The Unspoken
Author: EunmiJung325
Reviewer: aeterniti

Opening 4/10

While your title was nice and simple, it was not entirely intriguing either. It seemed like a very generic romance novel title to me – one that I would easily pass over while browsing. As of now, I haven’t seen any correlation to your plot, and I highly encourage you (if you haven’t already) to find a way to incorporate the title’s meaning into your story.

As for your description, my first impressions weren’t very, well, impressive. Again, to me, it seems like your run-of-the-mill romance/drama story. The bolded blurb did not pique my interest, and the section following that actually decreased my anticipation when I was presented with the stereotypical ‘broken-hearted boy’ and ‘special girl’. To be brutally honest, there was nothing original to catch my attention.

I do recognize the little “disclaimer” you put in your foreword and the fact that you acknowledged the banality of the plot; however, I don’t think that should stop you from trying to make the description of your story slightly more appealing. For example, if you add in the ‘vague’ factor, I’m sure it will at least intrigue readers to wonder what you might have in store for them. (I would try to give an example, but our writing styles are immensely different). I suggest playing around with it a bit and thinking about what type of blurb would interest you when you read a book. This would definitely be more effective than simply telling readers that even though your plot sounds unoriginal, you have interesting plot twists later on in the story. In fact, that actually made me skeptical about reading another typical melodrama. I hear a lot of people say that, and I have yet to see anything that truly sets them apart from the other clichéd stories.

Characterization 7/25 (3/5 for sides + 3/10 for Sehun + 1/10 for Soojin)

For characterization, I’m giving you just the slightest bit of leeway since it doesn’t seem that your story has progressed very far yet; however, I honestly believe that after ten chapters of your story, you should already have a pretty solid foundation for your characters.

For Sehun, one of the main characters of the story, I felt like his characterization was all over the place. I assume that it was your intention to depict him as someone left scarred and badly broken after an unknown incident in his past in the beginning of the story; however, I didn’t really absorb that from your characterization of Sehun, aside from his tirade of her and his gloomy dialogue with Jongin. His actions seemed very normal, very “everyday” to me. Of course, it is plausible that he hides his pain as best he can as he goes about his present life. These are all my conjectures because your characterization of Sehun was vague and inconsistent. I couldn’t infer any solid information about Sehun. Sometimes you wrote Sehun as someone deeply affected by his past; other times, you made Sehun seem only slightly down about her. As a reader, I was never sure how I was supposed to view him. It’s always good to craft complex, three-dimensional characters, but Sehun’s actions and characterization just seem very contradictory at times. First, he’s gruff and rude, limiting his interactions with other people. Other times, he’s arrogant and smug towards Soojin, taunting and teasing her. Then he’s back to being moody and mysterious. Then he’s curious about her. Soojin asked him if he was bipolar and I think that honestly shows just how jumbled of a mess Sehun’s characterization is.

Also, in the later chapters, Sehun is shown to have a change of heart, acting more open towards those around him. However, whatever brought on this sudden change is too vague. Is it because of Soojin? What was special about her that she was able to bring him out of his slump when his friends barely could? The shift from past to present character for Sehun was all too sudden and unclear to me. Sure, maybe her new personality was refreshing and intriguing to him, but this leads to a whole new question: Why her of all the girls out there?

And this leads me to Soojin’s characterization. While I gathered quite a bit of information regarding Sehun’s character, I know almost nothing about Soojin aside from the fact that she is a very generic OC. She’s nice, friendly, interesting, hardworking, and passionate about dancing. There’s little depth or individuality in her character, which leads me to wonder why she’s the center of attention in your story. I know there’s something dark in her past that is possibly related to Sehun’s, but that’s pretty much it.

I’m going to use an example from a k-drama on-air right now called Mask since your story falls into the melodrama genre. The male protagonist is left scarred by an incident in his past just like Sehun. Because of certain circumstances, a bright girl enters his life. The girl’s optimistic and supportive character, unlike his cold upbringing, slowly allows him to open up his heart; this change occurs little by little over the course of many interactions between the two. He learns to love her sunny disposition towards others and her genuine concern for him. He begins to take baby steps in expressing himself and overcoming his fears. This drama takes the typical “broken boy and bright girl” and develops it so realistically to the point that the viewer can’t help but fall in love with the couple. In fact, if you have time, I recommend that you watch it. Although there are some maddening character moments and clichés, it’s a wonderful example of how you can take commonplace character stereotypes and develop them realistically to the enjoyment of the reader.

