[CONTENTID1]Epiphany[/CONTENTID1]

[CONTENTID2][/CONTENTID2]

[CONTENTID3]GreenGardenPop[/CONTENTID3]

[CONTENTID4]18k[/CONTENTID4]

[CONTENTID5]ongoing[/CONTENTID5]

[CONTENTID6]focus on characterisation[/CONTENTID6]

[CONTENTID7]Read story here![/CONTENTID7]

[CONTENTID8]Title ( 8/10 ) ( 80% )[/CONTENTID8]

[CONTENTID9]The title is intriguing enough to deserve a high score, in my opinion. I don’t think it’s especially creative or unique but it is a good length, fairly memorable and indicates where the plot may go (which is that it may reach a peak point where a grand realisation is made) and that is a pretty good impression.[/CONTENTID9]

[CONTENTID10]Description/Foreword ( 4/12 ) ( 33.3% ) [/CONTENTID10]

[CONTENTID11]Purely based on the description alone, I can assume that the plot will involve some sort of drama and/or possible romance between Eunwoo and his best friend, as well as some sort of conflict between him and his stepsister because of her views against homouality. Quite frankly, I don’t think a description like this would successfully draw readers in. It sounds more like an explanation than a blurb.

The description you had previously (with only two sentences) was better because it provided the same information but with fewer words. The good thing about this was that the reader had the chance to read between the lines and guess what the story might involve, which creates intrigue. The current description states it bluntly, thus not creating any intrigue at all. Without intrigue, there is nothing to draw a reader in. The old description wasn’t perfect either, but it was still better in this aspect. My suggestion is to aim to create a little more mystery to make potential readers curious.

On the other hand, the description was able to set the tone for the rest of the story, establish the main characters and indicate the main conflict. For this reason, you still earn some points.[/CONTENTID11]

[CONTENTID12]Presentation ( 4/4 ) ( 100% ) [/CONTENTID12]

[CONTENTID13]The presentation was fine. I didn’t notice any issues other than the non-mobile-friendly Foreword, but that is not such a big problem that I feel the need to deduct points.[/CONTENTID13]

[CONTENTID14]Plot ( 13/47 ) ( 27.7% ) [/CONTENTID14]

[CONTENTID15]I apologise if this gets confusing.

Flow

There is a frequent jumping between past and present (particularly in the first two or three chapters) which results in a lack of flow and makes the story challenging to keep up with. As I was reading the first few paragraphs, I found myself getting through the same section multiple times without absorbing any of it. I also found myself wondering if I really needed to know this information because there was no way I’d be able to remember it. Based on my reaction at this stage, there are a few points to be made:

The opening paragraphs of a story should draw a reader in, make them feel compelled to continue and create a good impression for the rest of the story. It is better to start with action rather than an explanation. By starting with backstory, the flow is thrown off immediately.

Development & Pacing

Some events occurred without any build-up at all, which contributes to making the plot difficult to follow. Specifically, most of the events that happen in the “present” are abrupt and almost feel like they are interrupting the story. These are combined with slow paragraphs that explain a past event or a character’s thoughts/opinions. This makes it feel as though there is a lot going on at once yet with little happening in the plot itself. As a result, the plot didn’t seem to have much direction or progression.

The plot needs to progress logically from one thing to another. It is achievable to do so with a combination of present and past events (as well as points with no action), but they need to be ordered and linked in a way that feels natural and makes sense.

Some moments should be prioritised. If a strong impact is desired, those moments need to be built towards with one piece after another, rather than dropped like a bomb. If the importance of a moment is not high, then it should be easy and fast to read through and does not need any emphasis.

Details

It’s good to work out detailed past events and facts for the story/characters/settings, etc. However, I would recommend only including the information that is necessary for the reader to know. I noticed a lot of uninteresting narration or irrelevant yet specific details.

This is the root cause of why I found it so difficult to absorb anything without rereading multiple times. Many parts didn’t need to be there and threw me off.

Please allow me to attempt to explain with examples.

In my opinion, this whole paragraph is unneeded. Specifically, the part I highlighted was extra confusing and out of place. It’s incredibly distracting. Such a specific detail made me think that this fact was relevant to the story, but it never popped up again. Even if it is somehow relevant, it’s not integrated well so it stands out and feels like it was forced in unnaturally. I found it to be the most memorable part of the first chapter because of how random it was. An appropriate way to improve this would be to refer to my points b) and c), which were mentioned in the “flow” section above.

When looking at the whole paragraph in general, I thought it sounded like something that was mapped out in the planning stage. For the actual story, it was not needed.

There is no reason for the reader to receive any of that information because it doesn’t add to the plot or character in any way. The paragraph is essentially an explanation that wasn’t asked for. Again, it’s not bad to have these facts mapped out in the planning stage so you can refer to them when necessary, but they don’t all need to be included in the story. From the reader’s perspective, it’s pure waffle.

An example of a relevant detail:

This is an example of information that turned out to be relevant because religion is a bit of a theme throughout the story. However, I still want to comment that a statement like this one also feels out of place. I would once again advise you to weave in relevant details so they seem natural and easy to digest. The placement of this detail was like a bullet point, which isn’t subtle at all.

The reader does not need to know where each person is sitting as well as who’s talking to who. A tip to follow when writing: try to question what the purpose of each paragraph is, or even each sentence. Get all of your thoughts out first, then decide what parts are needed for that section of the story. If there are things that you think you may need later on but don’t fit in that particular moment, keep it saved somewhere else until you need it.

