review by natocuty. 

Title (4/10)

Seeing how this story revolves around a competition to win the Prince’s heart and gain access to the throne by becoming the “beloved” princess, the title seems fitting. However, it has been used quite a number of times and lacks originality. You have mentioned as well that the title seems a bit too cliché, therefore, you should have made minor adjustments to it. The first thing a reader notices is the title. If it’s not eye-catching, if it’s not interesting or original, he/she’ll probably ignore it. The title seems to give away too much of the plot line as well. The reader will think the following, “Oh, it’s about some kind of competition to gain the throne” , the idea has been done over and over again but it’s up to you to make it interesting enough to maintain the reader’s attention all throughout the story.

Description/Foreword (4/10)

The description should be brief and to the point. The key word here is “Simple”. Yours had numerous elements in it and that would make the reader feel a bit suffocated. My suggestion is the following:

“As a celebration for the hundred year anniversary of Seoul's revival, a contest between the female subjects to win the heart of Prince Junmyeon, the heir of the throne was established. Joohyun, a girl originating from the poorest district of this torn city, is forced to enter the competition. To save her family from starvation and poverty she’ll have to take up a new found identity. She’ll be known from now on as Bae Irene.”

For the foreword just putting the following is enough. No need to add other unnecessary elements. Remember it should always be short and precise.

“A young man and a young girl were born to this world, on different sides of battle.
Their destinies were made for them to fight one another.
But they loved each other like no other love could conquer, as constant as the stars above.
Even though their wonderstruck love was short lived, it was the enchanted and forbidden love that was remembered for years to come.”

Language: (10/15)

There weren’t many grave mistakes, however some sentences tend to be (for lack of a better term) awkward. First of all, for the dialogue lines, a space should not be present between the apostrophe and the first letter of the phrase: “Good morning Miss Irene” (correct form) vs “ Good morning Miss Irene ”. This actually annoyed me at times. It can also cause misunderstandings, for example in the very first chapter, there is the following line: “…The thing is, this is important for all of us. “I didn't answer. "  I don't have a family, Joohyun…”  the placement of the apostrophes make it seem as if she is saying “I didn’t answer” which would be utterly absurd since it’s a part of her inner thoughts.

Sometimes the meaning of the sentence is entirely off because you use a word (maybe unintentionally) that frankly doesn’t fit. For example:  “Um, could do follow me in there for a second” (Chapter 1), instead of the “do” (which the use of doesn’t make any sense) a “you” should be present. But I’m sure that’s just a mistake made out of hurry. You should always re-read a chapter before you post it to make sure all of the sentences make sense and are correctly written.

"It's just, we'll get into trouble if someone like you bows at us" the other maid said (Chapter 4). You don’t bow at someone, you bow to someone. You have many small mistakes like that.

Example 3:"then your father should try his best to protect us all from salvation then, Jiyeon" (Chapter 12) the use of “salvation” is completely out of context. Salvation means to “deliver someone from harm or ruin” so what you are saying here is that governor should protect the people from being saved from harm? That is utterly ridiculous. You might have wanted to use this word to enhance the quality of the story’s vocabulary but using it without knowing the full meaning is useless. Either look up the meaning before using a word or just stick with what you know since your sentence will seem entirely wrong and that would give a bad image to the reader.

Therefore I strongly recommend that you get someone to proofread your chapters before you post them since it’s a shame to ruin the nice flow of your story with these mistakes. However, I want to commend you on being consistent with the use of the past tense, some people tend to switch from tense to tense while writing (which ruins the structure of the story) but you kept loyal to the tense you chose and that’s very important.

