This is the review of 4/7 by rhymes10. Please comment down below or PM me when you have picked up your review. Please credit the shop somewhere in your foreword. I don't have a banner made yet, so a simple link is fine. :)

“to be more specific for characters and their development and plot as well”

^^ The following rubric has been altered to meet this request.

Before I start I would like to commend you on your great english vocabulary. You have a great deal of descriptive and captivating words. But the problem is that your grammar is really bad. I don’t want to sugarcoat this,  because you need to get the message clearly. The grammar is at a point that I can only do so much to help you; I can’t teach you everything. I don’t know if english is your second language or you just have a hard time with it, but you really need to spend some time fixing it. Get a teacher to help you or go online and read a couple of posts about the english language and it’s grammar. I will try to help you out in this review as much as I can.

1. Layout 7/10

Does the story flow? 2/2

Is it well organized? 2/2

Paragraphs indented? 1/2 - Just a reminder that the basic rule for starting a new line is either a new person is talking, or the description changes to a different context. You have not been completely following this rule for some parts of your story.

Is there page breaks or sections for every scene change? 2/2

If there is a moral to the story, is it clear? 0/2 - I am unsure what the moral of the story is. The plot is completely vague, or not there altogether, and I really think you need to work on this.

      2. Grammar 5.5/9

Capitalization? 2/2

No Run-ons? 1/2 - You have a fair amount of run-ons in your story. Here are a couple examples:

“Even though the durations of video calls you often had were not that long because his manager would scold him for doing so, that was more than enough for you.”

“You glared at him as he kept refusing to give you his phone instead he was laughing again.”

These sentences are way too long. There is no pause or break in between. If I was reading this outloud, it would be a very awkward mouthful.

Try to break them up with commas, or change them into two or more sentences by rearranging the words around.

Here I have corrected them:

“You often had short video calls, because his manager would scold him if he took too much time. But this was more than enough for you.”

“You glared at him. He was refusing to give his phone to you, and he was laughing.”

You can see that I have completely rearranged the structure of the sentences. This happened in order to keep all that information, but get rid of the run-ons. Sometimes it is necessary to do this to fit everything in. There is also nothing wrong with having a couple extra sentences if need be.

Correct Punctuation? 1.5/2

I originally took half of a mark off because I was certain that you had used a semicolon incorrectly. But then I researched for a good thirty minutes and realized that is was correct; how embarrassing for me.

The reason that I didn’t give the mark back is because there a couple punctuation mistakes in your dialogue.  

Here are some of the mistakes that I found:

“Ah, why all of those memories keep replaying in my head”

“Thank goodness he is still the brightest man like he used to be,”

“You wish”

“Put it on. It’s important,”

NOTE:

I found about twenty other pieces of dialogue in one of your chapters alone that didn’t end in periods. It’s a pretty basic rule, I don’t think I have to teach you how to use periods. I recommend going back and adding those in.

I don’t want to be too harsh, but your grammar is pretty bad. I will get into that in the next section, but for now, I will just fix the grammar mistakes.

“Ah, why are all of these memories replaying in my head”

“Thank goodness he is still a bright man just like he used to be,”

“You wish”

“Put it on. It’s important,”

The yellow quotes are wrong because you didn’t put a period at the end of the sentence. The blue quotes are wrong because you used the commas incorrectly. I will first point out that this:

“Thank goodness he is still a bright man just like he used to be,”

Should be this:

“Thank goodness he is still a bright man, just like he used to be.”

You need to put a comma in the sentence to avoid a run-on. Also the comma at the end should be a period. The basic rule is that you put a comma at the end in order to show that the character has not finished talking, they are just taking a break between sentences. The comma at the end would be correct if you had written this:

“Thank goodness he is still a bright man, just like he used to be,” You mumbled quietly, sniffing as you did so. “That was one of the reasons why I loved him.”

I don’t know if Serri would say this, but you get the idea. However, this is not what she said in the story. She stopped talking after that one line of dialogue. That is why it should end in a sentence.

“Put it on. It’s important,”

Should be:

“Put it on. It’s important.”

For the same reason I explained above.

NOTE:

I found all of these mistakes in your fifth chapter if you would like to go back and correct them.

Proper English? 1/3  - There are a LOT of grammar mistakes. This completely overwhelms the fact that you have a great english vocabulary. I don’t even think that I can help you with it. Many things are to hard to explain through a review. I would recommend getting someone you know in real life to help you or check your grammar with you. I’m not saying that you have to show them this particular story, but maybe you can write up something and they can check that. It would be too hard for me to give you pointers, because I am unsure if you will understand them or it will be helpful at all to you. I am sorry I am unable to help you with this.

