The Day Minseok Disappeared by KYX1994

VᴇʀꜱᴀEᴍᴇʀɢᴇ ʀᴇᴠɪᴇᴡ ꜱʜᴏᴘ Archive。
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REVIEWER'S CORNER
I think I did this right- I still struggle with grading reviews since numbers are not my strong points! 

Anyways, if you have any questions please let me know and PLEASE don't forget to credit the shop! 
the day minseok disappeared
LINK
BY kyx1994


Title (2/5):
Honestly, the first thing I noticed was how long the title was which makes it a bit of a mouthful. It's not the most unique nor is it very eye-catching at first glance. I mean, while the story title does relate to the story... I don't find it very captivating as a title. As I've stated in numerous reviews, the title is what have people picking that book to look at it, the description is what makes them stay. I don't really see this as a title that would compell someone to pick it up if it were a book. There's nothing that really stands out about it. Plus, you find out that he disappears in the description so I don't find it really necessary to put it as the title.

Description/Foreword (8/10):
The one thing I was kind of 'eh' on was the use of 'nth' instead of typing the whole word 'ninth', for some reason 'nth' looks kind of misplaced and odd. And I feel as it's not very 'proper' text for a work of writing. You wouldn't write 'nth' on an essay since a teacher would dock points for that (majority here would).

That being said, the rest of the description is interesting and makes you wonder what happened to him since usually this means he was met with foul play. I'm quite curious actually and I think the description sold me into wanting to read the story which is good. Moreso since I'm someone who loves mystery and all the jazz so I'm looking forward to what the story has to offer.

*Plot (38/50):
The concept was interesting; the whole 'disappearances and the abuser dying' and so on but I feel as if the main issue here was the fact that we knew how the story was going to end by the time Kris explains the situation which is bad. There's no plot twists either, it just happens like he said it would and I feel like that can kind of defeat the purpose. 

Don't get me wrong, I think the idea you had was good and it does kind of remind me of an anime/manga I've read but I feel like it was too predictable. We all knew Xiumin would be found, Luhan would be killed, and Xiumin would remember nothing about Luhan and their relationship by the time Kris explained it, or at least, I did which made me kind of go 'eh' at the end because I already knew. It was kind of obvious that Minseok wouldn't die and Luhan would. There wasn't much mystery to it nor was there any plot twist to have the person going "what the just happened?" So I think the lack of a real plot twist made the story fall a little flat on it's face since knowing the ending of the story before actually reading it, in my opinion, isn't good. 

There are a few flaws within the story I'd say such as: Having Kris explain the whole situation. The ending could have been the same but if Kris had explained less, maybe I wouldn't have predicted the ending so easily. No use in changing it now, of course, but less information could have been better. Kris just opened his mouth too much about the case. Maybe if he broke the news that Minseok was gone instead of the WHOLE thing and each disappearance, it might've been better.

Some things weren't clear near the end which caused me to question what was going on. The scenes would switch from moments they had constantly and I'd actually have to really think about what I'm reading which a lot of people don't want in the story because confusion while reading is a downgfall unless it's a mystery book where confusion is unavoidable. This kind of confusion kind of makes you squint and re-read the line/story. Personally, it confused me and I had to think about it for a few minutes.

Besides that, I think the idea you had was good but I feel as if more could have been done. More in depth explanations for certain things since there was a lack of detail in some aspects would have also been helpful and, sadly, the predictable ending wasn't a good ending for me since I expected a plot twister. As I said, idea and concept is very good but some things made it go on the other end.


*Writing Style/Flow (10/20):
I do remember that English isn't your first language which is why I tried to be thorough in this section to help you improve with English a bit.

There was something in the second paragraph (or third sentence) that doesn't make much sense.

E.g.: "His colleagues were every day that passed more and more stupid, keeping on making mistakes he has to right." 

What's wrong here is that the wording is very strange and it took me a few tries at reading it to get what you meant.
Fixed: "His colleagues were becoming more and more stupid with every passing day, making mistakes that he had to fix." 
The way it was worded before made the sentence confusing, the way I worded it was to make the sentence more clear on what was trying to be said.

There were some other things I should point out.

1. Capitalizing the word after the end of a dialogue that ends in '.', '!', and '?'. 
E.g.: "Han!" another shout soon followed by hands on the back of his shoulders trying to stop him.
Fixed: "Han!" Another shout soon followed by hands on the back of his shoulders trying to stop him.
If using a comma (,), it isn't necessary to capitalize the word after. Such as: "Hello," she said with an unamused look. "How is everything?" | But since the period, exclamation mark, and question mark are "sentence enders", the next word should be capitalized. This happens a lot in this story I've noticed.

2. Slang language. The use of 'tho'.
E.g.: "That was the first time being shoved away that violently, tho."
This is a no-no for several reasons, I've even called someone out on the use of 'thru'. You shouldn't use slang/improper English in a work of writing. In truth, these are not words. They are slang that lazy people made because they're too lazy to type the rest of the word 'though'. In a book, there's a good chance the word will be spelled out as "THOUGH" which is correct. Tho is very ugly to look at.

