Review: Be Careful With What You Wish For (JungMinhyo)

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A quick note before we start: I read your story before you started editing it so everything that I’m going to say below is prior to the changes that you’re making. I hope it still helps, though.

Title (2/5)

The reason why I deducted a lot of points is because the title is too common and ordinary. You will probably find more than five stories when you search for your own title in this site. Secondly, it doesn’t have the appeal to pull the readers’ interest. Frankly saying, if I were to browse through AFF categories and found your story, I wouldn’t have any desire to click on it. However, your title matches well with the plotline and the tone you’re using. It is always better to have a corresponding title instead of one with the appeal yet is unrelated to the story itself. You should keep this in mind for your future projects.

Description/Foreword (8/10)

I don’t think writing a description or foreword is an easy thing, so you have to feel proud to receive such a high score. I like how you did not reveal the entire plotline to the readers. Why, I thought, does she have to be careful with what she wishes for?  Will her wish complicates her relationship with Jongin even more? There were a lot of wonders that came to my mind as I read these two sections – very well done. You might want to try something new for your next stories, though, or write an advanced one for this shot. Try to write something more interesting and captivating. The one that you currently have is not bad, but it is not excellent either.

Appearance (10/10)

Very well. I love the layouts, the fonts, and I especially like the poster. It completely relates to the genre and the theme of your story. Props to your graphic designers!

Characterizations (8/20)

Honestly, it is not easy for me to elaborate on my views about your characters. Why? Because all of them are too similar; too typical. There isn’t any distinctive flair that could differentiate one from another.

Hyejung, here, is the most developed character, but even so, her development isn’t entirely shown. I do understand her, yet I can’t relate to her at all. You should try to dig deeper into Hyejung because she holds the most important role in the story. Differ her from Minjung, too. Set a personality that is different from the other characters’ so your readers won’t get confused. Remember, your characters need to have different traits. Jihye, for example, is so much different from Hyejung and Minjung for she is said to be an angel-like lady. You should keep the consistency of her role. Reveal more about her slowly, too. Up until now, though, I cannot relate to Jihye or Minjung. They are too blurry for me to see through.

Onto Jongin. Well. Who is he, really? I can only conclude that he’s a well-mannered high school student who’s very fond of skinship (with Jihye, that is). He appeared only in the late chapters even when he’s the main character so it really is a waste to know that. It would be better if you have introduced him sooner but if you want to keep it this way, it’s fine. However, you should give more spaces to Jongin on the upcoming chapters. Tell us more about him. He holds an important role so the readers should be able to relate to him somehow. Just like Jihye and Minjung, he’s still a completely blurry image up until the twentieth chapter.

Also, please give more descriptions to your minor characters. I got really confused when Jihye’s friends were being put together in one scene or when EXO members were being mentioned all at once. You didn’t reveal any description about them, not even their physical appearances, so you might want to brush it off. When you write, keep in mind that your readers do not know anything about your characters yet, therefore, you should draw the sketches for them by writing descriptions. Describe! That’s something you need to work on.

Storyline (6/20)

I don’t have anything against the overall plotline; it is cliché, yes, but the story itself is incomplete so I’ll refrain myself from judging that aspect. There aren’t a lot of plot holes but there are still some that irk me.

First of all, in regard to Jihye’s reaction when she found out that she switched body with Hyejung. I know and understand that she’s a very kind girl, but her reaction was too … calm to the point that it was not realistic. She didn’t look surprise. Switching body is an impossible thing to happen so Jihye was supposed to be, at least, more terrified and astounded. In your story, though, she was just like “we switched body, okay, that’s fine, we’ll find a way out”; it doesn’t really make sense to me. You should at least give the two some periods of time to adapt with the situation. Don’t worry, it won’t affect your flow. It will give more realism to your story and eventually affect your character developments.

What you need to worry about is regarding the events that you put in your story. There are just a lot of parts that is not needed to be included. Giving backgrounds to develop the characters is not a wrong thing, but you don’t really have to write one whole chapter for it, unless it supports the upcoming conflicts. It results in the slow pace that you were worrying over. Minjung’s background story, for example, doesn’t have to be told in two full chapters. You may, of course, show some backgrounds to explain the relationships between the characters, but you should just reveal it slowly. Focus more on the main conflict if you don’t want the pace to be too slow.

Originality (7/10)

Like I said in the previous rubric, your story is somehow cliché. But then again, it is still incomplete so it is unfair for me to say that the overall plotline is common and indifferent. Up until the twentieth chapter, though, I didn’t find any unexpected twist (due to the lack of descriptions, too) that’s why I’m deducting some points. However, I’d like to know what sort of plot turns that you have planned. I’d like to know what kind of relationship do Jongin and Jihye have, and how the story itself will come to an end. Remember: surprise your readers. Give occurrences that no one would ever think about. In order to make your story different from the others, you will have to deepen the plot more.

