Author: Onewbias1323

Reviewer: secretseven

Story Link

Dear Onewbias,

Hello. I hope you didn't wait for too long. Let me begin by quoting Chim's previous review because I think it will be useful for both of us:

"There are writers on AFF who write for the sake of writing, playing with words and characters, and there are those who write for the sake of sharing a fantasy about an idol with others."

My First Kiss is a product of the latter. But, please, don't think of it as an insult because it's not my intention nor is it the Review Shops. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with sharing fantasies. I think fantasies make up a good part of story telling. But because you do dwell on creating this world of fantasies more so than other elements of the story, it becomes less of something you can take seriously and that may sit well with you and everything I say after this first paragraph will prove useless if you do not wish to pursue a more professional writing style, so please do not feel guilty for not reading on. I just wanted to establish the fact that I may read as too harsh (that may be a stretch since it has been long established that I'm the kindest of us three) only because you submitted in this Review Shop that takes writing seriously and who do not see fanfiction as just a platform where people indulge in fantasies.

I wanted to start by saying that there is nothing wrong in your story but that would be me sugar-coating too much so let me re-word myself-- there is a lot of things wrong in your story but it does serve its purpose which is to entertain.  You have a way with words and your English isn't bad at all. You have a talent that even some writers who take writing seriously and produce wonderfully grammatical stories don't-- you can conjure up scenes-- and this is a talent! I found myself seeing your story inside my head and that's saying a whole lot because you write dialogs without enough descriptions on the setting but I somehow see it. I wish I can tell you how you do it because this is a great strength as a story teller but I'm having a hard time putting my finger on it so let's just leave it at that. You have something that others don't and you have it at your disposal to pursue formal writing but I have to admit that you need a lot of work. But hard work equals progress, yes? And progress is something all humans aspire, is it not? Then now I shall proceed in discussing where you need most work on. As always, let seven be guided by Chim's rubric so I don't stray as much.

Plot

I think because you are aiming for entertainment realism took a back seat in your consideration. I could point out the obvious that an All-Gay-School is highly unlikely but that is beyond the point. It was hard for me to get over but I did. I would love to see more psychological insights on this one though. If you portrayed Yoseob as being torn with a taboo attraction and portraying the conflict of believing you are heteroual and finding out you're not, this could have been exponentially more interesting. As of now, your characters are too impassive. But the lost past is intriguing and I know you have yet to reach the of the story so I can't really give you a really in-depth analysis of plot.

Do I have to confess that I know nothing of Beast and MBLAQ? I'm sorry.

Language & style

You use a lot of Korean in your story and that's fine, I guess within the fandom of Kpop. But I'll try to convince you to at least limit it to popular words. Of course, this just may be me with my Korean noobness. But often times when I encountered Korean in your story, I stop and wonder what the word was and instead of going to Google I just try to understand the word in context. It was very frustrating. Again, mixing languages in writing is not formal unless you emphasize the word as different by italicizing it. Think elf speak in LOTR. But there Elven was meant to not be understood. Here turning Korean is just... playing coy. "Bwoh" and "what" are the same. They mean the same. Their effect is the same. I think opting for "bwoh" is just unnecessary artistic flair.

Like I've said earlier, your English isn't bad but you have a lot of grammatical mistakes that I think is more out of habit than anything else. Writing, I must stress, is instinctive and there is nothing worse than developing a habit of errors that you instinctively make this error over and over. So I do suggest working on them. It's not just writing fanfiction but your professional life in the future. So take care of those you're and your, their and they're. Writing is instinctive but grammar isn't really. It's work. Work hard and you'll easily get better.

As for the narrative, your story tends to focus on dialogue. I would suggest you try your hand at writing more narratives in. I would love to make suggestions but for the sheer lack of it, I will opt not to. If you do want to hear my suggestions, please mail me your draft which I can work on. Seeing that you've copy locked your work. General suggestions though is be more descriptive. Show your readers what your characters are seeing. Make them feel what your characters are feeling. Make the story come to life. Engage. 

Originality & entertainment

The story is fun and it raises a lot of question and with care you can make this into a very interesting story. The concept of amnesia, homouality and harem are all overused but with proper treatment I do believe you can work it all out.

Flow

You do multiple POV changes in one chapter. I am not trying to bash POV shifts but always think of story telling as watching a story. How would you feel jumping from one shot to another? Jump shots are acceptable but they must be spaced out. I would suggest picking one POV per chapter judging your chapter length. POV shifts disrupts the flow and makes the whole structure of your story awkward.

Characters

I may have touched on this already but your characters lack the psychological conflict. You need to work in how they feel and they should not easily accept homouality even if they were one in the lost past. You must understand that being a homoual is not easy. Often times, it's a struggle to come in to terms with it and because you are starting at this beginning, the psychological aspect of this is not only interesting but a necessary component.

