Trapped in a K-Drama

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Story title: (2/5)

When I look at a title, I judge its quality on whether I feel like reading the story or not. Although the plot beneath that title may be superb and mind-blowing, if the title doesn’t attract the reader’s attention, then no one would be able to discover that amazing story hidden beneath the title. I kind of feel like that’s what’s happening with your title; when I first saw your title, I wasn’t all that eager to read your story. But after I read it, I felt like I was tricked by your title because your story is simply amazing.

I believe a title should reflect the story. True, your title is heavily related to your story, but sadly, it didn’t give out that vibe which made me want to click onto the link. I’m sure there’s many other titles out there that would be both related to the story and be more eye-catching. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I felt like you chose the title according to your plot, and that’s good since it’s meant to reflect your plot. But, I hope in the next fanfic you write, you’ll choose a title that accentuates your plot instead of just simply stating what it’s going to be about.

I know thinking of a title is hard work, but a good title is your first step in to success with your fanfic. If you want people to discover that beautiful story of yours, then your title needs to be equally beautiful in order to attract readers. I think of it like this: A title is like the image of an idol, if the image of the idol is good, then people will go and search him up. It is only when they search him up that they would be able to discover the idol’s talents. So from now on, think of your stories as an idol, and you’re the stylist in charge of making the idol look good…

Anyway, I can only give you general advice about titles since thinking up titles is my weakest point in story making. Therefore, I am still improving myself too. But I hope what I wrote up there helped you even in the tiniest way possible.

Graphics: (7/10)

For such a light-hearted and fluffy story, I feel like your graphics isn’t cute enough. Let’s start with the poster.

Firstly, your poster is a little bit bland. I was expecting more pink and white and happy and fluffy colours but then I see shades of brown that doesn’t resemble anything the tags on your story reads. I’m truly sorry if you made the poster yourself (I assumed so since I don’t see any credits of poster shops), and I recognize your efforts, but I have this strong urge to ask you either to make a new poster that’s more fluffy or go request for a poster in poster shops. You can PM me if you want recommendations for poster shops. I know one that makes really good posters.

Anyway, please do not feel that I’m trying to say the poster is terrible just because I’m asking you to switch posters. No, it’s definitely not because of that, but as I had stated in the title section above, your poster should reflect your storyline as much as possible. It’s the same thing with titles, the prettier the graphics, the higher the chance readers will proceed to read your stories because I’m sure there’s readers out there like me who sometimes judge their first impression of the story based on the graphics.

Moving on to the background. Once again, although it’s nice and simple, it’s dreadfully plain. I suggest you change your background as well…find a more light-hearted background that, once again, reflects your story. Maybe something like this: http://backgrounds.mysitemyway.com/background/baby-pink-pastel-tileable-patterns-16/

Anyway, I’m sorry for asking you to change your graphics, but as an art student, I really prioritize the graphics in marking a good first impression to your readers. Whether you change your graphics or not though, is your own choice. After all, we all have our own preferences and ideas.

Description and Foreword: (8/10)

Your description is simple, short, and gives the reader a slight insight to your coming story. But it could be made more interesting, both visually and literally. Firstly, I suggest you enlarge the words a little and maybe space out the sentences so that it looks better. You could also change the font to a prettier one and even make it a bit more colourful – highlight the key words in another colour or something like that.  

Next, I have some questions for certain sentences in your description.

Sentence one: ‘Nam Eun Hee is an aspiring writer who watches K-Drama for a living.’

So, when you say that she ‘watches K-Drama for a living’, are you actually saying that she earns money out of watching K-Drama? Or that she spends a lot of time watching K-Drama? Since doing something for a living means being able to live from doing that thing; that is, being able to earn money from it and buying necessities in order to survive. The reason why I’m asking you this question is because I don’t think you can really make money out of watching K-Drama, nor would you be able to survive watching it. Therefore, I assumed that you’re actually trying to say that she watches K-Drama frequently. If that’s the case, then this is how it can be revised:

Revised: Nam Eun Hee is an aspiring writer who spent most of her life watching K-Drama.

