It caught my eye! The title also fits into the story, and I really liked that you kept it short and simple.

Foreword/Description: 7/10

Thank God you didn’t start off like, “Hey, it’s such and such and this is my (insert number here) story blah blah blah”. You actually put a little excerpt from your story to reel in the reader. That’s good! But, I didn’t really feel like I was being reeled in you know? Plus, from your description, I already had an idea about what is going to happen, which basically kills anticipation. Still, your description and foreword served their purpose.

Appearance: 9/10

Honestly, I couldn’t care less about whether or not you have a poster or background. I mean, it is about the writing. But I did take off a single point because you didn’t have either or. Though I gave you everything else because you didn’t blind me with rainbow text, or inserted random pictures. Everything was neat, organized, and easy to read!

Characters: 4/10

Now, I understand that this is a one-shot so it’s difficult to go into depth about your character, whereas a chaptered stories you wouldn’t have such limitations. Despite this, I don’t think that it was impossible to bring your characters to life. I mean, I didn’t feel sympathy for the girl. And don’t get me wrong, I know how it feels to break up with someone but I just couldn’t feel sorry for her. The OC just didn’t seem to have personality.

With Zelo, we see that he’s kind. However, I find it weird that he would just kiss and hug the girl when she got out of the taxi. I know they hugged before — which was two years ago.  I would get it if they had some sort of soild relationship prior to this. But honestly, if a guy did that to me, I’d pepper-spray him, hot K-pop star or not, or will I? ;D But you get my point, right? It seems a little out of his character.

Plot: 8/10

There wasn’t much of a plot here. But I can’t say that it was just problem-less, because it really wasn’t! The girl was dumped, happened to get a hug from Zelo on her birthday, things get better for her, some misfortune strikes BAP, and then they kiss and hug and now there’s world peace and they’ll probably end up having babies or something. So, it follows the generic rising action, , falling action, yada yada yada. And that’s good because most people on AFF don’t understand the plot movement.

Originality: 10/10

I know people will disagree with me on this. But, I think this whole “free hug” idea is still pretty original even though we’ve seen other fanfictions/dramas about awfully good-looking strangers showing acts of kindness. But why do I still think yours was pretty original? You gave your own twist by making it in front of a crowd and especially when it came time for her to return the hug and the support.

See, I don’t hate cliché plotlines. I hate it when the author writes them cliché-y (is that even a word?). For example, arranged marriage, it’s been done (dare I say way overdone) but if you were to write it with your own style and give it your personal flair, you can pretty much turn any so-called “cliché” plotline into some original. Except for gender-bending because I hate that with such a passion.

Grammar/Punctuation/Spelling: 9/10

Don’t get me wrong, I know you have a lot of super tiny grammar mistakes here and there. And there are some awkward phrases. But I can tell that English is not your first language, and for that, I give you props because you can write better than some people I grew up with in the States. Seriously, give yourself a pat on the back because you know the difference between ‘their’ and ‘there’ and ‘your’ and ‘you’re’. You’d be surprised by the amount of native English speaker who still can’t tell the difference and they’re in high school … Though, I would recommend you to get a beta reader that’s fluent just to proofread your work. Other than that, your grammar is impressive.

Flow: 10/10

Quite well-paced. You went in chronologic order, and it was neither too slow, nor too fast.

Overall Enjoyment: 7/10:

It was okay. I didn’t have to drag myself to read it, but I wasn’t all ‘oh-the-joy’ about it either.

Other: 5/5:

Here’s some things you need to work on:

1. Next time, you might want to cliff hang your description. You understand the purpose of a description which a good foundation to start from, but it would be even better if you’re able to hone those skills, and entice those readers.

2. Character development is something you seem to struggle with, and that’s fine because this part of story writing seems to be where everyone gets so stuck on. One great solution for this is to go people-watching. Come up with little stories about the strangers you see. Do they look like a happy person, a sad person? Why would this be? What do you think they like to do in their spare time? Etcetera, etcetera. This kind of thing. And remember your characters’ personalities and decisions affect the whole course of the story so yes, this is significant.

3. Develop your own voice, your style. This is something that’s not gonna come to you overnight. Have you ever read works and thought, oh, I know who this is because it sounds like them and it just has that underlying factors that point to an author? You’re a good writer, but I fail to hear your own voice.

4. Last but not least, don’t give up! They say that the professional authors are not professional; they’re just amateurs that never gave up!

Score: 73/100

(review done by –aurora@AFF)