Review for bts_kimtaehyung // Reviewed by: ToniSHINeeslikeEXO

Title and Story link:  

Blind Heir (Ongoing, reviewed with 6 chapters)

Title: (20/20)

The title is nice and imprecise. It doesn’t give much away (except the ‘Blind’ part, of course) and it makes someone want to figure out what it means. When I saw the title it made me think “Who is the ‘Blind Heir’? What does that mean?” And clearly I’m not the only one that wants to know exactly what the title has to do with the story. I like how there wasn’t an instant connection of the title to the story, that way, when the connection does come, people will think “So that’s why the title is Blind Heir.” which will make readers have a more deeper interest in the story.

Overall Appearance: (4.5/5)

The poster and background is really pretty, although I’m still not sure what it has to do with time but I guess that’ll be uncovered in future chapters. I like how the pictures on the poster match (?) with the story. I don’t know how to explain it, but, the pictures look nice on the poster. The only problem I have is that Baekhyun’s picture is the biggest, even though he’s not the main character. The girl’s picture should be the biggest because the story is revolving around her. But other than that, I like it.

Description and Foreword: (10/20)

I get the point you were trying to make in the description (what the story is about, obviously) but… the format just didn’t work. Everything was unnecessarily spaced out, so it seemed a lot longer than it actually was. The first sentence doesn’t have a punctuation mark at the end so that made me kind of wary to read the story. I like to read stories with good grammar and punctuation, so the fact that there was a mistake in the first sentence, although small, made me believe that the punctuation wouldn’t be as good as I’d initially thought. There weren’t any grammatical mistakes that I saw for your description of the story, but there were some in the Foreword (in the Author’s Note). I’m almost positive English isn’t your first language and I know it must be hard for you to write a story in English because of that, so I’d definitely recommend getting a beta reader.

Plot: (20/30)

The plot of this story is… different. The likelihood of anything in this story happening in real life is slim to none and that’s mainly what made me take points off. I’m a big fan of more realistic stories (stories that can happen to everyday people) and this doesn’t fit the bill. That’s not to say it’s bad or anything, but it takes away from the plausibility that this plot could’ve had. It’s interesting because of Yoo Jung’s living circumstances but that’s about it. There’s nothing special that makes me go wow. It’s kind of predictable what will happen next (to me, at least) so I think you should change it up a bit. Make something extreme happen that no one will expect.

Originality: (15/20)

I’ve never read a story like this, so I think the plot is very unique. A kdrama was mentioned in the Foreword and from reading the comments, the fic is kind of like “Angel Eyes” so this idea isn’t entirely original. It’s more creative than other stories out there but like I said before, it’s a little predictable. The same situation seems to keep happening - someone dying. Like for example, Woobin’s mother died. His mother didn’t have to get murdered because there doesn’t really seem to be a reason behind it (not a logical one that I know of). Maybe Lily played a role in something that wasn’t brought up yet but as of now, her death doesn’t make any sense. My advice would be to change up the scenarios in which something happens. Not everyone can die in a story.

Language: (12/20)

To be frank, the language/grammar/punctuation was really bad. I don’t mean to sound rude or anything but a lot of the sentences were grammatically incorrect. I’ve also noticed that after dialogue, there is no punctuation; there’s nothing there to indicate the end of a sentence.

Chapter One

Example: “Sorry to disturb you, ma’am. But your father wants to talk to you in his room” The made bowed and left her

Correction: “Sorry to disturb you, ma’am, but you father wants to talk to you in his room.” The made bowed and left.

Are you seeing a difference? At the end of dialogue there should either be a period (.) or a comma (,) depending on what you write after the dialogue. In this case though, a period was needed. And the sentence after dialogue needs a period (or any other punctuation [!]) as well. That’s how a proper sentence is structured. That’s the main problem I have with the story in general. A beta-reader is highly recommended.

The tenses are off. I noticed in the first chapter that you alternated between saying “you” and “her” which is basically changing point-of-views in a single sentence, although you do it subtly.

Chapter One

Example: She was waken up by the feeling of someone shaking your body.

Correction: She was woken up by the feeling of someone shaking her body.

Chapter One

Example: “When do you became my father?”

Correction: “When did you become my father?”

