Title: Idols in Love

Consultant: sweetieheart2

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Honestly, the title sparks no sense of interest in the reader at all, giving off the impression of a very unoriginal story.

Love, as a theme, dominates the majority of fanfics here on AFF, which suggests nothing different or unique about your fic. Idols, for all that we know, are present within 99% of fics here, too. In conclusion, placing these two very clichéd and basic concepts side by side with one another insinuates nothing special that will entice the reader to click on your story at all.

However, it did capture the overall essence of the story, as, after all, that is essentially what your story is about, so props to you for that.

It is also preferable to have the word ‘love’ written as ‘Love’ (‘Idols in Love’).

Ability to draw readers in (page-turner): 2/20

The main reason that it doesn’t draw readers in is probably due to the fact that your characters don’t feel real at all. The problem isn’t only because they’re cliché and unoriginal, but the fact that you have not developed them. People cannot relate or feel any sense of sympathy, adoration, disgust, loathing, or any form of connection towards them. They seem distant, which ultimately has the effect of distancing your readers from your story.

Your plot adopts a fairly slow pace in the beginning chapters; I personally arrived at Chapter 8 and contemplated upon the chapters I had just read, only to find that nothing much had happened, aside from the unoriginal love at first sight scene and hurried introduction of a typical love triangle.

I personally found it rather tedious to sift through your many chapters and be confronted, again and again, with the dreaded, typical clichés and formulaic substances needed in a “spazz-worthy”, fangirl-written fanfic. Although a fic’s overall quality should never be denoted by its number of subscribers and views, but the ratio of your number of subscribers to your number of chapters probably speaks on behalf of me, too.

Writing style: 0/10

Your writing style lacks detail, depth and emotion. There seems to be an evident tendency to rush forward with the plot. This is most problematic in Chapter 1; although this seemed to act more as a filler chapter and provide the reader with some basic background information, the process of revealing Sentimental’s background information was way too hasty. Due to the speed, readers will find it excruciatingly difficult to keep up and digest; you have already rushed on to the next part before the reader has even fully absorbed and registered what has happened.

For example, during Chapter 2, where you mentioned the interaction between CNBlue (the ‘b’ in ‘Blue’ should be capitalized) and SNSD, instead of simply stating:

Bubbles saw their interaction and was really amused. They are just sooo close to reach other. *envy*

… you could have added a lot more detail and elaboration. What were they doing? What were the particular actions that made Bubbles amused and envious? For example, you could try:

Bubbles witnessed the mutual bond the two groups seemed to share, and was mildly amused at Minhyuk and Sooyoung roaring with laughter in the corner of the recording studio, throwing their heads back and trembling with the sheer impact of their amusement. She averted her gaze from the seemingly uncontrollable pair and caught sight of Jungshin reaching out his arm to physically ruffle up Sunny’s short, blonde locks. It was only a moment of affection, but Sunny’s shy smile and rapid blinking made her think otherwise. Without any warning, she felt the undesirable pang of revulsion gnaw away at her insides as she tore her eyes away from the two.

Aside from ignoring my spontaneous, written-on-the-spot, rambled version of your two sentences, I invite you to see that although you may not need to dwell too long on one particular, unimportant detail that is irrelevant to your story, sometimes it may be necessary to spend more time in showing, rather than telling. In my poorly conjured passage above, you can see that I did not use the word ‘close’ or ‘envy’. As a writer, you should always aim to elaborate on details when applicable and appropriate in order to convey certain aspects of your story to your reader in a manner that is not repetitive and superficial.

It is inappropriate to use excessive letters and exclamation marks to emphasize certain words, for example, in Chapter 1, ‘They are sooo hoot and cooler meeting in person!!’ and ‘The 3 youngest are sooooo much more handsome!!!’. Symbols, such as ‘@#@!#%#$@#$! *’, should never be included in formal writing, unless it is a text message/email that is a part of your story.

Random bits of Korean should best be avoided to prevent embarrassingly using them incorrectly and seeming like a fool to a reader who is a fluent Korean speaker, or simply a “try-hard Korean” to others. I am well aware that there are many readers and reviewers out there who absolutely loathe the mixture of the two languages in a (mostly failed) attempt at making the fic seem more credible to its setting. However, many do not realize that the simple fact that the majority of your fic is written in English already defies the possibility of it being any more Korean than it is, or can get. Slotting in generic and well-known Korean words or phrases does not add to the “Korean-ness” of it, but rather, reminds the reader even more blatantly that the fic is written by a person who does not speak Korean, and only possesses as much limited knowledge of it as an international fan can. After all, as typical and “mandatory” as it may seem to know what ‘Saranghae’, ‘Mianhae’ or ‘Kamsahamnida’ mean, there may be some who don’t know the meaning of it at all, and if that is the case, will result in a failure to send across your message.