       3. Plot Line 2/12

Has a clear point? 0/2  

Conflict is resolved in the end? 0/2

Plot line is complex, but easy to get a grasp of? 0/2

Plot is intriguing and draws people in? 0/4

Great imagery that creates a scene in the reader's mind? 2/2

I think that your weakest point with this story is the plotline. Although you already have six chapters published, I am completely unaware of what the story is about. From what I have gathered, Serri is Baekhyun’s girlfriend. She is somewhat insecure about their relationship, and she thinks that is reason enough to go behind his back and cheat on him. It also seems like she has some unresolved health issues?

This is not a plot. You can base a plot off of it, but you can’t turn this information into a storyline. There are too many holes.

The first piece of advice I have for you is to figure out your character's morals. You need to have a clear understanding of what both characters are trying to achieve in their relationship. You need to answer the “why” questions. Why is Serri so insecure? Why does she think this way? Why did she decide to cheat on Baekhyun? Why is she withholding information from him?  

You should also think about resolving the “what” questions. What are the characters feeling? What is wrong with Serri? What makes her behave this way?

The thing I really struggled with when reading your story was the fact that you withhold too much information from your audience. To not reveal a couple things is okay. In fact, it creates suspense. But you haven’t really told the reader anything but the fact that Baekhyun and Serri are in a relationship. I had many questions rolling around my head when reading this, and I half expected them to be answered by the first few chapters. But they weren’t, and that just makes reading the story a whole lot harder; because I haven’t got the slightest idea what is going on.

When giving out information to the readers, my advice would be to give it to them in chunks. Don’t start your story with a wave of information, or leave everything for the reader to find out in the last few pages. You should break up the information, and disperse it throughout your story. I am not saying that there should be no secrecy. Nor am I saying that Serri should tell Baekhyun that she is cheating at the beginning of chapter one. I am simply stating that the best way to indulge the audience in information, is through the characters thoughts. Maybe Serri could think about the fact that she is dating another man, and then we will know what she is hiding, but Baekhyun will not. Another option is to have a scene between Serri and Hansol, which at one point or another reveals their relationship with each other. If you release information this way, the reader will not be completely confused when Serri is accused of cheating. Instead, they will know of this mysterious man, and they will be able to understand everything that is happening, and why each character is reacting the way they are. Although some of the characters may not. This is called dramatic irony. It is defined as being a form of irony that is inherent in a situation of drama and is understood by the audience, but not grasped by the characters in the story.

I would recommend doing this for many parts throughout the story. You can reveal what Serri was like in the past, what her relationship with Hansol is, and why she is so insecure. I understand that it is hard to give information like this when the story is written in second person narrative. You want the reader to feel like they are the main character of the story, and it is hard to give so much information about a character that is supposed to be two dimensional. This is partially why I dislike reviewing second person point of view (idolxreader), because it is hard to critique a piece of literature when has been morphed to give as little information as possible on purpose.

As for your plot, I think you may want to sit down and reconsider what the story is even about. What is the main problem? What are the situations that lead up to it? How did the problem present itself in the first place? How is it resolved? Is it ever resolved?

You really need to think about answering these key questions before you start writing the chapters. You don’t necessarily need to plan out every little thing, but you need to know where the story is going, and when it will end. Otherwise, you will either run out of things to write about, or you will be stuck in the middle of the story, without a clear way of ending it. There is a certain plot structure that I learned early on in school, and I think that you could use it to help yourself to figure out the fundamentals of your plotline.

The structure is like so:

1. Exposition:  This is where you explain who the character is, what they do, what they like, etc. You can also set the scene for the story here.

2. Initial Incident: This is where you can introduce your problem. Something that happens, that gets the story rolling.

3. Rising Action: Events or situations that happen in order to create more tension. NOTE: If you start off the rising action with some sort of tragic event, such as a character dies, gets gravely injured, a natural disaster occurs, you are going to have to top it for the . In other words, you should never start a story off at a extreme high peak of tension, because you will have to either carry that amount of tension throughout the rest of the story, or it will eventually calm down, and readers will get bored with reading your story.

4. : When the fate of the protagonist (main character) is known. I will use some popular stories as an example:

The for Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone: Harry finally finds the stone and is able to withhold it from Voldemort’s grasp. Voldemort is defeated. You now know that Harry is safe, and the stone is in the hands of people who can destroy it.

