Reviewer: Moelolz

Story Link: Here 

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Title [4/10]

To be honest, I’m not sure how your title fits in with your story. As mentioned in your description, your story is like a collection of Suzy’s journals – so how does that relate to your title “Give up”? The one story that you’ve posted “Story of Bujo” is about her relationship with a dog, and from what I’ve read, I couldn’t see how that relates to your title either. In this case, I would strongly suggest that you change your title to something more befitting of the theme of your story, because right now it isn’t just a matter of your title being plain or uninteresting, but of it not really acting out the role of a ‘title’.

One other thing, is that for future titles, I would try to avoid using punctuation. Of course, there are cases where punctuation is used in titles and it works well, but at least for your title right now, I feel that it’s a bit unnecessary and messy. First of all, I don’t think the question marks is needed for your title, but if you still want the question mark, then I suggest you take off the second one. If ever using punctuation, don’t repeat it twice, not only in titles but also in your story writing. There’s no need for two, one can get the point across enough.

Description and Foreword [6/10]

In my opinion, your description was interesting to a certain extent, but at the same time vaguely confusing and misleading. Let’s talk about what I like about it first. First of all, you have a neat, organized layout which is always good to see. I also quite like the direction of your story, with it consisting of diary entries since that’s not something I often see here at Asianfanfics. But, even though you said that it was going to be a ‘collection of stories’ in your description, I was a little confused, and disappointed when I saw that your story was completed with one chapter only. If you’re not deciding to write anymore of these diary entries, I suggest that you change your description and story to focus on the story of Bujo – so instead of making it into a collection of stories, turn your story into a one-shot because right now, your story doesn’t look much like a collection of stories to me.

Another thing, is that there are some grammatical errors in your description. I’ll just fix them up below:

Original: Humans aren’t the only one who knows, how to love?

Revised: Humans aren’t the only ones who knows how to love?

Here, your comma is inputted incorrectly, and you put it in a place which doesn’t allow the sentence to flow naturally. I would suggest that you just take out the comma. Also, it should be ones instead of one.

Original: This is just a collection of stories inspired from a newspaper article. I am trying to capture every human emotion in this collection. Love, Friendship, Trust, Hardwork, struggle and many more aspects of life. I hope you will like.

It’s more like a journal entry of Suzy. Suzy is married women and likes to write. Suzy’s husband Sehun annoys her out of habit but still supports her. Let’s see some of entries of Suzy’s journal.

Revised: This is just a short collection of stories inspired from a newspaper article. I am trying to capture every human emotion in this collection: Love, Friendship, Trust, Hard work, Struggle and many other aspects of life. I hope you will like it.

It’s more like a collection of Suzy’s journal entries. Suzy is a married woman and likes to write. Suzy’s husband Sehun annoys her out of habit but still supports her. Let’s see some of Suzy’s journal entries.

There are quite a lot of mistakes in this one. Take a look through my revised version. I’ll just mention one thing in regards to your sentence “Suzy is married women”. Just be aware that ‘Women’ with an ‘e’ means many females, whilst ‘Woman’ with an ‘a’ means just one female. The same goes to ‘men’ and ‘man’. So next time you use these two words, don’t get them mixed up.

Plot [11/15]

In terms of your plot, it is quite interesting. I haven’t read much stories with concept like yours, so it was a refreshing experience for me. The flow of your plot was decent as well, though there was just this one part in which I found a little weird:

Does Suzy live in a zoo or something, or does she live in the outback? I mean, how does squirrels and monkeys appear randomly at her terrace? I understand that these animals appeared in order for the story to progress on, but their appearance were a bit too sudden. Unless you’re trying to write a nonsensical story like Alice in Wonderland (in which I assume you’re not), then perhaps having monkeys appearing was a little too much. The squirrels are alright, but perhaps you could just change the monkeys to a wild, feral dog which would be more normal, I guess.

One other thing, is that you mentioned in the description about exploring human emotions in your story. Sure, I could see you exploring these emotions in your story– but it felt like you skimmed over the surface of every emotion instead of really delving into them. This then disallows your readers to not be able to delve into your story – because you’re giving out too many information at once, and not allowing time for it to sink.

Character Development [4/10]

You have quite a lot of characters, but there wasn’t much development. This isn’t to say that you don’t have characterization, you do, but they’re all a little shallow and generic – in the end I wasn’t able to get something out of your characters. Especially since this is a story focusing on the human emotions, then characterization and development is especially important for your story –you need to be able to build up a solid character base first before you can really portray human emotions powerfully.

In terms on how to build up characterization and development, here is some suggestions I would give you:

1. Reflect the character’s personality through their physical appearance. So, generally speaking, someone thin and sickly tends to have a weak, nerdy personality – or a strong, well-built person would appear confident and popular. Or, alternatively, you could contrast the personality and physical appearance to give it that extra edge. For instance, it’s really popular in thriller novels/movies to have the friendly person no one suspects to turn out as the mastermind criminal.
    
2. Their speech and actions. This is perhaps the most important in terms of characterization. Whilst your personality may reflect in your outer appearance, it is not always the case. But, the way one speaks and acts is a direct reflection of their personality. So, if your character’s meant to be cold – then make it so that she doesn’t smile at people and that she speaks in short, curt sentences etc.
    
3. Background and events happening around them. This is where the development comes in. Whilst appearance and speech/action reflects one’s personality, the background is what makes the person’s personality. In your story, we can’t just know that this character is cold. We need to know why this character is cold. Perhaps it was because of a broken family, a broken love? Perhaps they lived through poverty or had a lot of pressure as the heir to a large business? Give your readers reasons why.

Anyway, I hope after that long blab of explanation, it helps you understand better on how to build up characterization.

Writing Style [15/20]

You have decent writing style. Though it can be improved better (much like everyone else), but there is a flow in the way you write. It’s not just a list of events, and you do have descriptions and emotions inputted in your story. The only advice I can give you is to just keep writing on – that’s the only way to improve~

Spelling, Grammar and Diction [15/25]

You have quite a lot of grammatical issues in your writing. Though it’s not so bad to the point that I can’t understand anything that you’re trying to write, but the grammatical issues in your story disallowed me from being able to enjoy your story fully as sometimes the sentence doesn’t flow smoothly, or I have to reread sentences to try and understand what you mean. I strongly suggest a beta-reader.

Anyway, from what I’ve read, one mistake that is really prominent in your writing is your use of punctuation. You tend to stick commas in weird places, or just use them weirdly. For instance:

Original: With me!. With me!.

Revised: With me! With me!

Here, it is unnecessary and wrong to put a full-stop after the exclamation mark. Same with question marks, commas, semi-colons…in fact, you don’t put full-stops with any other punctuation except by itself. The same applies to every other punctuation. The only exception I would allow is perhaps the use of “!?”

It also feels like there are times in your story where you just randomly stuck a punctuation mark in the middle of nowhere:

Original: But yeah! he is looking absolutely stunning.

Revised: But yeah, he looks absolutely stunning.

There are also times where you put your commas in weird places, such as the one I corrected in your foreword. The only thing I would say to that is perhaps to say the sentence out loud when you write it, feel when to take a pause in your sentence then add the punctuation there so your sentences aren’t so choppy.

Personal Enjoyment [6/10]

It was a decent read, but unfortunately for me, not as enjoyable as I would’ve liked. There are merits in your writing though, and I am sorry if I came off too harsh or nagged too much – I wrote it hoping for you to improve your story! It’s also fine if you don’t agree with everything I write, see what you agree in there and take whatever suggestions you feel suits you. All in all, I hope this review was helpful, fighting!

Final Score [61/100]