Username 
yeahhh
Profile link 
http://www.asianfanfics.com/profile/view/765240
Story Title 
A Ghostly Twist

~ Reviewed by Joongdok ~

First impression (5/15)

Title: 3/5

It is a little bit of a giveaway as to what will happen, though the benefit is that it throws you immediately into the genre of the story. It does not really make me think, but that’s okay.

Graphics: Not graded

I feel like the poster could have been done better. I personally tend to prefer when the poster/graphics are crispy and not too soft. It kind of feels like the book cover of a teen novel that you find in your school library when you’re forced to go there once a week. It does not intrigue me. I’m sure that many like the poster though.

Description/foreword: 2/10

Okay, you have got to work on this. It contains grammatical errors, which I’ll get to in a second, but mostly it is rather haphazardly thrown together, which I feel shows an inaccurate reflection of the story.

“Yoona wakes from a coma after a few years.” Sorry, but this sentence… Dude. Why was she in a coma? How many years was she under? Is there something special that makes her wake up?

Yoona gets a job.

What kind of job?

It is unique, yet worrying.

What kind of job?

It either heals her or destroys her.

What. Kind. Of. Job.?

The job she gets, after I read the story, reveals that it isn’t even a real job. What the , guys.

Also, in no explicit way did you state that Yoona suffered from memory loss since her coma until the last paragraph. That’s not a good start. You go off with the essentials first, before you get to the whole “she finds a job” deal (even though that job isn’t even real but I’ll get to that later). If you want to make people gasp, then you save an essential part for later, such as the whole “she can also see ghosts”.

Then you get to the “twist” – she can now see ghosts. However you have got a sentence that is crossed out, I do not fathom why. Is it an edit? If you have edited your story, then TAKE AWAY THE CROSSED OUT SENTENCES. They should not be there, at all.

Then you say that the ghosts really are characters from fairy tales – and that that’s where the twist is. That counts to a grand total of two twists. Is that what you planned? I do not know. How about you write something like this instead:

Yoona’s coma was abruptly stopped. She woke up to the faces of her loving family, happy to see her awake once again – yet something doesn’t feel right. Her memory appears to fail her time and time again, and no matter how much she loves her family, she finds their love suffocating, and needs solace and space. She encounters Donghae, a troubled yet charming young man, who offers her a solution, albeit a different one than she expected.

As she takes on the world, she realizes the most integral part of what has happened after her coma.

She can now see ghosts.

You get a solid C for creativity in terms of the ghosts being from fairy tales. I kind of feel like you started out with the title of the story and you wanted to fill it out with something – but I remain unimpressed. I don’t care what you were inspired by, but try to refine your sources.

The excerpt: WELL, I’ve got to be honest with you – I laughed. That was neither frightening, nor written well, but this will be discussed in the section about writing style. I strongly advise you to remove it entirely, it was a huge turnoff for me.

The character pictures and descriptions: You chose the picture for Yoona rather well. She looks serious, mysterious (uh) and like she always does (in my own opinion I find her dull to look at, but she is beautiful). Then comes a picture of Sooyoung and Ryeowook, jolly and cheery as – please reconsider this. You’re trying to write a ghost story here, not show how happy and cutesy the parents are to the “troubled, young kid who has to fight evil ghosts etc”.

Then the picture of Donghae, who looks like a right badass with those guns on his sides. Sure, that picture works, I think we as readers get a decent impression of his character from that picture. However, that isn’t really who he is in the story. He’s a narcissistic . More on this in characteristics.

… And then you go and do it again with the cutesy picture of Sungmin and Sunny. Same there, endearing and lovely, even hearts. And the picture of Eunhyuk and Hyoyeon. And all the other ones. Same, same, same. DO NOT PICK PICTURES OFF GOOGLE. I know you did, because you probably wanted pictures which had the two characters in the same image. That is not necessary – you are instead making a very off description of the story by using images which reflect entirely different things on their own.

Furthermore, character descriptions are overrated – for my own stories, I tend to avoid them, but for the one I’m writing now I’m using them since there are quite a few characters to keep in mind. That is the only reason I have them, because the plot is a little complicated. Minor characters (and let’s face it, you have many) are not worth mentioning unless they play an integral part in the story. Which they don’t. That is why they are minor characters. Also, the reason you are including so many images and listing all the characters is interesting to me, since it seems like what you want to achieve by this is showing everyone off, so that if a person who may not be a fan of Yoonhae will see Kangin and go “Ooh, it features Kangin. Better read it!” – avoid this. You want your story to live off the quality and the maturity that it displays, the plot twists and the emotions, not the characters alone. The problem with fan fiction is that it features people who we already know and like, so we simply hijack their faces and/or personalities for our own jolly good fun (which is in a sense unfair and immoral). It prevents the authors from having in mind the great tip to “show, not tell.” However you’ll get more of this in the writing section.

If I were you, I would scrap the character introductions and keep it short. We already know that Yoona and Donghae will be featured, the rest of the characters don’t really matter aside from this. The reader knows this, because it has only been tagged as Yoonhae. This is also a giveaway, remember that – the pairing tag lets the reader know that there will be romance (which also makes me wonder about the genre(s?) you are aiming for).

Language (13/20)

Sentence structure and grammar: 6/10

You need work, both of you.

“She noticed how  parch was.” à She noticed how felt as dry as parchment.

“She’s probably just too exhausted. I should wear her out. Siwon thought.” à She’s probably too exhausted. I must be wearing her out, Siwon thought to himself.

“Yoona didn’t know how to explain. It was that feeling ofdonning a mask for fear of disappointing someone. It tired you more when the person is genuinely concerned about you. It so badly that tears welled up in her eyes.” à Here, you’re having trouble with switching between formal and informal writing. In this review, I have used informal all the way, since I otherwise would be writing out all abbreviations and not use slang. “It so badly” really shows that you do not yet have a writing style and didn’t think about not using informal language as you write.