Another thing that is sure to bother readers is the rapid and redundant switching of POVs. There is no need to change and specify a particular character’s POV for simply one line of “spazzy”, incoherent words; such excitement would be much better and more effectively expressed through a description of the character’s state of “fangirling”, or “fanboying”, in some other cases. Perhaps mention the way they looked: were they trembling? Sweating? Giggling? Or were they miraculously keeping a straight face? Remember: in some cases, descriptions from a third person’s point of view can speak better than thoughts in the first person.

For example:

OMG!!!! They are sooo hoot and cooler meeting in person!! omg omg omg ~~~~~ The 3 youngest are sooooo much more handsome !!! @#@!#%#$@#$! *

… would be better off expressed in something along the lines of:

Bubbles had to garner all the energy and willpower she possessed to refrain from squealing at the mere sight of her idols. They were, indeed, much more striking and charming in person than in the still images and video clips she had seen on the flat surface of her television and compute screen. She especially took note of the three youngest members… etc.

Do not ever indicate actions or other pieces of information with the use of asterisks (*). It is not acceptable in any way, unless you are writing in script form, and even then, the correct form of script-writing does not utilize asterisks for stage action/direction, anyway. This also applies to the use of hyphens (-).

You should refer to your characters’ names in a consistent manner; for example, call Wooyoung ‘Woo Young’ throughout, as you have been doing, and not ‘WooYoung’ or ‘Woo’ on some occasions with no justifiable explanation or reason.

It would also benefit the overall professionalism of your story if you did not include small author’s notes, irrelevant ‘LOL’s and unnecessary explanations in brackets. Seeing these pop up and invade the space where your actual story should be can be off-putting, distracting and irritating, and detracts from the “quality” and “standard” your work will be viewed under. If you were intending on making the story seem more humorous… I didn’t find it any funnier, honestly. If you were intending on explaining, everything should have been made clear in the actual writing of your story; if you ever feel the need to clarify certain details with an unwelcome, bracketed section, that is a call for you to return to the main content of the story and make things clearer there. If you were intending on reminding the reader of particular details, in fear of them having forgotten, they most likely haven’t, if you have managed to engage them well enough (doing this repeatedly may annoy some readers, as it seems as though you assume that your readers are not capable of remembering what they read). On another note, these random authorial intrusions have the effect of pulling your reader out of the world you have created for your story, only to hear you say ‘LOL’, for example, then be back into the story’s setting and feel like… well, like the author can’t leave them alone and enjoy what they were reading. In short, they are interrupted, and it won’t make them happy. After all, it iscalled an ‘authorial intrusion’ for a reason, the word ‘intrusion’ indicating an unwanted, undesirable and annoying interference.

The author’s notes at the end of your chapters really shouldn’t be used to explain things to your reader; this should have been achieved in the main body of your chapter. An example of this is in Chapter 28, where you explicitly informed the reader that ‘Woo dialled [should be ‘dialed’] all of the manager’s number [should be ‘managers’ numbers’]’ because ‘he’s smart when he panics’. The fact that Wooyoung is ‘smart when he panics’ should be expressed and illustrated in the actual writing of your story; not as an author’s note at the end. As another point, author’s notes really shouldn’t claim a whole chapter as its own.

Your use of short sentences can also become irksome to some. This can have the unintended effect of making the reader read your story with large gaps in between. Read. What. I. Am. Writing. Right. Now. Did you unconsciously pause once each time you saw a period/full stop? This is the problem with extremely short sentences, sometimes, because periods/full stops have the effect of inducing a slight pause when reading, be it aloud or in the reader’s mind. Try to vary the lengths of your sentences, too, unless you make them deliberately long/short for a certain desired effect, which I cannot see happening, in your case.

Emotions, needles to say, are definitely forbidden, unless, again, it is a text message/email. It is also best to avoid excessive use of ellipses (…), and to never use abbreviations, such as ‘Omg’.

In Chapter 36, you included a never-seen-before (by me, at least) layout of indicating the positions in which the characters were seated. This really could have done with a different approach, as the one you have chosen to describe their seating positions is quite unprofessional and glaringly amateur. Many of the positions didn’t even make much difference to the story, so it could have made your story a lot more concise and less like it was loitering on unnecessary details that made no difference to the story, especially seeing as ‘the dinner went by quickly’ and had no effect on the overall plot (literally, no more than one hundred words). For instance, you have explicitly told the reader that Blenda isolated Bubbles in the corner of the table because she ‘was determined not to let any guys who have feelings towards her get close to her’. It would do your story a lot more justice if you outlined the other seating positions in this manner. Perhaps you could have informed your reader of Wooyoung’s seating position by expressing how he tried to incline his head to catch a glimpse of Bubbles from beside Blenda, who was wedged in between the two. You could point out that Junho had been placed quite far away, and could only converse with Junsu, Jinwoon and JoKwon for the night, due to the extreme distance between him and Bubbles.

