Story Title: Beloved Loveless

Author: BBVIP21BlackJack

Reviewer: icednoodles

Story Link

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Review;

Title: (4/5)
The idea of a 'beloved loveless' seemed a bit strange to me, yet still quite intriguing. After learning of what a 'Loveless' and a 'Beloved' actually were, I was really impressed by your play on words.

Poster: (4/5)
While there is no poster, I cannot dock points for that reason alone. The picture that you used of Key works well with the general mood of the story, and his facial expression does a fairly good job of matching the personality of Key's mindset in the story and showing that Key is the main focus of the story, as well. The image that you have does the job of visual assistance even better than a poster would, in this situation. It's simple, yet it still manages to tell the reader what they're in for.

Foreword/Description: (3.5/5)
You have created an entire world of possibilities with a description like that, and I'm a little saddened by the fact that I didn't get to learn more about it because frankly, it sounds pretty fascinating. This is the type of description that sparks a great interest in the reader, but could lead to disappointment when they realize that this was only an explanation of Key's existence and why his family lives the way it does.

Normally, I hate when there are questions directed at the reader in a description/foreword, because it normally gives away the rest of the story and I have no interest in reading it afterwards. I cringed when I read the last two sentences of your foreword, but after reading the story, I have to congratulate you on not falling into the pit of predictability. They don't give away anything at all, and the 'answers' for them aren't as cliche as I thought they would be. I love when I think the know how the story will unfold, but it surprises me.

Now, there is the little problem of language. Overall, you did a pretty great job of getting your message across and generally not fumbling with your grammar. But you did fall victim to a couple of somewhat common mistakes that occur when writing in a first-person narrative:

1) "It may seem as if I was a normal person, but I'm not." - 'Was' is the wrong tense for this sentence, and should be replaced by 'am'/I'm in this situation, with a bit of shuffling of the sentence. An example of the final product is: "It may seem like I'm a normal person, but I'm not."

2) "I didn't do anything bad is the thing, I only had to exist to become Loveless." - You might have complicated your life with this sentence's structure, something I'm guilty of doing at times as well. Try and keep it simple: "The thing is, I didn't do anything bad; I only had to exist to become a Loveless." (Without the 'a' before Loveless, loveless would simply be an adjective (descriptive word, lowercase first letter) instead of a pronoun (the name of a person, place, etc., uppercase first letter. If you wanted to go for the adjective, then take out the 'a' and write loveless with a lowercase l.)

I won't point out all the mistakes (there aren't that many, don't worry), I'd like you to take a chance at finding them yourself. Remember, don't try too hard with your writing. I used to do that a lot when I first started out, because I wanted to write like all of my favorite writers did, but I only ended up making several mistakes because I over-complicated everything.

Characterization: (7/10)
I understand that Key doesn't particularly enjoy his way of living, or anything at all, apparently. But his anger and/or sadness began to come across as unnecessary whining somewhere in the middle of the story, and I found him a bit annoying. I guess he's a bit of a anti-hero in this sense; there's good in him, but it has been ripped away because of a variety of circumstances and now he's just this cold shell. I think that's what you were going for, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Luckily, though, you did a good enough job of not making me hate him by the end of the story. I still didn't agree with his way of solving the problems he felt were caused by him, but at the same time, I'm glad he did what he did because that just seems like something his character would do. I'm glad you didn't lose the character after his little revelation, like most writers - especially television show writers - tend to do.

I didn't grow attached to any of the other characters, but I don't feel like I was supposed to, so I don't mind at all. It was really a story about Key through Key's eyes, and how Jonghyun's character affected him, how Key felt about his family, and how the world generally felt about his type of being. You made it so the characters were there, and served their respective roles well enough that I didn't feel they were irrelevant.

Originality: (3/5)
It's a very basic story, one that I have read many, many times before, with our broken lead character finding love for the first time. But what makes this story stand out from the crowd is the world the story is set in. It's sort of like eating five similar pies. They all have the same basic ingredients, but yours will be remembered because it had that little something extra, so good job with managing to do that.

Plot: (10/15)
Like I said before, it's a very basic story that follows a pretty straight-forward plot line and that isn't necessarily a bad thing. It was nice reading about how Key slowly started to fall in love with Jonghyun, you did a good job of presenting this. Normally, characters lose their personality and change into a completely different person after they've fallen in fall, but you managed to have Key fall in love but not change into a completely different person. With a story like this, characters determine the flow of the plot, and how you handled the romance made the story flow beautifully. And the way you wrapped this up with wonderful.

There wasn't much to this aside from that, which also isn't a bad thing. You knew what your story was about and where it was going, and I admire you for not jumping around and trying to throw unnecessary things into the story.

Spelling/Grammar/Punctuation: (20/25)
I will not point out any of the mistakes that are in the actual story, I still would like to see if you can pick them out yourself because I believe it's better when a writer identify their own mistakes and correct them to their liking, so I'll just outline the basics:

Be careful with your tenses (pretense, past, future), because you do get them mixed up from time to time. This shouldn't be something you panic about, though, because it happens with all of us and your mix up aren't really that terrible. But do try and see if you can differentiate between when you have to use words like was, am, is, were, and so on. And again, sometimes simple is best. Don't over complicate things if you don't have to.

I didn't notice that many spelling and punctuation errors, so all I really have to say in relation to that is good job. Your use of words at times just amazed me. The way you described certain events and actions, or emotions that Key felt was really unique, and clear. My favorite line from the story has to be this:

"'What are you doing here Jonghyun?' I couldn't help but think as I fell into the snow, shivering and unmoving as black crept into view."

It was wonderful how you didn't just say he closed his eyes and fell asleep. And the fact that you waited a paragraph or so before confirming that yes, he did actually fall asleep, just made me love this line even more.

Writing Style: (9/10)
You have a wonderful writing style, and I have to say I'm a little envious because I'm still struggling a bit with my own. The fact that you managed to pull off a story written in first-person is great, because normally, I just find it incredibly clumsy.

Flow: (4/5)
Great flow, straight to the point, didn't linger where it didn't need it, developed the characters at a believable pace and I like how you added in the time span of events now and again, so the reader didn't get lost, wondering what happened when.

Enjoyment: (7.5/10)
Like I said, for some time Key wasn't my favorite character, so that knocked my enjoyment levels for a little, but overall, it was a pretty fun read.

Bonus: (3/5) 

Overall Total: (75/100)

shimaknae's note:

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