B#4 | Reaching For A Dream⎜HANHYUNAH1117

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BTS2

Reaching A Dream

BTS

S1017

63


      /90

hanhyunah1117

INFO

OG (2 Chpt)

VIXX's Hyuk x OC

Romance

B*G

SUMMARY

Hyuk doesn't have a dream but he is already in senior year in high school. So, Minhee tries to help him find his dream

Saki1017

26/01/2015

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TITLE

I think that you’re slowly working towards making the title go with the plot. You’re only two chapters into the story so you have plenty of time to do that. On the other hand, I feel that this title is quite commonly used for stories. It’s not exactly original and it doesn’t give off a vibe to say that your story is unique and different. For me personally, I wouldn’t be drawn to this title, simply because it’s common and nothing out of the norm, though you are credited for having a title that suits your plot.

7

DESCRIPTION / FOREWORD

Your description is very simple, it’s written in first person as the main character’s thoughts. This allows your readers to have a feel about what your main character is going to be like, as well as what the story is going to be about. I feel that you’re not giving too much away but at the same time, you’re foreshadowing what’s going to happen in the story as you talked about having someone to help the main character, Hyuk. Nonetheless, sometimes, simplicity is the best and for your story, I think this is probably one the best fit options there are as a description/foreword.

9

 

GRAPHICS

You haven’t used any graphics in your story so this score is going to be taken off at the end of the review to make it fair for you. As requested by the author, we didn't grade this section. So it will be left out also with the total score.

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CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

Showing how your characters change and develop throughout the story is very important, and therefore this part plays a vital role in your story. I feel that within the two chapters you have produced, it’s quite visible what your characters are like. And because this is written in first person as Hyuk, his feelings are better understood than Minhee’s.

First of all, I feel that for Hyuk, he doesn’t really care about his future, until Minhee talked to him in class. I thought the transition between being uninterested to being fully attentive is quite sudden. It’s like he suddenly feel like being an idol. I think if you are able to slow this bit down so that his interests are slowly showing would be better. This is the same with Minhee. At first, when she approached Hyuk in class, she seems to really not care about him, but when Hyuk says that he doesn’t have any dreams for the future, she suddenly helps him out with a lot of information and advice. Honestly, I feel that this transition is too quick as well. Would you be so eager to help someone so much even though you’re not at least a tiny bit of friends?

Overall, I think you’ve done a pretty good job in creating these characters, but maybe if you are able to talk more about their feelings and thoughts, your readers will know what they are thinking. Now that you’re writing in Hyuk’s point of view, why don’t you try writing in Minhee’s point of view?

7

 

APPEARANCE

The way your story is set out is perfectly good to read. However, I feel that the colouring of dialogues is unnecessary. There’s really no need to colour the text in a story, especially since you won’t really get a coloured text in real life in paper form. Your text is mainly dialogues so the use of paragraphs isn’t as visible, but nonetheless, there are no problems with the structure of your text. Other than this, your font size is perfect for reading.

Also, even though this next point doesn’t really belong here, I can’t really find another part where it can fit any better, so I hope you don’t mind me talking about it here. I think that it’s good that you have a lot of dialogues going on in the story, but I feel that your style of writing dialogues is very much play-like. You only write what’s being said without any indications of who said it and how they said it. The only indication of who said the dialogues is the colour of the text, but if the colours are gone and all the text is black, how would the readers know who’s saying what?

9

ORIGINALITY / PLOT

Your plot is not entirely unique, much alike to your title, but it’s quite different because a lot of this kind of stories are about the main male character helping main female character to realise her dream and whatnot. Though the genders have switched, everything else about the plot is pretty common. However, it might be too early for me to say this because you’re only two chapters in, and you might have other interesting and unique things in store for the future chapters. I feel that if you keep your plotline steady like this, you’ll come to an end smoothly, though on the whole, your story will be quite common and ‘normal’. Keep working and you’ll get there someday!

