Name of Story: Heartfelt voice

Author: GreenGardenPop

Pairing: Baekhyun (EXO) x Jiyeon (T-ara)

Chapters read: 7/11+ (ongoing story)

Warning: I usually don't read straight stories. I like Baekhyun a lot, but I'm kinda particular about how he's portraited in fanfics. Jiyeon I don't know very well, yet. Review will contain spoilers.

Forewords

I like your forewords. The title fit's well with the image of Baekhyun, and although the poster is maybe not extremely original, it gives a feel for the story.

It's a personal preference, but generally I like short forewords, and even though yours are short, they still manage to make the story seem interesting. Both the description and the poem I like, it seems like the poem is there for a reason, because it fits your story, not only to “look cool”. And the gif is cute.

To the tags I would add: exo and tara.

Yes, I know that exo is pretty much a useless tag (because it's too popular), but there is no harm in keeping it there, and general t-ara fans might like this story, so make sure it appears under the tara tag. Also, taeyong, chaeyeon and yoona seem to be important characters, I would tag with those too. Especially the first two don't have *too* many stories yet (I think) so their fans might want to read something with them, even though they are side characters.

Personally, I would also find a shipper name for Baekhyun and jiyeon, like baekji, or baekjiyeon or baehyunxjiyeon and tag with that too (just pick something you like). I know it's kind of a useless tag, but if more want to write about them, they might join in on your tag and it's fun. (AFF stopped the tag-limitation so you don't have to worry about exhausting your tags). 

Use of Language

I'm going to assume that you are not a native speaker in English?

If so, your English level is good. And it's clear that you put a lot of time and effort into your text. However, the text doesn't always flow very naturally. This is very normal, and a problem for almost all non-native speakers (I deal with this constantly myself for example). But this will improve with practice, and by listening to other's people advice. In your case, I think the best thing to do about this is to improve your descriptions.

Descriptions... can be friends or enemies, and in your case I think they are both.

It's clear that you thought very well about your story, and have a very clear picture in your head. Which is a good thing. Descriptions are important for readers to picture things in there minds and get involved in your story. But describing everything flatly is not good story-telling. How, when and in what amounts you describe things is important. Extremely important.

And I think you can improve on all fronts. I will mostly take examples from the first chapter, but this is consistent throughout the chapters in your story (the ones I read at least).

You tend to describe things too carefully that don't need a description. Like, we don't need to always know what everyone is wearing in detail or their exact height, or spend a paragraph on it every time she takes a shower, or get a detailed description of the problem she's helping a student with, or know that she let the cab driver keep the change. (It could work to describe things unnaturally well, if the point was to show that she's OCD/OCP, but in that case it should be taken even further).

On the other hand, sometimes important parts of your story could be described more. Like this for example here:

“Then she felt something enter her body, making her shiver.”

This is a *very* pivotal moment in the story, like defines everything, and it only gets one sentence? (When a strangers outfit gets at least 2 to 3 sentences, + 1 for detailed height?).

There are many ways that something can enter a body, did it feel like something punching her, or flowing right through her, was it warm or cold? Was she scared or unsure.

You should describe it, because it is a very important moment for the story.

Also sometimes you describe nameless students very carefully, but then you dropped a couple of names with any introduction, like in Sohyun's and Jaehyun's case, like we were supposed to know them, so you are a bit inconsistent with this.

What you need to do is to realize What is important, what is the main point of the chapter, and make sure that this is described properly. Things that are not Directly important for the story or for the mood can be trimmed down or skipped entirely. If your descriptions are too detailed they become clinical, and boring.

A few tips on the “How”. I notice that you often introduce a person, and then in the next sentence you describe him/her. Sometimes you can do this a bit more smoothly.

If you really want to describe what a person is wearing/looks, you can include it in a normal sentence... From your text:

“...Jiyeon added and looked at a girl, who sat right in front of her desk. The girl had arms crossed on the table, her head down. She was petite with long, dark-brown hair that hung loose, like a rich velvet curtain."

Can become something along this line:

“...Jiyeon added and looked at a petite girl, sitting at the front. With her head down, her long brown hair flowing over her arms, she looked very uncomfortable.“

This is not a perfect example, and you can change it as you want, but the point is, you don't need a special sentence for action and another one for description, try to mix things together a bit, it makes the flow more natural. Instead of having special description-sentences, try to sneak descriptions in “unnoticed” with the normal stuff.

Also, make very sure that the descriptions are not taking away from your main point.

The end of chapter 1 is:

“And her eyes popped open wide, seeing the same man from her dream run towards her. The only different thing was he had a short, straight, black hair - his bangs parted in the middle, hung beside his forehead. He was dressed in a black leather jacket with black jeans.”

Okay, the emphasis is mine, but this is how people are going to read your story. This is the last sentence of the chapter, and if you make it about his clothes, it sounds like the main point of hism appearing was his black jeans.

I'm going to make minor adjustments so you can see how it changes.

(Actually I would skip the clothes description here and add it in the next chapter, because that's not important right now, but I'll include it to change as little possible):

“Wearing a black leather jacket with black jeans, a man with short, straight, black hair, ran towards her, his parted bangs bouncing against his forehead as he moved. Jiyeon's eyes popped open wide when she realized that in spite of the black hair she recognized him. This was the man from her dreams.”

