— infernoforte
☀ sun & rain ☂ review shop ― thank you (closed).
infernoforte's Shutter Closed Reviewed by : Finally_Home title [5/5] i think this is a pretty unique title. it makes me wonder about what the shutters are (literal window shutters or metaphorical ones) and why they're closed. i also like the callback to one of the last lines in the story.
however, i'm not sure about the title of the chapter. i personally don't see much difference in naming the chapter title something unique versus the story title or even not giving it a title. description [9/10] it's simple, but it's enough. it gives the general 'feel' of the story and information on what the story's about. however, it did seem to imply that the story would be told from kai's perspective, rather than kyungsoo's. that made it a bit jarring to actually start reading the story for me.
it may be better to add in a line (or change the line itself) to make it clear that kyungsoo will be narrating the story. plot [20/30] i liked this! most of the plot was actually character development/insights, so i'll go more into detail in the next section. in general, there was a clear progression to the story and good character interaction.
however, there wasn't a clear 'plot'. i couldn't tell why kai was suffering and how bad it was. you said mental illness, and you mentioned he abused drugs, and i guess kyungsoo might not know why he was suffering and just how bad, but there should be signs of both.
for example, maybe he was under a lot of pressure to be the best, and maybe you could go more into descriptions of his appearance. drug users tend to be pale and sallow, something that can easily be hidden by makeup. however, i have read that the look in their eyes can be crazed or empty, depending on their mental state, which is something not hideable at all.
i also felt like some of the dialogue/events were unrealistic. for instance, "'listen, the problem is, you don't try hard enough [...]' kyungsoo is crying, or screaming, or both". this is great from an insight perspective, but no one in real life would actually say that to their bf/fwb, especially if it's in this kind of situation where they barely communicate. similarly, from the line right before this: "'i'm really tired.'" i think it would be best if you eliminated the 'really' and did not make kyungsoo go into that whole rant.
instead, it could be kai holding on, asking kyungsoo why he wants to let go when they've been through so much together, etc, and then kyungsoo says the whole chocolate/gucci thing.
in a similar vein, the scene where kyungsoo and jongin go out to broadway and kyungsoo cries the entire night felt very dramatic and not real at all. i personally wouldn't want anyone to see my crying, especially if i'm hanging out with a superstar model. instead, it may be more realistic to have kyungsoo go through the entire time stoic and emotionless while jongin is trying to get him to have fun. characterization [20/30]
kyungsoo:
- i will say, kyungsoo is a well-developed character. he's a little inconsistent sometimes, but generally, he was okay. but i don't know him. i know he's a photographer in the modelling industry, i know he's in love with jongin, i know he went to high school with jongin and sehun, but i don't really know how he'd react to things. i only know how he feels about jongin, but otherwise he seems very flat. it's like his entire being revolves around jongin. maybe that was the point, and the story is actually about jongin's life through kyungsoo's eyes, but still, i feel like kyungsoo should be a more complex character.
- that's not to say i don't like him. in fact, he's the most developed character in the story and i think you pulled off this perspective very well.
jongin:
- i don't know much about him but that's okay. the point of the story is that we don't know him. that being said, i felt like his characterization was all over the place. granted, people act differently 'on-camera' and 'off-camera' but it felt like jongin's on-camera personality was a bad boy but his off-camera personality was just a jerk. i'm not sure if that's what you wanted, though. it would, of course, fit his drug abuse and the plot, but it also felt very... dramatic?
- as an example, his rant towards the end when kyungsoo visits him. it felt fake. that's another moment where it would have been better as an insight moment (except, of course, kyungsoo wouldn't know) and i felt like it would have fit the story better if he'd just stayed silent or generally not said what he was thinking.
other people:
- i'm not sure if we need so many characters. i definitely see the point of having them, but you didn't really expand on most of them immediately. yifan was introduced as a rival but then disappeared until the end. sehun's significance wasn't clear until it was revealed that he was jongin's ex (which was very vaguely done, plus we first see his name without any context at all which was confusing). luhan, minseok, and junmyeon were completely unnecessary. i would have found the story easier to read without those three.
in general:
- though i found kyungsoo and jongin both decent characters, they were both too movie-like for me to really relate. kyungsoo's quiet and unassuming, jongin's bad-boy-esque and cold, and i just did not feel like they were real people. of course this could be the point, but the thing that bothered me the most was that both of them said what they meant. in reality, people often don't say things outright. instead, they keep them bottled up inside until it becomes a regret. i feel like the characters keeping quiet sometimes would have added more to the story rather than having them say things.
