the last reason by bluesapphire14
wishful thoughts shoppe

title - 3/5

The good news is that there's nothing wrong with your title. The downside is that it's lacking. Though there were no errors such as capitalization and the sort, why I took off points is because your title seems like a placeholder. Granted, all titles are placeholders. However, the way I see it, your title is a completely plain placeholder without any real substance or depth to it. It's rather simple, and while simple titles can go a long way beautifully, I felt like the simplicity of the title just didn't do it for me. It doesn't have the 'unf' factor to it. I'm not  expecting it to draw me in since it doesn't seem like you were aiming for that effect, but it seems like many of those other 'angsty', dramatic stories you read on AFF. Though I will you credit for making the reader wonder what the last reason could possibly be.

foreword/description - 4/10

Your foreword and description were very neatly organized, but again, I felt like you had a lot more potential in you for your foreword and description. What you put as your description was very generic and perhaps a bit too generic. I could easily take this description and put it in with any other angst story. It didn't even tell me a thing about the story, which is the whole point of a description. The purpose of a description is to tell the reader enough about your story without giving too much away while capturing their attention. Describe your story in a way that will leave readers wanting for more. As of now, the reason why I took off points is because I feel like you missed the purpose of the description (not to mention the grammatical mistakes). Those beautiful, poetic lines would fit better in your foreword. For example:

Here's an analogy of how you should write your descriptions. When you write your descriptions, keep this scenario in mind. It's like you want to give a little kid a bite of a pastry. Just a little nibble/bite. You don't want to give them the whole thing. If the kid likes it (they should) they'll come looking for more (your foreword). If they don't, they won't pursue it. But you want to make your description so irresistible, any reader would want to keep reading. Hope this analogy makes sense.

I consider the last line of the description the most important one. It's the hook line. It's what should capture the reader's interest if all else above failed. It's what should leave an impression on the reader, like: Wow. This story looks amazing. I need to read this.

Now, talking about your foreword, I felt like you could have done more. You did great with putting your author's note in the foreword rather than in the description (a personal pet peeve of mine), Song lyrics are great too. However, I'll just say this (especially since you didn't really have an eye-catching description): it doesn't hurt to add in an excerpt that stops at a point that leaves people begging for more. You know, just something to further spark the reader's interest and keep them hooked. Everything in your foreword and description is too vague. I'm not saying that vague isn't good. Vague is good, but too much of it isn't the best way to go because many people will just give up without bothering to give your story a chance. At least try to give people a general idea of your story (or at least, the very beginning/exposition).

characterization - 13/25

Even though you only have five chapters up, I have to say that I was a bit disappointed by your characters and their personalities. Or rather, lack thereof. Let's start with...let's call her Sumin. There are instances where she acts cold, though the reason is left undisclosed. I suspect it's something to do with her past or something. Her daughter maybe? I don't mind that she has a cold character given that she probably has a reason for it even though cold feminine leads are becoming increasingly common. What I do mind is that you don't exhibit her character enough. If she's cold, add in scenes where we can see that in all cases. You only mention it with a passing sentence or two every once in a while. It makes her sound so inconsistent, like there's no solid foundation to her character. Since Sumin is the main character, I was disappointed. I felt like you didn't focus on introducing your character to the reader at all. She's so important, yet so flat. And even more, she has no indication of a unique personality whatsoever but why do the guys like her so much? What's so great (or unique/interesting) about her that they like her so much? I can't even say if she's too perfect because I have no idea of her character whatsoever. As you continue to write, I advise you to start planning out before-Sumin and after-Sumin to show how much she's changed or if she's always been like that all along. I don't think so because she tries to act cold but (apparently) she just can't keep up the facade. Why in the world would she try to act cold and indifferent then? To turn him off?