I don’t want to completely pick apart your side characters now because you haven’t truly developed your main characters, never mind side characters. It’s more important to focus on writing a solid characterization foundation for your main protagonists rather than worrying about your supporting characters. Baekhyun and Jongin have great potential to be good foil characters meant to support Sehun’s characterization. Foil characters usually contrast with the protagonist in order to highlight particular aspects of the protagonist’s character. However, because Sehun’s characterization is currently jumbled, his two friends currently aren’t contributing to his characterization because you haven’t given them anything solid to support. Hyora, if I understand correctly, is a cameo from your co-authored story. I advise that if you plan on keeping her throughout the whole span of your story, you should give her some purpose, some characterization to make her seem less, well, extraneous and out of the blue.

There are also parts of the characterization that left me wondering. Soojin’s question of “Who are you?” to him seems pointless and completely out of the blue. It’s not a common question to ask someone, especially if you don’t know them that well. If Soojin was so curious about Sehun’s fluctuating personality, I feel like the more common questions to ask are “What’s wrong with you?” or “Why are you like this?” I get that you’re trying to show that both of your characters are lost and still finding themselves, but it wasn’t an effective way to do so. In fact, Soojin’s “falling” for Sehun also seems rushed and baseless. Sehun so far has shown almost nothing that could possibly attract her.   

Baekhyun’s words in the tenth chapter truly bewildered me. In the beginning, he tells Soojin that she shouldn’t get involved with someone like Sehun. Later he tells her that they would go well together. Even Soojin points out his contradicting words about Sehun. They make absolutely no sense to me. Every person goes through a lot of suffering in their lives (although some more than others); however just because one has gone through trying times doesn’t make them someone you should avoid. But if a person has been changed for the worse because of their hardships, then yes, it’s understandable. Sehun doesn’t seem like one who is dangerous/reckless and should be avoided. Rather, he is someone who needs a shoulder to lean on if he’s fragile inside like Baekhyun later says. This isn’t something totally essential to the characterization of either Baekhyun or Sehun, but the reasoning behind Baekhyun’s words made me pause at the absurdity.

I didn’t delve too deeply into your character dynamics and relationships with each other because it doesn’t seem fair to score you even lower on these things if you haven’t yet developed your characters first. I’ll just say that I hope there’s no love tangle among Baekhyun, Tao, and Sehun over Soojin unless you give very, very good reasons for all these guys liking her besides the fact that “oh, she’s nice”. I will advise you to carefully think and develop the Baekhyun-Soojin-Sehun dynamic before you proceed any further (Does Baekhyun like her? How are Soojin’s feelings towards Baekhyun? Where does Sehun come into that mix?). I strongly advocate creating a character sketch at least for your main characters. Consider each character’s backstory (how does their backstory shape them? Etc.), current personality, quirks and interesting facts about them, etc. and how all of these aspects form a unique, realistic character. Otherwise, your characters will just come off as poorly planned and inconsistent. Sehun’s character holds a lot of potential for character development as well if showcased properly. Keep both of your main characters dynamic and changing throughout the story, but do it realistically (for example, how will Soojin’s knowledge of the past change her? Will Sehun take on a new outlook on life? How will he learn to let the past go?). Here, here, and here might be helpful guides for characterization. You need to establish your characters first before setting up the relationships and dynamics among themselves.

Plot/storyline 8/27 (7/22 for plot + 1/5 for flow)

The pacing of the story dragged a bit in my opinion. All I’ve seen in your main plot so far are some vague references to the past (not counting side plots such as the dance project, meeting of the main characters, etc.), though I’m seeing just a little more progression in your plot (such as the appearance of new characters from Sehun’s past). The exposition of the story’s plot is vital in order to set up characters, plot conflicts, etc. and can take time; however the ten chapters that I read had less substance in them than I expected for chapters of that length. There’s nothing to keep me reading apart from your foreword which promises a unique plot twist and little flashes of the past in later chapters. I felt like many trivial parts of your story could have been easily condensed (such as the ramen eating scene) and that you could have used that time to emphasize more on building up to your main plot’s conflict and or setting up your characters.