^ Or something of the likes.

Sentence two: ‘Not because she enjoys it, but because there are so many things to criticize at.’

Firstly, this sentence sort of contradicts with your first one. In your first sentence, you’re saying that she’s an aspiring writer who spends masses amount of time watching K-Drama. Next, you’re telling me that she watches it because there’s so many things in the Drama to be criticized about? Now then, why would she watch K-Drama if it’s that bad in her eyes?

I assumed she watched K-Drama to gain inspirations from them in order to become a better writer, but since K-Drama is so criticisable, why would she waste her time watching K-Drama when she could be watching something else that could let her learn from it? Anyway, I was pondering over these two lines for a while, trying to find the logical relationship between them. Therefore, I would like to point this out for you to ponder over as well.

Sentence three: ‘In this typical K-Drama story, Nam Eun Hee’s family is broke. Her father has disappeared, leaving a tremendous debt his family has to take care of. Eun Hee was, without a surprise, still a university student in dire need of a part-time job. In her journey, she meets seven all too familiar male protagonist. With each K-Dramatic encounter, how will this affect her story?’

Firstly, I see no point in stating that Eun Hee was a university student in dire need of a part-time job since it doesn’t really link well with your following sentences. What I think you should explain here is how Eun Hee is in desperate need of money instead of stating that she needs a part-time job. Anyway, I’ve revised this paragraph for you, so you can have a look at it and see whether you like the revised version or not:

Revised: In this typical K-Drama story, Nam Eun Hee’s family is broke. Her father disappeared after leaving a tremendous debt and Eun Hee, who is still only a university student, is left having to deal with the aftermath of the debt. But like any typical K-Drama plot, Eun Hee meets seven all too familiar male protagonists in her struggle for money. With each K-Dramatic encounter, how will this affect her story?

I’m not too proud with this revised version, but what I was trying to point out was that everything in your description needs to be linked some way or another. Eun Hee’s dire need for money is basically the platform which allowed her to meet each guy, so don’t just tell me that she needs money, but show me why her dire need for money is important to the story.

Okay, moving on to the foreword.

Firstly, I really like your character chart. I don’t know why, but I just have this thing for character charts like yours where each character is given a little nickname. It’s cute, comedic and I think it really suits your story since each character is basically a clichéd character from K-Dramas. There’s only one thing I think you can add to your character chart, and that is the adding of the actual names of your characters since not everyone’s going to be able to recognize these faces. Don’t add anything else other than that though, since you don’t want to be giving out too much information.

Characterization: (10/10)

Each character has its own distinctive personality and characteristic, and that isn’t an easy thing to do especially when you have so many characters to write about. Even though each character follows a clichéd persona, you were responsible for making that persona come alive no matter how clichéd it was, and truthfully, you did an amazing job at that.

Seeing how I gave you full marks on this section, you would be able to imagine that I have close to absolutely nothing to pick on your characters, therefore, I will instead write a little character analysis for each character.

Nam Eun Hee: She’s this head-strong, shameless, quick-witted girl who has this amazing appetite, and is named with many nicknames: Mint, Mrs. Nam, Pig…etc. Of course, as the main protagonist of a K-Drama life, she has a tragic past, is surrounded by hot guys, and most importantly, is involved in a love triangle. (Or maybe even a love square…possibly a love pentagon.) I love how she’s so chill about everything. Although she’s supposed to be a typical main female protagonist, her knowledge of K-Dramas kind of makes her sort of badass. I especially love that part when her classmates tried to bully her but nothing went according to plan since she already predicted everything that was going to happen.

Son Ah Ri: The best friend of the main protagonist. The girl who either sticks by her side no matter what or becomes her love rival and enemy. In Ah Ri’s case, she’s sort of both, but currently, I’m leaning towards the love rival bit a little more since although she hasn’t done anything wrong yet, I just kind of get annoyed with her butting in the way of Sung yeol and Eun Hee.