- i also found it sort of hard to feel kyungsoo's emotions. i can tell that he loves jongin a lot, but it's mostly from a descriptive part and not an emotional part. i do love your descriptions, but kyungsoo's reaction to everything that kai does (especially his death) feels lackluster. it's not like he doesn't feel anything, but more like he doesn't feel enough. or rather, as a reader, i don't feel enough from him.
- especially the death scene. the entire story was building up to this scene, but when we actually get there, it almost feels as if it's glossed over. everyone responds differently to grief, sure, but for someone kyungsoo loved so deeply and then cast off despite that, i'd have expected a much more extreme reaction. not extreme as in violent, per se, but certainly more emotional. or way less emotional, since some people cope with grief by shutting down their emotions. flow [15/25] there's a nice feel to the story that i like, and it fits what your plot was going for. but there were a lot of technical issues that prevented me from enjoying it as much as i could have.
pov changes:
- though the story is from kyungsoo's perspective, there were a few times where you switched to jongin's, and it really threw me off. the most jarring instance was when kyungsoo found him passed out over the toilet--"that's when kai decided [...]". we shouldn't know what kai decides; it's not his story. this is kyungsoo's story.
inconsistencies:
- first off, jongin vs kai. kai is jongin's model name, so ideally, you would only use it when other people refer to him as kai. since kyungsoo knows jongin personally, he would probably only refer to him as jongin. that is not the case in this story, and there are a lot of instances where you called him kai instead. then, when they break up, there's a line where kyungsoo thinks it's weird calling him kai. that's not consistent with what his thoughts have been thus far.
- the second thing was mostly character inconsistencies, but i think i covered that before.
grammar:
- the story read smoothly plot-wise, but grammar-wise it wasn't really great. there were a lot of run-on sentences and incorrect phrases/usages of words. not everyone is fluent in english, which i understand, so i won't dwell too much on this.
paragraphs:
- i'm not sure what to call this section? but it's basically line/paragraph breaks. in general, you should have a paragraph break whenever the 'topic' or 'camera' changes. i don't want to give you the wrong information, though, so here's a link that can probably explain it better than me.
- i think you did pretty good with paragraph breaks in general though! most stories i've read on this site either have too many or not enough, especially when it comes to dialogue. you have about the right amount, so this isn't a big issue. personal enjoyment [4/5] in short, this was a nice story. although there were things that i felt like could have been done better, if i was an active kaisoo fan, i think i would enjoy this. TOTAL : 69/100
however, i'm not sure about the title of the chapter. i personally don't see much difference in naming the chapter title something unique versus the story title or even not giving it a title. description [9/10] it's simple, but it's enough. it gives the general 'feel' of the story and information on what the story's about. however, it did seem to imply that the story would be told from kai's perspective, rather than kyungsoo's. that made it a bit jarring to actually start reading the story for me.
it may be better to add in a line (or change the line itself) to make it clear that kyungsoo will be narrating the story. plot [20/30] i liked this! most of the plot was actually character development/insights, so i'll go more into detail in the next section. in general, there was a clear progression to the story and good character interaction.
however, there wasn't a clear 'plot'. i couldn't tell why kai was suffering and how bad it was. you said mental illness, and you mentioned he abused drugs, and i guess kyungsoo might not know why he was suffering and just how bad, but there should be signs of both.
for example, maybe he was under a lot of pressure to be the best, and maybe you could go more into descriptions of his appearance. drug users tend to be pale and sallow, something that can easily be hidden by makeup. however, i have read that the look in their eyes can be crazed or empty, depending on their mental state, which is something not hideable at all.
i also felt like some of the dialogue/events were unrealistic. for instance, "'listen, the problem is, you don't try hard enough [...]' kyungsoo is crying, or screaming, or both". this is great from an insight perspective, but no one in real life would actually say that to their bf/fwb, especially if it's in this kind of situation where they barely communicate. similarly, from the line right before this: "'i'm really tired.'" i think it would be best if you eliminated the 'really' and did not make kyungsoo go into that whole rant.
instead, it could be kai holding on, asking kyungsoo why he wants to let go when they've been through so much together, etc, and then kyungsoo says the whole chocolate/gucci thing.
in a similar vein, the scene where kyungsoo and jongin go out to broadway and kyungsoo cries the entire night felt very dramatic and not real at all. i personally wouldn't want anyone to see my crying, especially if i'm hanging out with a superstar model. instead, it may be more realistic to have kyungsoo go through the entire time stoic and emotionless while jongin is trying to get him to have fun. characterization [20/30]
kyungsoo:
- i will say, kyungsoo is a well-developed character. he's a little inconsistent sometimes, but generally, he was okay. but i don't know him. i know he's a photographer in the modelling industry, i know he's in love with jongin, i know he went to high school with jongin and sehun, but i don't really know how he'd react to things. i only know how he feels about jongin, but otherwise he seems very flat. it's like his entire being revolves around jongin. maybe that was the point, and the story is actually about jongin's life through kyungsoo's eyes, but still, i feel like kyungsoo should be a more complex character.
