(August 2015)

Title: Owner of a Lonely Heart
Author: sekaii

Reviewer: eleutheromaniac

Title: (1)/5

Not only does this title sound like something typical of the angst genre, but after reading your story, I don’t think that it even fits into said genre. There seems to be a bit of an identity issue in terms of the fic: the title suggests an angsty romance, you marked it as angst/mystery when you sent it to us for review, and the story itself feels like an odd paranormal detective show. With that said, your title doesn’t really stand out to me and I don’t feel that it fits the story either.

Description/Foreword: (1)/10

There isn’t anything in particular about your story that really grabs my attention; after reading through your story, I don’t feel that it has much to do with your actual plot either. This description makes it seem as though Sehun is a mute and the section after the oddly placed line break (it’s completely unnecessary and I suggest that you remove it, to be completely honest) makes it seem as though he and Jongin meet for the first time in this story despite the fact that the story opens up with them knowing one another and then Jongin walking back into his life.

You have a huge advantage when it comes to originality within your story because of the nature of Sehun and Jongin’s relationship (though it’s not developed well yet; I’ll touch on this more later) and so you should play on the unique nature of this. Yes, finding out that Jongin was actually dead was a welcome surprise within the first chapter, but you never mention in your description/foreword that Sehun is a police detective (simply throwing in the word “mystery” doesn’t have the same effect) and the story is marked as “hunhan” but Luhan isn’t even alluded to.

I’m a big fan of short and simple descriptions as long as said description does the overall story justice—that’s not the case here.

(As a side note, it bothers me that your author’s note is in a larger font than your actual description. There were no deductions because of this, but I suggest that you fix it. The decision is ultimately up to you though.)

Plot: (7)/30

The most promising element of your plot is the relationship between Sehun and Jongin. Not only does it throw in something unique and rarely seen, but it also holds a lot of potential to positively affect your plot; I was really disappointed that it wasn’t really focused on within the story and I’ll talk about this more later.

At first, I had no idea what was happening. Be careful with controlling the flow of your story because right now it comes off as very scattered. In Chapter One, the timeskip between the paragraph that begins with “Then, when he turned thirteen…” and the paragraph that begins with “There was a gentle knock…” caught me offguard. I didn’t even fully realize that we were suddenly in the present until Jongin’s suddenly a ghost and asking Sehun to help put the mystery of his death to rest. This scene, in general, was particularly odd to me since the man who brought the case file is presumably still in the room when Sehun starts talking to Jongin, so why doesn’t he have a reaction to the seemingly one-sided conversation? Based on Luhan’s introduction, it’s probably well-known that Sehun is a ghost whisperer of sorts. We don’t get many reactions to this and it’s one of the most interesting portions of your plot.

And more importantly, if Jongin’s been dead for eight years, why is his family just hiring a detective on the case now? If Sehun and Jongin grew up together in an abusive environment, how does Jongin’s family situation even work? There are a lot of questions that need answers and you don’t do a great job of offering them to us. It’s alright if it seems as though we’ll get to know things eventually, but right now it just feels like bad storytelling.

Your flow, as a whole, is super rushed. Other than not being able to recognize the transition from a flashback to the present, there were moments when the characters make complete turnarounds for seemingly no reason. For example, in Chapter Three, Sehun goes from not understanding the attic and being terrified of it to the point that he runs away, but then he suddenly accepts it for what it is? There’s no development there, and when you rush things, it’s hard for elements of the story to actually feel believable. In the same chapter, there’s a repressed memory that’s alluded multiple times in what seems to be a panicked scenario, but this is the first time it’s even been mentioned in the story so it doesn’t feel realistic at all.

Another element of your story that fractured its believability was the side-case that you introduced. Detectives typically only take on one murder case at a time, so it felt odd that we spent roughly three chapters of little to no development within the plot to suddenly jumping into another mystery when we didn’t even learn anything about the first. At the same time, if they’re detectives, why can’t they just get a search warrant in order to get the needed files in Chapter Six? There shouldn’t be a need for them to sneak around and it made both Sehun and Luhan come off as very unprofessional.

There are also a lot of things that happen only for the sake of plot convenience. An example of this would be in Chapter Seven when Sehun sees the numbers and suddenly assumes that they have to do with a lock and a missing body. That’s a huge conclusion to suddenly jump to and it wasn’t detailed well enough. I honestly just felt that he came up with that idea just so that the plot could be furthered along.

It was mentioned a couple of times that Sehun typically works alone. If this is the case, what’s the stimulus that makes him start working with Luhan? There isn’t an explanation for it at all. Something that I think you really need to work on is giving us details, because right now, you’re just throwing things at us and it’s hard to keep up.

Characterization: (1)/20

It’s difficult to score you here because there’s a lot of potential with Sehun and Jongin’s relationship, but it’s not explored at all. Ultimately, I have to only grade you on what you’ve written, and unfortunately, none of your characters are developed in the slightest.

There isn’t a single personality trait that I can confidently identify for any of your characters; no one’s really done anything. Luhan eating all of the cheeseburgers seemed really random, and I felt like it was supposed to be a moment to say something about his character. It didn’t feel that way at all, and, if anything, felt more like a forced attempt at developing his character because the moment itself didn’t feel particularly believable. Maybe if you had more dialogue (or at least body language) to reveal things about the beliefs behind the actions instead of just making him act randomly, it would help.

The character with the most personality would maybe be Jongin, and I only say that because it’s clear that you’re trying to make him be perceived as a more optimistic individual based on the line “There was a sudden change…” within Chapter Three. There’s a clear problem with your characterization if the only traits of your characters have to be identified directly rather than the gradual, more natural indirect characterization.

