my barista boy

MOIRA_0735

Title – 3/5

Despite having a title that isn’t very much related to a rated theme, it certainly fits the story since Chanyeol is the barista here, and I expect Baekhyun to have a new addiction soon, which would be the said barista. Simple, yet eye-catching, at least to me, and is very suitable with the genre(s) since they are romance with hints of comedy and not to forget the fluff. I can say that your story’s title doesn’t lack in originality, meaning to say that it is not a cliché title, though the word barista is commonly used.

 

Description / Foreword – 5/10

You actually gave two different descriptions. One in the comment link;

01 - Baekhyun, is a university student who cannot live his live properly without a cup of coffee. He ended up having one of the worst days of his life, which is his first day at the new university. After his tiring day, he went immediately to Starbucks, and he saw the world’s brightest smile.
And the other one is in your story itself;

02 - Running into Starbucks, his day brightened up immediately when he saw the world’s brightest smile.

But I will be discussing about both of it anyway.

I don’t know if it’s because of the fluff, but both descriptions seem to fit. It has spices of mystery like this line ‘…and he saw the world’s brightest smile…’ where I believe that the readers would already be able to guess that it’s going to be Chanyeol since the story have the BaekYeol tag, and we all know how popular the ship is, but there’s always something about mystery that is able to invite readers to have this feeling of wanting to read more. The second description is lesser in words; however it still has the same kind of vibe like the first one, though I’d have to say that it’s not as good as the first, which also would be the reason why I’m going to suggest in combining them. And as an example of the result, here’s what I have for you which would be optional to use.

→ Baekhyun is a university student who cannot live his life properly without a cup of coffee. After going through worst times which occurred on his first day in the new university, he went immediately to his favourite place, Starbucks, and he saw the world’s brightest smile, his new addiction.

That is just a suggestion, and if you notice, I put out some parts and that will be explained later. There’s not much for me to say about your foreword, though, since I am mostly focused on the description and it’s only natural to find the credits and reminders and all that, and as for the trailer, mind if I suggest you to move it either below the description or before the reminders. You want people to know about your story first, I believe, and that’s just how it works so if you put the trailer behind, the same goes to when the readers will watch it.

 

Plot(s) – 16.5/30

There are only four chapters in the story, and I do not include the fifth chapter since it’s only a teaser so I can’t really see much of the plot development, but the story did grow as I read through the chapters. However, there are some parts that are up to my disappointment.

At the beginning of the chapter, I find it quite unrealistic of how Baekhyun’s father abandoned them just because he’s a lazy . Unless you really stress out that his father doesn’t want a child and is not ready to really be a father, then that would’ve ring some bells. And since we have the perfect man Chanyeol here, I don’t think that the other reason which is ‘…and the family praises his talented skills…’ to be necessary of why he started to work as a barista. Born in a wealthy family, he could’ve find a better job, but usually characters like Chanyeol worked as what they wanted to be mostly and strongly because of their passion, their interest in it, except you’re trying to show that his family was being super supportive, then I really don’t think that it’s needed.

And okay, I assume that Baekhyun’s mother was talking to the head minister of his university, right? Here, I have to warn you about time setting. I know it’s not surprising to find any school’s or university’s principal or head minister or whatever you call them to be really caring about their students since they are made to shape up our skills in academic, but to find one contacting or meeting someone’s parents at night is simple weird. Readers would even think that Baekhyun’s mother is having an affair with said person, and you might want to change their meeting to much acceptable time, like early evening, afternoon or morning?

In chapter four, I really do think that Baekhyun would be a social butterfly with friends all around him, ready to support whenever they could for his bright personality, surely he has some other friends than that one and only friend he currently have in the story, and that’s only via Internet as well? Even if someone is so hard-working, I don’t think it’s impossible for that someone to still make way for socializing. If you had stated that Baekhyun is an anti-social person, then that probably would’ve make sense, otherwise, it’s simply bizarre. Other than that, I think your story have some clear plots but still unsteady, and here I’d like to advise you to just unite two chapters to one for the length of each chapter isn’t up to readers’ heart content, and sometimes, I think your author’s note is more of an update rather than the story itself.

 
Grammar / Spelling – 15/30

Let’s start with the grammar first. As said before, I will be explaining why in the suggested description I took out some parts, right? That is because here, ‘…Baekhyun, is a university student…’ the usage of comma isn’t correct. You are writing a full sentence, and you are not separating elements in a series, set off introductory elements, or set off parenthetical elements and to make it simple, none of the comma usage rules.
Next, ‘…who cannot live his live...’ where you should’ve put ‘life’ instead of ‘live’ because these two words are different, you know? Live means that it’s moving, it’s happening now, or just take you yourself as an example, you’re ALIVE. Live can also be used as an adjective in these forms – to live, to live in Korea, to live happily, I want to live with him, I don’t want to live like this and etc. Live can also be used as a verb (an action/something you’re doing). Meanwhile, life means life per se, or the life you’re living right now, the life that’s happening around us right at this moment or simply life on Earth. Ex: He has lost his hopes in life. Life is a noun and can also be used as an adjective to describe a noun such as life insurance or life experience and so on. So remember to use these two words correctly. I’ll just be listing the mistakes that I could detect from each chapters so take a look at them.
 