This is basic grammar which could have been fixed if you guys would proofread your . Somehow, I have a feeling that you don’t, though. Do you have spellcheck on in the program that you write in? Please, use Windows Word or something to that affect, it corrects your errors for you. Do not write immediately in the space provided at AFF as it does not provide spellcheck.

Vocab, punctuation & spelling: 7/10

Your punctuation is fine except for the occasional use of too many commas. Spelling is alright too, but your use of idiomatic expressions is poor. Look here:

“(…) I will announce that we are getting a divorce as our relationship is getting strained or whatsoever.”

Exchange whatsoever for whatever, as that is the correct word.

Do not make unnecessary spaces in the text. You are making very large spaces in the text, and it makes it hard to read. Stick to one type of spacing, whether 1.0, 1.5 or 2.0. Write paragraphs of 5-10 sentences, only when you have dialogue is it okay to make spaces, don’t write one sentence per line. Furthermore, you change the font and font size between the chapters. Stay consistent in your layout! Pick one font, one font size, one color and one spacing.

You use Korean words, and you also misspell them. I do not approve of this. You have to remember that not everyone understands Korean, no matter how long or short time they have been fans – if you have studied it then that makes you the exception. Please stop using Korean in exchange for simple words such as “no”, “thank you”, “Mr.” or “what”. As a matter of fact, your story would greatly improve if you took away all the Korean words altogether – no “jagi”, no “yeobo”, no “annyeonghigyeseyo” (way longer than “bye”).

This also reflects your narrow vocabulary. If you elect to rather use Korean words for things that you can replace with more descriptive sentences, you are not utilizing your vocabulary to its full extent. I also do not see you showing how the environments look or feel – there are no scents in the air, no colors and no textures. Where did Yoona’s senses go?

When you write horror and stuff, think about how you are portraying the moment. I laughed out loud because the scene with Taeyeon slashing Yoona’s arm was outrageous and insanely comedic. I doubt that this was the desired effect. This shows that you need work. Here are some examples:

Yoona whimpered. “It doesn’t have to be this way. Why are you doing this?”

The murder’s eyes darkened with anger. “Must I have a reason for doing anything?”

Okay, this is funny because it is irrational. Usually, a killer has reasons for killing. Also, spelling errors. Why are you suddenly referring to Taeyeon as “the murderer”? She has a multitude of nicknames already, what with you two going between calling her Taengoo and Taeyeon and Little Red Riding Hood and the murderer.

Yoona cried. Her desolation and anger bounced off the walls and back to her. After all the times arguing with her parents that she was a big girl and didn’t need help, she was still a weakling.

“ you! you and your stupidness! I hate you. I put my trust in you and was nice and that’s how you treat me after all this while?” Yoona lashed out at the killer. *Yoona, I'd gladly let you me*

Well this is funny because you first describe her incredible sadness, misery and panic because a little ghost girl is about to kill her, and instead of having her cry in an almost childish and desperate howl, you let her swear at the ghost. The way she swears is hilarious. Also, stupidness is not a word, you’re looking for “stupidity”. Additionally, you go and write about how you want to Yoona. This is a turnoff in the middle of a supposedly frightening moment.

The murderer just gave Yoona a bored look. “Now shut up and let me grant your death wish. Then I shall kill you! And do you know how I will kill you?”

“How?”

“I shall let a big bad wolf come in, along with an old woman. The wolf listens to my commands and will eat the grandma before eating you!” The killer let out a joyful laugh.

Well, this isn’t normally how the familiar story goes, but you’re trying to write something frightening here, so we’ll disregard the literary inaccuracy for now. This is funny because it is irrational yet again. Yoona doesn’t have a death wish. As a matter of fact, she wants to live. Also, if you grant someone’s death wish then you kill them, so saying “I’ll kill you” and then saying “then I’ll kill you!” makes no sense. Also, I think you took it to a bit of an extreme. Taeyeon doesn’t even specify that it might be her own grandma, just some random one that is going to suffer as the wolf eats her. WHAT.

See what I’m getting at? You’re not good at writing horror, I can’t see how this would frighten anyone. If you want to know how to get better at writing horror and to really shake someone to the core, go to for example Reddit Nosleep and check the stories there. Go to creepypasta.com, check the Goatman story. Try to see what they are writing and how they are writing it.

Storyline (10/35)

Plot and flow: 5/30

Why in all of cosmos would you ever, EVER write your ual thoughts in your story? WHAT THE . Lord almighty, give me strength so I can finish this review. You do not comprehend how little sense it makes that you would write the following:

“Who are you?” She asked innocently, her doe eyes staring inquisitively at the female in front of her. That female looked stunned and her hand trembled.

“Do you not remember me, Yoong?”   * "I'm your partner! *

The girl shook her head carefully. The female broke into a loud sob and ran away from the room.

Why? Why is that there? Sooyoung is supposed to be Yoona’s MOTHER. HER MOTHER. Why do you make a play on uous thoughts after someone has woken up from a coma and cannot even remember her own family? Sooyoung runs away crying because of this. Why do you do this?

WHY?

This is so insanely unnecessary and gives me the impression that you who are writing this story are two immature tweens who do not know the first thing about writing. Your erse thoughts are not relevant to the plot unravelling and it destroys whatever mood you are attempting to set. In one scene, Yoona is gazing into Donghae’s eyes and sees something inside if them, something that seems sensitive and cold. You then proceed to immediately annihilate the emotion of the scene by popping up with your pre-pubescent jab at his . You repeatedly write about how you want to see “Yoong” and that you would love to have with her (and I quote, “*So cute, so able!*”), even though this has nothing