The Rare One

Author: --exotic-- // Reviewer: Midnight-B2UTY

★ Title 1/5

The Rare One? Um. Well. It… It’s not a very “rare” title at all. What I mean by that is that it’s really cliché-sounding. I mean, we all hear titles like: The Chosen One, The Dull One (oh my, I love that fanfic), The (Insert Random Adjective Here) One. It’s not very original and gave off a really cheesy (but dramatic) feel to it.

 

I only gave you a point because it pertained to the story. Or I think it does. I can’t really tell yet, since you only have two chapters. I feel that there could be better titles to the story, but I don’t think you should change the title, especially since you have already chosen it and the readers already know this title.

 

★ Description/Foreword  10/15

What do people see before they click on a fanfic? Yes, that’s right! It’s the description!

 

You know, like, if you go to the AFF homepage and scroll down to the “Stories Trending Today,” you get to see the first few lines of the descriptions, right?

 

Personally, whatever I read there is the whole reason I click on the story in the first place. And guess what? The instant I see “Hey! This is my first fanf-“ I just literally skip that story. Unless it had one heck of an intersting title, which - no offense - you don’t (in my opinion, it’s too cliché).

 

If you want to put an author’s note, I suggest you put it in your foreword (at the bottom). Actually, author’s notes are correctly supposed to go in the foreword. The foreword is for messages to the readers, credits, acknowledgements, and all that good stuff.

 

I think the rest is okay. But you should leave out the unnecessary information. I don’t think we really need to know their blood type, their heights, their nicknames, and their nationalities. It doesn’t seem important (yet?).

 

Like, when we read the actual story and we see someone say, “Hey, Jee!” to Min Jee, then we would be able to guess her nickname was “Jee.” At least…… I hope we all have the intellectual capacity to do so.

 

You don’t really need to tell us their specialities either, because it’ll be evident in the story. Like, if you write scenes with Tao kicking everyone’s butts, we’d be able to guess he was really skilled in martial arts.

 

Also, if a person clicks on your story, it’s most likely because they’re fans of EXO. If they’re fans of EXO, they probably know that Lu Lu is Chinese, that Krease is Chinese-Canadian, that Bacon is Korean, and so on.

 

Yeah, but you could include that if you want. I guess it makes it cooler? More professional-looking? More dramatic?

 

Let’s move onto the foreword then. Okay, I think your foreword was actually really good. There were some grammatical issues, which I’ll go over in the “Grammar/Spelling” section. Also, I think the “Saving the world or destroying it?” part should be in the description (at the very top).

 

This is how it usually goes:

1.) If people are interested by your title, they’ll click on your story.

2.) If people like the poster, then they will scroll down. (I mean, let’s admit it: pretty much all of earth’s human population is shallow. I usually don’t care for the appearance, but I do admit I sometimes tend to be attracted to stories with good posters).

3.) When they scroll down, they’ll read your description. If your description is interesting, they’ll scroll down.

4.) Then they’ll read your foreword. If it’s interesting, they’ll click the “next” button.

 

That is why you need to balance everything. Don’t just put all the good stuff in the foreword. Put some of it in the description, as it’ll give people a reason to actually scroll down.

 

★ Character Development/Showcasing -/20

I’m not going to judge in this category. I just feel it’s unfair if I do. You only have two chapters so far. I can’t possibly judge your characters. Especially since the only character we actually focus on so far is Min Jee. We’ve only heard Bacon’s name once. Then we only get a super, super, super short scene with Lu Lu. And we have not yet met any other members of EXO, so I really cannot say much here.

 

And although I won’t be giving points in this section, I will be talking about it a bit.

 

I’m kind of glad that Min Jee isn’t the bubbly, happy-go-lucky girl that we see in so many fanfics. She’s not a Mary Sue (or she doesn’t seem to be?).

 

But then, Lu Han seems like all the guys we see. He’s flirty and arrogant (or seems to be, but the only thing we’ve seen from him is the note that he passed her during class). How is that any different from the Lu Lu we see in other fanfics?