Your constant references to “she” and “the past” (especially in italics) deterred me because it felt like you were constantly throwing them in my face to make me curious (when in fact, it did the opposite). The reader will know that there’s something up with Sehun’s and Soojin’s pasts and that there is a mysterious girl involved without constant references to them. Hearing Sehun constantly talk to his friends about her, her, her only made him sound overdramatic and over-the-top.

 In fact, I enjoyed the subtle reference to the past in Doojoon’s words, “It has been a while, and you’ve got a new one?” more because it indirectly tells me that: 1. Sehun has history with this guy 2. Sehun had a girl in the past 3. Something probably bad happened to said girl.

With Doojoon’s simple greeting, you managed to pique my curiosity about what might have gone down with these two more so than her or the past.

Your plot as a whole did not seem any different so far from the average kdrama or romance fanfiction with many predictable plot points. And a lot of that stems from too many easy coincidences. It seemed way too simple that the mysterious person Soojin keeps bumping into happens to be Sehun. They happen to be dance partners. They happen to live near each other. Soojin happens to be with Sehun when Doojoon confronts him. Sehun happens to be the one to look after Soojin after she is injured because Baekhyun happens to have just received an urgent call from his parents. Everything was just too convenient. Sure, it allowed your plot to fall into place nice and easily like a distant, watered-down version of the plot device “Deus ex machina” (read more here), an easy way out of plot complications or problems. I am not implying that you have to make everything difficult for your character (otherwise your plot would get nowhere), but I think that instead of conveniently pushing your characters together, try to find more original, indirect ways to keep your plot going (for instance, Doojoon learns of Sehun and Soojin’s connection in a different way through more complicated means, Sehun just simply visits Soojin to work on their project every now and then, etc.).

Again, it was hard to get a full bearing of your plot. Because of the slow progression, I was unable to read and judge if there were any interesting plot developments later on the story that you had planned or if you were going to recycle drama clichés in a new and refreshing way. That being said, there should have already been a good amount of progression and development of the main plot (at least some conflict) within ten chapters. Your side plots had more progress throughout the story, but I hope you also find a way to tie in all your side plots with your main one. I do laud you on your even distribution of the plot between the two mains and the thorough, albeit repetitive and slow, exposition of your story.

Grammar 4/15

You seem to have a semi-decent grasp on the English language, but while you did not have countless, egregious grammar problems that prevented me from reading, you have a good number of grammar mistakes littered throughout your story that subtracted from it. I think a good amount of them result from poor proof-reading. Make sure you are proof-reading your chapters before you publish them online. A good way to catch any mistakes is to read it all aloud.

There were a lot of times that your wording broke the conventions of Standard Written English. I’ll give a few examples to better illustrate my point.

Sehun woke up in his flat with the sound of rain.
Sehun woke up in his flat to the sound of rain.

Next to him, Jongin was chuckling endlessly, which pissed Sehun even more.
Next to him, Jongin was chuckling endlessly, which pissed Sehun off even more.

Tenses

Sehun looked at the window as he got out of the bathroom and still he found the grey sky right outside as the rain slowly increase becoming a downpour. 
Sehun looked at the window as he got out of the bathroom and still he still found the grey sky right outside as the rain slowly increased, becoming a downpour. 
You can’t suddenly shift from past tense to present tense in a sentence. I’m suspecting that this was a proofreading error.

He noticed something he hasn’t seen in his 2 years of stay across that building, especially that window which was at the same level as his.
He noticed something he hadn’t seen in his 2 years of stay across that building, especially that window which was at the same level as his.
Same thing here. The wording is also awkward and wordy towards the end. “Especially” does not fit anywhere in the sentence. He only noticed something (one thing). “Especially” is normally used when you’re talking about multiple objects and want to draw emphasis to one in particular.
He noticed something he hadn’t seen in his two years of residence: the window which was on the same level as his.

