[CONTENTID1]Those Who Can[/CONTENTID1]

[CONTENTID2][/CONTENTID2]

[CONTENTID3]AmateurWriter[/CONTENTID3]

[CONTENTID4]5k[/CONTENTID4]

[CONTENTID5]complete[/CONTENTID5]

[CONTENTID6]focus on main character & plot[/CONTENTID6]

[CONTENTID7]Read story here![/CONTENTID7]

[CONTENTID8]Title[/CONTENTID8]

[CONTENTID9]At a glance, the title is generic and doesn’t stand out but I think it’s quite unique. Though it doesn’t indicate anything about the story, it manages to be intriguing because it feels like an unfinished sentence since it’s clearly a reference to something. It’s also a good length.

The main criticism I have for this is that the relevance to the plot remains unclear even after completing the story. I started the story wondering, “Those who can what?” and finished it still wondering the same thing. Maybe I missed it?

Post-discussion: Apparently I did indeed miss it. Knowing and understanding the connection to the story now, I think you got it pretty spot on.[/CONTENTID9]

[CONTENTID10]Description/Foreword[/CONTENTID10]

[CONTENTID11]It’s easy to predict from the description that the story revolves around high school drama, which it does, so I think you succeeded in establishing a general idea of the plot. However, a single sentence alone isn’t enough to set your story apart from others. High school drama and angst are extremely common themes, and every reader at some point will come to grow a set of expectations for such stories. Your description needs to be meatier in order to set it apart from those expectations, otherwise, a potential reader will simply conclude that it’s a generic/predictable plot and won’t become interested in continuing.

After reading the story itself the conciseness of the description is very fitting to your writing style so I’m not surprised it’s what you went with. Even so, I still stand by what I said in the previous paragraph.

Despite being so short the description manages to give away important information that’s relevant to the plot. I’ll discuss it more in the plot section further down.[/CONTENTID11]

[CONTENTID12]Presentation[/CONTENTID12]

[CONTENTID13]This aspect was generally fine except for one thing. At the beginning of the story when Yoona looks at the note, the contents of the note are written in italics and this helps the reader differentiate between ordinary narration and things that are being read or thought by the main character. However, this doesn’t remain consistent as later on in the story there are various text messages that aren’t italicised. It causes a lot of confusion and forces the reader to start guessing. I suggest italicising all the words that are being read or thought, or making them stand out another way. Keeping them unstyled makes them look like narration when they aren’t.[/CONTENTID13]

[CONTENTID14]Plot[/CONTENTID14]

[CONTENTID15]It’s hard to know what the plot actually is. Is the story about Yoona’s relationship with Donghae? Or is it predominantly about her inner turmoil? Or perhaps it’s all just a build-up towards the finale. Maybe it was a combination of things, or maybe it was something else entirely. I, personally, was unable to tell.

I’m bothered by how dramatic and unrealistic the story is. Most people have had or will have at least one experience with school at some point, and very rarely will that ever involve the amount of drama that’s been packed into your story. It’s labelled as “angst” but I think it’s simply a series of events told in a dramatic way from the perspective of a dramatic character. This sort of story is quite overdone and predictable.

The plot didn’t have much direction. In fact, I couldn’t tell if it was going anywhere at all. Things just happened with barely any build-up or explanation. Both of those things need to be worked on because without them a lot of things don’t feel like they make sense. I’m sure to you as the author it makes perfect sense as you’re fully aware of everything that isn’t made clear to the reader, but as the reader, I can tell you it’s just confusing and annoyingly vague.

There’s a lack of movement in general which makes it uninteresting. The pacing is very slow despite the short length.

To be honest (I’m sure you’ll find that I’ll be nothing but honest for this whole review), though I can see how the ending might be shocking to most readers, I actually expected it. First, the description of the story says that the new students end up trying to ruin Yoona’s life permanently. My mind immediately went to death or attempt at death. “Permanently.” What else could it mean? Of course in that moment I didn’t realise I’d predicted correctly, but it still stands that you shouldn’t have given away such a big, important aspect of the plot because it took away all the impact. Second, with the dramatic vibe/tone of the story throughout, it was very predictable that something extreme would happen by the end of it. Even if I hadn’t seen it coming I think my reaction would have just been, “Oh, well, there’s another thing that doesn’t make sense.”

I didn’t find there to be a clear beginning, middle and end because of the pacing. The conflict was quite clear, but there was no resolution; probably for impact, except there wasn’t much impact for me because the had been predicted. The fact that the was positioned at the very end made it feel off. Your story needs to have an arc. There should be a build up towards the and then a fall back down, and finally, a resolution. Ending on the is a bad idea because the reader will get no closure and be annoyed at the cliffhanger.[/CONTENTID15]

[CONTENTID16]Writing[/CONTENTID16]

[CONTENTID17]I think it’s quite fitting to start off by analysing the opening sentence. This gets rather lengthy, but it’s only a general analysis. I’ll target specific topics later.

The title, description and opening sentence all have an impression on the reader and may contribute to whether or not a potential reader continues reading. It’s vital that these parts are written well. Unfortunately, for the opening sentence of this story, I could pick out a few things that don’t work.

The use of “their” is entirely random. Normally I wouldn't bother going in depth with analysing it but this is the opening sentence, so the importance is quite high.

Yoona is referred to as “she” or “her” for the rest of the story so it’s very inconsistent. Either you used the wrong pronoun, or “their” is actually referring to someone else. I can interpret the second half of the sentence to mean that Yoona and Donghae are walking to school separately for the first time so “they” makes much more sense, but the use of “their” in the first half plainly doesn’t. It should either be “her” (and naturally “chests” would become singular), or Donghae needs to be referred to at the beginning of the sentence as well.

That error was the most obvious one I noticed, but there are a few other things I took note of too. It would get tiring to put everything into words, so I’ll just give you a version of the sentence with my edits.

The use of “they” even in the modified version might still cause confusion because at this point the reader has no idea whom it’s referring to and it doesn’t become clear until later (but by then it’s pointless because there’s no way the reader would remember the first sentence and make the connection). Although, without even concentrating on that aspect there are other ways this sentence can be improved. I’ll use the modified version as a base for the following examples.

Obviously there are countless ways any sentence could be modified, but those are just some small suggestions. In my humble opinion, I think the last version works the best. Since the story is so heavily focused on Yoona, it makes sense for her to be the prime subject of the opening sentence (and there’s no confusion about whom any of the pronouns are referring to because at this point in time Yoona is the only character the reader knows). The semicolon joins the two clauses together in a fashion that’s a great deal neater than a conjunction, and allows the sentence to be read in a more rhythmic way. Moreover, the comma that follows the word “because” in the original version feels like an awkward and illogical place to put a pause, whereas the semicolon doesn’t.

The use of the word “because” in the first place feels awkward as it (obviously) implies that Yoona grips “her books tight to her chest” purely because she’s walking to school alone. While the reasoning might be technically correct, it’s not a strong enough consequential action to match the heavy emphasis that’s put on the final part of the sentence, so it doesn’t feel right to combine them with a “because.”

From here I’ll start getting in-depth with specific areas of your writing.

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