A Heart of Ice Can Always Be Broken

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Story title: (4/5)

It’s an interesting title. It’s unique and is a title that makes the reader’s brain work a little. To be honest, I feel like your title can become one of those quotes I see people post on social network or something, it’s just so very…deep and poetic, and I feel like I can write a full-on analysis on it. In fact, I might just do one right here and now.

I like the simplistic yet powerful meaning behind your title. After going through hardships and having burdens heavier and tougher than rock weigh down upon one’s shoulder, most tend to numb their once beating heart into freezing ice. Yet despite the ice being cold and seemingly unapproachable, in the end, ice is just ice; a thin and fragile substance that can always be broken. If one would only light up a match and approach the ice with it, then surely, the ice will melt and break away under the warmth of the glowing fire.

Anyway, the reason why I knocked off a point there is because, although I could see the relevancy of your title to the plot and the beautiful meaning behind it, it didn’t stand out that much to me initially. I only really processed your title in my brain after reading it the second or third time, and I don’t think readers will take the time to think about the meaning of your title when they scroll down the page. In my perception, I think it’s a title that could be easily missed in the sea of so many other different stories and titles.

Graphics: (7/10)

To be honest, I imagined your graphics to be more greyish and elegant when I clicked onto your story, but what I got was full-on black everywhere. Now, I’m not saying that’s bad because it does suit the angsty feeling your title give out, but since I don’t see an ‘angst’ tag anywhere and your description and foreword doesn’t scream ‘angst’ all that much, I get this sense of misconception whilst reading your story. Is your story meant to be angst? Or is it not?

After reading through your story, I didn’t really see anything angsty or depressing in your plot. Although it’s not full-on fluff or comedy either, it just doesn’t scream ‘angst’. Now this is where it contradicts with your graphics, because though your plot doesn’t show me anything ‘angst’, your graphics does. Every single inch of it spells ‘angst’ or ‘depressing’ or ‘morbid’. The black background, the dark poster and the grey coloured font all makes me think that I’m about to dive into a depressing story which will surely squeeze some tears out of my eyes. So there I was, reading through your story and awaiting for that angsty moment to appear.

Who knows? You might really be aiming for an angst type of feeling, but I guess I’m just not receiving it very well. We’ll discuss this part later on in this review.

Anyway, graphics is a really important part of setting the mood for your readers. The first thing your readers will notice upon entering your story won’t be the plot, your description or even the short excerpt from your story. The first thing that will greet them is your...*dun dun duunnn*…that’s right, your graphics. So how you want the readers to perceive your story should reflect upon your presentation of the graphics. Right now, I’m having trouble figuring out whether your story is meant to be angst or not, so here I am, writing this section with a pounding heart, wondering if you actually were aiming for a depressing mood and yet here I am telling you all this junk.

But considering how I’m confused here, I guess there are other sections you need to improve on. We shall go through that later on in the review.

Anyway, if we set aside all that business about setting the mood and all that, your graphics overall is not bad. The background is clean and the poster was made nicely. Your font is readable and everything is set out and spaced evenly so that it’s not distracting to the eyes. Good job on that.

Description and foreword: (8/10)

Nothing much to say about this section. It’s organized, clean, neat and easy to understand. Your description was written quite well, and I liked how you spaced out everything. It makes the description more interesting to read, and it’s also a bonus to your graphics section as well. You leave cliff-hangers in both your description and foreword, and those cliff-hangers you left weren’t awkward or anything. In fact, I think it really sparked my curiosity into finding out what happens next.

But although you leave the right cliff-hangers at the right place, after reading your short excerpt, it kind of put me off a little in reading your story. Not because I’m against excerpts or anything, but more because your writing style is exposed in your excerpt. I shouldn’t go into detail on this here in this section, but I just want to point this out since it is a part of your foreword.

Characterization: (6/10)

You characterization isn’t the best I’ve seen, but it isn’t the worst either. Hmm…How do I say it? Although I can sort of analyse each character’s personality, it’s kind of just based off on my own judgement about what they should be like. I wasn’t given a very clear answer as I read through your story, but it’s not like I’m completely lost either.