He saw his building and opened his umbrella when he heard some cursing from the brunette, which he didn’t saw them coming.
He saw his building and opened his umbrella when he heard some cursing from the brunette, which he didn’t see coming.
A verb tense error and an expression error. “Didn’t saw” is equivalent to “did not saw”, which is bad English. And if we’re talking about cursing, you wouldn’t refer to it in the plural form (“Didn’t see them/those words coming”). It just doesn’t make sense. You either say “didn’t see it coming” or “didn’t see coming”.

Proofreading

Sehun stopped abruptly and realized that she was right, he was walking away with out any umbrella.
Sehun stopped abruptly and realized that she was right. He was walking away without any umbrella.

After a few heartbeat, she entered the building.
After a few heartbeats, she entered the building.

She wept the remaining water on her bag and slid a door open to her left.
She wiped the remaining water off her bag and slid open a door to her left.

Word choice

 He took it up and placed it on his desk as he got off his bed.
He picked it up and placed it on his desk as he got off his bed.

Jongin sighed and sat facing Sehun who was admiring the sky with his poker face.
Firstly, “admire” isn’t a word that is often associated with a poker face. Admiration is a sense of awe, so it’s hard to imagine someone with a poker face admiring something.
Jongin sighed and sat facing Sehun who was staring at the sky with his poker face.

Punctuation

His flat wasn’t facing the main road, he could see other building’s windows.
His flat wasn’t facing the main road; he could see other building’s windows.
There are two independent clauses. If you want to connect them, use a semicolon. Otherwise, it’s a comma splice.

Another example:

The blonde male was strange, she never came across a person who would be nice and rude at the same time. 
The blonde male was strange. She had never come (verb tense problem) across a person who could be nice and rude at the same time. 

So she did bring an umbrella. Sehun thought, he felt sorry at her since she had to run in the rain because of her broken umbrella.
So she did bring an umbrella, Sehun thought. He felt sorry for (another conventional language error) her since she had to run in the rain because of her broken umbrella.

“Uh, thanks. I guess?” the girl said with a strange accent and took the umbrella from Sehun hesitantly. 
“Uh, thanks. I guess?” The girl said with a strange accent and took the umbrella from Sehun hesitantly. 
The latter two were capitalization errors, and I suggest that you look up punctuation capitalization rules again, especially those concerning quotations.

He started washing up, since he had class in the afternoon, which he guessed was 4 hours away. 
He started washing up since he had class in the afternoon, about four hours later.
“Since he had class in the afternoon” is a subordinate clause and does not require a comma. Also, write out numbers (four instead of 4) and try to use more concise language.

You also had an overuse of commas with your conjunctions. Commas are required before a conjunction in a coordinating sentence (She threw the ball, and the dog ran to catch it.) BUT they are not needed in sentences such as: But, he didn’t see any difference. (It should be “But he didn’t see any difference.”)
 

A lot of these problems might seem very small and minor; however, when you have myriad of them in your story, it makes your English sound stilted and elementary, making for a painful reading experience for any reader who has a proper understanding of the mechanics of the English language. All of these examples came solely from me merely skimming the first chapter, and mostly from the beginning. There were many more throughout the rest of the chapters. I suggest either brushing up on your grammar, mechanics, and word usage or asking a beta-reader for help. A good way to get a more solid grip on English is to read, read, read. Not fanfiction (which, for the most part, contains numerous grammar transgressions), but actual, published books. That way, you see and pick up correct expressions of conventional English (the problem I first highlighted in the beginning of this section), and you learn proper punctuation.

Writing style 5/20

First off, I notice that this is your first fanfiction on aff, and reading your story, I see that you’re still in the gruesome process of developing your own “voice” and unique style. It’s a hard journey, but rich in reward.

Throughout the story, your writing style seemed almost robotic. He did this…then he this…and so he did this. A lot of your sentences dragged on (I noticed a lot of punctuated run-ons) – here’s an example:  

Sehun stared at it for a few moments, wondering about it, but then he felt the rain water splashing on his arm, so he decided to leave it then he closed the window shut. 

That’s a ton of action going on in one sentence. A lot of your sentences hinged on the word “then”, giving it a mechanical, formulaic feel.

Sehun stood up just at the right time, then he got his umbrella ready and stood a few inches away from the brunette on the exit door.

These are only two sentences of many that I noticed as I read. Every sentence seemed to follow the same formula, the same structure with little variety.