Park Soo Yeon: The enemy. Love rival. Spoilt brat….and whatever other more mean names you could think of. She’s of course, the rich fiancé of the male protagonist, and of course, is a totally stuck up girl who thinks life revolves around her. But to be honest, I don’t dislike her as much as Ah Ri right now despite her being so mean and cruel…because I’m not a shipper of Woo Hyun and Eun Hee so I’m not as annoyed~ Plus, her bullying towards Eun Hee is always the platform for interesting events to happen. In the end, her plans to ruin Eun Hee’s day only brought Eun Hee closer to the male protagonists so I should thank her for that lol.

Nam Woo Hyun: Typical rich chaebol who’s a total playboy due to the emptiness in his heart created from his emotionless family upbringing. Despite his greasy appearance and slick movements, underneath all that glam, is just a hurt little boy trying hard to cover his scars through his flirtatious smiles and cheesy pick-up lines.

Kim Myung Soo: Do Min joon ssi~~ Hahah, he’s basically just the ‘alien’ from ‘you who came from the stars’. Truthfully, I wasn’t expecting a supernatural element when I was reading your story, so Myungsoo’s identity came as a pleasant surprise for me. But other than that, he’s just your typical cold guy who a poker face. One whose seemingly emotionless face actually hides a big boy who deeply cares for his friends. Myungie~

Lee Sung Yeol: The Mafia. The loan shark…who in truth is just this sweet, caring guy with an awkward and bashful personality, yet can get serious and deadly if you mess with the people he loves. He’s your typical sweet guy, who sadly, usually ends up being the pitiful second main lead with an unrequited love towards the female protagonist. I’m sort of happy that this isn’t happening in your story so far, because I always ended up crying with the second main lead whenever I watch dramas.

Lee Sung Jong: Your caring and loyal childhood best friend. Except Sung Jong is no typical childhood best friend- he’s a complete diva. I love his outrageous and sassy attitude, but I love his manly side even more. That part at the ice-rink was awesome, it shows us that beneath Sung Jong’s carefree attitude, he’s a lot more serious that you think.

Kim Sung Gyu: Personally, he’s one of my favourite characters. The typical arrogant and confident superstar that just happens to live next door to the female protagonist. Like any other idols in any other K-Drama, he just had to have a tragic accident happen to him, but his injured heart was healed from the support of the female protagonist despite their constant bickering. As we get to know him, we find out that underneath his leopard pants and cocky attitude, he’s a pretty sincere guy who holds dear to friendship and love.

Hoya: He’s the Gu Jun-Pyo (from Boys over flowers) of your story. The school jjang who hands out purple cards and threatening letters and has lots of minions working for him. But despite his scary outer appearance and his bully status, he has no idea how to handle tears. If you go all tough on him, it’s no use; he’s tougher than you and can beat you easily. But if you go all soft on him, then he has no idea what to do. To put it in simple terms, if you want to get onto Hoya’s nerves then there’s only one thing you need to do: cry.

Jang Dong Woo: The bright ball of sunshine in the story, and the dorky guy who’s always hardworking and cheerful no matter what. He’s your ‘nice sunbae’, the type of guy who girls falls in love with and go all ‘kyah kyah’ about in shoujo anime. Yet despite his seemingly innocent and naïve personality, he has a lot more depth than you think. Truthfully, he might have more depth than any other characters in the story. Whenever Eun Hee is stuck in a sticky situation and has no idea what to do with her life, it always happen to be Dong Woo’s wise words that helps her see her life in a new light.

Erm…yeah. Somehow I ended up typing a full-on analysis of all 10 characters. I don’t know why I did that, or why I even bothered to but I thoroughly enjoyed the process because I like analysing stuff. It helps me process what I had just read. Anyway, I do think that whole thing I just spent almost an hour typing is useful and isn’t just some kind of weird rambling since I assume the reason why you requested for a review is to understand what readers thought of your characters and story. So here I am, giving you my insight of your characters. Tadah.