This paragraph has no purpose and is uninteresting to read so it could be cut out entirely. Instead of showing the characters doing everyday tasks, jump to the parts that move the plot forward. Time skips are used very commonly in storytelling as they help to keep the reader invested.

The reason why all of this is important is that these things contribute to how easy/difficult it is to follow the storyline. By including things that don’t need to be there, the story can repeatedly get distracted from the significant events and becomes confusing. This may cause readers to lose interest and stop reading.

Storyline

Despite the distractions, there is still a storyline there. From my understanding, it focuses on both Eunwoo and Jiyeon and their relationship with each other. The story revolves heavily around the characters’ thoughts and emotions, rather than events. I think this is one of the reasons why I felt there wasn’t much direction or progression in the plot; most of what happens in the story is about the characters’ views on things and the way they react emotionally, while the events are in the background.

A plot is a series of events that follow the structure of introduction, rising action, conflict, /turning point, falling action and resolution. In a way, there is an introduction stage, but I was only able to realise that from rereading the same thing multiple times. Most readers would not put in that much effort. It’s too puzzling to understand in one go, and I’ve highlighted reasons for this previously. There’s also some rising action to establish the conflict. However, because there are barely any events/action, it falls flat and doesn’t engage the interest of the reader, which is typically what the point of a plot is.

The plot and characters should work together. The plot drives the characters forward and the characters drive the plot forward. Things need to happen, which the characters react to, and that reaction makes more things happen, and so on. I would suggest involving more active action to create this sort of balance. Doing this would make the reader more immersed in the story.

The conflict of the story could be classified as Eunwoo’s inner conflict with himself, or with his stepsister/Jaehyun, or even with societal views/expectations. This in and of itself is fine but it doesn’t work well with the delivery. I’ll go over this at some point in the review. And because the story is so character-focused, I’m also going to do a lot of the analysing within the “character” section.

Themes

In terms of the themes of the story, it’s mostly focused on homouality, followed by religion and nature. Stories that tackle homophobia don’t typically show perspectives on both ends of the spectrum, so it was intriguing and unique to have the opposing sides laid out next to each other. I actually cannot tell whether the story (as a whole) is for or against homouality because it’s nowhere near an ending point yet. It would be interesting to see what direction it heads in. Again, since the story is so character-focused, I’ll analyse it further in the “character” section later.

Setting

The setting isn’t a big deal in comparison to everything else but I still felt like mentioning it. It’s ambiguous where and when this story is set. Originally, because it focuses so much on such a small bubble of characters who never seem to interact with anyone else, I assumed it was set in a rural area. I also assumed it was set in modern society because things like TV and music and social media were mentioned.

Typically, the setting does have a fairly important role to play but because the story concentrates so much on characters over events, I don’t think the vagueness of the setting is a bad thing. It provides more room for the reader to focus on what the story is actually about. Whether this effect was intentional or not: I think it was a good decision, so kudos for that.

TL;DR

The main thing to be worked on is the inclusion of necessary vs. unnecessary details as this affects the flow and pacing, as well as whether the reader remains interested in continuing the story. The ideas are good and unique, but the delivery should be improved. I will elaborate further throughout the rest of the review.[/CONTENTID15]

[CONTENTID16]Writing ( 15/37 ) ( 40.5% )[/CONTENTID16]

[CONTENTID17]First, let’s tackle writing style.

As I have mentioned, the story tends to go on tangents to explain a character’s views on something, or to summarise something that happened in the past. I feel like this method may have been used with the aim of “fleshing out” the characters, but it ends up coming across as unnecessary/uninteresting filler. What the reader knows about each character has more or less been explained this way. Consequently, the characters feel flat. There isn’t much opportunity for the reader to learn about characters through actions, dialogue, etc. Instead, the reader has been told directly.

The issue with doing this is that it’s simply not the way people learn about other people. When you meet someone new, you don’t get told everything that makes up their identity. You learn through what they say, how they say it, how they act, how they interact with people and places and things. The appropriate advice here is: show, don’t tell. I think this article explains it well. If you don’t feel like reading it, it basically means to allow the reader to come to their own conclusions.

For example, “He was happy,” is simply telling the reader directly that someone feels happy. “He clapped his hands in excitement and grinned,” is showing, which allows the reader to come to their own conclusion. With both methods, the reader ends up with the same idea, but one of them is boring and unengaging. Especially if it is used repeatedly.

The other issue with directly telling the reader everything is that it’s difficult to notice/remember because of how easy it is to get bored. I was able to pick out things to analyse because I reread it so many times. The typical reader, on the other hand, would not try so much and therefore wouldn’t have the chance to notice such details. The characters and story would both be improved immensely with the “show, don’t tell” method. This technique is like the backbone of storytelling.

Paragraphs

The paragraph length is good, they have fairly logical paragraph breaks and they generally flow okay from one paragraph to the next. There are moments where topics don’t transition well, such as when Jiyeon suddenly starts justifying why she’s against homouality in Chapter 2. However, this issue is more related to writing style, so the appropriate advice has already been given.

Sentences

The sentences could benefit with a little more variation.

This is just one example from the second chapter but there is a distinct pattern in the sentence structure throughout the rest of the story, too. It repeatedly follows the order of “subject >> verb >> object” to the point where it becomes noticeable. There are points where the order switches around so that they begin with different words—this should happen more regularly so that each paragraph doesn’t sound like a series of bullet points.

Spelling, Grammar &