Eleven Steps

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Story title: (4/5)

Eleven steps… A simple, elegant, and somewhat beautiful title that perfectly describes your story. A lot of people name their stories with long and fancy words, but just because it’s long and fancy doesn’t always mean it will be a good title that will leave an impression on the readers. Sometimes, it’s best to keep it simple.

Now, although your title is fairly simple, it has this sort of inner beauty to it. Despite the straightforwardness of your title, just one glance and you feel like there’s so much more than just those two, lucid words you used.

I did knock off a point from the score though, because it’s not really an original title. I’ve seen many other stories entitled with similar names to yours, proven by the many others fanfics and stories that showed up as I searched up your title in google. Other than that, I still love your title to bits, it’s so beautiful and suits your story perfectly.

Graphics: (8/10)

The poster is beautiful. Whoever made your poster definitely chose the right colour to use, the right images to use and even the font is beautiful. Therefore, the poster emits the right mood that matches the sad and regretting emotions in your story. I like the classy and almost mysterious vibe of the poster, especially that clock up on the right hand corner. It’s almost like a symbol of how you can’t turn back time, just like you can’t re-walk those eleven steps you already took.

The background is pretty as well…if it’s on its own. Though I really like the smudging and glowing effect on the words ‘eleven steps’, it looks kind of messy if I wasn’t looking at it closely, almost as if there was white paint smudged over the brown wallpaper. I have this feeling that the person who designed the background used the smudge tool to create that glowing effect, but I don’t think it works well as a background since the background’s not meant to stand out; its only there to make your story look less dull and boring.

I found the background a little distracting as I scrolled down your story. It’s that feeling where you’re trying to read something, but there’s this blob of white in the corner of your eye that makes you feel slightly uncomfortable. I really like the brown wallpaper though, It’s a perfect match with your poster and is a beautiful background to use.

I think it’ll be better if the glowing effect on the words was removed, or you could even remove any words from the background. Don’t get me wrong; the background by itself is pretty, but since it’s a background, I do think it could be made more subtle to become more pleasing to the eye.

Description & Foreword: (8/10)

I love your description. Once again, it’s fairly simple, but for such an elegant story like yours, all you really need is a simple description. What I love so much about your description is that you weren’t telling me what was going to happen in the story, instead, you showed me what I would be expecting if I read the story. I really like the way you lay out your description, and below is a revised version of how I think it could be expressed better, but your original description is already good enough so this is just suggestion of how it could be improved.

Original:

One step.

Two steps.

A few more and I'll reach the door. The rain outside is just making this more dramatic. I never imagined to leave just like this.

Three steps.

Four, five, six.

Just five more and I'll be gone.

Seven, eight.

Nine.

Ten.

Ele-

Revised:

One step.

Two steps.

A few more and I'll reach the door.

Three steps.

The rain outside is just making this more dramatic.

Four, five, six.

Just five more and I'll be gone.

Seven, eight.

I never imagined to leave just like this.

Nine.

Ten.

Ele-

So basically, I just chopped up your sentences a little and arranged it a little differently since I think it sounds more structured this way. But as I stated above, I don’t think it’s necessary to use my version of your description. Your original one is perfectly fine.

As for your foreword, there is nothing much I can pick on. Once again, it’s simply structured, but as I mentioned gazillion times before, it suits your story. I like the quotes you added in the foreword, it adds to the sentimental mood of your story.

One thing that could be improved on is I noticed you provided links for your credits in their full url form. That can come as a bit messy, and I saw that you had already linked the url in the names of the shops that provided their services for you. I don’t think it’s necessary to include the full url of the shops since you’ve already linked back to them, so I think it’s best if you just kept the links nice and simple.

Characterization: (8/10)

Your characters are portrayed very well, so well that I’m left with almost nothing to criticize about in this section. The only thing that I can comment on is to bring more personality to your characters. Though your characters are well-rounded, they are a little bit too round (if you get what I mean).