Plot: (40/40)

Woo! Full marks on this section as well! I’m pretty sure I told you in the title section that I think your story is simply amazing. Well, this is the section to praise you about it.

Your story…is so unoriginal that it’s at the same time so very mind-blowingly original. Your story is like the king of clichéd stories where it combines all these clichéd ideas and turn it into something interesting and fun to read. Also, you’re great at leaving those little sentences that get my heart racing and my fists curled up in cheesiness.

For example, that line: ‘Something was tugging his heart...’ in the chapter ‘My Muse’ got me all squealing with all that fluffiness. Good job on that, and you should definitely keep up the good work. Adding little cute moments like that is one of the major reason why I think your plot is successful.   

Anyway, I love this whole concept of being trapped in an alternate universe filled with K-Drama events. To be honest, it sounds really fun. I know that I would love being trapped in one…in my dreams lol. (Because I love my family and I love my church and all that so no way am I leaving the real world just for some hot guys…hmm…it does sound tempting though.) Anyway, I’m sure you don’t need me giving you praises for this whole section since that’s not going to help you improve. Instead, I shall move on to some aspects I think you could change to make you story even more amazing.

First of all, your first chapter didn’t really leave that big of an impression on me. I wasn’t able to really dive into your story until I got up to maybe around the fourth or fifth chapter, so if I wasn’t planning to finish all 33 chapters of your story in order to write this review, I would’ve already stopped at the first chapter since I’m a picky reader. But I’m glad I didn’t since this story turned out to suit my taste really well. I think you could maybe re-read your first chapter and make it more attention-grabbing. Although you left a good cliff-hanger at the end, I think that first chapter could be brought to an even higher level. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good first chapter, but I want it to be great.

Secondly, that spicy ramyeon scene where Eun Hee made a bet with the restaurant owner could be altered a little. I’m not talking about the actual ramyeon battle, but the negotiation before the battle. Firstly, how the owner just agreed to the battle was a little bit unrealistic. Although yes, this story is based on the unrealistic and dramatic storyline of a K-Drama, it has to be a little more believable as well. So the deal between Eun Hee and the owner was that if Eun Hee won the battle, the owner would allow Sung Gyu to sing in his restaurant. If Eun Hee loses, she’ll pay for the ramyeon she ate during the battle.

Personally, I don’t think that deal is legitimate enough for the owner to agree. I mean, the owner is putting his restaurant’s reputation at stake for goodness sake, why would he agree to such an incredulous challenge if his reward was only the payment of the ramyeon Eun Hee ate? I mean…Eun Hee’s the one who ate it, so isn’t it normal that she should pay for it?

In this case, I think you could let Eun Hee be bolder, be more daring with her bet. This is the chance to show us how shameless she is (apart from that tambourine dancing scene and that whole ‘make rich guy fall in love with me’ scheme). This is a K-Drama after all, the female protagonist is supposed to make outrageous challenges without thinking twice…or at least strike up a deal that would seem legitimate to the readers.

For example, she could blurt out something like, “If we fail, then we’ll work for you for free for three months” or “we’ll pay for your rent for a month” etc. Something that could give the owner more benefit than the reputation of his restaurant.

Yes, a K-Drama is unrealistic, but it is also realistic to a certain extent that it’s not too far-fetched. So yeah, this is another thing I think you could alter a little. I mean, you don’t even have to alter a lot, you just have to change a few words. Literally.

Anyway, I think that’s it. That’s all I can think of, and is able to think of as of now. You have an amazing plot otherwise, so kudos to you on that.

Consistency: (5/5)

Your flow is perfect, not only is it not too fast or too slow, it also allows the readers to understand the characters gradually as if we were gradually understanding a real person. The progress of events came at the right time, and I love you to bits how you didn’t jump to conclusions or fast-forwarded anything. So once again, full marks for this section.