3. Wording, going into more detail.
E.g.: He didn’t stop ‘till it couldn’t contain anything else and he had to close it.
Wording in stories count, just like I pointed out in the first part. This sentence literally says "He didn't stop until it couldn't contain anything else and he had to close it." While this sounds correct, the use of 'till makes it sound very off. Wording counts. To make this sentence sound better theres a few things you could do.
  A) Not use the shorter version of until. ('till)
  B) Add more detail the sentence.
Fixed: He didn't stop packing until the suitcase couldn't contain anything else and he closed it.
Adding the words 'packing' and 'suitcase' make the sentence sound better as there is more detail, while you do not need to do this, it's better and is clearer. Removing 'til and using until also makes it sound better and less informal.

4. Lack of commas.
E.g.: He took his hands off the wheel and slipped the ring off his finger throwing it somewhere near the passenger sit.
Commas help separate the sentence to avoid a run-on sentence. The sentence above is a run-on.
Fixed: He took his hands off the wheel and slipped the ring off his finger, throwing it somewhere near the passenger seat.
Also the word 'sit' is not correct, it should be the word seat since he is sitting on a seat.

5. This is always confusing and even I have to pause at this stuff, when addressing two people in a sentence such as this one; the 's will be attached to the second person's name.
E.g.: “This… This is my boyfriend’s and mine car…” his voice trembled[...]
Fixed: “This… This is my boyfriend and mine's car…” his voice trembled"
Though, this doesn't look very correct, I know it doesn't, but the 's is always at the second name. Another way to word this would be: 
  A) “This… This is me and my boyfriend’s car…” his voice trembled[...]
  B) “This… This is my boyfriend’s and I's car…” his voice trembled[...]
These could also work but I, personally, would use A.

6. Cutting down paragraphs.
I read this on AO3 since I tend to use AO3 more than AFF since it doesn't give me issues and some of the paragraphs are too long for me. I have a short attention span and trying to read that long paragraphs in there is difficult for me because I keep losing my spot. I would try cutting some of them down because it's too hard to keep up with the long paragraphs and I end up having to read it several times. I even skipped some paragraphs that were way too long. One paragraph had 42 (yes, I counted) sentences, that's WAY too long. I'd say the maximum is 15, that's close enough to three paragraphs in one.

Moving on to the flow, I feel as if it were a bit scattered near the end. I wasn't sure what was going on majority of the time and I felt like I would have to read it again to get some of the scenes at the end. It's like one thing happened - like back when they met, then it switches scene, switches scene again and I'm just like "what?" So, there is a bit of scatteredness here.

Characterization (8/10):
Let's start with Xiumin. My first question is: why did he act so rashly? I feel like it was a stupid move, what he did, running off like that. I understand that this has been going on for awhile but I feel like he didn't do much to actually fix it, he just kind of ran away from his problem which is always going to end badly. There's not much to him though considering the main focus here is Luhan, he's mentioned of course but he's not really a leading role since the main focus, as said before, is Luhan. Xiumin was an okay character and there's not much bad to say about him, he made a stupid choice and he ended up the way he did.

Luhan has the type of personality I've seen in fanfictions before. Busy with work, colleagues are stupid, boss is out to get him, and the list goes on. His personality didn't seem very unique to me for a main character. He didn't stand out much, he just seemed like a lot of other characters where they do something on impulse, the partner leaves and there are consequences, and then he regrets it. That's why his personality isn't very unique nor does it stand out from the rest.

Overall though, the characterization isn't bad. It could be improved, sure, but that's for any story, not just this one. My characters need improvement, too, it's just one of those things.


Personal Enjoyment (4/5):
I think the concept you had going was really good and it's up my alley but there were a few things, such as the predictable ending, that made me divert away from it. I still enjoyed it, don't get me wrong, but I wouldn't say it lived up to my expectations (but as a reviewer, I think I have a bit higher expectations for stories I review VS. stories I read on my own time for fun). I think it was still good either way and I can tell you had a good idea planned out. Of course, there will always be room for improvement which is why I hope this helped.

Total (70/100):
Again, I am quite bad at grading so I hope I did that semi-right. I know the score isn't as high as you probably wanted but I'm a pretty strict reviewer and I like to be honest and thorough but if there's one thing; the fanfiction is pretty good for being your second one written in English, I'm fairly impressed since there really wasn't that many mistakes besides a few. It's funny because I've seen fanfictions with bad grammar by native English speakers (not necessarily K-pop fanfics, I mean in general like.. everything on different websites, not just AFF) so I think you're headed in a good direction.

Anyways, if you do have questions, concerns, or anything of the sorts please let me know and I hope this was helpful. Please don't forget to credit the review shop and I hope you have a nice day/night (whenever you see this).

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