Title: That Odd Feeling

By: Milky-chan

Title: 2.5/5

The only thing I can associate to having ‘an odd feeling’ with would be walking into a room with a weird vibe… I really can’t link ‘odd’ with angst or romance, unless a certain character falls in love with the class’ nerd/weirdo, though I’m still not convinced by that reason, *weak laughs. I guess we’ll have to read the story to see why Kyuhyun is feeling ‘odd’.

Poster 2.5/5

The colours used in the poster sets a melancholic feeling, but one can easily misinterpret the graphic because it seems like at least one of the 3 characters featured in the story is dead(or going to die) due to the presence of clouds, which can be associated with being in heaven or in the afterlife. I don’t understand why there’s a ‘crown’ image behind Yesung and Kyuhyun.

Intro: 2.5/5

The intro is draggy. You seem to state a point and in the next sentence, repeat it while adding a little more information into it.

After I was done with the chunk of words, I was pondering on why you didn’t name the fic ‘That Bitter Feeling’ or ‘That Sad Feeling’ instead, because it’s now known to readers that he’s been in love with quite a number of people but he’s still y-free-and-single because he’d rather keep his mouth shut and see others whisk his eye candies away.

There are many contradictions in your introduction and here’s one: For him, pain is an invisible feeling that could crushes his heart in a second. And the pain always did a good job for his poor heart.

You have already established that The Pain crushes his heart, and yet you say it’s a good thing. So…he’s a sadist?

But before that, we have this: He would suffer, he would be in pain.

What's going on? But anyway, see the repitition here? 

Content: 6/10

First and foremost, I liked how you fooled everyone into thinking that Kyuhyun was in love with that person. It was a nice twist and helped set it apart from other one-shots that are usually happily ever after and what not.

I also enjoyed the way you described the melancholia of both Kyuhyun and his environment; of him staring into nothingness; his lifelessness; his conflicted feelings; and his room being in a mess. These factors effectively help readers in connecting with your protagonist.

However, my biggest problem was ‘That Odd Feeling’. What Kyuhyun’s feeling most of all would be regret, for he never plucked up enough courage to go chase after the person’s who actually been in his heart for the longest of time. I’d rather you named the one-shot ‘The Consequences Hurt’, which was used as the title of the ‘chapter’. It’s more fitting, since Kyuhyun’s suffering from the aftermath of keeping his golden mouth shut.

Organisation: 7/10

The story was developed fairly well and it was easy to read as the transition between scenes was smooth. Good job.

Vocabulary, Language and Structure: 20/30

There aren’t major grammatical or spelling mistakes, but the biggest beef I have would be the inconsistency of tenses. During the part where you described Kyuhyun having feelings for Jongwoon, you used a mix of present and past tense. I know that it’s because Kyuhyun still has feelings for Jongwoon, however, the whole story is narrated in past tense, so it should remain that way throughout.

Your sentence structures are usually quite effective and varied, but I don’t know what happened to this one:

Some were rushing to school or work, some were enjoying the fresh air by jogging in the park and some were even doing a set of stretching before starting the day.

Oh come on, couldn’t there have been a variation to describe the different groups of people instead of using ‘some’ three times?

Audience engagement/effect on readers + Originality: 13/20

This one-shot’s length was just right, so it wasn’t a drag to read. Of course you’re not the inventor of the 'lover-plot-twist-bomb', but it’s uncommonly used so it was quite a breath of fresh air for me when I was done with your story.

Readers will be highly engaged by your story because your efforts in describing Kyuhyun’s morose state is quite effective, but we can’t help but feel a little depressed at the end of it.     

Character Design/Depth: 6/15

I really want to murder Kyuhyun for being such a wimpy assed kid, but then again, I’m sure there really are chickenhearted people out there who will never ever confess their love. Kyuhyun seems to be on the brink of self-destruction and I’m not surprised if he commits suicide (if there’s ever a sequel).

But really, all I see in the story is a depressed Kyuhyun bumping around; he’s probably unemployed too, living in squalor and sleeping all day long. He isn’t a very fun character to watch if this were a series.

PM me if you have any queries about the review.