Reader’s response: (4/5)

You have quite a decent amount of subscribers and comments and upvotes, but I think your story deserves more than just that. Try advertising shops, although they cost karma points, but I guarantee you that you will gain more subscribers and readers through advertising. If you want your story to be known, then you have to advertise~

Grammar & Writing style: (9/10)

For a person whose English is their second language, I am deeply impressed with your wide range of vocabulary and your good sentence structuring. You write like English is your first language, and I wasn’t able to spot many mistakes. Of course, there will always be some small mistakes, so I’ll just correct a few here:

Original: “Sunbae, I think he might get sick because of that,” Eun Hee said as she stared at Myung Soo with worries.

Revised: “Sunbae, I think he might get sick because of that,” Eun Hee said as she stared at Myung Soo with worry.

In the case above, it should be ‘worry’ instead of ‘worries’.

Original: Of course, as Korean people, there is nothing more Korean than celebrating over a bottle of soju.

Revised: Of course, as Koreans, there is nothing more Korean than celebrating over a bottle of soju.

I don’t think adding ‘people’ after ‘korean’ is necessary. Of course, there’s nothing grammatically wrong with that, but I just think you don’t really need the ‘people’.

Original: The cushion and book was back at its righteous spot.

Revised: The cushion and book was back at its rightful spot.

The meaning of ‘Righteous’ straight out from an online dictionary is: morally right or justifiable. Of course you’re not trying to say that the cushion and book is back at its morally right spot, so from what I see, I assume you were trying to say that it returned to its ‘rightful’ spot.

 Original: A true artists.

 Revised: A true artist.

Since you added the ‘A’ at the beginning, you’re talking about one person. Therefore, ‘artist’ shouldn’t be in plural form. If, however, you deleted the ‘A’ and just wrote ‘True artists’, then it would make absolute sense.

Original: Ahri had styled his hair to resemble that of a rocker, and applied some light natural make up, though he demanded thicker eyeliners.

Revised: Ahri had styled his hair to resemble that of a rocker, and applied some light natural make up, though he demanded thicker eyeliner to be applied to his eyes.

So, that end part of your sentence sounded a little weird. I don’t think there should be a ‘s’ at the end of ‘eyeliner’ and I added in a few words to suit the sentence better.

Original: Sung Gyu stared in amazement as he was holding his guitar in one hand.

Revised: Sung Gyu stared in amazement as he held his guitar in one hand.

‘…as he was holding his guitar in one hand.’ Just doesn’t sound right. I think ‘was holding’ should be used in reference to the past. So, something more like, ‘he was holding his guitar before.’ In this case, you’re writing about the present in past tense, so he ‘held’ his guitar in one hand. I dunno if this explanation is correct, but I am certain that ‘was holding’ should be altered to ‘held’.

Okay! That’s about it. I mainly focused on one chapter for your grammatical mistakes (My muse chapter), but seriously, your grammar mistakes isn’t really that serious so I wouldn’t worry too much about it.

Uhm, nothing much to say about your writing style. I can only say one thing about it, and that is that I really like your writing style. So yeah, sorry but this is all I’m going to say about your Writing style section.

Overall enjoyment: (5/5)

I love your story! I enjoyed it thoroughly and it felt like I was watching a drama within a drama. When I first saw your request and that it was 30 chapters long, I was all like slightly shocked at the length of your story. But as I read it, I finished all 30 chapters within a short amount of time, and I enjoyed reading it as well, so that’s all good. Also, when I saw that it was subscribers only, I was a bit reluctant to subscribe since I had no idea about your story and I would feel bad if I unsubscribed later after I reviewed your story (since I only subscribe to stories I want to read). But thankfully, your story was awesome, so I’m really happy that I subscribed after all. Anyway, good luck with your fanfic! And by the way, I love all that effort you put into your fanfic. You even made a quiz and recorded the songs in the story…that’s dedication, I tell you, and I approve! *sticks note on your forehead.* (wink wink, reference to your story). 

Reviewer’s note:

I wrote this review late into the night in my exam period, so forgive me if you spot any grammar mistakes or any sentences that doesn’t flow well. If you have any questions, feel free to PM me!

♠ TOTAL SCORE: 90/100