>> Diary of the Ghost, Yoo Kihyun

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Diary of the Ghost, Yoo Kihyun

BY ARMY_BTOBsungjae

 

 

CHARACTERS · Lee Seulbi (OC), Yoo Kihyun, Other minor KPOP groups

STATUS · Ongoing

DESCRIPTION· A girl fighting depression, and a ghost who's in love with her.
How will he be able to win her love if she can't even see him?

>>STORY LINK<<

 


story title: 3/5
The title basically sums up with the whole story is about, therefore I would say it’s very direct. In some sense, it is interesting, however not very captivating in my eyes - it doesn’t draw me in as much as it could have done. Other than the fact that the story is a diary of a ghost, nothing else is given about the plotline. Also, I wouldn’t say it’s as unique as it can be, but because of the simplicity of the title, I think it has its good points.
description, foreword & tags: 9/10
The description is short, but every effective. Even though there’s not a lot written, it gives out a lot of information about the plot. You have told the readers what the characters are like and even pointed out the big dilemma from the very beginning! This does saves you some time from having to write a lot about these matters because you have already told the readers to anticipate these events.

Your foreword is a very short description of the characters in your story. What I really like about it is that although you have given the readers some facts about the two, you have given out different pieces of information rather than the ones you have already given out in the description. This allows the readers to know more about the characters without having to repeatedly read the same thing twice.

As for your tags, I wouldn’t change a lot of it, though I think adding ‘fantasy’ onto the list might be beneficial to you, especially since there are quite a lot of readers that are looking to read fantasy stories to read.

appearance - graphics: 4/5, display: 5/5
You didn’t give me a link to the poster but I’ll comment on the one that you’re using right now. I think the poster is very nice. It’s simple and suits the storyline very well. However, I would say the font for the quote is a little hard to read - I would probably choose a font that is simpler and less ‘graphic-y’ as it would fit in with the theme more and would most likely to make it more legible.

Your layout is simple and easy to read, which is what most people are looking for because they don’t want too many things distracting them while they’re trying to focus on the storyline. I think you’ve done very well in this aspect!

characterisation: 6/10
I guess it’s a little early to be able to do a full analysis on the characters right now, but I’ll just briefly comment on some aspects.

For Kihyun, we know a little bit about him, but not a lot. We know that he is a ghost and he has to haunt the girl’s house for some unknown reason. He seems to be curious about the girl but cannot do anything to speed up the process of knowing more. He seems patient, since he’s willing to wait. He’s kind because helps her out by doing certain things. However, other than that, we don’t know much about him yet.

As for Seulbi, there really isn’t a lot about here to comment on. All we know right now is that she is suffering from depression and is extremely quiet. Even though weird things happen in the house, mostly because of Kihyun, she seems surprised but doesn’t do anything about it, which is very unusual. There are things that are unknown about her, like how her parents died and why did she throw the earrings away.

Hopefully, the readers will be able to know a lot more about these characters, as well as any future characters, as the story progress on!

plot: 10/20
The plot is quite a new one, I would say. I haven’t read anything like this before, I don’t think. It’s a nice idea how you’re writing this in a form of a diary, though there are some stories out there with the same style. The plotline right now is still very, very blurry, but I’m sure you’ll be adding more into the story in the near future. The theme of the story is certainly unrealistic, since it is a fantasy story, but in some sense is relatable, mainly due to Seulbi’s humanly behaviour. Again, there’s not a lot I can say about the plot right now, since the story is still progressing, but I think this plot has potential - keep going at it and I hope you’ll answer any unanswered questions in your readers’ minds!
consistency/flow: 10/10
Since the story is in the form of a diary, I don’t think there’ll be any major issues concerning the consistency and flow, though I think it’ll be great if you can keep the pace of the story around the same speed as what you have now since it’s easy to follow and understand.
grammar, spelling & punctuation: 12/15
On the whole, the grammar, spelling and punctuation of your work is very good. There aren’t any major problems that will hinder your readers’ understanding of your story, so you don’t really need to worry about that. However, there are some things I would like to point out to you.

In chapter one, there aren’t any complete sentences in the first part at all. I’m not sure if that’s intentional because this is a diary entry, but since the next section is written with full sentences, I think you should do the same to the first part to keep the grammar consistent.

For chapter two, the sentence “There're a lot of rooms though,” doesn’t have any grammatical mistakes in it, but using ‘there are’ instead of ‘there’re’ will make more sense. This is because verbally, ‘there’re’ does exist, but when written down, the most conventional way would be ‘there are’.

As for chapter four, I think since Kihyun is writing while all these events are happening, the chapter should be in present tense, therefore it is quite confusing in places where you’re using the past tense.

For example, “I dropped the scissors on the floor for her”, “she picked it up anyway” and “There was a letter”, where they should be: “I drop the scissors on the floor for her”, “she picks it up anyway” and “There is a letter”.

It’s important to keep the tenses constant within the same chapter, unless you’re specifically stating that you’re switching tenses or else it would make it hard to understand the chapter.

Other than the above, there aren’t any major issues that you need to worry about!

structure: 5/5
I would usually stress the importance of paragraphs in written work, but since your story is in the style of a diary, I wouldn’t see it as the most important, especially seeing as how each chapter is very short. However, when there are a lot of text and information in one chapter, it is very important to use paragraphs to separate the text - but I’m sure you’ll know what to do when the time comes!
readers' response: 4/5
Since your story is still very new, it is not a surprise to see the number of subscribers you have. The number of views isn’t too bad, and you seem to be interacting with your readers through replying to their comments so all seems good to me.

One thought - you made your story limited to subscribers only, but what if readers that don’t have an account or don’t want to subscribe want to read your story? This is a thought that I usually put out to those who have their stories limited to subscribers only because in a way, you are limiting the number of people who can read your story. Of course, this is only a thought of mine and therefore will not affect your score.

overall enjoyment: 6/10
The structure of the story is something I haven’t read in a long time, so it was pretty nice to read something like this after a long time. The plot is interesting, but I think I would have to see more chapters to be fully drawn in. Nonetheless, this is a good read and I think for those who are looking to read something simple and easy, this is definitely a good choice. You have the potential to bring this story into another level and I hope you all the best in the future whilst writing this story!

 

total grade: 74/100

 

notes
DATE REQUESTED: 24/12/15
 
DATE COMPLETED: 26/12/15
 
REVIEWER: Mandy
 
COMMENTS: Thank you for requesting! I’m sorry if some scores are quite low, but there is only so much I can give a score to given the number of chapters you have. I hope I wasn’t being too harsh with my words! As usual, any problems, please don’t hesitate to contact me!
 
REMINDER
Please remember to comment when you have picked up. Please also credit the shop AS WELL AS the reviewer. If there are any problems, please contact the owener or the reviewer via PM.
 

 

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