TITLE: (4/5)

Before reading the story, I can already tell you that this title can fit well to it. It gives people the general idea of what the story will be about, but only after they’ve read the description. Before that, it just seems a bit odd. Regardless, I know how Jongin is always portrayed as the ‘bad boy’ kind of character who is stand-offish and doesn’t like being around people, and it’s not the most original concept ever.

Don’t forget that ‘is’ should not be capitalized in your title.

FOREWORD + DESCRIPTION: (6/10)

Your description, personally, lacks character. It is simply some thoughts that the OC, Minah, has, and it doesn’t pull me in. The ellipses (which I will talk about later) also do not entice me to read the story. Your foreword should also be clearer, and while I understand that you do not wish to spoil anything (hence the ‘Genre: Fluff (or not) ^^’), it would be helpful if you could actually properly depict the story to readers so they know what to expect. If you can, also place them in your tags which you have done so.

GRAMMAR + PUNCTUATION: (8/15)

In your description, when you have some of Minah’s thoughts, the ellipses are more than not necessary. If you were to properly have this written out, I would suggest writing ‘Everyone says that Kai acts cold towards people, but why am I the only one who sees otherwise?’ or something along those lines since the words that you’ve chosen in general also makes it awkward. Keep in mind that ellipses can get very annoying very quickly, so try not to use them so much. Many of your ellipses can be replaced by normal punctuation, such as commas and periods, or in some instances, even hyphens would be more suitable.

I am safely assuming that English is not your first language since there are many incorrect usages of the different tenses. You switch back and forth a lot between past and present, so try to choose one and stick to it. You also have some incorrect usage of words in general. ‘Sugarly’ isn’t a word, and your use of the words ‘overact’, ‘absently’ and ‘mistook’ are incorrect as well. They should be replaced with words such as ‘overreact’, ‘adjacent’ and ‘misunderstood’. ‘Cutie sweet pie’ is also a term I’ve never heard of before. Perhaps you meant ‘cutiepie’?

 In the first chapter already, there are many mistakes that are a result of incorrect usage of your tenses. One of your first sentences is ‘It's been happening regularly if not everyday he helped me do this. Well... Not only this.’ We’ve already talked about the ellipsis, but you quite literally in the middle of your sentence switch to past tense when you were previously speaking in present tense. Stick to one. Also, a reminder that there is a difference between ‘everyday’ and ‘every day’, and in your scenario, you should be looking to use ‘every day’ since you are describing something that is happening daily.

You’ve used the word ‘whilst’ in your story. This isn’t wrong, but whilst is a very old and more formal word than its counterpart, while. Your story is filled with a mixture of formal and informal writing, and I think you should stick to the more informal words. ‘Whilst’ is a far off word that makes the writing seem unapproachable, and when you write a story you want people to be able to connect with it.

However, as I read further, do not use words like ‘ha’ when you are writing the narrative of your story. You have ‘I think I went too far again, ha.’ As a statement that Minah thinks. While I understand that this is a first person story, this type of speech should not be seen in a story. If you place it in quotations, it’s more acceptable, but do not place it in narration.

You have missing commas littered throughout the story. "No you probably mistook it Yujin.” Is one of these examples. There should be a comma after the ‘no’ and a comma after ‘it’ since you are speaking to someone and there are three segments to that sentence.

Immediately following that paragraph you have Yujin saying ‘Come on. You will.’ I have no idea what this means since there is no statement prior to that saying anything about whether Minah will or will not do something.

Do not forget that each quotation garners its own paragraph. When you start a quote/when you have someone speak, give it its own paragraph. "Gosh, be a little bit street smart please. You are such a fool in every aspect!" Yujin groaned at me but yelped after I gave her a slap on the arm. "Ouch. What did I say wrong?" Should have another split right after the word ‘arm’.

‘You are such a fool in every aspect’ again, is very stiff wording, particularly since this is allegedly two friends speaking. You should have words that are more like how real people and real friends speak, something along the lines of ‘you’re such an idiot’. That is much more like friendly banter than ‘you are such a fool in every aspect’.

Actually, to be quite honest, most of your writing is stiff, but this can mainly be accounted for the fact that your English is not the BEST in the world. You have done well for someone who I am assuming is learning English, and your formality just needs work.

Don’t forget to write BTOB in all capital letters as it should be since, like most groups, it is written as such. Just like how EXO is not written as Exo and BTS is not written as Bts.

I can see that, further in the story when Minah falls, that you tried to emphasize that she fell on her , however, that is not a very good way to emphasize things. Stick to the typical formatting of italics or bolding your words, and if you really feel that it fits, you could write it with the ‘spaces in between each letter’ way. “I ended up getting hit by a bunch of books and fell on my b u t t.”

I’m curious, since I’ve also never heard of this either. What is ‘nid-nodding’? But again, right after that, you have one of Minah’s thoughts in brackets. Try not to do this. Also, try not to put the word ‘sigh’ into your writing. It is very unprofessional and it makes no sense. Sighing is an action, and you should not put it in. I understand that this is a first person story and that you are trying to dictate what the character is doing, but ‘sigh’ is not one of those things. If you really want to make it clear that the character is sighing, then just say so in the writing as ‘I sighed’. Simple as that.

When Minah goes to speak to her father, she says ‘some books hit me badly’. This makes it seem like the books suddenly achieved the ability to fly and voluntarily hit her, when in reality, some books fell on her.

