B#6 | Little Things | farahhkim
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Title
Author
Characters
Category
Genre
Status
Little Things
farrahhkim
Sehun, Luhan, Mina [OC]
(BxB)
Romance, drama, angst
Chaptered (ongoing) (5 Chpts)
Description
Oh Mina is Oh Sehun's 13 years old daughter. Mina never know and meet her other father. Little she know, during EXO tour, she meet with the man that she missed a lot but Sehun didn't let her meet him again. Sehun was struggling with his past while his daughter was struggling with her present life. What will Luhan do to take his family back to his arms?
Title
Other than the start of a continued reference to One Direction song titles, I don’t see how this title describes your story to readers. The song “Little Things” is about loving the tiny parts of a person that make them whole; this story does not pertain to such a plot, and would have benefitted from a different title. You mentioned in your forward that this used to be a One Direction story- perhaps you should change your title/chapter names to reflect the fact that this is now a story about EXO? All the same, the phrase “little things” is still quite catchy, even if it doesn't really represent your story.
Descr.&Forew.
The foreword accurately and briefly sums up the plot of your story, which is a plus. However, it fails to attract my interest due to issues with grammar that will be elaborated upon farther down, and garbled sentence structure, which will also be elaborated upon as well. Additionally, you are a bit abrupt with the way you’re divulging information about your story to us- you might want to try spicing the forward up a little! For example, you start with the sentences,
“Oh Mina is Oh Sehun’s 13 years old daughter. Mina never know and meet her other father.”
Instead, you could fix your grammar, so that it says, “Oh Mina is the 13-year-old daughter of Oh Sehun. Mina has never met her other parent.”
Now, we have two sentences that, while grammatically correct, are both abrupt and make the assumption that we know who Sehun and Mina are supposed to be in the story. Provide a better background. For example, you might want to say,
“Oh Mina is the 13 year-old daughter of Oh Sehun, one of the most famous pop-stars in Korea today.”- and then continue with that general trend of having more information- making it sound less like a list of facts, and more like a forward.
Additionally, I don’t think that the summary of Mina's characteristics were necessary, and the pictures, as well as the “love of Sehun and Luhan’s life” part, were excessive and detracted from what your story was actually going to be about. Let Mina’s character show within the story itself- we already know what she’s like in the way she interacts with others, so you don’t have to provide this list of descriptions/pictures! If you still want to keep it, at least cut down the aspects of the list that don’t describe her personality- such as “she doesn’t like paparazzi” and “she likes red velvet”. Hope this makes sense.
Graphics
Again, the quote from Little Things didn’t have much to do with the story, as it focuses solely on Mina. If you were using it to reference Luhan’s relationship with Sehun, it still doesn’t fit, as in your story Luhan is (at least so far) not at all in a situation to claim such love for Sehun, who is more invested in his daughter than in Luhan. I think the poster, while quite pretty, is not indicative of what this story is going to be about. Maybe try a different quote on the poster!
Char. Dev.
Your characters weren’t very realistic, and the relationship dynamics between your characters were also not believable.
For Mina’s character, you’ve essentially amassed a large collection of positive traits that clash with both one another and with the way your character is written/thinks/interacts. You write that not only is Mina a 13-year-old whiz-kid who has gone to college already, but she is also an extremely talented drawer, and is somewhat shy- yet in your story, she behaves childishly- not at all like a child-prodigy, and acts irrationally, also demonstrating her inability to process things in the way one would need to when going to college. Of course, not all child prodigies must necessarily be emotionally intelligent or mature- even so, there is no reference to her intellect aside from you telling us it exists. Additionally, you tell us she is shy, but you don’t show this to us very well, because within one day she has warmed up to Sehun’s bandmates enough to hang out with Baekhyun on her own.
As a whole, i think you struggle with telling rather than showing us what you want us to know about your characters, and as a result, the dynamics of you characters are choppy, hard to believe, and indistinct. Again, an important example of this is the way in which Mina spends only one night getting to know Sehun’s bandmates- and then the very next day she is behaving as though she has known them for years, calling them “Uncles” and essentially interacting in a very intimate way with them.
Additionally, the relationship between Mina and Sehun ranges from being strangely intimate in a couple-esque way to being a rather fluffy child/father relationship. I’m not sure I’m buying the whole “daddy” to “girlfriend” to “mommy” syntax switches, so maybe take a look at that again!- also, would a 13-year old really behave this way?
Luhan’s relationship with Sehun is also not very well developed- I know you’re in your first five chapters, but I think you would benefit from really sitting back and reassessing how you’re making them interact. How would it make Luhan feel to know that Sehun engaged in self-harm because of him? Where is the guilt? Elaborate a bit more on these parts in order to really sell the dynamic of their love.
As a result of the above, I can’t give you very high marks for your character development, because I didn’t see your characters as well developed.
Appearance
The POV shifts were clearly labeled and the font was pleasing to the eye. Good structure!