I know I may sound like a nit-picky old woman scrutinizing your fic with a magnifying glass and stopping at any potential place to deduct a mark, but if you head out to the bookstore and pick up any published novel, you will see that none of the professional authors out there do these things. Of course, we are not professionals, and perhaps aren’t even trying or aiming to be, but the principles to correct and fluid writing are all the same – they apply to every formal, grammatical piece we write.

Plot: 2/20

Some parts of the plot are questioning and slightly unrealistic, almost like they do not conform to reality. An example of this is during Chapter 4, where Junho kissed Bubbles’ forehead. The two had only just met, so the scene is highly unlikely to happen. This scene will not leave a deep impression on readers also for the reason that you have rushed through what could have been a touching and major development in their relationship (as unrealistic as it seemed) in less than one line. There hadn’t even been enough conflict or turmoil beforehand that made the scene special, as though it deserved the ‘awww’s and squeals of your readers upon finally seeing some romantic interactions between the couple. I also suggest you linger a little longer on scenes like this; give the reader more description on how it happened, instead of switching to one of the characters’ POVs and expressing his alarm in, yet again, incoherent and grammatically incorrect/unacceptable sentences. Delving deeper into scenes like this will help you to engage your readers on a more emotional level, drawing them in and encouraging them, too, to experience the butterflies fluttering in their stomachs, for example, or feel the chemistry during the significant moment where Junho’s lips brush against Bubbles’ forehead.

The main plot, overall, didn’t really capture me as a reader, personally, although it has become apparent that a large number of readers on AFF agree with me. For a long time, I felt a gaping absence of content and depth, almost as though you, yourself, weren’t even sure of where you were intending on heading with this fic. All the events seemed “random” and “out of the blue”; nothing felt like it was contributing towards an impending complication or momentous turn of events. Imagine the development of your plotline as a literal line; yours appeared straight and bland, with no sign of shifting in any way. Although many fics begin slowly and may take a bit of time for the events to finally begin unraveling themselves, yours gave the reader the impression that there was nothing that was going to happen, except, perhaps, the superficial outlining of yet another cliché story that we can find anywhere else; perhaps even a better one.

Characterization: 0/15

This is perhaps one of the weakest parts to your story. Your characters are far too superficial and have no soul, depth or room for growth and development. This stops the reader from forming any emotional attachment to them, be it negative or positive.

You have provided hardly any physical descriptions of the 2PM members. This can often be an easy mistake to commit in the world of fanfiction, seeing as most fanfic authors tend to believe that their readers already have a perfectly accurate picture of the idol in their mind; the most that some do is provide a direct indication of what “era” of the group’s career it was in by a poster or direct mention of their hairstyle at the time.

But, as much as it seems that all your readers know already, you should really describe the physical characteristics of the characters in some way. It doesn’t have to be much, but some form of indication of some physical feature about theirs that separates them from the rest is highly recommended. You managed to provide some physical description of Bubbles by mentioning that she has ‘long’ eyelashes, but, really, truth be told, most female OCs would have long eyelashes, due to the common tendency to portray them as the epitome of beauty.

This leads to the other main issue with your characterization, especially with Bubbles – she is far, far, far too perfect. You have portrayed Bubbles as a seemingly flawless girl; she’s got the looks, the popularity, the professionalism, the talent… pretty much everything a girl could ask for. What about her flaws? No one is perfect. By making her so perfect, she becomes unrealistic and distant to the reader; it is difficult to sympathize with her and relate to her – she is too much of a ‘goddess’, as you have indicated yourself. Even if she is perfect, as unrealistic as it is, people so perfect would most likely suffer from what some call “the burden of perfection”. But no, Bubbles lives a pretty perfect life (how complementing) with quite a promising future ahead of her. One of the only glimpses we get into something (finally) going wrong for her may be the incident where the anti-fans attack her, putting her life at risk (Chapter 28). But the reason that the anti-fans attacked her? Because they were jealous. But isn’t jealousy – in Bubbles’ case, of her boyfriend – so often used to insinuate that the character is perfect? So perfect to the point that others need to resort to bashing her up?

