Username: asianflava13

Story Title (&link): Today and Tomorrow

Main Characters (+pairings): Kang Seul Mi (OC), Kim Jongin, Kim Joon Myun, Kim Min Seok, and Wu Yi Fan

Genre(s): Angst

Current Length (No. of Chapters): 35 Chapters + Two Part Side Story

Rated?: No

Reviewer: thelittleluhan

_______________ ✦일부분 일; part one; the beginning. ✦_______________

Note: I read only 10 of your chapters so this review will be based on my impressions from those 10 chapters. I’m sorry if I have misconceived parts of your story because of this. Also, I apologize in advance if I sound too harsh.

Title;  3/5

Before reading your story I spent quite a bit of time just thinking about your title, trying to see if it gave me any idea of what was to come so that when I did read your story I could see if your title was relevant or not. Honestly, the title is vague. I couldn’t pinpoint the exact genre just by looking at it (not looking at anything else is what I mean here), and it didn’t really give me any worthwhile ideas of what your story held for me. Regardless, it did manage to stand out to me which titles are meant to do so good job on that.

Remember, a title is meant to catch a reader’s attention and get your readers thinking, speculating, and predicting your story’s plot.

Poster/Background;  3/5

My first impression on the story’s poster was “What could this story be about?” The tree in the middle was relevant to the description, and the main characters were featured on there as well. There are children faded in the background which I assume (and correct me on this if not) were Kai and Seul Mi when they were younger. The pictures used for the characters made them look like they were rich in some respect so I guess that worked well.

Other than that, I’m not really a fan of the poster. It’s simplistic and not very eye-catching. If this was a novel in a bookstore I would not have picked it up and read the synopsis at the back. Of course, this is just my personal opinion so other people might find it more appealing than I did.

Description & Foreword;  3/5

Before I say anything else I just want to stress something here. You need to proofread your material, or get a beta to read over your work and edit it for you. The dialogue in the description was fine, I didn’t see any mistakes and the voices behind the dialogue was clear. The problem I have here is that you need to polish your description. It’s the preview to your story and if it doesn’t promise well you won’t be able to attract as much readers as you have the potential to. Read over it and focus on your tenses (are you writing in the past or the present?) and even just certain parts of a sentence.

For example;

As long as I remember I was always like a tree. 

Can be corrected to: As long as I can remember, I have always been like a tree.

Something else I want to point out is that you need to indicate that the description changes from Seul Mi’s voice to Kai’s voice to a third person’s voice. It confused me a little that the POVs changed in the description without so much as a speech mark to indicate that it changed. Yes, there was a pronoun and the personality behind the words had changed clearly but it is still nice to have something to show that there was a change instead of causing more confusion.

But moving on from the negatives, I do appreciate your use of similes and a metaphor with Seul Mi being like a tree, Kai in likeliness to a beautiful flower, and the obstacles they have to face a storm that would hit them hard. This definitely added impact and grabbed my attention so well done!

The foreword was just a description of the relevant characters so I didn’t really mark you on that.

______________ ✦두 번째 부분; the second part; the seam.✦______________

Creativity/Originality;  3/5

I didn’t find this story to be original. There are a lot of fanfiction out there that follow the same basic story line that your story has, an arranged marriage where two people start off with a bad relationship and eventually fall in love after several complications. It is cliché, and perhaps that was what you were going for but it didn’t really cut it for me. It was predictable most of the time as well, and I didn’t find anything particularly original that made the story yours and different from any other similarly written stories.

Plot;  10/20

Like what I said before it is predictable so it felt like the story had already been written in my head before I even read more into the story. From what I did read though I didn’t have trouble following the plot, and that may be a good thing. I’m giving you a half way mark because I only read 10 chapters which leaves a lot of space for a higher point to have been given.

Spelling, Vocab, and Grammar;   8/15

I understand if English isn’t your first language, but I would strongly advice proofreading your work and editing it, or getting a beta to read over and make sure that mistakes in your grammar, tenses and punctuation are minimized. I’m going to be honest here, it was a little difficult to read your writing. You often misused punctuation marks, for example using a question mark at the end of a statement in the place of a full stop. Sometimes you completely leave out the full stops at the end of your sentences. It’s the little things but it matters. I would strongly advise you to fix this because it can change the intention of the dialogue you have written and confuse your readers.

Your spelling is good but I think that you could use a more sophisticated range of vocabulary that could really add some ‘spice’ to your story.

Characterization;   9/15

Seul Mi’s character felt consistent. You did really well in portraying her as a woman who was in love with her best friend who didn’t love her back, and as a person who was strong despite the struggles she was challenged with by loving Kai. Her nervous reaction (of cleaning non-stop when she is upset) was realistic in her circumstances, and I really appreciated that. We can’t have a character go through all that without taking some physical, mental and emotional damage right? I think that for a more 3-Dimensional characterization, you need to emphasize more of this love’s effects on the characters involved, especially Seul Mi.

Kai’s characterization, however, confused me. I understand that you were trying to show that he was slowly changing for the better, starting to fall for Seul Mi and all that, but it was so quick and so … unjustified in the moment that it felt like Kai had become bipolar all of a sudden and I got a bit of a whiplash. He’s abusive to Seul Mi, acts like she doesn’t exist most of the time and suddenly after doing the do with her he cares? This might be realistic but it just seems so strange and sudden.

_______________ ✦일부분 삼; part three; the little things. ✦_______________

Chapter Titles;  5/5

The titles were relevant to the content of the chapter, so full marks!

Flow;  6/10

The flow of the story felt very choppy. The scenes were short, and due to the many changes in POVs scenes weren’t as developed as they could’ve been. The pace was fast, like an event happened and it was established that it occurred and then the story moves on to the next scene. I did appreciate the pace, but I would’ve appreciated it more if the scenes were more developed and not so abrupt.

Writing Style (format + your style);  6/10

Your style is alright. I noticed that you rarely used complex sentences and often used just simple sentences that could have been altered and merged so that they could become complex sentences instead. Simple sentences make your writing feel dry, like you’re just telling a story and not really showing it.

You often mixed up your tenses which really disrupts the flow of your narrative. I wasn’t and still am not sure if you are writing in present or past tense because you changed so much. Again it’s the little things, but tenses are very important. I know it’s hard to master, I am still struggling with tenses myself, but knowing the basics will definitely improve your writing a lot more.

Sometimes the way you structured your sentences were also a little confusing. For example:
 

“How can I forget about him, Kai?”

This was said by Seul Mi to herself which was confusing because it was clear that she clearly wasn’t talking to anyone else, but the way you structured the sentence made it sound like she was directing the question at Kai instead of about him.

Extra & Notes; When I first started reading your story I wasn’t expecting it to have explicit content, even if implied. There was no indication of that particular scene (ref; Chapter 2) happening, either by rating the story with an M or placing a trigger warning anywhere.

I strongly advise you to put up a trigger warning if you aren’t going to rate your story M. You don’t know who could be reading your story, and you especially don’t know if what you are writing can cause negative reactions from your audience. I’m just saying, please be careful.  

Total Score; 56/95 ♡