| Review for Octy08  || Story: Story of My Unspoken Heart (Reviewed with 6 chapters) || By MarilynTheMushroom |

Title: 5/5

Honestly, when I first saw your title, I thought it read ‘Story of My Life’ and I began to think about how mainstream it would be but instead you put ‘Unspoken Heart’ in place of ‘Life’ which was pretty unique because I for one have never seen such a title before. The name was absolutely eye-catching and definitely different from most names of stories so full marks for you here!

Overall Appearance: 6/10

I feel that your foreword looked a bit too plain. Since you don’t have a poster or background, I just think that your wording, size, font and layout of it all should play a bigger part and distract the reader from realising the missing parts to your foreword. So I would suggest that perhaps you could make the font size a bit bigger? The font is alright but if you plan on making it larger, then maybe the font should be less bold and more softer-looking (like without sharp straight lines e.g. Arial, Calibri etc.).

Hence, I gave you a six out of ten due to the overall being too plain for my liking, but I can guarantee you that if you had a poster or a background, your score might have been higher! Also, I feel that maybe you could have made more paragraphs for your chapters? There seems to be a lot of dialogue at certain parts of the story, which you’ve separated by placing it one line down from each other, but I feel that putting it into a paragraph would sort of make your chapter look less 'empty'.

Description and Foreword: 6/10

I actually really like your description! It’s only two sentences yet the effect is there. I’ve always envied people that could come up with such short impactful descriptions because I myself as these things, so great job! However, I personally don’t exactly like it when pictures of the characters are put on display in the foreword because in stories, you’re supposed to show the reader the character’s personality and appearance through words and not tell them directly by giving a profile in the foreword (I know that isn’t exactly what you did but I hope you get what I meanJ).

 I also feel that for the second part of your foreword, where you wrote ‘IF ONLY HE KNEW...’, you should not put it in capital letters because it might give the reader’s eyes a slight shock, and I suggest that maybe that phrase could be put in the description as it would be more effective rather than putting it alone.

Lastly, I think that it would be better to make the crediting of the competition a bit bigger and more obvious since there is so much space in that area. Apart from these things, I think the two sentences in your description really got me excited to read your story!

(By the way, I’m participating in the same competition as you :D)    

Plot: 15/20

I’m sorry to sound a bit frank here but I felt that your plot was quite cliché. It just reminded me of those typical fanfics that centre around two best friends falling in love with each other but there was just something about your story that got me wanting to read on and I began to realise that your story is not a clichéd one but rather a classic fanfic.

 Apart from that, I personally think that when it comes to flashbacks or point-of-views it should be, like I said for your foreword, shown and not told. In addition, I think it might have been better if you stuck to a third person’s view for the entire story instead of changing it because when you put it in a third person’s point of view, it would be much easier to talk about the different characters’ feelings in your story in one go instead of having to change the point-of-views all the time.

Language: 17/20

Your English is pretty good, except that in chapter two I saw some Korean words in the ‘letter’ and I really didn’t know what they meant, so I went to google translate just to see what it meant in English haha. I just think that when you write a story, it would be bad to put another language inside and not translate it to the dominating language in your fanfic.

 I’ve learnt from experience as a reader because I could not understand a lot of things in certain stories on AsianFanFics when I first started out as a k-pop fan due to the many Korean-English words that were inside and that did not have an English translation. So maybe next time you should put your translation underneath the Korean words or beside them and then tell your readers that a change has been made in the previous chapter instead of stating the meaning in the next chapter  J.

Also, I’d just like to point out that the Korean words in your story weren’t exactly common phrases that I’ve heard of before, so I think that next time if you really really really have to put Korean words inside, maybe you should put common ones because most people would know what they mean and there would be less time wasted in translating and more time to read your story! But I’d advise you that if possible, try not to even put words in other languages in your story unless it’s related to something important.

Your writing style was quite simple yet descriptive because I could picture the scenes in your story well enough to understand what was happening. Nonetheless, I feel that there were some unnecessary dialogues in your first chapter that could be done away with. So in future, maybe you could state their actions or what they did instead of dedicating a dialogue for that one word.

For example, instead of saying:

“Me!” He claimed, pointing to himself with his free hand. (Chapter 1)

Maybe you could’ve written:

Minho pointed to himself with his free hand, claiming that he was someone that would give such a ridiculous present. 

On a separate note, I hope that whatever I have corrected below helps!

(By the way the introduction was fine so the ones that I’ve corrected are the chapters after.)

Chapter 1:

Her gaze shifted from the lollipop to him and back to the lollipop.

Her gaze shifted from the lollipop to him and back. (To put ‘lollipop’ again at the back of the sentence would make it redundant)

Chapter 3:

But then one day, their conversations grew shorter and as each day passed, they text each other less and less.

But as days passed by, their conversations began to grow shorter and shorter, and before she knew it, the text messages stopped entirely. (There isn’t anything particularly wrong in your sentence except for the structure.) 

