Title: 'A Repulsive Love'

Author: GreenALiveTnS

Reviewed by: BrenRay

*Date/Time of Request: 08/08/2012 .. 03:07:00
*Date/Time of Completion: 08/08/2012 .. 22:42:48

Individual Scores:

Title (5/5) - Simply put; I love this title! It’s very unique and innovative in my opinion and would therefore - definitely - compel me to read. I thought that, since the plot seems to focus on the exploration of what expectations of ‘love’ actually are, it was also very appropriate for your story.

Forward/Description (8/10) - On the whole, your forward & description were both very good. I would like to start by saying that your presentation was wonderful; it was clear and easy on the eyes, whilst your poster and background seemed very appropriate for what I assumed would be a fairly-angsty story. I thought that the introduction to the main characters was finely balanced and it was - in my opinion - very good that you did not immediately dictate what their personalities would be; instead we got to make our own first impressions based on the quotes you gave us. That said - I deducted two marks for two reasons. #1 Your description was slightly confusing because of the grammatical mistakes that were present; I would normally confine this to the ‘grammar’ section, but it did impact on my impressions of the forward. Perhaps you could include a beta-reader to check your language, or simply use a programme like Microsoft Word for its inbuilt grammar-checkers. (Just make sure to set the language to English!) #2 I felt like there was too much information in the description. In my experience, readers tend to prefer for this section to leave them wondering and intrigued. Setting the scene is fine, but it’s not necessary to immediately describe the specific relationships (E.g. Jiyeon likes Suzy, but Suzy already has a boyfriend.) As readers, we want to discover this on our own whilst the story is progressing. I would advise a little re-wording of your description to combat this, as this would also help to correct any grammatical errors as well.

Plot (21/25) - I really did enjoy the plot and I did find myself becoming immersed in the complicated relationships that were developing between the characters, which in my opinion were written very strongly. There were a few issues I had, which resulted in the deduction of several marks, and these are as follows: #1 There were at times - I felt - slightly farfetched emotional scenarios; for example, Jiyeon’s anger is very prominent in the opening chapters and I found myself questioning why this was. As it happens there is a reason for this, but still I felt as though it could have been reined in and somewhat less over-the-top. Other examples might include Taemin’s anger in his back-story towards Suzy, however these could simply be re-worded to avoid this issue - and of course it could also be blamed on my own interpretations of the characters. #2 I felt as though the beginning was slightly rushed in terms of Myungsoo and Taemin’s friendship. I didn’t quite believe that they would be so comfortable with each other so quickly and that was a small point of contention for me. You did go some way to explaining this in a later chapter, but I did feel still that there could have been a better explanation; I don’t wish to alter your plot, but perhaps you could consider some kind of back-story involving the two boys? Perhaps they could’ve known each other before, and that is why they are so comfortable? Beyond this, the plot was thoroughly captivating. I found myself very intrigued by the 4-way relationship and would be very excited to see where you take this. I would say at this stage, since you have a way to go before the story is complete, that you must understand where you plan to take the fic yourself. It probably seems odd to say this, but a clear and firm direction is one of the most important aspects of writing when you have the potential to veer off and make the story unnecessarily complicated with so many potential relationships. Make sure you know what you plan to do with their relationships and most importantly, how you plan to get to those stages.

Characterisation (14/15) - You’re development of the characters was, in my opinion, fantastic. From the very beginning, the interactions were well expressed and mostly believable; whilst the shifting P.O.Vs and emphasis on their’ pasts helped to give a well-rounded and in-depth story behind each individual. Initially I was a little confused with the fast pace of the Myungsoo/Taemin friendship, but this issue was cleared in a later chapter and thus I did not deduct any marks. I deducted one mark because I felt as though there could have been greater physical description of the characters. You did this quite successfully with Taemin, however the other three were slightly lacking in my opinion; for example, you describe Jiyeon and Suzy as beautiful/pretty/sweet etc. But there are no specifics there. To push this mark up to a 15/15 I would suggest that you consider adding a little more intricate detail into the appearances of the other characters as you did with Taemin. Personally this was not a major issue, since I already know what these characters look like; but it may be something for you to consider for those readers who may not - or perhaps you could simply include a picture-link in one of your chapters that directs to an image of how you want the characters to appear in the fic.

 

Flow (3/5) - Overall the flow of the story was pretty good. The layout was easy to read and it was very clearly formatted when you changed points of view. However I deducted marks - as with the forward - because there were instances where your grammar made some sentences hard to read. Occasionally I had to re-read several times before I managed to understand the point you were trying to express. However these occurrences drew few and far between as the chapters went by, thus I awarded more than half-marks.