Orgin.&Plot
I didn’t see any forward movement with this plot. It felt quite unrealistic- though your Instagram comment examples were a nice realistic touch- and all of it was somewhat cliche. This isn’t to say that cliche stories are bad things. Technically all storylines are overused tropes. There are dozens of mpreg stories, dozens of stories with Sehun as a parent. The question is whether you make the storyline your own, and whether you make it your own in a realistic and interesting way. Unfortunately, there were many unrealistic and conflicting aspects of your plot, and because of this, I can’t give you very high marks. Try to sit down and draw out an outline for your plot. What do you want the conclusion to be? Where do you want the to be? When and how will Mina find out about Luhan? once you’ve answered these questions for yourself, the various parts of your story that feel excessive or kind of random will fall into place, and every part of your plot will be structured for a higher purpose of achieving the end goal in your conclusion. I hope this explanation helps!
Flow
I think your flow was pretty good. You know when to finish paragraphs and you know when to move on to talking about or describing another thing. However, there were moments where you became choppy, and where I was very confused. Again, I want to direct your attention to the fact that you spend long sets of paragraphs summarizing things that you could have described in your story. Additionally, there are moments when the sequence of events you’re presenting don’t really make sense. For example, in your very first chapter, Mina asks Sehun who her other father is. Sehun opens his mouth to respond with an explanation- and yet because of an interruption that has nothing to do with Sehun, Mina gets mad and yells at her father. She yells again when he introduces here as “baby”- something that directly indicates that she is his child- to his bandmates- for reasons that are not clear. Why is she mad? Why did her mood change so suddenly? Moreover, why is Minhyuk being used as a sort of backdrop to this moment? Flesh his character out more. Flesh this moment out more. Give the readers an understanding of how many times Mina has asked this question, so that we know why she’s getting so upset and why she’s so concerned. Hope this makes sense.
Writing
I really hate to give such low marks, but I think you’ll benefit more from constructive criticism than from something that isn’t genuine. Your writing ranges from choppy and confusing to slightly overwhelming walls of explanations. As I mentioned before, show us what is happening and show us the dynamics in your story- don’t just summarize everything. One thing that really helps me when I write is going back and rereading the story out loud. if I start to get tired of a paragraph, I know it’s getting too excessive. If I stumble over words or confuse myself, I know that I should go back and try to reword things. Try this technique when editing your story!
Gramm.&Spel.
I think your grammar was the weakest part of the story- and what really made it more confusing than it should have been. You struggle with switching tense, changing plurals to singulars, and with the correct usage of pronouns and prepositions. Your sentences are all of a pretty good length, and you don’t have any run-ons, which is great- however, you do have some spelling errors as well. Again, try reading your sentences out loud and see if they make sense- it really helps! I’ll show you an example of what your edits should look like.
Your sentences are:
“I was proud with Stella. She was managed to get into the college in young age. She is a genius girl.”
Your sentences should be:
“I was proud of Stella. She had managed to get into College at a young age. She was a genius.”
In this example, the tenses have been changed to reflect a parallel past tense structure throughout. Additionally, you cannot be proud “with” someone- rather, you must be proud “of” them. Also, which college are you referring to? By using “the” you indicate that there is only one college- rather, if you are not specifying which college, leave it as “college".
Another example:
“As we arrived at the hotel, Baekhyun helped me woke my baby girl up.”
Your sentence should be:
“When we arrived at the hotel, Baekhyun helped me wake my daughter up.”
In this example, “as” has been changed to “when” to reflect the fact that Baekhyun is not waking Mina up while they are arriving, but rather after they arrive. Additionally, I’ve changed “woke” to “wake” to signify parallel verb tense. Lastly, I changed “baby girl” to “daughter” out of preference.
Gen.Enjoym.
I didn’t really enjoy this story. The grammar mistakes were distracting, the plot didn’t feel like it was going anywhere in particular, and the writing was confusing and sort of erratic. However, I think once many of the above mentioned critiques are taken into consideration, this could become a pretty good story! You’ve got quite a few subscribers, and I know that with a few tweaks you can be an even better writer in the future. Please don’t take any of my comments to heart, and please reach out if you have any questions. Additionally, don’t take this review personally- It’s just an honest an objective critique that I have added constructive criticism to in order to best help you grow to your full potential as a writer!
Title : 6/10
Description & Foreword: 5/10
Graphics: 7/10
Character Development: 2/10
Appearance : 10/10
Originality & Plot: 3/10
Flow: 6/10
Writing: 3/10
Grammar & Spelling: 1/10
General Enjoyment: 2/10
45 / 100
Reviewer: ilikestars
date : 11 / 02 / 2016
CREDITS :
Credits to ilikestars [ILS] @ Steph's Bookclub Review Shop ©
COMMENTS / Thoughts & REMINDER
Comments & thoughts
Thanks for requesting! I’ve put a lot of time and thought into coming up with some constructive criticism for you to become a better writer and for you to develop your story! I hope this helps you!
REMINDER
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