Firstly, I assume your title is relevant to Oh Minhee. She’s the one with the heart of ice that Chanyeol is striving to break. So if I were to compare title with character, I would be expecting a cold, frigid and emotionless girl whose actions would reflect her personality, meaning: minimal interactions with others; rarely smiles or make loud noises and absolutely almost nothing would affect her frosty attitude. This is the way I interpret a person with a ‘heart of ice’, but when I was reading through your story, Minhee seemed a lot more ‘alive’ than I had expected her to be.

Sure, there were those times where she ignored people or disregarded others, but she screams and pinches Kai, got interested in gossip when she was eavesdropping on Chanyeol’s conversation and all that. But this is a disappointment to me only due to my own biased judgement about how she should be like, so everything I wrote up there is on a highly personal level. I just want to point out that there may be readers like me who feel disappointed after already creating an image of Oh Minhee in their head, so what you can do, is to strengthen how you want the readers to perceive Minhee as.

Now, you did say in the description that she was a badass, rebellious and carefree girl, but the whole badass, rebellious and carefree girl thing didn’t stand out to me that much at all. I mean, she studies, she shows Xiumin around school and she doesn’t seem all that…bad? I see a hurt, scared even girl who’s struggling through life…but not necessary badass. If badass is what you want Minhee to be, that’s great! But I suggest you elaborate and accentuate the badness in Minhee’s character because it’s not coming through great (at least to me) right now.

About the other characters, it’s all the same case. You have a base and a structure for the characterization of your characters, but it’s just not filled up yet. So right now, your characters seem kind of empty…

For example, how is Kai the typical bad boy who plays, causes trouble and spends money carelessly? And Chanyeol, I need you to give me proof that he’s the typical prince charming. That he's charismatic, funny, romantic and a girl’s ideal man. I can’t see any solid evidence of the characters they’re meant to be, and although you only do have five chapters right now, I should be able to already catch a glimpse about their personalities. In fact, I should be able to already know what kind of characters I will be dealing with in this story from the very first chapter. Right now, I kind of feel like you’re just skimming through the plot without adding life to the characters.

I’m sorry if I sound harsh above, but I mean good. As I had stated in the beginning, your characterization isn’t awful! It just needs more elaboration and detail in it. You’ve already gave the readers a good outline of your character’s personalities in the foreword, now, I expect you to colour in that outline in your chapters.

Plot: (25/40)

If you’ve read one of my other reviews before, I’m sure I’ve mentioned that I have nothing against clichéd stories and actually enjoy reading them. But, I want the plot to be original as well as being clichéd. Sounds ironic right? Here, let me explain what I mean.

Due to this creative and spontaneous world that we live in where people are free to create, there are no longer stories that are “original” anymore due to the mass amount of stories being produced every year. But, the clichéd part of your story only applies to the structure and outline of your story. Guess what? You are free to be as original as you like filling in the details of your clichéd plot.

For example, a clichéd story outline where I see a lot of authors use are werewolves stories. A girl meets a guy -> turns out he’s a werewolf  -> falls in love with him -> he protects her from danger…yada yada yada.

But what can you do to make this interesting? There’s many different things you can do. One thing I find exciting when reading a story / watching a drama is when there’s something like a curse or the sort involved. Just from that ‘cursed’ idea, you can add in so many interesting things.

Let say the girl was cursed: Who’s the person that cursed her? Why was she cursed? What is her identity that she was cursed? How was she cursed? Does her curse have anything to do with her meet-up with the werewolf? And most important, what’s the curse?

You see? Just from one simple idea, I could make the plot so much more interesting against that clichéd storyline.

Now, with your plot, I can see your clichéd structure.

Girl had a past with Kai -> Girl turns bad after broken heart -> Chanyeol comes along -> both guys fall in love with her …etc etc etc.

Great! You gave me an outline of your story…but that’s about it. Your plot confused me even sometimes.

For instance, Xiumin appeared in the very first chapter with Minhee, but then he sort of disappeared afterwards. I mean, he’s got to have some kind of importance if nearly a whole chapter is dedicated to him, right? Also, who’s Xiumin to Minhee? Childhood friends? Primary school classmates? I had no idea where’s he’s supposed to stand whilst I read through your first chapter.