Capitalization and misspelled words are also a minor problem. There’s not a lot of mistakes like these but there are a few.

Chapter One

Example: “But why? why must I help you with your business when I can choose what I want to do?” She stood up and said with a high voice

Correction: “But why? Why must I help you with your business when I can choose what I want to do?” She stood up and said with a high voice.

Chapter Two

Example: “hey, hey. calm down woman.” Baekhyun tried to calm her down but it was useless

Correction: “Hey, hey. Calm down, woman,” Baekhyun said, trying to calm her down but it was useless.

Chapter Two

Example: “Take her out. Never disturd her life. She’s too young to know this things.”

Correction: “Take her away and never disturb her life. She’s too young to know these things.”

There are some chapters where you reference a character using a word that’s used to identify the opposite .

Chapter Three

Example: But Mr. Kim kept on throwing everything from her desk to Baekhyun’s dad.

Correction: But Mr. Kim kept throwing things from his desk at Baekhyun’s dad.

*Once again, I highly recommend a beta-reader. It’ll help a lot with the story.

Writing Style: (12/20)

Your writing style isn’t as good as I feel it could be. There’s definite potential but the lack of proper grammar and punctuation makes things less than they are. Something that bothered me tremendously while reading the story is the fact that Yoo Jung and Woobin were so emotional. They cried over just about any and everything which made it all very awkward to read.

There isn’t much use of inner thoughts or feelings which I think you should add a lot more of. I know this is an angst story and all but it seems like everyone is always sad. Yoo Jung is rarely ever happy, which is all her own doing because she’s constantly thinking about her late parents and how they died. Which leads me to another thing, the way her parents died and how she became blind isn’t believable at all. Like, for example, Yoo Jung was only 6 when her mother randomly died while they were both sitting at a piano. The way you wrote it made it seem like you didn’t really understand just exactly what you were writing. There was no sort of explanation as to why Yoo Jung’s mother died either. All I could think when I read it was, did she have an illness or something? Things like this needs to be clarified in order for it to make sense.

Now the way her father died is also (kind of) out of the blue. I don’t even know why Yoo Jung suddenly thought of the memory of her dad dying. But anyways, him getting beaten to death is something that does happen and I like how you didn’t tell the reason behind his death because that seems to be an important role in the story. The one thing that I (once again) didn’t understand is how Yoo Jung became blind. Someone becoming blind because they cry all the time doesn’t sound real at all. I know in the description it said she became blind due to depression, but I can’t wrap my head around that. I think it should be changed.

There is some repetition going on in the chapters with the phrase “He then”, “She then”, “He”, “She” and “kiddo”. Use different words to describe a character instead of always saying, “She did this” and “She did that”. It gets old and doesn’t sound right when reading.

Characterization: (15/30)

There isn’t a character that stands out or is particularly my favorite which means that characterization isn’t strong. If I’m being honest, all the characters are pretty bland to me. None of them have a really distinct trait (except for Mr. Kim) that helps me understand who the character really is. There should be something - the way they speak, for example - that makes readers have a sort of connection to them. I didn’t feel any different while I read the story which shouldn’t be the case because it’s an angst fic.

You should definitely go deeper into the characters and figure out how you want to portray them, that way, when someone reads your story, they’ll feel different; they’ll understand how a character feels.

Flow: (20/30)

The pacing in this story was a little fast. The chapters are short so that could be the reason why, but that’s not a valid excuse. There were a lot of things happening and some of the things that did happen came all too fast. Like, for example, when Lily died and Woobin just left to “follow his dream” it was very sudden.

There also didn’t seem to be any time lapse between the chapters so when Woobin said in his note to Yoo Jung that he had “feelings for her” it didn’t make any sense. From my perspective, they only hung out a few times and you can’t just develop feelings so quickly for someone. Slow down the pacing and make things happen more gradually.

Reader's Scope/ Overall Enjoyment (2/5)

Bonus (+5)

Final Score/ Total (133.5/200) = 66.75%

A/N: 

I am terribly sorry for this super late review but I think if you get a beta-reader the story would be better. This story has a lot of potential and it was a lot different than anything else I’ve ever read before so it’s a new experience for me. I hope I wasn’t too harsh.

**