Though your characters are comfortable to read, I’m having a hard time finding distinctive words to describe them. For instance, the personality of the main character is very much smothered by her emotions causing her to act a certain way. Even the most cheerful person will have their depressed moments where they gloom around all day, but these few hours of gloom isn’t their true personality. Yoo Sunhee is portrayed as tired and worn-out from her painful relationship with Jongin, but what is her personality behind the mask of her emotions? Through the flashbacks, I see that she is playful and cute around Jongin. Although that may be her personality, but I feel like she acted that way due to the situation of the time- and that is the sweet moments and dates with Jongin.

But I really liked the whole Kai and Jongin thing. For one, that was pretty deep, and secondly, it’s a smart use of his stage name. Although I’ve seen many stories revolving around the differences between his stage name and real name, I think you portrayed this aspect very well, so good job on that.

All in all, excellent characterization. Considering that fact that your story is a one-shot, you did a pretty good job in expressing each character’s thoughts and emotions. The only thing I think you can improve is to sharpen each character’s personalities and make them more distinctive. Though I must say, it’s not very necessary in your case to bring out distinctive personalities since it is only a one-shot and I do think readers will be more interested in the emotions and plot rather than personality.

Plot: (30/40)

Let’s be honest here, your plot is nowhere near original. I’ve read so many other fanfics and stories with similar storyline like yours, even the whole eleven steps concept can be often seen in other stories. So ten marks off for originality.

But aside that, there is depth in your plot. I can clearly see your ideas and thoughts and concepts in your story. There is a moral to your story, and that is something I really appreciate when I read fanfics. I’ve read so many fanfics with awesome plots and creative imagination but lacking depth and insight to our lives and the pending situations of our society nowadays. The more I write, the more I’ve learnt the importance of adding depth into our stories. I don’t just want my readers to finish reading my story and think “This is a good story because it made me feel sorry for the main character and I’m crying.” Instead, I want the reader to finish the story with thoughts such as “This is a good story because I’ve learnt something positive about life from this story.” I don’t know, your story gives off this kind of vibe, it ends with a moral so I’m really glad to see that.

Consistency: (4/5)

This section is quite a difficult one to mark since your story is a one-shot, but the plot flows smoothly and the flashbacks aren’t positioned in choppy or awkward places. You balanced the past and the present nicely and bolded the key words of each event so I wasn’t confused. Great job on that.

The reason I didn’t give you full marks is because there are some sections which slightly confused me. Such as the part at the end where she talks about:

Yeah, that's how I feel right now. It feels like it was only yesterday when I first met Kim Junmyeon, he's practically my brother.

It confused me a little. Why was Kim Junmyeon suddenly mentioned? What did you mean by ‘he’s practically my brother’? How is this relevant to her leaving Jongin?

There were some other sections there like the one above that irked me a little, but otherwise, you have a nice, solid flow going on in your plot.

Reader’s Response: (4/5)

Your readers’ responses are all positive, and for a one-shot, having 200+ subscribers is pretty good. You only have 8 upvotes though, and that contrasted slightly against your 200+ subbies. To increase the chance of more people coming across your story, I suggest you can go advertise your story either through advertisement shops or posting on other people’s walls.

Grammar and Writing style: (7/10)

You have many grammatical errors, and that is to be expected since English is your second language. You do have expressive language though, and you have a pretty good range of vocabulary. I’m going to just fix some errors I spotted in your story before I talk about your writing style:

Original: Rolling around in the blankets, I sighed and threw my arm on the right side, where my boyfriend was supposed to be but wasn't. Where are you this time, Jongin? She turned her head and caught a glimpse of their picture on the bedside table. She smiled, remembering that day perfectly like it was just yesterday.