She was the best ‘best friend’ he could ever ask for.

She was the greatest ‘best friend’ he could ever ask for.

She watched as his figure got further and further away from her but just as he was about to turn the corner, she called out to him.

She watched as his figure became smaller and smaller as he walked further away from her, but as Minho was about to turn the corner, she called out to him.

She exclaimed with a pump fist, earning a large grin followed by a nod from him.

She exclaimed, her fingers clenched into a fist as she threw it into the air, earning a large grin followed by a nod from him. (I’m not exactly sure if I’m correct myself but I don’t think that pump fist is the correct way of stating the action.)

Chapter 4:

When are you actually going to keep to your words?

When are you actually going to keep to your promise? OR When are you actually going to mean what you say? (Keep to your words doesn’t sound like the proper way of saying it, though I can see that you might have been trying to be ambitious and change the usual saying but sometimes it might sound a bit weird or maybe even wrong. So you should just stick to the original saying (: )

 Yura asked as she scanned the canteen for any signs of him only to see none.

 Yura asked as she scanned the canteen for any signs of him but to no avail.

But no matter how tired he was, how matter how bad he wanted to stop, he didn’t. 

But no matter how tired he was, no matter how bad he wanted to stop, he didn’t. 

It would always pass.

It always did. (It sounds a bit redundant to add ‘would’ and the effect has been overused because you keep repeating the same thing for the next sentence but the only difference is the ending.)

“Hyung, I told you; you need to rest.” Hyun Woo repeated for the umpteenth time but Minho would have none of it.

“Hyung, I told you, you need to rest.” Hyun Woo repeated for the umpteenth time but Minho would turn a deaf ear.

“But hyung; listen to me just this once.”

“But hyung, please just listen to me just this once.”    (Unnecessary use of semicolon)

“Oh, Noona! I’m so sorry; I didn’t see you,”

“Oh, Noona! I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you,”  (Unnecessary use of semicolon)

She faltered as her gaze dropped to the floor.

Her gaze faltered and dropped to the floor. (Sentence structure is wrong.)

Chapter 5:

Suddenly, it was as though he didn’t know how to talk anymore.

Suddenly, it was as though he didn’t know how to speak anymore. (Talking means to have a conversation with someone while speaking is to say something whether or not another person is involved in the conversation.)

“No.” He said hurriedly; his alarmed tone catching her off guard and causing her to flinch.

“No.” He said hurriedly, his alarmed tone catching her off guard and causing her to flinch. (Unnecessary use of semicolon)

But it wasn’t a proper smile; it was a sad one. And Su Hwa knew it.

But it wasn’t a proper smile; it was a sad one, and Su Hwa knew it. (Unnecessary use of full stop. It can be put together as a sentence instead of two separate sentences.)

“Can you promise to stick by me no matter what?” he asked with that same smile on his smile.

“Can you promise to stick by me no matter what?” he asked with that same smile. (‘On his smile’ doesn’t really make sense as human beings only have one mouth so they can’t have more than one smile haha.)

Characterisation: 9/15

After reading the six chapters, including the introduction, I think it’d be a bit difficult to say that much characterisation has been done since the story is only six chapters long. However, in spite of that, I’m starting to see certain characteristics for some characters, like Minho for instance.

I get the idea that he’s a determined yet stubborn guy that would turn a deaf ear to good advice, though I’m not sure if you meant to picture him in such a way. I’m not really clear about what type of person Su Hwa is but I think as readers, we’ll find out more about her as the story goes on.

Flow: 9/10

The flow for this story is just right! It’s not too fast or slow and though you did jump from scene to scene during the flashbacks, I think the flow was quite alright. I didn’t actually realise that you managed to write six chapters based on the things that happened in that one day, which was really cool!

Overall Enjoyment: 8/10

I really did enjoy your story and how it made me interested to read more, although there were times where I felt certain areas were lacking. One of the things I liked the most about your story was how you managed to pull off six chapters that talked about the different things that happened in that one day!

Nonetheless, there were some things that I did dislike in your story like how there seemed to be a lot of flashbacks. I personally feel that three flashbacks in six chapters is too much and that it might have been better if you dedicated your introduction to these flashbacks instead of segregating it and putting each part in different chapters.

Grand Total: 75/100

There are some things that you could improve on, like the lack of paragraphing and phrasing of sentences (maybe you could cut down on the number of dialogues so it won’t be too difficult to fit into a paragraph).

Also, if you aren’t able to pull off a flashback, without stating that it is one, then I think that it would be much safer to not use one at all. Lastly, watch out for grammar errors and unnecessary use of certain punctuations like semicolon etc.

On a separate note, I really can’t wait to find out what’s wrong with Minho! I don’t know why but I keep thinking that he’s either got a disease or he’s migrating T.T

Marilyn

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