Lord of the Rings: Frodo drops the Ring into the fire of Mordor. The ring is destroyed forever, and Sauron loses his power. Sam and Frodo are then rescued by eagles. You now know that both of them are safe, and evil has been conquered.

Hunger Games: Katniss and Peeta are the only two tributes standing. This means that one of them will have to kill the other. Unable to do so, they come up with the idea of double suicide. This forces the authorities to coincide and allow them to call the game a tie. You now know that both of them are out of harm's way, and they have successfully beat the Hunger Games together.

Cinderella: Cinderella’s foot fits into the glass slipper perfectly. She now has the choice to marry the prince and escape her life of drudgery. This she does very happily.

Narnia: Susan, Lucy, Edmund, and Peter successfully beat the Witch and her followers. They reign over Narnia as adults for many years to come. You know that they have beaten evil, and they have earned great respect by the inhabitants of Narnia.

To Kill A Mockingbird: Boo Radley kills Bob Ewell, and saves both Scout and Jem from danger. Scout learns a valuable lesson about what life is like for Boo, and she embraces her father’s advice to practice sympathy and understanding. Her experiences with hatred and prejudice will not deter her. In the end, both children are safe, and they have learned important lessons.

I hope you have read/watched one of these so that you know what I mean when I refer to the .

           5.    Falling Action: What happens after the fact. How do the characters begin to go back to their daily lives? How do they recover from this situation?

           6. Resolution: How does the story end? Make sure that all problems and incidents have been solved.

Of course, not every story will follow this specific pattern. But they do roughly follow the same flow pattern, and if you can practice and understand this one, then you will be able to move on and try more complicated plotlines.

        4. Character Development 5.5/9

Are emotions present in the story? 2/2

Are the major characters dynamic and round, rather than static and flat? 1.5/3  - First I will give you a little bit of context. A dynamic character is a character that undergoes an important change in their personality or attitude. A round character is a character who is extremely realistic, behaving and speaking in a “real life” manner. The character is complex and has many sides to their personality. Static and flat is the literal opposite of these terms. I think that your characters are currently static and flat. This applies to the main characters only, as other characters usually don’t need to be to complicated.

My best advice for you is to create a sort of list for every character in your story. You should write down what their motives are, and what goals they want to achieve throughout the story. After you have done that, I would get another piece of paper and list all the relationships for the main character.

Example:

Park Serri

Byun Baekhyun - describe relationship and what she thinks about him

Hansol - same

Chanyeol - same

Mother - same

Father - same

Sister - same

You can use this as a reference point in order to keep relationships between characters consistent. This especially helps when you go back to a story after a couple months break like I have haha.

In order to create depth to a character, you need to establish what they want most, what their background and past is, and what their personality is like. From there you can determine how they will react to others, situations around them, and what they think/feel.

You need to create this for Serri. Figure out what she wants from her relationships, what has happened to her in highschool (because it seems like it wasn’t a great time for her), and what her personality is like. Once you do this, it will become way easier to have them react with different characters and situations; since you have a starting point to go off of. You should also try to achieve this with Baekhyun as well.

The next thing I recommend is to introduce some new characters, or at least deepen the ones that you already have. Maybe you can add a few things about Chanyeol and his life, or possibly Hansol? The reader knows next to nothing about these characters and it is always nice to have a little insight or some background information about them.

Can people sympathize or relate to the main/major characters? 2/2

Does it make the reader feel something? 0/2 - This will naturally occur when the characters have been nicely developed. When this happens, readers will become more interested in the storyline, and they will start to become emotionally attached to the major characters. If anything bad or devastating happens to them, they will feel it too.

         5. Dialogue 8.5/10

Does it make sense? 2/3 - The dialogue does make sense, but I have taken a mark off because of poor grammatical errors inside the quotes.

Is it realistic? 2/2

Is it well balanced with descriptions? 1.5/2 - I would work towards having a bit more description in your story. I feel like you can expand on the description of actions and words a little bit more.

Is it well paced? 3/3

Personal Enjoyment: 4/10

Overall Score: 32.5/60

*Stories that score over 50 will be advertised in the Ulzzang Review Shop for three weeks after it has been reviewed.*

If this review was unsatisfactory, or you would like to place a complaint, please PM me. If you need more help with anything else, don't hesitate to ask!

Good luck and happy writing!