It felt like you were narrating a list of steps or instructions with a very detached voice. This prevents readers from really feeling the characters, the setting, the mood, etc. Spice up your writing style with more sentence variety. Experiment with different structures like verbals (gerundives, infinitives, etc). That way you eliminate awkward, wordy sentences.

As soon as he closed his window, he could hear the sound of faint music booming from next door, with the sound of that he shook his head.

I’m going to rewrite these three sentences in a different way, just as an example of how to better describe actions without boring your reader.

Sentence one: Sehun stared at it for a few moments, wondering by the window sill until the cold splash of the rain on his arm brought him back to reality. He shut the window.

With this sentence, I eliminated the unnecessary repetition of the pronoun ‘it’ – ‘it’ is already understood. There’s no need to constantly repeat it unless you introduce another pronoun with a different antecedent into the sentence. I clearly defined the setting (by the window sill) and mixed up the language of “he decided to leave it” with “brought him back to reality”. By this point, the sentence is already pretty lengthy. To prevent it from dragging, I ended the idea with a period and added in a short sentence, thus achieving sentence length variety. The short sentence also adds a sense of finality by emphasizing his action of shutting the window, showing that he has stopped dwelling on whatever ‘it’ is.

Sentence two: Sehun rose from his seat at just the right time, getting his umbrella ready and standing by the exit door near the brunette.

One, you can’t stand on an exit door; you stand near or by it. I switched up the noun+verb formula and eliminated the tedious “then” by using participle phrases (“getting his umbrella ready”, “standing by the exit door”).

Sentence three: As soon as he had closed the window, he was disturbed by the faint boom of music coming from next door, and he shook his head.

First part was a verb tense error. In the second part, I replaced the redundancy of sound (if you hear something, it’s obviously a sound) with more precise language such as “disturbed”. I also made the sentence more concise by eliminating “with the sound of that”. The phrase was unnecessary and redundant. There was no other sound he could have been reacting to, so there was no need to clarify “with the sound of that”.

Strive for conciseness and precision of language. Remember, your writing style is an instrument to better convey the meaning and thought behind those words (the characters, the plot, etc). Use language to your advantage. Use short sentences to achieve emphasis, for example. Switch up your vocabulary, especially so that you’re not using the same word within the same sentence too many times. I would also advise against using too much Korean in your story (even hyung or oppa can get tiresome after a while). Words such as “aish” or “-sshi” just sound awkward and interrupt the flow of your writing. A huge majority of users on aff are K-pop fans, and most are probably familiar with these terms in their native context. There’s no need to make a mismatch of English and Korean just because this is a fanfic about a Korean group. An over-usage of the Korean language can easily border on cringe-worthy.

Just a side note: I have a good number of Aussie relatives, and therefore I’m familiar with the slang “uni”; however, when you’re writing, spell it out: university. Otherwise, it looks sloppy.

Overall, I couldn’t immerse myself in the story mostly due to the writing style. It wasn’t horrendously bad. Not at all. But there is still definitely room for improvement on the finer points of your diction and syntax. If you put more thought into how you form your words and sentences, you can greatly improve the quality of your writing.

Overall enjoyment 1/8

Firstly, congrats if you managed to read all of this in one go.

To be quite honest, this story was not for me. The overdramatized parts of the story along with various aspects mentioned in the review above made it hard for me to really enjoy the story.

Although a majority of my comments above may seem negative and the score is low, don’t be disheartened. (For one, this review was only based on the first ten chapters in which I couldn’t get an entirely accurate reading of your story). In fact, my first fanfiction was much, much worse than yours. I committed all kinds of fanfiction sins, and I still keep those stories as a reminder of how far I’ve come. A word of advice from me would be to read, read, read. You can learn so many things just by reading and expanding your horizons. Writing is a process. One of the things that helped me the most in developing my own style was reading the well-written fanfiction of various authors on aff (mostly eleutheromaniac, ha) and YA novels. Think of this as the starting point. Find ways to improve and don’t be afraid to experiment. It’ll take time getting there, perfecting your own voice, but you won’t regret it. The best of luck to you and thank you for requesting!

Total 29/105 = 28%

reviewer's comments: first review at kodawari. 

july 20, 2015