The same applies to most characters as well.

Chanyeol, he just appeared suddenly like that. I had absolutely no idea who he was apart from the fact that he’s her classmate. Does Minhee like him? Does she hate him? How is Chanyeol perceived in Minhee’s eyes? (**hint hint, this is where you give us an elaboration of Chanyeol’s personality and all that **)

But yeah, I got to give some positive feedback to you as well! To be honest, I think you’re really good at leaving cliff-hangers. For instance, you ended the first chapter Chanyeol’s thoughts. I really like that last sentence: ‘Endure it Chanyeol. This is only the start.’ I mean, I got kind of excited reading that last sentence and that prompted me to click onto the next button. You leave really good cliff-hangers and that’s something you deserve to be praised upon.

Anyway, yeah. The plot overall isn’t terrible, but it isn’t all that interesting either with the exception of your amazing cliff-hangers. I just wish you could add a little something of yours in there. Plot twists, a creative idea…anything. And introduce your characters better since that affects how the readers see your plot as well. Fighting. \(^_^)/

Consistency: (3/5)

Your flow is fine. Nothing that major of an issue here, but there is just this one thing I would like to point out: I think Chanyeol’s falling in love with Minhee a little too quickly. I haven’t really seen anything much happening between them, so maybe you should slow down a little and focus on working on their relationship status before jumping to the conclusion of Chanyeol falling in love with Minhee. :))

Reader’s Response: (2/5)

Currently, you do not have many readers or comments. I think one major reason for that is because of your slow updating. I see that you started this story somewhere around mid-July, but you’ve only got five chapters up. I understand that you probably are busy, and don’t the time to update that frequently, but if you really want to improve your readers, I suggest faster updates. Oh, adding little interesting moments in there should also spark comments and try advertising your story, I assure you that you will definitely gain more readers through advertising.

Grammar and Writing style: (5/10)

Now, you do not have many major grammatical errors in there with the exception of a few quirks here and there. The reason why I knocked off half of the points is due to your writing style.

I’m so sorry for saying this, (I really am), but I don’t like your writing style at all.

Before we move to the writing style section, let’s fix those little errors first:

Original: Minhee whispered to herself as she walked through the hallways.

Fixed: Minhee whispered to herself as she walked through the hallway.

There’s no ‘s’ at the end of ‘hallway’. She’s not walking down multiple hallways at the same time but only one, so no plural form needed to be added here.

Original: Just two minutes late, and the teacher isn’t even here.

Fixed: She was two minutes late, but the teacher wasn’t even here yet.

The sentence sounded really weird and sort of ironic. From your original sentence, I interpreted that she was only two minutes late, but the teacher isn’t here yet. Do you see the contradiction? You’re saying that she didn’t arrive to class that late, but then you went off saying that the teacher is late since the teacher isn’t even here yet. So I revised your sentence a little :)

Original: Ms. Yoon yelled, walking in speedily with her blood, red heels clicking on the floor. The class had become quiet and lessons were about to start right around the corner.

Fixed: Ms. Yoon yelled, walking in speedily with her blood red heels clicking on the floor. The class became quiet immediately as lessons were about to start right around the corner.

I assume you were trying to describe the heels a colour of blood red, and in that case, adding in a comma and separating ‘blood’ and ‘red’ would be wrong since then, you would be describing the heels as ‘blood’ which doesn’t make sense at all. Also, it is unnecessary to add in the ‘had’. It makes the sentence sounds a little weird.

Original: "You never know?" Kris shrugged his shoulders.

Fixed: "You never know." Kris shrugged his shoulders.

In this case here, Kris isn’t asking a question. He’s making a statement so no question marks needed here.

Alright! So, there are still many of those quirks in your story, but I trust that you would be able to fix them yourselves considering how English is your first language. Now, moving on to my main focus: writing style.

First things first, I feel like you’re only telling me what happened instead of showing me what happened.

For example: But, when the exam results come out, they're normally published on a paper which is stuck on the notice board and of course, Minhee was on it. What place did she get you ask? Well, she always got first. That still didn't make people believe that she was smart though. People always thought that she cheated instead.

