Name of Story: lachrymose

Author: MissMinew

Pairing: Jonghyun & Onew/Eunsook (SHINee) - not a romantic pairing

Chapters read: 2/2

Warning: As a rule, I don't like to read about kids in fanfiction. Review will contain spoilers.

Forewords

I think your forewords are great.

The poster fits with your story, as does the description.

And your story is properly tagged, which I am very happy about.

The only very minor thing I would change is add “genderbender” to your taglist, because it's more commonly used that “genderbend” (keep both). But of course that is up to you and doesn't effect the quality of your story, and it's still very well tagged.

Use of Language

I think your use of language is very good, especially for a non-native speaker. It flows naturally and you manage to avoid the major traps that nonnatives usually fall into.

Very minor detail:

Personally, I would start the story with using the present progressive continuous forms slightly less. Instead of:

Jonghyun is looking at the small infant in his arms, the baby’s hands curling and uncurling around air. He’s smiling down at his daughter.

I would use:

Jonghyun looks at the small infant in his arms, the baby’s hands curling and uncurling around air. He smiles down at his daughter.

Because to me it makes it feel more like an action. A start of a story.

(Or you could keep 'is looking', and use 'smiles')

But this is simply a matter of personal preference, nothing else. And all options are valid, probably equally so.

Characters

Your story revolves around the relationship of Jonghyun and Eunsook.

Maybe to the point that it overshadows everything else. So at moments they were a bit one-dimensional as characters. Sometimes it seemed that Eunseok's only character trait was that she wanted his father's love and attention. It's not completely unreasonable, because this is a big thing, so it makes sense that it influences everything about her. But even so, I think the reader would be more emotionally invested in her, if she felt like a more complete character, if we knew something more about her (besides wanting to dance as a toddler, though that is a good start).

The description of the characters was also a bit clinical, in the sense that it was usually described articulately and in detail what they were feeling. This distances the reader a bit from the characters and the story. And it's not very believable that all the characters know and understand completely what they are feeling at all times and why. As a writer, you should know of course, but that doesn't mean that your characters know, nor that your readers should always.

And this applies *especially* to children. Children are capable of having complicated emotions, like depicted in your story, but it's very unlikely that they always understand what they are feeling down to the very last detail.

(On a side note, this is the reason why I don't like reading about children in fanfictions. Not because I'm some child-hating monster, but it's just very difficult to do believably. Since this is one of my pet-peeves in fanfics, I don't think I'm qualified to give an unbiased opinion. But I do think that Taemin for example showed maturity and understanding of his own and his mother's emotions far beyond what is likely.)

My favorite characters in this story, by far, were Gwiboon and Minho. Because with these characters you really managed to make the reader envision them, and we didn't always know what they were thinking and feeling, because we saw them through Jonghyun/Eunsook's eyes. But you still managed to convey this really well, so I really really loved both of them as characters. And I can easily picture them having life outside the scope of this story.

Also, the “fan” part of the “fanfiction” was almost completely missing in your story.

I like shinee. A lot. So I expected that I would be more caught up in your story than I was.

I couldn't find anything in Eunsook that has a reference in Onew, not regarding looks nor personality. So I had a very difficult time picturing her as female Onew, also because it was constantly said that she looked exactly like Gwiboon, so I was a bit confused whether I should picture her as Key instead, so I sort of ended up going back and forth with this and not having a clear picture in my mind. For Jonghyun, at least he was a composer, but that was about it. Taemin not really either. Gwiboon had severe depression and we only knew her for a short time, so I think she as a character makes sense. Minho however, I could totally see fitting into his character.

It didn't really feel like there was a particular point in having Onew as Eunsook. Especially since she was the spitting image of his mother, and I personally don't find Key and Onew anything alike (but maybe that's only me? I haven't really thought about this before?). Maybe it would have been better to keep the mother as an OC then? Or maybe you do find them alike... I don't know. But it didn't really feel like there was any point in having Onew there, nor to having it as a genderbend story.

Of course that can be a choice, not to include anything about the idols themselves in the stories. But then I couldn't either say that this was “definitely-not-Onew”, so maybe that's an indication that the character is maybe not particularly strong.

When writing fanfics, you have a head start, because the people reading your story already love your characters. I really recommending using that head start a bit. But if you don't want to do that, you have to work a bit harder to make your characters reach the reader.

Story

Your story is not a cliché, and it revolves around relationships in a realistic and a meaningful way.

And I think the story works much better with the sequel than without.

I did like it, but if I were to mention something that I think could be improved, it is that the story reads a little flat, and perhaps a bit cold.

It does make sense that the story is on the cold side, and that doesn't have to be bad. And it can be a conscious decision to make it cold, since the topic is coldness in a way.

I think in general, angst works better with happiness in the neighborhood.

What i mean is that it's not only the angst that keeps the waterworks running, so to speak, but the contrast of happiness and angst.

I think the story started out pretty strong, with the contrast of Jonghyun's happiness for the baby, and his concern for his wife. But the development of Jonghyun's and Eunseok's relationship is a little bit flat. It stays the same throughout, more or less. I think it would be more powerful if they had some happy moments (to let us know what they are missing out on), or if for example Eunseok would watch other people happy moments.

But since their relationship is cold, it is a valid choice to keep the story a bit “cold” for the lack of better words.

In any case, I think making the characters slightly more dimensional would automatically fix this (if you even want it to be fixed).

Also, I'm glad you added the sequel because it makes the story much more coherent. Without it, the story was kind of lacking an ending. It started and then sort of just continued until it didn't continue any more. So there wasn't a very clear ending after the first chapter, but that is very real life, and again, a valid choice. But I think that the last two paragraphs could have been worded slightly different to make it more feel like an “ending”. In any case, it's always good to put extra emphasis on the first/last paragraphs, to make sure the story starts and ends with the feeling that you want.

I really did like the ending of the sequel I must say. Because with it, the story was more meaningful. Because it showed that even though Eunseok is decided to not let her father influence how she raises her child, in the end it clearly does. By doing everything opposite to him, his way is affecting her, and making her child very dependent to her and her decisions, and maybe not giving him room to breath and make his own decisions, like to decide for himself what to think about his grandfather.

So, in some ways she wasn't completely able to escape her upbringing, and I don't really think anyone is, so to me that was very meaningful.

Overall

Your story as a whole is good. All the basics you have got covered, which does make your story maybe more challenging to review, but I welcome the challenge, it was fun for me, both to read your story and try to think of ways it could be improved (in my opinion of course).

If I would only recommend one thing, it is: Don't let your character (nor readers) always know what they are feeling down to the very last detail. Try for example to write a short story/chapter is experiencing feeling X, but isn't aware of it/doesn't know what it is. Try to make the reader find out before the character does. Just a little more showing than telling. It's more powerful if the reader figures things out on “his own” (you subtly or not so subtly help her/him of course) than telling her/him directly what is happening and how s/he should feel about it.

Also, try to break the pattern/rules a little bit. Storyline is not always smooth, and continuous (though it can be of course), sometimes things happen that break up the pattern a bit. Also, characters don't always have to be completely consistent and have one strong character trait that dominates everything. Think about your characters in a slightly broader sense than directly related to your story. How would they react in certain situations and so on? You don't have to (and probably shouldn't) describe *everything* about them. But if you feel that the character has a “life” outside of the scope of the story, I think it will come through to the reader.

I hope this, somewhat helped at least. But if not, you don't really have to worry too much, your writing is already good.

Thanks for the request and good luck with your writing!

OKgirl