A Warm Christmas by colours_
http://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/614007

Title          3/5
Appearance          5/5
Foreword         8/10
Flow           4/5
Characterization       15/25
Plot       16/25
Style         7/10
Grammar        6/10
Dialogue           4/5

Total      68/100

reviewed by Suliee

Title: It's sweet and fluffy but the title is also simple to the point it sounds cliché. To many, Christmas can be described as warm—easily visible: families gather, giving, etc. Too easy. You want to make readers think, feel, tug at their curiosity.

Appearance: The layout hasn’t been altered too much from the original. But I did notice that the story’s paragraph spaces are twice the size it’s supposed to be. I want to say: Press ‘enter’ only once, but I actually find this style choice interesting and I like it. It makes it seem more mysterious and vague although the plot is clear-cut plot.

Foreword: The description is good but you’ve explained more than needed. For longer stories—chaptered stories usually—a bit of explaining is okay. But for short stories, even a sentence (I feel) is sufficient. Your first sentence talks of Youngwoon, who had gone to the National Service, and then you follow-up by explaining the reasons behind your story. Give the readers enough but not everything.

She is part of the reason Youngwoon went for National Service earlier than the other members; he wants to be someone she can fully rely on. Now he’s back.

Now there are more questions.

I do like the foreword. It really brings out the angst.

Flow: The scenes themselves are at a good pace, but the overall story is way too fast. The readers saw the past but not enough of the present.

Characterization: The main characters are Kangin and your original character. They are typical characters with no depth. Romance based novels should be focused around the characters and their development. Min Jee is the heartbroken ex-girlfriend who can’t move on while Kangin is the popular guy who forgets about his past. Somehow, Kangin is forgiven when he comes back from the army. Is this because Min Jee was desperate? Is this because of low self-esteem? We, readers don't have enough info about the characters to detect this. It'd been more than two years since they've seen each other, and no change. Let the characters grow so there aren't just a few traits to describe them.

Plot: The storyline is very simple—reflects your title. You skimmed something that could be more interesting.  Like I said in the characterization section, for a romance based short story, focus on making realistic characters. Readers want to understand why the two like each other. That is the plot, no? You want to get from Point A to Point B, from them broken to them dating again without breaking the flow.

Style: The style of writing is found by looking at the sentence structure, word choice, tone, and punctuation etc... Does the writer use sensory details and figurative language, and where? These are things to look for; however, I understand you are still developing own style (and so am I) so I can't judge.

The overall writing style was fine. It flowed well and had a good semi-angst tone to it. Although it's in third person, it's best to stick to one person's point of view. It's less confusing and helps develop that character. I didn't mind Kangin's POV but Donghae's and the mother's POV was unnecessary. You can still tell those scenes from Kangin's and Min Jee's view.

To improve your style, get a better grasp on your grammar, then better your writing style will become. Try out other styles from maybe your favourite authors. See which one feels the most comfortable to write with and just keep moving from there.

Grammar: There are a lot of grammatical errors, but they’re mostly repeats. And I’m certain you can fix them. We’re going to work with this sentence:

A few seconds passed, she sneak a glance to check if he is still looking and is relief to see that he has already turned away to wave at the fans at the other corner.

Firstly: Run-on sentence. This means you have two independent clauses in one sentence (two complete sentences in one). Separate them with a period. There are other ways to divide them depending on the sentence but the safest route is with a period.

A few seconds passed. She sneak…

Secondly: Subject/Verb Agreement. You have to match the subject and the verb. Is the subject singular or plural? Sometimes you get it right and sometimes you don’t. In this case, you get most of it right expect for “she sneak”. It should be: she sneaks.

A few seconds passed. She sneaks a glance…

Thirdly: Tense changes. Writing present tense stories (at least for me) is hard. You got to look at the flow of the story really carefully. You need to decide what happened in the past and what is currently happening. This is what we have so far with the verbs underlined:

A few seconds passed. She sneaks a glance to check if he is still looking and is relief to see that he has already turned away to wave at the fans at the other corner.

If you want it in the past:

A few seconds passed. She sneaked a glance to check if he was still looking and was relieved to see that he had already turned away to wave at the fans at the other corner.

If you want it in the present:

A few seconds pass. She sneaks a glance to check if he is still looking and is relieved to see that he has already turned away to wave at the fans at the other corner.

There are a lot of sites out there that can help you with your grammar. Look at them. Reading books help too (NOT fanfiction). If you want to look at some present tense novels, read: “The Hunger Games” by Collins, and “The Time Traveler’s Wife” by Niffenegger. They’re easy reads and might help.

Dialogue: It’s great, you only use when needed. But there wasn’t any dialogue that popped out to me.

Reviewer's Comments: Before thinking about the style, look at your grammar. It builds style. For example, how you want to structure the sentence and your word choices. And your own style doesn’t come till you’ve written a lot. (And I mean a lot.) So don’t worry about it f too much for now. I hope this helped.