Title: ‘Seducing Mr. Playboy’

Author: jybbii

Reviewed by: JjinYJ

*Date/Time of Request: 08/08/2012 .. 23:14:28
*Date/Time of Completion:  08/09/2012 .. 04:01:29

Individual Scores:

Title (3/5) - I actually really liked this title, despite the whole cliché idea of the ‘playboy’. It was interesting that you decided to switch the traditional roles however, and have the playboy being the one seduced! That being said, I deducted several marks because I wasn’t so sure - upon actually reading your story - how appropriate this title actually was. Baekhyun is described as ‘trying to get you back’ and he ‘loves you but can’t handle you’, which to me does not seem like a ‘playboy’. On top of this, you say in the description that the reader and Baekhyun were married, which leads me to further question the title. I realise that is a part of the story, but this is with ‘you’ - his wife - so I’m not sure calling him a playboy is wholly appropriate. As the chapters went on, I sort of understood your reasoning, but I still saw no evidence of him being a ‘playboy’ other than the dialogue that actually said he was a ‘playboy’ before he married ‘you’. He was mildly flirting with Yoona in chapter 10, but other than that it seemed like he was actually the one doing the seducing.

It is hard to suggest a way around this, without changing your title completely, changing Baekhyun’s character or adding a scenario to showcase his personality a bit clearer. I would definitely not recommend changing the plot to allow this to fit, so perhaps altering the title would be easiest. I really do apologise for this!

Forward/Description (6/10) - Before I go into detail, I would just like to note that I will include chapter 1&2 under this category - they are character profiles and so should be included in this section. Since they are not included here, I deducted one mark each. I like how they do not give too much information away, but still they seem a little out of place. To get those marks back, all you would have to do is move this information to your forward.

Technically, your forward and description should be the other way around, since you include an excerpt from the story in your description and describe how the story will work in your forward. Most readers don’t pay much attention to this, but reviewers can be slightly picky; therefore I would suggest swapping the information to avoid confusion. Personally I don’t mind it, so I won’t deduct a point.

With the technicalities out of the way; I actually found your forward and description to be very intriguing. I thought that you portrayed a very interesting concept and thus I would be compelled to carry on reading. Personally, I felt as though there was maybe a little too much information given away, for example where you describe the future ‘you’ talking to you through a phone. I thought that this plot technique had the potential to be very mysterious and original, but you explained it in your forward. Perhaps you might consider removing this in favour of developing it throughout your story? That way the reader has more incentive to carry on reading, as with all suspense techniques. Beyond this, I had only minor issues concerning your layout and grammar. In my opinion, forwards should be kept clean and easy to read since it is the first impression of your story. I found that, whilst your size was easy to read, the changing fonts and colours made it a bit hard on the eyes. I would suggest using a uniform font for your forward and colour when it is necessary. This approach still allows you to have a visually pleasing format of writing, but also gives the reader a bit of an easier time as well. I would encourage you to keep all ellipsis (‘..’) to only two full-stops. This is simply because the standardised use of ellipsis calls for only two full-tops; grammar nuts tend to find this quite annoying, so I would advise this rule to be followed. **I won’t include your author’s note here, since it is not relevant to the review.

Plot (19/25) - Personally I thought that the plot so far was quite interesting and well-imagined. I found the scenario of married-couple-loses-memory to be very intriguing, and I would certainly be curious - at this stage - to find out what will happen next. I was constantly asking myself what was the deal with the ‘future you’ and this was (in my opinion) a fantastic plot device that was well written. The fact that it is not really explained as of yet is quite a strength I would say, since it adds an element of mystery amongst the fluff/romance/comedy/angst - which are all quite well balanced. I would also say that - since I knew you were insecure about your rated scenes - I found the ‘M’ chapters to be surprisingly good! The idea of having a duel-dream about was a really innovative plot device and I think you should give yourself more credit for these scenes.

That being said, there were areas of the plot that I felt could’ve been written slightly better. I will not deduct too many marks for this however, since I feel as though these could be easily corrected issues. Mainly I was concerned with the pace of the story, beginning at around chapter 8. I was slightly confused as to what the ‘babysitter’ thing was all about and I wasn’t so sure that you explained this very well. My advice at this stage would be to perhaps revise your wording of this chapter to prevent this issue in the future. There is not much else for me to say, other than continue to plan out your story to avoid confusing plot turns in the future.

Characterisation (9/15) - Character development was an interesting category for me to consider. On one hand, I felt as though the story was slightly lacking in depth when it came to this. For example, there is no exploration as of yet concerning Yoona or Kris’ characters; and at this stage they seem like pretty important characters. Ae-Cha and Baekhyun are done pretty well with the flashbacks and dialogue, but I still felt as though there could have been more information by this point. As of yet, I don’t feel particularly attached to any of the main characters, so I would definitely advise you to take some time in the coming chapters to explore their pasts and the relationships that they each experience.

