Writer's note: This was not requested for, but I found this story enriching and decided that the only way to chronicle what I have learnt from it would be in the form of a review. ^^ Perhaps you could learn something too?

TITLE - 1/5

"Relentless Love" is not appealing at all. True, it does carry and sum up the story, but generally any title with the word "love/loving" in it is deemed as cliche and boring. Eg. "My First Love", "Love Me", "Loving Kim Jae Joong" etc etc. If you want, you could just delete the "love" and leave your title as "Relentless". Or you could come up with something else altogether. Your title could be about the characters in your story, or one special feature about your story. These would be more interesting.

FOREWORD - 2/5

"Sung Jihye lived a dull and unentertaining life. But after an unexpected run-in with two criminals, her usual dull world is in for a rude awakening. She finds herself face-to-face with one of Korea's best kept secrets known as the Cube. But instead of encountering all the iniquities tied to the Cube, Jihye finds something much more valuable: an unexpected team who eagerly welcomes her into "the family" and a feeling of belonging she's never felt before."

Blah blah blah. Boring. "Sung Jihye lived a dull and unentertaining life". There are countless, countless fanfics that start with that same line. Please avoid this.

“This is a story of friendship, of team work, of secrets and lies, of hatred and greed. But ultimately, it is a story of relentless love...a love that will never give up or give in...a love that fuels all actions in the past, in the present, and in the future.”

Aigoo! Why’d you put the whole message of the story up? The message or lesson behind a story is best portrayed and remembered if the readers sort it out themselves. Otherwise it would be preaching. And preaching fanfictions belong in a textbook.

LANGUAGE USE – 25/30

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with her language, save a few typos and teensy mistakes. However, her writing style could be further improved if she wants to get 30/30.

I’m no professional, but so far, there are only two admirable writing styles that I have discovered. The first is flowery. Some characteristics of flowery writing include detailed descriptions, creative metaphors/similes, a wide vocabulary range and imagery. Flowery language is good as the in-depth descriptions make the scenes in the story very vivid and sometimes real to the reader.

Another type would be sophisticated writing. Sophisticated writing is of a higher level than flowery and is very hard to achieve. It requires careful structuring, skilful wording, concise sentences and usually have quite a lot of breaks in between, either in the form of punctuation or in the content.

““You gave the stars partners that time you were on the balcony at my wedding, didn’t you?” She jumps slightly at the voice from behind her. He takes off his jacket and drapes it over her shoulders, and she smiles in gratitude of the warmth.

“Yeah I did.” She says quietly as he sits down on the swing next to her. He points to one.

“That’s Choi Minho,” he says. He points to another one. “That’s Lee Miyung. They’re soul mates.”

She turns to look at him.

I’m sorry, her eyes say.

His eyes always say I love you.”

That’s an extract from “Confessions.”

It is an example of sophisticated writing. Notice how short the sentences are, and how little description there is. There are a lot of breaks in between the story, giving the reader space to imagine the scenes for themselves, which makes the story more personal. The focus is on the actions, and every action is meaningful. This part is hard to achieve, but once achieved, it will leave a very strong and positive impression on the reader.

“Relentless Love” is in between flowery and sophisticated. This is not always bad, but the way she attempted to blend them makes her story choppy. She alternates randomly from flowery to sophisticated, and destroyed the beauty of both. She should have stuck to one style, or used mainly one and sometimes the other to highlight important parts of the story.

PLOT – 30/30

Her plot is beautiful.

It is logical, first of all. She did not try to make something too whimsical or too dark for her to handle. The heroes do not all survive, and the evil characters are not completely eliminated, either. This is important, because anything too good to be true might seem immature.

Secondly, it is refreshing. The heroes murder and commit crimes. Some stories have attempted this theme, of course, like “The Black Phoenix” or “My Boyfriend is a Gangster” where the main characters are forced to kill or steal, but flip a 360 when they meet the girl of their dreams. In here, however, the murderer-heroes stay murderers, and they chose the path of murdering out of their own accord, for various reasons. Yet they are not criminals, and cannot be called evil. This is a twist I highly admire.

CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT – 29/30

Okay, this is the most outstanding part of her story.

1) There is no appearance of the ever-so-common Mary Sues and Big Bad Wolves. This is very important if you want your writing to seem mature and real. The main character is rebellious, and not exactly kind-hearted, preferring to be independent at times, and hating her mom. If you want to keep your character from being a Mary Sue, one good way is to make her hate someone, preferably someone whom is innocent. Everybody hates someone, so it is forgivable. Mary Sues don’t hate people, because they aren’t real. Her main baddie also has a reason to be a baddie, so he’s not just some screwed serial killer. One sure-fire way to prevent yourself from coming up with Big Bad Wolves is to make him love someone. It’s the same logic as the one with Mary Sues.

2) Her characters are well-developed. A few ways to achieve this is through:

            - Speech

            Vulgarities: A bad-tempered, anxious person, or a show-off.

            Politeness: Respect/fear, class and elegance.

            “I”, “You”, “Will”, “No”: A demanding, self-centered or insensitive person.

            -Actions

            Gentleness: Fondness or a careful person

            Carelessness: Disregard

            -Demeanor

            Fast walker: Busy person, or a person with a sense of urgency/responsibility

            Slow walker: A poised person, a thoughtful person, or a dreamy person

            Smart clothing: A show-off, or a cultured and wealthy person

            Casual clothing: Confidence in self/disregard for others

            -Thoughts

            Numerous: Thoughtful, observant, or suspicious person

            Few: Easygoing, carefree or ignorant person

            Elaborate: Wisdom (looks deeply and understands everything)

            Short: Smart (straightaway sees the important things)

She lost two points. The first point was docked because she did not develop some characters well enough. Out of the eleven assassins, around four were completely ignored. She should have reduced the number of characters if she wasn’t capable of using them to their full potential.

The second point was deducted because her main characters (Dongwook and Jihye) did not have as strong a personality as the other characters. In fact, many stories are guilty of this. The only story I know where the minor characters do not outshine the main character is Avatar. After some thinking, I have come to the conclusion that authors try to give their main characters too many characteristics, which makes them confusing. As for minor characters, because the focus is not on them, they are assigned only a few character traits, making them easy for the readers to understand and eventually love.

Perhaps one way to solve this would be to base your main character on real people, possibly people that you love and feel closest to, like your sister, or your partner, or your dream self. But that’s not fun, is it?

Another way would be to draw the character out (in your mind). Picture her/his eyes, the way they walk, their facial features, their expression. Then decide what character traits are apparent, and stick to them.

OTHERS

There is something that she shared in her author’s note which jolted me and which I agree with very much.

From my years of experience with writing fanfics, I've come to realize that fanfics usually comprise of one of two things: a sappy drama-like/fairytale love or a deeper meaning behind the story. I feel like many fanfic writers think that in order for a fanfic to be good, there has to be some sort of meaning or moral behind the story. Not that I don't enjoy reading fics with a simple love story though. We all know that the best stories are the ones unplanned for...the ones that flow naturally from within.

To be honest, I had the exact same mindset that good stories must have a message behind them. But now that I think about it, maybe that’s not true. I know of a lot of horribly written stories with cliché and obvious messages that a reader probably already knows. This story was well-written, and I can’t really grasp the message, but it has influenced my thinking on many levels; I have been taught a lesson, one that I do not understand at all, but of which I will remember. Which is nothing short of amazing.

Besides, most stories already have a message behind them, whether you planned and highlighted it or not. Everybody has their own values, definitions of what is right and what is wrong. This mindset will show in your writing, because writing is about expressing. And if the reader agrees with your mindset, then a lesson has been learnt.

Which is also amazing.

“Relentless Love” by baosizzle