- that's not to say i don't like him. in fact, he's the most developed character in the story and i think you pulled off this perspective very well.
jongin:
- i don't know much about him but that's okay. the point of the story is that we don't know him. that being said, i felt like his characterization was all over the place. granted, people act differently 'on-camera' and 'off-camera' but it felt like jongin's on-camera personality was a bad boy but his off-camera personality was just a jerk. i'm not sure if that's what you wanted, though. it would, of course, fit his drug abuse and the plot, but it also felt very... dramatic?
- as an example, his rant towards the end when kyungsoo visits him. it felt fake. that's another moment where it would have been better as an insight moment (except, of course, kyungsoo wouldn't know) and i felt like it would have fit the story better if he'd just stayed silent or generally not said what he was thinking.
other people:
- i'm not sure if we need so many characters. i definitely see the point of having them, but you didn't really expand on most of them immediately. yifan was introduced as a rival but then disappeared until the end. sehun's significance wasn't clear until it was revealed that he was jongin's ex (which was very vaguely done, plus we first see his name without any context at all which was confusing). luhan, minseok, and junmyeon were completely unnecessary. i would have found the story easier to read without those three.
in general:
- though i found kyungsoo and jongin both decent characters, they were both too movie-like for me to really relate. kyungsoo's quiet and unassuming, jongin's bad-boy-esque and cold, and i just did not feel like they were real people. of course this could be the point, but the thing that bothered me the most was that both of them said what they meant. in reality, people often don't say things outright. instead, they keep them bottled up inside until it becomes a regret. i feel like the characters keeping quiet sometimes would have added more to the story rather than having them say things.
- i also found it sort of hard to feel kyungsoo's emotions. i can tell that he loves jongin a lot, but it's mostly from a descriptive part and not an emotional part. i do love your descriptions, but kyungsoo's reaction to everything that kai does (especially his death) feels lackluster. it's not like he doesn't feel anything, but more like he doesn't feel enough. or rather, as a reader, i don't feel enough from him.
- especially the death scene. the entire story was building up to this scene, but when we actually get there, it almost feels as if it's glossed over. everyone responds differently to grief, sure, but for someone kyungsoo loved so deeply and then cast off despite that, i'd have expected a much more extreme reaction. not extreme as in violent, per se, but certainly more emotional. or way less emotional, since some people cope with grief by shutting down their emotions. flow [15/25] there's a nice feel to the story that i like, and it fits what your plot was going for. but there were a lot of technical issues that prevented me from enjoying it as much as i could have.
pov changes:
- though the story is from kyungsoo's perspective, there were a few times where you switched to jongin's, and it really threw me off. the most jarring instance was when kyungsoo found him passed out over the toilet--"that's when kai decided [...]". we shouldn't know what kai decides; it's not his story. this is kyungsoo's story.
inconsistencies:
- first off, jongin vs kai. kai is jongin's model name, so ideally, you would only use it when other people refer to him as kai. since kyungsoo knows jongin personally, he would probably only refer to him as jongin. that is not the case in this story, and there are a lot of instances where you called him kai instead. then, when they break up, there's a line where kyungsoo thinks it's weird calling him kai. that's not consistent with what his thoughts have been thus far.
- the second thing was mostly character inconsistencies, but i think i covered that before.
grammar:
- the story read smoothly plot-wise, but grammar-wise it wasn't really great. there were a lot of run-on sentences and incorrect phrases/usages of words. not everyone is fluent in english, which i understand, so i won't dwell too much on this.
paragraphs:
- i'm not sure what to call this section? but it's basically line/paragraph breaks. in general, you should have a paragraph break whenever the 'topic' or 'camera' changes. i don't want to give you the wrong information, though, so here's a link that can probably explain it better than me.
- i think you did pretty good with paragraph breaks in general though! most stories i've read on this site either have too many or not enough, especially when it comes to dialogue. you have about the right amount, so this isn't a big issue. personal enjoyment [4/5] in short, this was a nice story. although there were things that i felt like could have been done better, if i was an active kaisoo fan, i think i would enjoy this. TOTAL : 69/100
Note
if i came off harsh, i apologize. my opinions are my own, but you know your story best. remember to credit this shop in the foreword of your story.
if i came off harsh, i apologize. my opinions are my own, but you know your story best. remember to credit this shop in the foreword of your story.
Comments