Telling me that people frame her for cheating just because she received high scores only gives me a shallow understanding of the bullying or hate she’s receiving from others. I want you to show me how she’s being bullied. For instance, write out the actual scene where she’s checking up her scores on the notice board and hears people gossiping about how she cheated her high score. You could even spare the trouble of adding in a scene just to prove her being hated by others through adding in a few lines in the last scene of the first chapter when she walks over to her seat. Get a few people to snicker as she walks past or even tripping her by sticking out their leg.

Do you get what I mean? I don’t want to read a list of events, I want to actually be able to see the events happening. This is why I wasn’t able to clearly identify whether this story is angst or not. Since I wasn’t given many description, I was left to imagine on my own what kind of genre this story is meant to be.

Also, you’re adding in too much detail in places where I think is unnecessary, and adding too little details in places that should have more detail.

For example: She wore her bra first, then her underwear and started to dry her hair. She faintly heard footsteps and stopped her actions.  

Now, do we really need to know all that? Do the readers need to know the order of how she dresses? Although there’s no harm done, it’s not really useful either. Taking out useless information would be the first step of sharpening your story.

Here are some places in which I think you should add more detail to:

-The scene where Minhee bumps into Kai in chapter two. I crave for how she felt when she bumped into him. Did annoyance wash over her? Or maybe a wave of nauseousness hit her as she stared into Kai’s dark, daring eyes. (** see, through the description of Kai’s eyes, you allow the reader to understand Kai a little more. Kai owns a pair of dark and daring eyes, so that means that he’s definitely not the innocent type and instead leans more towards the bad boy type.**) 

-The scene where she received hate letters in her lockers.

-Kai’s meet up with Minhee on the roof. Personally, I quite like how you portrayed that scene, but once again, I need to know how she feels! I could only try and guess her feelings through her actions. I’m not saying you have to write a whole clump of her mood, but you could express her emotions better through adding in simple adjectives.

Original:  "Good," she replied. "Is that all you wanted me for?"

Revised: "Good," she replied frostily. "Is that all you wanted me for?"

You see? All I added in was ‘frostily’, but that made the reader understand her emotions better than just knowing the mere fact she decided to leave after seeing Kai.

Ok, moving on.

So, I noticed that you put in a lot of slang words like ‘Yo!’ or ‘man’ or ‘wanna’ or ‘yea’…etc.

There’s nothing wrong with that, but it just feels a little bit weird seeing a lot coming out of Minhee’s mouth, almost as if she was a guy and were best buddies with the guys. I don’t know, I just don’t really like it that much, but I noticed you stopped adding in so many slang words so I was happy.

Finally, some of your adjectives are placed in sentences I think is weird.

For example: While leaning against the wall effortlessly for the past five minutes, Minhee caught Xiumin coming out of the office with the corner of her eye. 

Hmm. Leaning ‘effortlessly’ on the wall? It’s not like leaning against the wall is very tiring for a normal human being, right? Usually, I use ‘effortlessly’ in situations where the person was able to do something the norm isn’t able to do easily.

So for example: Kai carried Minhee effortlessly to the nurse’s office.

A normal person wouldn’t be able to carry someone without any effort to another place, so I use ‘effortlessly’ to show off Kai’s strength. I think I get what you’re trying to say though, and if I’m correct, I think you should replace ‘effortlessly’ with ‘casually’.

Anyway yeah, I think that’s about all I wanted to say about this section. Please don’t feel disheartened by this section, once again, I’m not trying to say you have terrible writing style. I just want to help you improve.

Over-all enjoyment: (2/5)

Sorry…I didn’t enjoy your story that much. Mainly due to my pickiness about your writing style and plot. But you’re a good writer! You just need to improve your writing techniques~ ^_^

Reviewer’s note:

I’m so sorry for this ultra-late review…been under a lot of stress lately with exams and many other things and I really wanted to give you the best review I could give instead of just skimming through each section half-heartedly. I officially spent my whole afternoon writing your review instead of studying but I’m happy since it’s my way of relaxation…sort of? Anyway, I hope you won’t take this review as criticism of your work, but instead a suggestion of how you could improve your work. Fighting!!

♠ TOTAL SCORE: 65/100