If the main character is undeveloped, I don't know what I can say about the others. Chanyeol seems to do whatever he wants. He even "blackmails" her (even though I consider it a very lame form of blackmail). Why? Why does he like her so much? Other than that, we don't really know anything about him. Why is he so dedicated to her? Did he promise Kai or something? Or is it merely infatuation? It irked me a bit to read that he was so popular with the girls, like they're all dying to hook up with him, but he only has eyes for this one girl. I've seen this so many times in stories, I fail to be surprised anymore. But what's even stranger is that he loves a girl who really has done nothing at all to gain his affection.  A good thing would be to explain to the reader why he just likes her so much out of so many other girls. He may know, but we the readers definitely do not know and it makes all the 'emotion' and 'feeling' seem very unconvincing and awkward.

I have to say though that I'm very disappointed with how little exposure Kai, a main character, has received in the first five chapters. The first five chapters are usually meant to be some sort of an exposition. However, the reader knows almost nothing about Kai. We know that he must've did something to Sumin to hurt her. He knows about Chanyeol's existence. He doesn't like working for his father's company (perhaps his fallout with Sumin has something to do with that?) And what I find even more puzzling is that he was the one who has custody over their daughter. How strange. That's something you don't see every day, so I'm hoping/expecting that there is a very good reason behind this.

I wanted to talk about the characters in more detail, but I found that I couldn't because I knew almost nothing about them. I tried to draw inferences from their actions and words, but I found that even these lacked depth and revelation about the characters. For main characters, they were all very flat. Rather than dynamic or constant, they were almost invisible. Rather than invisible, general. I could probably fit them into any story. I also want to talk about Junhong because something bugs me very, very much.

This sentence caught my eye: I ignored him and his autism acts.

For starters, it should be 'autistic'. Secondly, as a sister to an autistic brother, I was a bit slighted by this sentence. For starters, Junhong displays no characteristics of an autistic child/male. Autism is more severe and serious than that (Even if it is the mild part of the spectrum. And for that matter, he doesn't even seem like he has Asperger's or something.) If you intend to a medical term or disorder in your story, please make sure to research extensively and get your facts right. Sure, you only mentioned it once. But readers are observant. I have no idea why you would choose to use the word 'autistic' to describe Junhong who seems pretty much like any normal boy. I would advise you to be a bit more careful if you choose to actually play this in with Junhong's character.

All in all, it felt to me like you didn't spend much thought on your characters and their personalities. Don't worry! You still have many more chapter to go - plenty of time to remodel your characters. Try writing down how you imagine their personalities and elaborate from there on out. There are plenty of advice fics on AFF about characterization if you search them up.

plot/originality - 16/20

As for the plot, I can't really see what direction it's going because you're only five chapters in. I think I pretty much addressed most of my questions in the characterization section up above. As far as I can see, you don't have many loopholes. Though I do have my questions. In the very first chapter, she says something about how because of God, she was able to see the spring once again. Did she almost have a near-death experience? Something to do with Kai perhaps? Also, why is everyone so intent on calling them a married couple? You usually don't call people that if the guy likes the girl but she doesn't like him back. That's one-sided. Albeit, she could like him just a tiny bit, but I don't think every single person on the school campus would know about that. If they were acting like a married couple, I would understand, but I find the fact that they're a "married couple" in the eyes of the students very unrealistic and unconvincing. Also, how could Sumin think that he shouldn't worry about her? If he's her friend, of course  he would be worried about her. It's nothing dramatic or big to care if someone's feeling well or not. And why the hell would Chanyeol blackmail her with kisses? It's just so unrealistic and definitely not the first thing many people think of when the word 'blackmail' comes to mind. It just felt a bit too convenient for the story's plot at that moment. If she absolutely hated his guts, I would understand. But she doesn't. Heck, a kiss from Chanyeol isn't even blackmail. And what was up with his indirect proposal? (I'll elaborate on this section more later.) And he's definitely planning something as we can see from his encounter with Baekhyun.