 

Originality (10/10) - I actually felt from the beginning that your story was quite original and thankfully I was right! The story is very unique in several ways, so it is hard for me to provide any advice other than to continue what you’re doing. As this is the case, I will go into detail about what I thought was innovative. The idea of a 4-way love was quite new to me, since many stories (whether here on AFF or otherwise) tend to include love triangles that can get a bit clichéd and it added an extra element of interest into the story - I found myself really drawn in to the plight of Myungsoo’s love for Jiyeon, made all the more worse because of her complicated love for Suzy whilst she in-turn obviously loves Taemin; this would probably not have been the case if I were easily able to predict what would happen next.

 

Grammar (12/20) - Grammar was a point of contention for me. It’s very unfortunate that I felt the need to mark you down on this, but it was regrettably necessary. Grammatical errors did have a tendency to make certain areas of the story confusing; I wouldn’t say this was too frequent a problem, but it was still a serious one nonetheless. I would particularly cite your pronoun usage as a key area for improvement, as this did create issues; for example,  in the phrase, ‘They smiled at each other, but an unpleasant face appeared on his face as he took off their hands and introduced himself at him.’ This sentence has several errors, but I will address pronouns at this time. In this section, I was under the impression that Jiyeon was shaking hands with Taemin, which would mean the ‘him’ should have actually been a ‘her’, an easily corrected error, but one that could cause confusion for the average reader.
 

It is not our policy to provide in-depth lists of grammatical errors, as this is not relevant to the review. However I will highlight several areas that I would strongly encourage you to work at - including examples of each. This way you should be able to clearly see which areas require the most attention.

1. Verb Confusion. This issue is something that I might expect from a non-native speaker, so I would not get too hung up on this. As your understanding of verbs increases and you attain a greater understanding of their use, this should hopefully come naturally. All I can say for now is; keep working at it and take note of the example below for a prominent error.

e.g. ‘Wasn’t he see her last night?’ - This phrase is grammatically incorrect, because the wrong verb (To Be) has been used. The correct sentence would read, ‘Didn’t he see her last night?’ - using the verb ‘To Do’.

2. Tense Confusion. This is a slightly harder area to grasp, because English has all manner of tenses that need to be learned. As with verb usage, the skill to properly use these tenses will often come simply through practice. Don’t be discouraged if you make a mistake - simply try to memorise what was done wrong, and remember it for the future.

e.g. ‘Her eyes narrowing as she glared at me.’ - This is grammatically incorrect because ‘narrowing’ is in the wrong tense; in this case it is used in the present, whereas it should be in the past because ‘glared’ is a past participle. The sentence should read, ‘Her eyes narrowed as she glared at me.’

(An example of #1 & #2 combined can be seen here: ‘I took him here so that my life is not lonely.’ - This should have been, ‘I brought him here so that my life would not be lonely.’

3. Sentence Structure. This is actually not a very hard grammar point to learn. I basically found that there was a tendency for you to confuse the rules of ‘compound’ and ‘complex’ sentences. Compound sentences are two unrelated clauses (phrases) that are joined by a conjunction such as ‘and’/’because’. Complex sentences are two or more related clauses where one or more would not make sense on their own (the technical name is a ‘subordinate clause’) - usually these are indicated by the use of a comma. The problem I found in your story was that compound sentences, where ‘and’ should have been used, actually used commas. This meant that the sentences were awkward to read and an example can be found below.

e.g. ‘I quickly jumped out of bed and ran out of my room, headed for the bathroom.’ - In this case, the comma should have been an ‘and’ since the phrase that follows is not directly related and therefore not a subordinate clause. It should have read, ‘I quickly jumped out of bed and ran out of my room and headed for the bathroom.’

Whilst you familiarise yourself with these mistakes and learn how to correct them independently, I would highly recommend you enlist a beta-reader to check all these mistakes for you and hopefully provide the correct alternatives. It may require a bit of effort to search for one, but they are out there. Simply ask in the comments of your stories if someone would like that responsibility or ask the beta-readers of other authors if they would be willing to do this for you. Either way, this is a problem that will correct itself in time; you simply have to be willing to continue your commitment to learning which I’m sure you will!

Vocabulary (10/10) - To say that English is not your first language, I was very impressed by your wide vocabulary and the overall lucidity of your language. I was particularly impressed by your interesting choices of adverbs and your ability to avoid over-repetition of phrases or adjectives when describing a scene or person. There is not much to improve on here, other than to say I hope you continue at this level of fluency.

Total Score - {83/100}

Reviewers Notes

Thank you for requesting! I hope that you're pleased with this score and that this review has been helpful.

I very much enjoyed doing this review and I feel like your story has the potential to be very good. It's a shame that your grammar mark brought you down slightly, but I'm confident that if you requested again once those mistakes are ironed out that you could well achieve a mark in the 90's. I would be very happy to perform another review at that stage if you so wish!

As always, you are not obligated to include in your story, but we would ask that you credit and link back to the shop if you choose too.

(Reviewed by Brendan)

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A link to this story can be found > HERE <

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