Presentation

I think you're poster is beautiful. I like how it's toned down and somber looking. It gives an allusion to depth.

Now I have to nit pick on some details and this might be just me but your Foreword is too busy. The black highlights, the glittery lip image. The multi-colored text. The first time I saw it my mind can only register colors. It's hard to read and the smacking lips on top is overly distracting because it even moves every few seconds. Think of reading a physical book with the page numbers walking around on top. Sure, it's cool to look at but is it conducive to reading? Not likely. I can never be a good judge with fonts because I never bother with it, I believe that the text should speak for itself but I have always liked tasteful and discrete manipulation of font style. In reference, please check out any of Chim's stories.

I also have a problem with the profiles in the Description area. The purpose of the description is like those snippets that you find on the back of a book or at the inside of its sleeve, given that the profile does serve that purpose, it could have been written narratively. Again, this comment is mostly just useful if you want to write more formally and that option is fully based on your decision. You can opt to ignore all of this if you don't intend to take writing seriously but just in case, right?

Let's look at inside of your story. Did you use a bigger font size for any reason? Was it a conscious choice? I don't know if it works for other people but I found it a touch condescending, like bigger font size makes me feel like being treated as a child. I don't know. I wish I can be more insightful with this one but really all I'm trying to get across is that bigger font size begs the question "Why?" and just in case you wanted to know, generally the standard acceptable font size is twelve.

You also like varying font color when you insert thoughts and putting them in between asterisks. This goes with some of your action words too. For example, *cough,* *sigh,* and *I can't believe that guy just stole my first kiss(color change).* All this goes against the standard of formal writing. Always think of consistency and because you dwell too much on dialogs, I wonder if this would work better in full script format which I think would be extremely clever. As far as tips will go, if you want to keep a narrative prose form, I would suggest using: "I/He/She coughed." instead and using the italics command for thoughts. It's more subtle but it gets your point across.

Working on an excerpt of your story (Chapter 2):

What the hell happened? I was stunned. I can't believe that guy just stole my first kiss! (I would suggest putting a descriptive sentence here about being bothered by it. Think how would you feel if your first kiss was stolen and by someone who is of the same gender. Given that he will inevitably turn gay, think of the emotional stress that may impose on the person.) My fingers unconsciously made its way to my lips. But how come it feels so familiar...

A seven take on it: What the hell happened? I was stunned. I can't believe that guy just stole my first kiss! There was turmoil inside my head. I've just been kissed! And by a man for that matter!  Inside, I raged but was stopped by the feel of my fingers pressed on my lips. How can my first kiss feel familiar?

May have reworded this. I'm working on memory. 

You also have this habit of putting Author's Note within the story. I encountered it in chapter 1:

"...I sang my way downstairs (A/N: Is that even proper English?)"

Author's note within a story cuts the flow of the story. Please take it out and I might be confused at the moment but I think it is proper English.

Title (Pass)

In all honesty, I liked the title "My First Kiss." It's cliche, I know but it's still relevant and the "first kiss" is a plot device and could pertain to the perceived first kiss or the one in the past that was unfortunately forgotten.
 

End Comments: I wish I could give you more guidance in developing narration but all in all I do not have a grip on your writing style in terms of narrating. I would suggest you add more to it. Take care of all the grammar errors, get rid of the unnecessary punctuation and be more in-depth. If you do decide you want help in composing your narrative then you could try writing a longer one and I could look over it, if you want. That said, I must stress that you have potential but you have a lot of work in front of you and I sincerely hope that I have helped you along the direction of developing into a better writer.

Letter Mark: D-

I feel like quoting my Rhetoric professor as a farewell: "Never let a grade define you."

Thank you for submitting your story to Changtastic.

Yours,

Seven

Peanut Gallery Reports! (ChangCheree): This is certainly a popular story, and I can see why! Your characters are lively and you successfully chose a pretty mainstream combination of themes. Howeer, I do agree with Sevvy’s points about… pretty much everything. I feel that the main reason your mark suffered was due to the unprofessional writing. This work fringed on script-writing, with quite an array of non-standard punctuation marks; interrobangs (?!), tildes (~), asteriks (**) should not be used. Additionally, POV change declarations should not be made. Numbers less than 12 should be spelled out. I would make further comments about your language and style, but it’s important that you grasp the basics of writing first. I can understand that writing with colors and nonstandard punctuation can be fun and makes the story get along so much faster, but fanfiction writing is also writing, and at this review shop we take professional writing quite seriously.

I also agree with secretseven pointing out that your story serves its purpose; it’s entertaining, and your writing style probably satisfies the right audience (again, judging by the subscribers and comments). However, the reviewers at this shop probably aren’t your target audience. We gave you the mark that we felt was appropriate from our perspective.