So basically, summing it up, there's nothing really wrong with your plot, but you just leave the reader with a lot of unanswered questions. However, there were many parts that I found myself questioning the realistic-ness of. To me, some parts didn't seem realistic at all (like that's not how people would normally react or say).

Now, if we're talking originality here, I have to admit that I've seen plenty of these types of stories (basically what I'm seeing in the first five chapters). However, you have a long way to go before you finish this story, so you have plenty of room to add in your own plot twists! And I have to say that this is my first time seeing the father with the daughter rather than the mother with the daughter.

Scoring and talking about a story's plot and originality is really hard and vague when you only have a couple chapters up (though you're dragging it out a bit). I couldn't talk about it as much as I might have wanted to, and thus, I could only give you pretty generic advice since I have no idea in the least what you plan to do with your plot. I can guess, but I don't want to jump to assumptions.

flow - 3/5

First things first, you can stop writing the time and everything unless it is extremely important (like when you switch to Kai's POV). In fact, you don't even need it at all for Kai unless the time and date has a very important significance in your story.  You should be able to tell us through the details of the story so that we can draw our own conclusions of the setting and time.

Secondly, I felt like you were dragging it on a bit too long in your first five chapters. Usually, the first five chapters are meant to be an exposition to the story, but here it dragged a bit too long without properly introducing us to your characters and your plot. From where you stand right now, it seems like your plot leads to nothing.

I don't know whether you're planning for this to be a long or short story, but just a heads up: many people tend to lose interest with long stories after twenty something chapters if nothing is really going on. Try not to use up space by inserting fillers that aren't really important and try to get a general idea of your plot across to your reader. The first five chapters should be a 'hooker' to grab the reader's interest.

Also, though your plot was lagging, there were some things that escalated so quickly. Granted, it may have been going on for a while behind the scenes in the story (in your head) but to the reader, the sudden proposal like Chanyeol's almost seems awkward and cringe-worthy because you didn't take the time to build up the emotion and feeling in the scene and in the relationship. Because, remember, the reader was only just introduced to Chanyeol and Sumin's relationship. This is just one example that particularly caught my eye while I was reading.

grammar/mechanics - 4/15

I highly suggest you hire a beta-reader or ask someone to read over your chapters. I know you said that English wasn't your first language. Taking that and my schedule into account, I can't list everything I found. I'll just be listing some general areas and giving a couple of examples per area.

Awkward wording

At the end of this section.

Verb tense

I noticed that you had a lot of problems with your verb tense whether it was inconsistent verb tense or incorrect verb tense. Inconsistent verb tense can be fixed easily. Let's say you chose past tense as your primary tense. All you have to do is just stick to that tense whenever you write. If you're writing a flashback or about something that happened in the past, you just need to go a tense down which would be past perfect tense (had ___verb__ed). Incorrect verb tense requires more in-depth study. If you're not familiar with all the principle parts of verbs, it would be handy to look them up if you're not sure.

I lifted up my head from the book I read and looked at her.

I lifted up my head from the book I was reading and looked at her.

I lifted her up and hold her in my arms.

I lifted her up and held her in my arms.

She told me that she wants to go to England.

She told me that she wanted to go to England.

I cursed in my head; this is because last night...

I cursed in my head; this was because last night....

I had finish it looooooong time ago.

I had finished it long time ago.

He just smiled like he was admitted that we are a "married couple".

He just smiled like he was admitting that we were a "married couple".

He just smiled like he admitted that we were a "married couple".

Weak word choice

I guess you could also say there were some 'awkward wording' parts. This is something that can be helped with a beta.

...which it was impossible to happen.

...which was impossible.

How could I'm being like this?

How could I be like this?

....seeing she is out of breath.

....seeing how she was out of breath.

....made me uneasy soon after I saw it.

....made me uneasy as soon as I saw it.

...I crossed my arms and faced his face.

...I turned around to face him.

(The repetition of 'face' makes things sound a bit awkward.)

I will talk my problem with you.