6

 

FLOW

As I have explained in the character development section, I feel that the changes in your characters’ attitudes are happening too fast. I think you will benefit from slowing down a little, maybe including a little bit about Hyuk’s internal debate about whether to become an idol or not. You might also want to talk about why Minhee want to help Hyuk. Other than this, I feel that the time skip between the two chapters is quite big. I mean, the first chapter is talking about Hyuk in school and the suddenly, in the next chapter, three years have passed and he’s already a member of VIXX. Maybe you can slow down a little on the time skip and talk about Hyuk’s journey to becoming an idol rather than just mentioning it briefly as a part of Hyuk’s narrations.

7

WRITING

Your writing style is very much leaning towards the ‘dialogue type’, as I like to call it. You tend to write a lot of dialogues between the characters and not so much about the surroundings or feelings of the people. This style of writing lets the reader know instantly what the characters are talking about but at the same time, it would be hard to understand what is going through the other characters’ heads and what’s going on around them. I feel that you haven’t really set the scene as well as you could have. You could have used more description and imagery to paint the scene around the characters rather than just writing about their interactions through speech. On the other hand, writing like this helps your readers to understand what you’re trying to convey easily, as you’re not using complicated words or anything that’s hard to understand.

As I have already pointed out at various different places in this review, your writing is very much play-styled. If you are writing a play, this type of writing will be completely fine, however since you’re writing this story in the form of a novel, I think the following point is something you should definitely consider for your future chapters. I’ve only seen this happen once and it was only at the end of the second chapter but I really do hope this doesn’t appear again in the future. You were writing Minhee’s speech to Hyuk but then suddenly, you wrote about her actions in between two asterisks. In this case, this should happen at all because you’re not writing stage directions for the characters.

Original: "I'll type it in your phone. *after typing* Here,"
Corrected: “I’ll type it in your phone.” Minhee says as she takes the phone to type in her number. “Here.”

Please make sure this doesn’t happen again because writing in the format of a novel and in the format of a play is completely different!

6

 

GRAMMAR/SPELLING

Your grammar and spelling overall are quite good, though there are a few mistakes here and there with missing words and small mistakes. For example:

Original:The couple has already decided.
Corrected:The couples have already been decided.
Explanation:When the teacher was talking, he was speaking to the whole class. In this case, the pairs that he was referring to was about the whole class, therefore using the plural for ‘couple’ is suitable here, hence the change in the verb as well.

Original:How can? You can play sports quiet well, how about taking sport major in university?
Corrected:How can you? You can play sports quite well. How about taking a sports major in university?

Original:If you got lucky
Corrected:If you are lucky

Original:Probably you don't mind.
Corrected:I hope you don't mind.

Another thing that I’ve noticed is that your ‘i’s in the middle of the sentence aren’t in capitals. When a person is speaking and is referring to him/herself, the ‘I’ must be in capitals. It’s good that you are using the capital ‘I’ at the beginning of the sentences, but please remember they must also be in capitals when in the middle of the sentence.

As we’re on the topic, another small flaw that I see is the use of commas at the end of a line spoken by a character. When the character continues immediately after their actions being described, it’s okay for you to use a comma to temporarily pause the sentence because they are going to carry on talking straight away. That being said, you should use a full stop/period to indicate a complete end to a character’s words when there’s no immediate continuation of their speech by themselves.

7

GENERAL ENJOYMENT

First of all, I feel that I couldn’t enjoy this to the fullest because Hyuk isn’t my bias, though he is a very loveable boy indeed! I feel that if I were able to read more, I would be able to like it more, because having only two chapters to read felt like it was the teaser rather than the actual story. For this story, I would love to read more about how Minhee came to be VIXX’s songwriter, as well as how she and Hyuk are going to interact as long lost friends!

5

 

COMMENTS AND THOUGHTS + REMINDER

Comments and Thoughts: First of all, thank you for requesting! I hope you’re happy with the review! If not, please don’t hesitate to contact us! Please do come back again~

Reminders:
+Comment if you saw this review.
+Don't forget to add proper credits with the link back to the shop!
Credits to Saki1017 [S1017] @ Steph's Bookclub Review Shop ©

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fefedove
#1
Chapter 100: Omg I don't even remember having requested this and never credited either. I'm so sorry and I'll do it as soon as I have access to a laptop omgomg