 

When you really begin writing all your characters, don’t make them Gary Stu’s and Mary Sue’s. In case you don’t know what Gary Stu’s and Mary Sue’s are: They are characters who are too cliché, too perfect to be real. Don’t make your characters all amazing and flawless.

 

Give them flaws… REAL flaws. Clumsiness isn’t a flaw (because guys think it’s apparently “cute,” which makes it not really a flaw). Stupidity is a flaw, but that’s the “flaw” Mary Sue’s have. Give your characters qualities that no other characters have.

 

Don’t stick to the stereotype that everyone uses. Take Onew, for example. How many fanfics have you seen where he’s not obsessed with chicken? Or what about Jessica? Isn’t she always the , the evil queenka, or the… “female dog” of the story?

 

Try to make your characters different from everyone else’s. Don’t give them TOO many flaws, though, because that’d be unrealistic.

 

★ Appearance 5/5

I thought the poster was utterly amazing. It was so dark and dramatic. It fits the mood of the story just perfectly. Then I saw it was from exoticgrounds. Ha, it’s no wonder it’s so beautiful.

 

★ Originality 15/20

I can’t really say if it’s original so far. I don’t know what plot twists you have in mind, or if you have any planned at all. So far, I don’t think it’s all that original. She’s the “rare” one, the one who decides the fate of the world, the one who has special powers (?). Oh, wow, and she has to choose between two groups of hot guys. Yep, never seen that before.

 

I suggest you should insert a few plot-twists here and there. Make it shocking, hard to predict. Don’t put TOO many plot-twists because then it’ll get all confusing.

 

★ Flow 3/5

I think the flow was pretty good. You introduced Min Jee’s character nicely, showed us how she felt about having to move so much, and so on.

 

The only thing that ruined the flow was the fact that you do your dialogue incorrectly. It got confusing at some parts and just hard to read. Remember, the way you write your story, the way you present things both affect the flow of the fic.

 

★ Grammar/Spelling 16/25

As I’ve said earlier, you do have some grammar mistakes here and there. I’ll just point out a few major, important ones that are repetitive or just straight-out wrong.

 

Yours [Foreword]: Hello world, I’m Min Jee, a sixteen year old student from London.

Corrected: Hello, world. I’m Min Jee, a sixteen-year-old student from London.

Reason: I feel that it would be a lot of commas if I put one between “world” and “I’m” so I decided to just split them into two sentences.

Anyway, the “sixteen-year-old” part needs to be hyphenated. When several words are used as one single adjective (a compound adjective), it would usually be hyphenated.

Examples: a long-term relationship, a part-time job, a well-known singer.

Here’s an easy trick to know whether to hyphenate or not: If there’s an “s” at the end of “year,” you would NOT need to hyphenate it. If there’s NO “s” at the end of “year,” then you would need to hyphenate it.

Examples: He is fifteen years old. He is a fifteen-year-old boy. I am fourteen years old. I am a fourteen-year-old girl.

I just really have to make this clear. I see people making this mistake so many times, and it’s become a major pet peeve for me.

 

Yours [Foreword]: I find my name quiet unique.

Corrected: I find my name quite unique.

Reason: “Quiet” means to make little noise (Be quiet! Will you quiet down, please?). “Quite” means something like “nearly” (It’s not quite as bad as I thought. I’m not quite finished yet).

 

Yours [Foreword]: I’ve never heard of any one famous…

Corrected: I’ve never heard of anyone famous…

Reason: “Anyone” is an indefinite pronoun, which is a noun. “Any one” is an adjective phrase.

The object of the preposition (in this case, the word “of”) must always always be a noun or a pronoun.

Examples: Any one of us can go to the party. Anyone can go to the party.