I will tell you my problem.

Omitted words

I noticed that you often omitted words that made the sentences suddenly choppy. Just be careful when you're writing and make sure that you read over your chapters before you post them up.

...and I laughed because her cuteness.

...and I laughed because of her cuteness.

...still holding Barbie doll in her hand.

...still holding the Barbie doll in her hand.

It's weekend now...

It's the weekend now...

I kicked empty bottle in front of me...

I kicked the empty bottle in front of me...

Nonexistent word usage

I noticed that there were times when you used words that don't exist - most of them were just incorrect verb tense errors.

My body automatically freezed.

My body automatically froze.

I just let my foots made their ways.

I just let my feet make their ways.

...but the beautifulness she had...

...but the beauty she had...

Spelling

This can easily be fixed by using Microsoft Word or Google Drive since Asianfanfics doesn't have any spell-check.

I tried not to laugh when the tears ware almost falling down...

I tried not to laugh when the tears were almost falling down...

Looked by Chanyol...

Looked by Chanyeol...

I thought my heart was heating like crazy.

I thought my heart was beating like crazy.

Starring at the stars?

Staring at the stars?

I took them when you were zooning out...

I took them when you were zoning out...

Miscellaneous

Here are a couple of other things I found throughout the span of the story, but there weren't so many errors in these areas of grammar that I didn't see the need to make a whole section on it. This is basically anything miscellaneous I found.

I noticed that you would always forget to capitalize your words. Whenever you have dialogue, you must always capitalize the first word if it is the first word of the sentence. I have no idea whether or not I'm explaining this well enough, but here's some examples.

I smiled, "from what I remember...."

I smiled, "From what I remember...."

He smiled as he nodded his head, "for some reason..."

He smiled as he nodded his head, "For some reason..."

"That's all right," he said as he stood up. "I understand it," that was the last thing...

"That's all right," he said as he stood up. "I understand it."That was the last thing...

Don't use tildes. Tildes (~) are overly abused. They're only meant for things like text messaging, Asian languages, pronunciation, and the like.

"I am ready to hear the news~" she sang...

"I am ready to hear the news," she sang...

Don't drag out your words. It's unnecessary, and there are better ways to express your thoughts.

"Yes. Tell me Appaaaaaaaa~"

"Yes! Tell me Appa," she whined, while pouting irresistibly.

I noticed that you had problems with your idiom expressions. Idioms are something that just must be memorized, so a beta-reader would really help. Even native English speakers like me have trouble mastering all the correct idiom expressions, so don't worry.

...almost falling down on her cheeks.

...almost falling down her cheeks.

...because he suddenly used violence to me.

...because he suddenly used violence on me.

Subject-pronoun agreement and subject-verb agreement must always match in number. Let's look at this sentence:

...I saw other students with their big smile plastered on their mouth.

They're not all sharing one mouth, are they? They all have separate mouths, so the sentence should be rephrased like this:

...I saw the other students with their big smiles plastered on their mouths.

Honestly, I didn't intend to make the grammar section so long until I noticed that you requested on your form for me to nitpick on the grammar section. However, English is such a complex language (even to native speakers), some parts are hard to explain. That's why I highly recommend a beta to help you with your grammar if you feel unsure about anything. As a bonus (or because I felt like it), I beta-ed the first chapter of your story. I had originally printed your whole story out and corrected whatever I saw, but I just don't have enough time to beta all of it on the computer.

link.

(There was also a lot of unnecessary wording that I decided against removing because I wasn't sure how you would want it. The 'awkward wording' section is part of this beta-ed chapter. Again, this is just how I would've edited the chapter. You are free to use it, but you're not required to use it, so don't worry.)

writing style - 4/10

I consider writing style to be extremely important. Any story can have an amazing plot, but what can actually make or break it is the way the story is written (I have in fact seen many stories like this). You want to ask yourself these sort of questions.

What type of genre am I aiming for?