As far as I can tell, Sehun is a known ghost whisperer, so why don’t you play on it more? We’re not given any information about how this happened to him, how ghost whispering works in this universe (if he can interact with them, why can’t he just ask them how they died?), and how people perceive him (do they think he’s crazy? do they look up to him? do they think he’s a fake). There’s so much for you to talk about in terms of his character, so why do you choose not to do so? Ghost whispering has a lot of potential for being a great addition to your story (if you chose not to make it the main element, that is), so it’s important that you develop it fully.

Luhan and Sehun don’t really interact despite the fact that they’re apparently partners. I can understand that Sehun’s meant to be an aloof sort of guy, but I don’t understand enough about Luhan’s character to know whether or not he’s supposed to be the same way. One of their most notable interactions was upon Luhan’s introduction: “The heat in his [Luhan’s] touch slowly consumed his [Sehun’s] sanity.” From what I understand, the two have literally just met, so why the intense reaction from Sehun? It doesn’t make much sense, in my opinion, and seems very rushed.

(While we’re on the note of Luhan, I just wanted to point out that if you wanted his name to translate to “small deer” like a lot of people do, then it should be “Xiao Lu” rather than “Xaolu”.)

I’ve mentioned it a couple of times now, but that’s mostly because I still consider it to be the element of your story that has the biggest potential: Sehun and Jongin’s relationship. You have such a great set-up here: Sehun and Jongin as childhood friends suffering together through some unspoken horror (that we better get some information on, by the way!), Jongin suddenly goes missing, eight years later Sehun finds out that his one and only friend has been murdered and it’s up to him to figure out the mystery while also having to deal with reuniting through said friend in his ghost form. There is literally so much to work with, but we’re not exposed to their relationship at all. How does Sehun feel about seeing Jongin this way? How does Jongin feel about his best friend working on his murder case? You marked this as an angst story, so we should always be aware of the characters feeling emotions. In this story, however, it seems as though the characters feel nothing at all and so it’s hard to attach ourselves to them as readers.

Grammar: --/15

I noticed on your foreword that you credited a beta reader, and that kind of confuses me a lot given the multiple mistakes within your story. Because these grammatical mistakes are technically not your own, I won’t score this section. After speaking with you in regards to this matter, I’ll just point out some of the mistakes that I noticed without going into too much detail since, after all, this section isn’t being scored. If you have more specific questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me!

The punctuation of your story seems off at times and there’s a highly noticeable tense issue in various sections of your story. For the most part, the story is written in past-tense, but there are times during which you switch to the present. Examples of this would be in Chapter Three in the line “He glances at Luhan…” and in Chapter Six in the section that begins with “Sehun says…”. There are many other instances when the tenses seemed to be an issue, but these two stood out to me the most.

Other times, you mix up words or your sentences simply don’t make sense. An example of the former would be in Chapter One when “steady” should actually be “steadily”. Most of the examples of the latter can be found in Chapter Four:

“Watch as the sight of his younger self slowly tearing apart little by little.”

“Sehun could vision spot on that Luhan wasn’t an ordinary detective.”

There are also some very obvious typos, such as “intension” in the very beginning of your first chapter (it should be “intention”) and “Luhan wined” in Chapter Seven (it should be “Luhan whined”).

Writing Style: (4)/15

It’s difficult to really have your own writing style if you don’t really understand the rules of grammar, and that’s what seems to be the case here. Right from the start, your syntactical structure seems a little… odd. The usage of fragments within the first chapter of your story don’t really do anything to promote or enhance your storyline. In terms of syntax, you have a long way to go. As aforementioned, there are moments during which your punctuation seems off (though that may be caused by your beta’s grammar rather than your actual writing style, I’m not sure) and your diction is sometimes odd as well.

An example of your awkward phrasing would be in Chapter Three: “... Jongin suddenly plopped out behind Sehun’s shoulders, making him jump in the process.” I’m honestly not even sure what to imagine when I read this line. The problem definitely lies with the usage of the word “plopped” as you could definitely select something better. While your narration has points of odd word choice, your dialogue also has unnatural moments to it. Who would say “You’re such a young master” to anyone? I’ve never heard an expression like this before so it just comes off as awkward. I also thought that it was odd for you to keep saying “yea” in Chapter Seven. I’m assuming that’s supposed to be “yeah,” but you repeated the typo so many times that it makes me feel as though this was done on purpose and I can’t really understand why. I would also suggest that you be more cautious when it comes to using your pronouns. All of your characters are male, so you use “he” a lot, and that’s fine but it sometimes gets confusing to know who exactly you’re referring to.

It’s important that you include more details in your story because right now you’re just jumping everywhere. Details are especially important in a story where the characters solve mysteries as they allow the readers to immerse themselves more into the story. I saw this in another review you’ve received for this story, and I definitely agree: longer chapters could do wonders for your story. At the current length you’re writing, there isn’t much that really happens and there’s no feeling of suspense whatsoever. Longer chapters could potentially help, but ultimately, that call is up to you.

Personal Enjoyment: (1)/5

There was a lot going on and it was super difficult  to follow. Your story has potential; it’s ultimately up to you to unlock it.

Total Score: 15/85 (18%)

Reviewer’s Comments: I know you asked me to focus on characterization within this review, so I hope that my notes in that section were helpful to you. I think that it’s most important for you to focus on adding more details into your story—in terms of setting, characters, and just overall plot in general—and once you get that down, a lot of your problems may just fix themselves. I honestly think that it’s better to be overly detailed as opposed to not detailed enough, because if you go with the former, your readers can choose to skim while still understanding what’s going on. In the case of the latter, many times readers are just strung along without having any idea as to what’s actually going on. As always, feel free to message me if any part of this review needs more clarification. I’m happy to be of any sort of help!