 

Yours [Ch.1]: “Min Jee, look at that”, my dad pointed out…

Corrected: “Min Jee, look at that.” My dad pointed out…

Reason: Reading your story, I’ve realized that you write your dialogue incorrectly. I honestly don’t blame you for that, whether you’re a native speaker or not, because I myself have only just learned how to write dialogue quite recently.

There’s a lot of important aspects to dialogue: capitalization, punctuation, and paragraphing.

You do most of it incorrectly, and that would take me such a long time to explain every little detail clearly. I don’t know if it’s because there are just so many mistakes or because I’m just so lazy. Though, it’s probably the second option.

Nevertheless, here’s a link to a great page that discusses dialogue. This link covers absolutely everything that you need to know about dialogue: capitalization, punctuation, paragraphing, and even more.

Now you’re probably wondering where the link is, so I’ll give it to you now:

http://homeworktips.about.com/od/writingrules/a/Writing-Story-Dialogue.htm

You could also look at the past review I’ve done for minminXP. In there, I also provided an example how to write correct dialogue. (Though, you’ll have to scroll all the way down for a link to the blog in order to see the highlighting and capitalization.)

 

Yours [Ch.1]: …that person who I miss the most…

Corrected: …that person whom I miss the most…

Reason: A lot of people don’t know the difference between “who” and “whom,” and to be honest, I don’t really understand the concept very well either. However, I do believe the correct way to write this sentence would be with the word “whom.”

“Who” is the subject. It’s the one DOING the action. “Whom” is the direct object. It’s the one that the action is acted UPON. I don’t know how to explain very well.

Here’s a neat trick: Replace the “who/whom” with the words “he” and “him.” You’ll sometimes have to re-word the sentence a bit. It should look like this:

…that person, I miss he the most… // …that person, I miss him the most…

Which one sounds better? The one on the left? Or the one on the right?

Hopefully, you said the one on the right. If “him” makes sense, then you would use the direct object “whom.” If “him” does NOT make sense, you would use the subject “he.”

Examples: I gave the present to him. You gave the present to whom?

He bought a new car. Who bought a new car?

Baekhyun will marry Kat. Baekhyun will marry (who/whom)?

In the last example, if you replace “Kat” with “she” and “her,” which one makes more sense?

Baekhyun will marry she. // Baekhyun will marry her.

Obviously, “her” makes more sense. Therefore, you would use the direct object “whom” because the action is being done UPON her.

Baekhyun will marry whom? is the correct way to write it.

If this is still confusing for you, just tell me. I’ll try to explain clearer through PM-ing you. Or maybe, I’ll find you good websites that explain this better.

 

Ch.1 Spelling Errors: “signalled” should be “signaled”; “breathtaking” is one word; “nickname” is one word; “eyelids” is one word.

Ch.2 Spelling Errors: “I’m” should be “I” (in the first paragraph); “eyeliner” is one word.

 

Now I’ll go back to talking about dialogue. Every time a new person speaks, it has to be a new paragraph. Because you don’t do that, it gets confusing sometimes. I won’t blame you too much for this, since I used to do it, too. But it’s really confusing to read. I don’t know who is saying what.

 

★ General Enjoyment/Last Comments 4/5

I actually really like your writing style (except for the dialogue part). I think you’re a pretty decent writer, definitely much better than me.

 

Honestly, if your story didn’t have , I would seriously subscribe. Haha, I think it’s pretty interesting (even if it’s cliché). I’m just curious to see what’s going to happen between her and EXO, curious about which group she would trust.

 

Remember to make your characters realistic, write your dialogue correctly, and add some twists to make it interesting. You want to give people a reason to subscribe, a reason to comment, a reason to upvote.

 

I hope you don’t mind the low score. It shouldn’t matter, if you love to write. Oh, and I’m sorry if I was too blunt and sarcastic. My sarcasm and harshness go hand-in-hand. Sorry, sorry! (Did you catch the Super Junior reference? Yes? No? Never mind then.) Thanks for requesting, and good luck with your story!

 

-54/100 80 points