Revised: Rolling around in the blankets, I sighed and threw my arm to the right, where my boyfriend was supposed to be but wasn't. Where are you this time, Jongin? I turned my head and caught a glimpse of our picture on the bedside table. I smiled, remembering that day perfectly like it was just yesterday.

I saw this happening quite a few times throughout your story, so I have the need to point it out. You are writing in first person, yet there are many times when you suddenly switch to third person. Not only does it cause confusion, it will most likely turn people off from reading more since this happened right at the beginning of your story. I don’t know whether you proof-read your story, but it’s probably a good idea to proof-read it once before posting.

Original: His right hand was going up my arm as the left one was lying on my waist. I froze, before smirking mischeviously. "Nah, my favorite show is going on." With that, I separated myself from him and lied down on the couch. It didn't take a while for me to notice the sulking Jongin in the corner.

Revised: His right hand was going up my arm as the left one rested itself on my waist. I froze before smirking mischievously. "Nah, my favourite show is going on." With that, I separated myself from him and lay down on the couch. It didn't take long for me to notice the sulking Jongin in the corner.

Although many people say ‘lied down’ (even I do sometimes) in conversations, the correct past tense for ‘lie’ in terms of reclining is ‘lay’ or ‘laid’. ‘laid’ is used for objects so it should be ‘lay down’ instead of ‘lied down’.

Original: My eyes widened and I placed my the palm of my hand over my mouth to try to suppress my sobs. The words that I've been wanting to hear since forever, are the words that give me the most pain. Why'd you only tell me now, Jongin? When it's all about to end, why tell me you love me?

Revised: My eyes widened as I placed the palm of my hand over my mouth to suppress my sobs. The words I've been wanting to hear since forever are the words that’s giving me the most pain now. Why do you only tell me now, Jongin? Why tell me you love me when it’s all about to end?

I rearranged a few sentences and deleted some unnecessary words (which was probably typos). Once again, proof-reading probably would solve these issues.

Original: Although, I'm quite afraid of the consequences of this break up. I'm scared of how people around us would adapt. Would they have to avoid me? Avoid him? Kai is strong, he proved that to me years ago. But I'm afraid that things might go wrong and I won't be there to help him. He'll just have-

Revised: But I fear the consequences of this break up. I'm scared of how people around us would adapt. Would they avoid me? Avoid him? Kai is strong, he proved that to me years ago. But I'm afraid that things might go wrong and I won't be there to help him. He'll just have-

‘Although’ is usually used to contrast something. For example, ‘Although she has a pretty face, her personality is rotten to the core.’  In your case, you weren’t making a comparison but stating a thought. Therefore, you should use ‘but’ instead of ‘although’. I also deleted the ‘have’ from ‘would they have to avoid me?’ since in the sentence before you stated that Sunhee was afraid of people’s reactions to their break-up. If you add the ‘have’, it makes it sound like that Sunhee was afraid for the people around her that it was going to be troublesome for her friends to adapt to the situation. So be careful of small details like these because they can change the meaning of your words.

So these are just a few corrections for your grammatical mistakes. I suggest you go proof-read your story again since there are still many of these small mistakes out there, or get a beta-reader if you don’t have the time.

Your writing style is fine. There are some expressive sentences in there that really hit me in the heart, and your writing is alive. Although there were many technical mistakes, the feeling is there so I don’t have much more to say about your writing style. Good job.

Over-all enjoyment: (3/5)

Maybe it’s because I’m not a fan of one-shots, but your story didn’t capture my heart. Sure, it was a nice read, but unlike your readers unfortunately, I did not shed a tear. Keep up the good work though, you’re an excellent writer so if you keep writing, I’m sure you will only get better! Fighting~

Reviewer’s note: Sorry for the ultra-late review. I was getting a bit lazy with holidays just started and I was busy with holiday homework and church stuff. Hope this review was hopeful, and I’m sorry if this review is a little shorter than what I usually write. I’m still trying to shake off the laziness off my system.

♠ TOTAL SCORE: 76/100