AUTHOR: Summerdust STORY TITLE: Better..

Title (03/10): Not really fitting for the story as things don’t really become better.

Characterization (02/10): The general characterization of the three characters mentioned in the story are vague. The reader doesn’t get much information about Taehyung’s general behavior and attitude. I guess, fans of BTS will be able to transfer Taehyung’s apparent personality into the story but if someone aren’t particularly big fans of BTS, they come to short. Taehyung is too vague of a character and his troubles and reasons of self harm aren’t portrayed. The only thing that is mentioned is him not being good at his studies, but that’s about it. As a reader I don’t get the feeling of really knowing either of the three, not even the main character.

Themes (04/10): The story is tagged angst and warned for self-harm, but I don’t really feel the angst during the story. I see the self-harm but I don’t see the angst that is meant to support the self-harm and the story line. Normally, when I venture into the angst tag, I expect some tear-wrenching stories and deep characters, but I haven’t really felt that here.

Setting (02/10): The setting happens mainly by Taehyung’s desk or in the bathroom. It’s not that vividly described and left mainly to the reader to figure out how looks like. Settings can often be used to build up an understanding of a character, especially when it’s something like a dorm room that makes the most of the settings.

Description and Foreword (02/10): The description of the story isn’t captivating or raising interest at all. But good thing you include the warning of self harm in the foreword.

Writing Style / Techniques (04/10): The writing in this story is alright for the most part. There are some slip-ups where ‘his’ become ‘her’ but is otherwise grammatically correct. As for the writing as support for a story and building a feeling, the writing doesn’t appear adequate to convey the feeling of misery, sadness, hopelessness and the other feelings I believe Taehyung struggles with. There is a lack of adjectives in the writing and a few words I’d say are picked wrongly. There synonyms that mean the same, but have a negative connotation where the positive connotations have been used for this story. That is also a part of why the generally angsty feeling is dissolving. For the genre, I think there is room for improvement.

Presentation (07/10): Visually, the story is nice to enter. The text size is on the small side and will strain some eyes to read, but is otherwise pleasant to enter. Paragraphs are marked with a visible line that deletes any doubt of something new is about to happen. Graphically, the story is also presented nicely. A nice graphic piece meets the eye in mainly black, blue and white tones with the exception of their heads which represents the idea behind the story very well.

Structure and Flow (05/10): The flow of the story is kind of lacking. The readers are brought through six different scenes that don’t really seem to have any correlation to each. The flow of each scene is nice, but there is no smooth transition from one scene to the other.

Plot (03/10): The plot of this story isn’t really there? The story seems to be a first chapter of a longer story when compared to the title. As a reader, I’m waiting for things to get better. Jungkook is throwing a curveball to Taehyung that could jumpstart his improvement but it’s not really caught and the story ends just about where it starts. It starts with Taehyung’s need for comfort, to be babied, and then goes into self harm as his way of dealing with pressure from school and it kind of sticks there. There is potential for making the story longer and more fulfilling.

Overall Enjoyment (04/10): Not a story I enjoyed all that much. As mentioned above, for a story on angst, this was lacking in the technique department and the plot wasn’t really developing either, so I’m left with a feeling of disappointment and needing to see an update with more heavy writing in it.

Overall Score: 36/100
Overall Percentage: 36%
Reviewer's Note:I am well aware this review is harsh and coming out with a low score in the end, but I also believe the story holds more potential than what you’ve managed to put into the writing so far. So with more effort and a more careful choice when picking words, you can improve this relatively easily. So keep on writing and keep improving! There’s only one way forward and that is to keep trying.
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