See, I almost changed nothing, but still it's much more powerful, because now the fact that he's from her dream is the main point, not his jacket.

Some other (random) comments:

Your italic sentences are a bit random, I guess they apply to thoughts, but there are also many thoughts that you write not in italic, so it's a bit confusing and I don't think you need it.

A very very nit-picky comment:

I would change the first sentence of the story to:

She woke to find herself lying on a bed in a dark room.

Since she has no idea where she is, it makes sense that she's not familiar with the bed she's lying on. It's not a major “mistake” or whatever you want to call it. But first sentences are important, and changing the to a, emphasis how lost she is.

I'm not sure that you know what sarcasm means.

“You laugh even when there's nothing funny,” Jiyeon said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

This means that there was something funny, and that Jiyeon is aware of the fact that it is funny, so not like you meant it, I think.

And it's stupid, but all potentially rated words are blocked out on AFF... so the word s*exy only shows up as y, and some words are entirely missing from your text I think. The only way to handle this is to read your story while logged out, or on an account that doesn't allow to view rated stories, and then replace those words with something else.

Characters

Your character are not bland or boring, and most have more than one aspect.

However, their behavior is sometimes a bit unbelievable.

Like her mother's reaction about her mental illness seems a bit strange. Instead of sitting her down for a serious talk, she randomly yells things, which makes her not very empathetic as a character. It would be more natural and relatively easy to make her mother's worries grow until she thought that seeking medical help would be the best solution.

Also, a psychiatric/psychology student ambushing a girl with mental illness seems very unprofessional, from someone who's studying the field, and suddenly asking to tape what she says is weird, to say the least. But granted, fanfictions are sometimes made for “unlikely” situations, so I think you can get away with that.

Taeyong is very mystical, so I'm not sure what to think about him, but he definitely keeps it interesting, and makes you want to know more about him.

Yoona, I like, she's very consistently bubbly/pushy/mean and a believable character, except for *spoiler-alert*, it is weird that she would make jokes about something like her nephew's death, but it can be argued that she suddenly didn't want to talk about his death so she faked a smile, and turned it into a joke. I guess. But you have to reach to make it work.

Blond-baekhyun I like, quite a bit. He seems like completely molded to fit her wishes. So he sort of fits both as an hallucination and a ghost, and makes the reader constantly wonder if he's real or not. He both makes sense as completely made out of her imagination, suited to agree with everything she wants, rooted into her insecurities to connect with people. But he can also be a ghost, jealous and afraid of loosing the only person he can communicate with. So I think he just works very well as a character (and I'm very picky about fanfic-baek, so you can take that as a compliment).

Jiyeon.... Jiyeon is a total mess. Which is both positive and negative.

She's a very sad person, lashing out at everything and everyone, because of her own insecurities. Making her very mean and irritated and honestly not that suitable to be a teacher (giving your student a mean nickname is never okay). And her constant angry rants about psychiatry make her quite unlikeable, because she's both factually wrong and her views are potentially very harmful. Already this is hurting herself, by making her refuse to get help, which she clearly could use, since she has many many problems, going far beyond the voice she's hearing.

But she's not a one dimensional character, and she is very believable as a person with very serious problems. But although everyone deserves to get help, even people who are to sick to realize that they need it, I think it would help this story if she would be made into someone that was easier to emphasize with... maybe it would help if dark haired baekhyun reaches out to her, and she softens a bit... or if someone in her life having to deal with her was made more empathetic (like her mother for example).

Story

I think that the storyline itself is one of the stories strong point.

I really like the idea of two Baekhyuns, and I think you handled it well, it is very mysterious, and at the moment (after chapter 7) all options are possible and plausible. You are good at making minor plot twists and keeping the story line alive and intriguing.

Overall

Overall your story is fine. The storyline is good, your characters are interesting, and the English is decent and easily readable.

If you want to improve, at this moment, I really think you should focus on your descriptions.

Practice will help a lot. Try for example to do this little exercise: Write a chapter (or a short story) like you would usually do. Afterwards, write down in 1-2 points that are the most important parts about your chapter. Read it over and check if these points are emphasized enough. When you read the chapter is the reader left with the impression that you want her/him to be left with? Or is your point lost in a sea of descriptions? Now, try to cut back Everything that isn't important for the chapter. Shorten all the descriptions, try to force them to be a part of other sentences and remove everything that isn't important for the story or the mood of the chapter. Make it as short as you can without loosing the feeling you are going after.

I think that it would be very useful for you practice this consciously a couple of times. And then you will have this more in mind when writing, what is important, and what is less important. By this I don't mean that your chapters should always be the "shortest-possible-version" (that's only to practisce reducing your text).

But in the long run your story would benifit a lot from reducing description about 20-40% and making it more focused and aimed at the point/feel of the story. If you manage that, every aspect of your story will improve automatically!

Finally, I do hope that you don't share Jiyeon's views of psychiatry and psychology. Sure there has been very questionable acts in the field, but it has matured a lot over the last decade or so, and evidence based psychology/psychiatry is becoming more and more dominant (I hope).

And Jiyeon is wrong you know... many many many many psychological problems have been linked to chemical imbalance in the brain and/or reduced/damaged brain function. And for many diseases there are actually proven, effective treatments available.

Good luck with your story and your writing in general!

OKgirl