The 2PM members also lack individuality and uniqueness. I am personally not a huge fan of 2PM, so I wouldn’t be able to tell if you have used the unfortunate stereotypes that all idols fall under in the world of fanfiction. But, to me, Junho and Wooyoung, as the male protagonists of your story, could have been interchanged and nothing would change or differ, due to the fact that they are virtually identical to each other, aside from the name and the eventual choice that Bubbles makes in relation to who wins her heart. I actually arrived at the end of the story, came to write your review, and realised that I had forgotten who she ended up with. This goes to show how drastically similar your male characters are to each other. Honestly, if I slipped my little feet into the glittery shoes of the perfect Bubbles, caught in the drama of two men fighting over me in the precise way you have written and described it, I wouldn’t be able to choose. Reason? They are exactly the same.

There also seems to be virtually nothing about the other members of Sentimental, aside from Blenda. And considering that this is a story based around the theme of idol life and working in the entertainment industry, I would think that it’d be fair to say that the protagonist’s fellow members hold some level of importance.

Another minor thing: don’t ask, in unnecessary author’s notes in brackets in the middle of your story, whether or not you should give a certain character a name. This should have been decided, and should only be decided by you.

Writing Mechanics (Grammar, Spelling, Word choice, etc.): 1/5

There are quite a few recurring errors in your writing. One of the main things you need to watch out for is your tense; make sure you don’t get your past and present tenses mixed up. Choose one and stay consistent with it throughout the whole of your story.

You failed to capitalize a lot of the characters’ names on many occasions. Proper nouns, such as ‘Bubbles’ and ‘Korea’, need to begin with a capital letter (you even spelt Bubbles’ name as “Bubble” once – please remember to proofread!). It is also best to refrain from using digits to express numbers (for example, use ‘two’ instead of ‘2’).

Singular verbs and plural verbs tended to get confused and misused. It is also important to use commas where appropriate, for example, ‘Bubbles you will stand near the walls sweeping’ should really be ‘Bubbles, you will stand near the walls, sweeping.’

You must begin a new paragraph with each new person that speaks; each time a different character speaks, hit the “enter” key.

I will not endeavour to pinpoint every single grammatical mistake I found, as we would probably be here for a while. However, if you would like me to give you some specific corrections, feel free to ask.

Originality/Creativity: 3/25

Stories revolving around idols and their journey/success are very commonly encountered here on AFF, especially under the category of “apply fics”. Although you did have the occasional up and down in your plot, there really wasn’t much that we aren’t able to find in every other fic out there. Almost every single aspect or your fic falls under the umbrella of ‘typical fanfic’ and, at times, screams out the word ‘cliché’. Love at first sight, unrealistically perfect female OC, dramatic love triangle, anti-fans jealous of their idol’s girlfriend… Try to think outside the square and incorporate ideas that are not so frequently seen. It is okay to use cliché ideas, but if you do, make sure to add your own twists to it.

**Consultant Comments:

I am aware that you may have the urge to track me down and brandish a sharp knife in my face, and I do apologise for being so callous and unfeelingly demanding. It’s great that you’re planning to rewrite the story; you could transform it into a very enjoyable one. You’ve got the basics, and I can see that you’re out to deliver a wonderful story to your readers; but please take the things I have pointed out into account. This especially goes for characterization, plot development and your writing style, as these can be said to be the primary three factors that will determine whether a reader decides to stay with your fic or not. Some of the things that resulted in the deduction of marks in the ‘Writing style’ section can very easily be fixed; they are just a matter of avoiding certain things, such as author’s notes scattered around, emoticons, extended letters, excessive symbols, ellipses etc.

Your mechanics section is also in need of some improvement. It seems to me that English is not your first language, but whether it is or not, I suggest you read some more (reliable) books/stories. It will help to boost your writing skills and help you to grasp the basics of grammar.

10/100 ; 10%

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• Is the story okay?

To be perfectly frank and directly honest: no, it is not okay, considering the large amount of generically “not okay” factors that render your story “not okay” by default. But you can change that. I know that I am in no just position to label a story as being okay or not okay, but there are some aspects of your story that will immediately place your story in the category of “not okay”, no matter how proficient your writing skills are. Once you attend to and manage those undesirable factors in your writing, your story will be better set-up to have me proven wrong in saying that it is not okay, and it will be more justifiable for other readers and reviewers to say that it is. I have pointed out most of the areas that need some reconsideration and reshaping (hopefully I haven’t missed any) in the review, but really, most of them are so easily fixed that your rewritten story will be okay in no time, and you’ll be well on your way to making it fantastic.

I have briefly scanned through a bit of the new story you provided, ‘A New 2PM’, and honestly, I am mildly pleased in some ways. Your new story shows a slight improvement in terms of your writing style with a bit more detail; but don’t include pictures in the middle of your story! Another definite no-no!