Plot (24/30)

The title gave away a major part of the plot. I’ve actually read other stories with a similar plot-line. A “not your average damsel in distress” girl from a poor district is onto a competition to win the prince’s heart and due to the kindness of her soul and strong demeanor, she’ll manage to weave her way into his life, making her his beloved betrothed. That’s the plot that came to my mind as soon as I read the title and description. As I dove into the story, the first chapters proved me right but the fact that she had to discard her identity to undertake that of a deceased girl who belonged to the higher hierarchy was interesting. Since in order to take part of the “game” she would have to come from a wealthy background. What intrigued me most was the infected population, how where they infected? What will happen if they manage to break through the wall? Is the government behind it all? Etc. Many questions swirled into my head regarding the subject and it was a nice touch by adding your own twists and turns you have managed to differentiate it from the other stories that hold a keen resemblance to its plotline. I’ve only read the first twelve chapters but things are seemingly starting to get interesting, I also wonder what role Kyungsoo will play in all of this. The intrigue is there, I suppose some action scenes will follow, some politics are involved which is good and the blooming romance is in the middle of it all. I like the fact that although this is a competition to win the heart of his majesty you did not focus the entire story on it (based on what I have read so far) but the spotlight is shone on the corruption of the government, the mistreatment of the people and the so called mystery of the “Infected”. All in all, the plot is nicely written, keep up the good work.

Characterization (22/30)

The protagonist Bae Joohyun is not your typical girl. She’s strong-willed, independent, sarcastic at times and caring towards her loved ones (her sister and district friends). The very first scene of the story reminded me of a scene in “The Hunger Games” where Katniss is trying to hunt down a certain animal. Joohyun and Katniss are alike in some many ways (I wonder if you based the lead’s character on her), they both come from poor backgrounds and are just and prideful girls who were (voluntarily) into a life and death competition. I like the way you portrayed Joohyun and made her stay loyal to her beliefs (on numerous occasions she would be seen aiding those who are looked down upon). However I would have wanted to have a clearer view on how she felt by taking the identity of the deceased Bae Irene. Wasn’t she the least bit intrigued on how she died? Or why did they have such keen resemblance? You should have added a scene in which she meets the grand-father and the torment she would feel at lying to an elderly man. As she settles into this new-found life, she begins to feel bad for deceiving those around her (since she has made such good friends) and might have started to develop feelings for the prince (I’m glad you didn’t make her fall head over heels with him immediately). Love takes time.

Junmyeon is too perfect to be true (Really) as far as I’ve read, he’s your typical kind-hearted prince who aims to aid his people, his character seems dull in comparison to Joohyun’s, maybe he’ll progress further down the line but from where I stopped he just seems like those fairytale princes, he lacks rawness. It’s a bit hard to identify with him. And how could he fall for Joohyun that fast? He barely knows her and has met her a few times, sure he might be attracted to her personality but falling for her is a bit too much.

Jiyeon is your typical “mean girl” (all stories need one). She thinks she’s better than everyone else, relies on her fortune and beauty, disregards others feelings and is a complete . If your aim was for her to be hated by the reader then you have achieved your objective. She’s such a despicable character but most nobles have a similar attitude and point of view, therefore, her portrayal is realistic.

I haven’t seen much of Kyungsoo but I can tell Junmyeon and he are close (to the point of them playing golf together), he favors Jiyeon for some reason and is intrigued by Irene. His character seems interesting and flawed which is nice. Since no one is perfect and reader should be able to identify with the characters present.

At first I thought Kris was a “nice” character turns out he has a dark side as well (You should never judge a book by its cover after all) I wonder how his story will unfold.

A slight tip, by having numerous characters the development of all of them will be pretty difficult. So try your best to put light on each one so that the reader will have insight on their stories as well and not just be struck by surprise with the final outcome.

Additional Notes (3/5)

Seeing your older works, your writing style has certainly improved. However, you tend to omit some important scenes that should be present (the transition from Joohyun to Irene). From what I read not much information was given about the sister (who seems to have a huge part in Irene’s past life). I would like it to have more insight on the other characters thoughts as well. Other than that, the story seems to be interesting and I wish you all the best as you continue it.

Overall Score: (67/100)

reviewer's note