This was taken from the first chapter. “Baekhyun-ah.” his mother called… should be “Baekhyun-ah.” His mother called… That would be the usage of capital letters. Notice how you put dot before the quotation mark? And we all know that after the dot we would always start with capital letters first, right? If you write “Baekhyun-ah,” his mother called… instead then the usage of small letter would’ve been correct because you’re using a comma. The same goes to most of the lines of dialogue that you wrote in the chapter.

And there are many missing words in this chapter. For an example, ‘“Umma, I’m going to prepare now, and good morning too you” while smiling at her with eyes closed.’ which I believe should’ve been ‘“Umma, I’m going to prepare now, and good morning to you too.” Baekhyun said while smiling at her with his eyes closed.’ Another one here, ‘He turned away from his mom and took a pillow and hugged while saying:’ that should’ve been ‘He turned away from his mom, took a pillow and hugged it while saying:’ where the usage of comma could be used to separate actions in the sentence, and ‘it’ because without it, I think it’s possible to think that Baekhyun could be hugging a ghost or an alien, if you get what I mean.

One day, they visited the school went to headminsiter for a visit. That was a double trouble. One day, they went to visit the head minister of the school.

But, she just shooked her head… that should’ve been shook, for the past tense of shake is shook, never shooked. Don’t get confused when to add ‘-ed’ to a past tense word.

…Laughs and giggles… as in …Laughter and giggles… because they were not doing the action, when expressing it in a sentence, it should be laughter and not laughs.
 
This one is from the third chapter: He didn’t dare to open the door yet, he growed curious and listened. In which, by all means that it should not be growed because the past tense for grow is grew.

And: “I’m terribly sorry ahjusshi, I won’t be able the uniform that you’re asking for. It should be “I’m terribly sorry but I won’t be able to pay for the uniform that you’re asking for.” As I’ve stated in the plot(s) section, I think that the person Baekhyun’s mother was talking to was the head minister/principal/owner of the university Baekhyun enrolled in, and except that person is in his mid-eighties or something, he shouldn’t be called ahjusshi. Remember to use the quotation mark correctly as well, it is important to show dialogues.
 
Fourth chapter:

01. Now, both of them have more to time chat with each other, because he was promoted just recently.
→Now, both of them have more time to chat with each other because he was promoted just recently.
 
02. They both known that their males, that’s good so far.
→They knew that they were both males, and that’s good so far.
→They both had known that they were both males, and that’s good so far.
→They both have known that they were both males, and that’s good so far.
 
That was about it for the grammar section, there were a lot of similar mistakes so you can just use some of the guidance I prepared up there for you. I found even more spelling mistakes though. I’ll just go random for it.
 
First chapter;
sacrifce – sacrifice
headminsiter – head minister
mcuh – much
chessines – cheesiness
 
Second chapter;
evrey – every
 
Third chapter;
apratment – apartment
 
I’ll wrap this section up with those and here I’d like to give you a friendly reminder to either use Words or spell-check your chapters before publishing them, it would be a great help for you, trust me.

 
Characterization – 10.5/15

I judge based on the three characters since they stand out the most, the main – Baekhyun and Chanyeol and also Baekhyun’s mother, because his father is more or less a bastard that is very irresponsible, Chanyeol’s boss, Suho is alike an angel that couldn’t stand to be mad at him for a long time, his friends are all flower boys including Chanyeol himself while Baekhyun have only one friend from the Internet. I get that Baekhyun is a happy go lucky person, or that Chanyeol is the King of Reaction and how both are always so energized all day, but marks are deducted for the development of the characters hasn’t yet to be seen for the number of chapters are only five as of now.

 
Flow – 3.5/5

Based on the chapters, I can say that the flow of the story isn’t moving very fast or very slow, enough for me to think that it’s on the right pace and if you had the urge to combine two chapters into one, that would’ve been better and the pace of the story should clearly be seen as well afterwards.

 
Enjoyment – 3/5

I can’t say much about this section since the story isn’t complete yet, and the chapters are very limited for higher satisfaction, but I see great potentials for the story to be a good read once being improvised here and there, and the author’s notes are also filled with sense of humour along with the story itself so it’s a great combination. And after the bed scenes are added, I’m sure there will be even more readers. Overall, for someone as young as you to be writing this kind of story, I think you’re pretty impressive so good luck and never give up on your writing!

 
Final score – 56.5/100

Reviewer’s Note: I tried my best in being honest and truthful, so if I ever hurt or offend your feelings, I am truly sorry for it. You know that I don’t intend to do so, right? I’m always here to help if you need more guide in writing, so you can always personally contact me and thanks for requesting from us. I hope that you get something to learn and if the review helped, I’ll be really glad. I wish to see you again and until then!

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