However, I would say that I’m not entirely surprised by the lack of character depth, considering the memory loss of the main characters. I’m not sure if this was an intentional stylistic choice of yours, but it could definitely be argued that the lack of information about Ae-Cha and Baekhyun adds to the suspense of the story. I would still advise a greater analysis of other characters however and would hope that you can provide more depth for the central cast. I chose to deduct marks because of the central characters, since I felt that you have the potential to develop them even further and decided to give you the benefit of the doubt when considering the afore-mentioned stylistic choice.

Flow (3/5) - On the whole, I thought that your story was relatively easy to read and follow. The layout was visually pleasing for the most part, but there were a few issues that could easily be corrected to push this mark up. Firstly, whenever the point of view shifts from one character to another, it might be wise to put some indication that this change has taken place. It can be slightly confusing for P.O.Vs to change suddenly and so I deducted one mark for this. Secondly, there was a lot of use of bold fonts to emphasize shouting; this could simply be done with an exclamation mark (‘!’) and would therefore avoid unnecessarily resorting to the ‘bold’ feature. This can be visually off-putting to many readers, so I would avoid over using it. By the same token, capitalising words for emphasis is fine - but in small doses - try to avoid capitals for every time a character raises their voice, and try to stick to exclamation marks. I deducted a second point for these issues. On a personal note, I would also advise you to separate your author’s notes more clearly than by simply changing the text colour - it can be a little annoying on the eyes and it’s something that - as with the forward - a lot of readers don’t like.

Originality (8/10) - I actually found the story to be quite original. ‘Playboy meets girl and falls in love’ might seem a little cliché, but you did definitely add your own twist on it. Memory loss is not something I see often in fics, and combining this plot with a marriage-scenario was quite innovative and creative, I thought. I deducted two marks because I felt as though the dialogue and interactions of the characters were quite predictable, however. I might suggest that in the coming chapters you devote a good amount of time to exploring these interactions in greater depth and providing some out-of-character (as we so far know) discussions. I hope this makes sense.

Grammar (15/20) - On the whole, your grammar is very good. There were a few issues that persisted throughout the fic and I shall discuss those in a moment; but for a non-native speaker I was pleasantly surprised by how easy your fic tended to be because of good grammar.

It is not the shops policy to provide lists of grammatical corrections however; we will certainly point out the biggest areas where improvements could be made.

Firstly, the use of ellipsis. As I said with the forward, this must be kept to a maximum of two full-stops. It must also not be used in place of commas or full-stops in themselves. Sometimes the use of ‘..’ can be for style and effect, but I did not get that impression in this story since the mistake was used practically in every chapter and every paragraph. I would definitely advise you to go back and change this so that ellipsis is used only when appropriate, for example in a place where suspense is intended, or for comedic purposes. I deducted two marks because these issues persisted for so long.

Secondly I saw frequent confusion in tense and verb choices. For example:
#1 “Weren’t I?” Should have been, “Wasn’t I?” Since ‘were’ is the plural past participle of ‘To Be.’ And you needed to use the singular participle.

#2 “Making me ache my back..” Should have been, “Making me arch my back..” A simple verb muddling here which can probably be put down to English not being your first language. Simply remember this for future rated scenes! I deducted two marks simply because these mistakes were sometimes quite frequent.

Lastly I would advise the use of ‘he said’/’she said’ when writing a conversation. In several instances I had to read and re-read a conversation just to understand who was saying what. This is a very easy and simple modification and you don’t need to do it every time quotation marks are seen. Simply use it when you feel appropriate, so that the reader will not get too confused. I only deducted one mark from this because I felt it was not too serious or persistent of an issue.

I would suggest, as an overall piece of advice, to either use Microsoft Word or acquire a beta-reader to test these errors. Normally this is sufficient to correct most if not all grammar mistakes, and would well be worth your time. Spelling is not really an issue for you, so perhaps a beta-reader would be the better option of the two.

Vocabulary (7/10) - In this section, I took into consideration that English is not your first language. That being said, your vocabulary was on the whole very solid and consistent. Perhaps there was repetition of verb or adjective choices, but these will come in time when your knowledge of the language expands. I would encourage you at this stage to seek out new and inventive word choices while you study and learn English. You clearly have an interest in the language, so I’m sure this will not be a problem!

Total Score - {70/100}

Reviewers Notes

Thank you for requesting!

I hope you're pleased with this score. I felt as though it was fair and a good platform for you to progress from. I tried to give as much detail as possible in the areas that I felt could've been improved the easiest/most, and I hope that the advice I gave is easy to follow. If you have any problems please feel free to PM me with questions and I'll be happy to help!

And one last thing. Your is fine! What were you worrying about? ^^

(Reviewed by Jessica)

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A link to this story can be found > HERE <

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