your story switches between present and past that it might get confusing, but I’m glad you didn’t keep going back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. It was well-placed, and you used a divider to clearly indicate the switches.

 

Entertainment [9/10]

I don’t understand why you say you’re not funny. I found your story pretty hilarious. I just don’t like how it’s a bit cliche with the way their relationship is (him teasing her).

 

Total: 78.5/100

 

Bonus [2/5]

Reviewer's note: I hope I didn’t take too long, and I’m so sorry if I did. I didn’t know if you had a deadline or time constraint for this review because you didn’t mention it. State testing is coming up and that’s really important, so I’ve been tutoring some of my classmates. I hope this review was helpful and satisfied you though. Thanks for requesting.