You’ve written ‘Let’s go sister, brother!’ and while I would understand if you were writing, for example, in Chinese, Korean or Japanese (or some other language that I do not know), but writing like that does not work in English. It isn’t really wrong, it’s just that you will never see anyone write like that. In this case, just replace it with a cute nickname for Minah and Jongdae since most kids refer to their siblings with nicknames if they can’t say the full name.

You wrote that Mr. Kim stole the tong tien? And I have absolutely no idea what that is and how that would affect a company.

There are many more examples of your incorrect usage of formal writing as well as your tense switching that I will be neglecting to mention any further as this section is already longer than necessary and I have gone on many a tangent.

Please don’t forget to double check your writing, as I’ve found a few mistakes that can be easily fixed if you just read over them again.

CHARACTERIZATION: (10/20)

The very first words you have in the story are ‘Thanks, Kim Jongin’. While this isn’t wrong, this is a very stiff way to speak, and I don’t think that anyone would actually say that to someone they know well, especially not if they said thanks and not thank you before using the other person’s full name. Consider changing this since you refer to Jongin as Kai for the rest of the chapter, and it’s even in your title.

I don’t feel like I can relate well to Minah, especially not since she is such a frilly character. She is someone that relies heavily on other people and depends on them for everything, and she seems like she can’t stand for herself.

The fact that she also has aids then makes it clear that she is a rich kid, so this makes it even further impossible for me to relate to her character.

Minah also developed feelings for Jongin very quickly. What began, in chapter one, as vehement denial that they were together, immediately changed into a full blown crush where she would blush at every little thing that Jongin did.

Did you just, name two characters in your story Minah? That is bound to get confusing, especially since you don’t use last names when you write. There is going to be at least one person who reads your story who gets lost with that. I understand that this was sort of the point, but it is still very confusing.

PLOT: (8/20)

As I said before, the ‘bad boy’/’cool guy’ Kim Jongin is very overdone. Everyone always tries to portray him as such and it’s getting very dull. I haven’t even read that many stories with Jongin in them, but so many of them have him as the typical kingka, the one that everyone either loves or hates, the one that gets into trouble and is rude to everyone except one person.

This is such an overdone cliché, and Minah is such an overused name. Your plot also isn’t full and has many holes in different places.

FLOW + WRITING STYLE: (4/10)

“Yujin cut me with a signal showing Kai had appeared in the classroom. Oops. I was too hyped up, I guess.” Is a rough transition. There was no build-up leading to that statement and the transition to the statement after it was rough as well.

You introduced Jongdae very suddenly and very quickly. You didn’t make it clear that they were neighbours until it finally came up and you didn’t provide much backstory at all when the character was first introduced.

You jump from place to place and mood to mood throughout the entire story and it’s a bit of a mess. You used huge spaces to indicate a transition, but if you are going to do that, there is an ‘insert horizontal line’ function in the writing section.

Your characters fluctuate in their stances and do not stand as whole characters. They, to me, seem like fragmented pieces that have been glued together. Before writing, try to think of what each character is like and really plan it out before you start.

I’m only guessing this for now, but ever since Jongdae showed up as a character, I was thinking that he probably had a crush on Minah. If my thoughts are confirmed, that makes it only that much more of a cliché: guy falls for his childhood friend and she’s oblivious.

Yep, just confirmed that Jongdae likes her.

There’s a part in chapter 10 where you have Jongdae ride away and then suddenly he’s back and Minah is getting off of his bike. That doesn't make sense at all and I’m not sure what happened because you cannot have him ride away and then suddenly decide that he’s actually there.

You jumped right into Minah suddenly having a birthday even though you never mentioned anything about it beforehand. Unless I just didn’t understand that, but you’re really jumping everywhere with this story and it doesn't fit together.

The final paragraph of the entire story did it for me. You jumped to an entirely different idea and you didn’t say anything else of it. It was too much information written too short and explained too fast.

ENDING: (3/10)

Your ending cleared nothing up for me. It didn’t really end and you left a bunch of things unanswered. I understand that you made it clear that Minah didn’t end up with any of them and that it was sort of a ‘subtle’ ending, but it was way too subtle because it didn’t feel like a real ending at all. You didn’t elaborate any more on Minah and Jongdae’s relationship, nor did you really answer any questions in relation to Jongin’s loan problem. You never made it clear if Jongin really cared for her or not and you never closed things with Jongdae.

ENJOYMENT: (1/10)

I did not realize that this was a first person story when I overtook it from Judy, and if you check my profile, you will notice that I do not accept first person stories. However, since it took so long for me to get to the review, I thought it only right that I actually review it. That being said, I did not enjoy the story. Minah is too flimsy of a character for me and I do not sympathize with it. I hate it when people portray girls in their stories as people who can’t survive without the help of someone else. They are independent people who can stand for themselves. It also makes me upset when people try to make it seem like a guy and a girl cannot simply be friends, almost as if they have to be together. Jongin always being the target of everyone’s attention is also an EXO story cliché, and I’m tired of them.

Princess, no matter how good of an intention you have with it, is also a demeaning pet name. It implies many negative intonations and I do not like the use of it.

You also inserted totally random parts into your story like the hair pin. I understand that you want to add more to the story and try to develop it more, but it got old very quickly.

TOTAL: (44/100)

I’m sorry to give you such a low score, but many things did not make my expectations. I understand that you spent a long time on this story, but you left many loose ends and it felt very rushed. You’ve used many old, overused clichés and they don’t all fit well with the story. For not primarily speaking English, you’ve done a decent job of getting your idea across, but there are still many areas in which you could improve.