Plot total (13/30)

The English (8/15)

Your English is not bad at all. In fact, it is very good. I clearly noticed the improvements that you’ve made; some differences could be spotted between the old chapters and the latest ones, so props to you for that. It is still wise to consult and talk with your editor in order to improve more though. There are also a few things that I want you to keep in mind.

First of all, in the first few chapters of your story, there are a lot of ‘textbook phrasings’ that sound off to me. Here’s an example:

"Hye Jung looked at her wrist watch and saw that it was only 3 minutes before class started. Hye Jung walked towards the school next to Jong In's with her head on the other side when it suddenly snapped again like this morning.

Oww!" Hye Jung rubbed the back of her sore neck to ease the pain."

The sentences are too stiff; too rigid. “Hyejung blablabla. Hyejung blablabla. Hyejung blablabla.” They almost sound like a guide book. Try to replace her name with ‘she’ or try to rearrange the sentences, for example:

“Hye Jung looked at her wrist watch and saw that it was only three minutes before her class started. She quickly walked toward the school located next to Jongin’s with her head titled to its side as it suddenly snapped again like this morning.

“Ouch,” she muttered, hands rubbing the back of her sore neck in attempt to ease the pain.”

Vary the structure of your sentences, it will make a difference.

Onto punctuations. There are some rules of punctuation that you have to take note of. Firstly, you should put a comma at the end of your dialogues if they have a tag line (sentences/words used to indicate the speaker) and the first alphabet of the tag line is not capitalized (unless it is a name). For example:

"I was too shy to ride that thing too." Ji Hye replied.

Correction: "I was too shy to ride that thing, too," Ji Hye replied.

You should also place a comma when mentioning a name behind a sentence, for example:

"I didn't mean it Hye Jung." She said.

Correction: "I didn't mean it, Hye Jung," she said.

If a sentence is correspondent to the dialogue following it, there should be a comma placed in between, too. For examples:

(not taken from your story): She parted her lips to let the words slipped off , “I like you.”

Correct example: "What?!" Hyejung said in a shocked tone, choking on her saliva. "Why?"

Now, there is this punctuation that the English language has; we call it ellipsis. An ellipsis is often used to indicate omission or hesitation in a sentence, and can simply be formed by putting three periods (...) each with a space on both sides. For example:

Really?! Nah...She's definitely kidding.

Correction: Really?! Nah ... she's definitely kidding.

You should also avoid the usage of tilde symbols (~) in your direct speeches. Try to describe the speaking tone with words, I’m sure you are able to do that. Also, refrain yourself from capitalizing sentences. Laughter (“hahaha”, “hehe”) should not be formatted in caps. It would be even better if you can describe the action instead of literally writing the expression. (She laughed, she giggled, she burst into laughter). On a side note, numbers, in literatures, are supposed to be written in words. (Three minutes not 3 minutes, ninety degree not 90 degree).

I think you have the potentials to improve your English so again, consult with your editor and pay more attention to what I’ve said. I recommend the use of thesaurus so you can widen the range of your vocabularies, too.

Flow (2/5)

I think I have explained about this in the Storyline section. There are too many unrelated and useless events that slowed down your pace. You have noticed this problem too, yes? I can only suggest you to select some parts and discard them while you’re editing your story. Later when you write the future chapters, remember that events and occurrences are supposed to be related and correspondent to the conflict itself.

Overall Enjoyment (3/5)

I’m not going to lie to you but the reason why I didn’t enjoy the story as much is because of the genre. Romantic comedy isn’t really my thing. Moreover, the pace is too slow so I kinda hoped the story would develop faster. Don’t be discouraged, though. You have a lot of readers waiting for your updates so don’t take my personal opinions badly. I’m sure you’ll be able to make great improvements soon.

Writing Style (4/10)

When you write a flashback, don’t mark it with *flashback starts* - *flashback ends*. You can just give a line to indicate the difference between the happening events and the flashbacks, or simply format them in italics.

I noticed that you like to use a lot of Korean terms. This may be my mere opinion but the terminologies really put me off. Granted, I understand every words you were using, but I believe not everyone in this site have a proper understanding about those foreign terms. I suggest you to put something like a glossary at the end of the chapters to briefly define the terms (gomawo, noona, ahjumma, ahjussi, etc.) People come across different opinions, though, so yeah, just giving you my two cents.

Lastly, it would be great if you can improve your description skill. Don’t only state the obvious and don’t overwhelm your sentences with periods and symbols to describe the tones. Try to give more descriptions in order to develop the plot, characters, and even the flow. Keep on writing, I’m sure you’ll improve as time goes by.

Total (58/110)

I originally wanted to wait until you complete the editing process but decided not to since the shop is going to be revamped soon (yeay!) and that I’m going to be busy with school for the next few weeks. I apologize if I sounded too harsh and I really hope the review helps. Feel free to have your say, I’m always open to feedbacks. Good luck with the story!

 

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