What demographic audience am I writing for?

Am I portraying said genre in a realistic way that effectively conveys the character's thoughts, words, and actions?

While I was reading the first few chapters of your story, I couldn't feel overwhelmed. And it wasn't a very good feeling. I noticed that one of your tags is 'angst'. With your writing style, it seems more like comedy without the comedy. There was a lot of unnecessary monologue that made me cringe a little inside. I knew what emotion you were aiming for, but I couldn't feel it in your writing. I felt like I was reading empty words. Perhaps it was because your sentences were very choppy and monotonous. They didn't really flow and there were many unnecessary, tedious sentences. I probably sound a little critical right now, but I just couldn't feel the angst in your story.

I can't really help/tell you how to improve your writing, but I have some tips.

• ·         Try to imagine yourself in the story. What's in your surroundings? Describing the setting can help set the mood while capturing reader's attentions with your imagery since they are able to paint a picture in their head.
• ·         Try to write in a more serious tone. Since this is supposed to be an angst story (and judging from what you have so far - serious/dark/angsty angst) it would help if you could get into the mood or at least have an underlying serious mood.
• ·         Details. Details, details, details. They are so important. A lack of details makes a story dry and empty. A story is like a body. The plotline is the skeleton, but you need the flesh to  make the body complete. Rich imagery can make a huge difference to readers, and it makes the story seem real, as if the reader is right there while it is happening.
• ·         Subjective writing is also a good way to bring more angst into your story. It focuses more on the character's thoughts, emotions, and inner turmoil rather than objective writing (i.e. action). Of course, it is best advised to write with a balance of both.  Emphasize more on what the character is feeling, going into detail so as to make their emotion (their pain, their happiness) seem more real.

Another thing that I did not really enjoy was the person it was written in. It's written in first person, yet it uses the ____ we so commonly see in 'you' stories. There's nothing wrong with 'you' stories as long as they have a name. ____ isn't a name. Giving a 'you' character a name won't hurt the reader and it will certainly be more pleasing to the eyes to see instead of ___________. Also, another thing was how Sumin kept constantly talking to the reader. That is something more commonly seen in comedy and romcom stories. This is partly why I was unable to feel like you were writing angst and to get into the mood. It felt very unnecessary to be reading things like: I'm the secretary, you know? The you know part is unneeded because there is no need to be talking to the reader. We can tell by reading. Talking to the reader gives the story more of a silly, carefree feel rather than an angsty, romantic one.

general enjoyment - 4/10

First of all, I'm terribly sorry for the long wait, and I hope that this review will help you.

All excerpts have been taken from this source (most is from an unpublished chapter, so in a way, you got the first look at it.) Look around on the writing tag - there are a lot of helpful guides!

In all honesty, I couldn't fully enjoy the story because of the writing style and the grammar (mostly the writing style - grammar doesn't really bother me that much if it's not the author's first language). I totally understand that English is not your first language, so I have to give you props for having the courage to write in a language that isn't your first. It's just that I felt like I had to force myself to finish reading a chapter sometimes whenever it felt like the plot was dragging or when it was just way too vague. I couldn't really take it seriously because at some parts, I felt that it was a little bit cheesy when it should've been emotional because of the rushing of the feelings and etc. Honestly, I may be coming off as really critical, but I just want to tell you that you really have a lot going for your story. Don't take the score too seriously - in fact, the score might not even accurately reflect your story's merit at all since you've only just started your story. I can see a lot of potential in it - especially the plot - but it's whether you choose to unlock that potential or not. As for your writing style, I only have one last tip for you: keep writing and don't ever feel discouraged. The more you write, eventually you will discover your own style of writing. It'll gradually evolve until you get the feel of it. Trust me - it took me a long time to find and refine my own writing style. You can PM me if you have any questions about this review (especially the grammar part).

Total: 51/100

reviewer's comments: this was an old review i had done for wts. 

september 6, 2013