The review can be found here. [57/65 → 87.6% at ✏ Marie's Request Shop]

My story can be found here. [Remains, myungyeol one-shot]

I recommend ✏ Marie's Request Shop, they are friendly as hell. The owner, Marie, recently gave Remains a review. I scored 57/65 (with some sections omitted considering how Remains is a considerably short one-shot), and she provided me the feedback I wanted from a reader's perspective, so I have no misgivings about anything. Read my story if you'd like, because I'd definitely like that.

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Right, so on the topic of reviews - I've recently gone review shop surfing, just to maybe get one or two reviews on my fanfiction, and I realised something. Many review shops have a typical format of:

Title - 5
Graphics/Posters - 5
Foreword/Description -10
Originality -10
Plot - 20
Grammar - 30
Flow/Pacing - 10
Bonus, whatever etc - 5

and well, to be honest, that bothers me, primarily because of the Title, Originality and Foreword/Description bit.

Title

I can name my story whatever the hell I want, okay. (unless it is highly inappropriate, dur - in which case the author should be notified)

Originality

...No story is 100% original, though. If you're in the creative side of the world, you'd know that. All ideas are great ideas from other ideas, concepts from older, less polished concepts. Also, just because a story is cliché, doesn't mean that it is not written well. For me, I don't give two s if a story is cliché, it just has to be written well. Besides, what's the point of writing a story that has a completely brilliant concept and out-there plot, when the execution is lacking? I'd stick to well written clichés, to be honest.

The best of both worlds is, obviously, great writing with a creative concept. Would you like an example?

love is part and parcel of the human condition || Infinite AU, Woogyu [bits of Myungyeol and Yadong] || written by hehee on LJ

if you have time, please read it. you will explode into unicorns and rainbows and everything happy. She is a riveting example of absolutely fantastic. I can't even close her tab, god damn it. It's been there for days. /cries

Foreword/Description

I find that this bit of evaluation is awfully shallow. Great writing can definitely be hidden underneath an empty/strange foreword. In my opinion, reviews should be focused only on the content of the story (all the stuff that matters and contributes to the words, words, words of your story) instead of being ramified into evaluations of the forewords/decriptions (things that don't affect the story in any way - unless of course, the foreword is written extremely poorly. In which case, the writer should be notified again).

Generally I try to avoid review shops with that rubric, because I'm not a fan of spicing up forewords just to make my story seem like it was written better. Pretty forewords/descriptions bear no effect on my writing skills holistically in the final product that is my story.

Of course, my argument only stands if a review shop promises to provide you a review of your fanfiction, instead of your entire AFF story, including its reader appeal in terms of appearances like your title, background and main picture as well. I feel like review shops should create this distinction - whether they are evaluating strictly based on your writing skills (your story) OR whether they are evaluating your fanfiction on AFF as a whole, which includes all the embellishments and whatnot. The advantage of receiving a review of the latter would be that you would increasingly be aware of what people in AFF would like to read and you will most likely improve to reach that glittery standard (that will perhaps, in the future, get you featured.)

...But for me, I honestly only care about the writing.