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Story Review ;


reviewer: i_lovekpop_fics
title: "Thanks for the Memories"
author: mafalda
genre: angst
characters: Kai (Kim Jongin), Do Kyungsoo
summary: "Kai majored in Fine Arts and paints whenever emotions overflow him. Today, Kai finished a picture.
A picture that holds a great meaning and brings back many memories. "

Title: 3/5
It relates to the story well, but it lacks impact. I was not really interested in reading the fic after reading the title, so I deducted a point. I kind of like it, though, because it happens to be one of my favorite Fall Out Boy songs, although they spell it a bit differently – or, rather, misspell it. However, I took off points because it lacks originality. I always check the name of a fic on AFF, and when I looked up this title, a whole bunch of fics popped up. Though, yours was the second fic in the list.

Description and foreword: 7.5/10
It’s short, sweet, and to the point. It gives the reader some information about Kai (that he’s an artist) and also a bit of insight into what the fic is about. However, you switch tenses a few times, so I docked points for that. I have to say, though, it did catch my interest. I found myself wondering what he had painted and why the painting holds so much meaning to him.

Plot: 13/20
There’s really not much of a plot and the story is relatively short, so I can’t really say much. I’m a little confused as to what happened. From what you wrote, this is what I was able to come up with: Kyungsoo was a boy Kai knew back in high school (or something like that) who happened to have a crush on him. Kai liked the boy back, but refused to admit it (you didn’t really explain why; I’m going to assume it’s because he doesn’t want to accept the fact that he is gay). Kyungsoo tried his best to get Kai to admit that he had feelings for him, but to no avail; Kai humiliated him, which only made his sadness and depression over the situation worse. Judging by the line that says “An echo diffused inside his mind…”, I’m going to assume Kyungsoo killed himself. Kai is remembering the boy and realizes that he did love him; he regrets not going for it when he “had the chance” (again, still assuming Kyungsoo is dead; you do hint that he’s not in this world, anymore). Now he’s engaged to someone – probably the girlfriend from the flashback – and feels nothing but sadness because she is not who he truly loves; Kyungsoo is. I’m a little confused as to whether that really is what you meant for the plot to be or not. The fact that I had to struggle to put the pieces together is a bit annoying and shouldn’t necessarily be the case. I docked you points for this because the reader needs to figure most of the plot out by themselves. However, the way the flashbacks weave together with the progression of the story is very well done and aids in moving the plot along.

Mechanics: 11/20
There are quite a few grammatical errors throughout your story. It kind of overwhelmed me, considering there are a lot of errors packed into such a short fic. I believe your biggest struggles are the usage of punctuation (commas, semicolons, etc.) and the format of your dialog. I noticed that, quite often, you use a comma where you really should use a semicolon. For example, at one point you say: “He was just surprised, he wasn’t expecting to see him…” This sentence, in my opinion, could really use a semicolon. Semicolons are used to separate two independent clauses, and both of the statements in this instance are independent clauses. The correct format of this sentence would go as follows: “He was just surprised; he wasn’t expecting to see him…” If you take out the semicolon and instead place a period after ‘surprised’, you’ll notice that the two phrases can function perfectly fine as their own sentences. I find that trick very useful when I can’t decide between a comma and a semicolon. Another great example of your overuse of commas and lack of semicolons is this section: “He didn't turn to face the other, he kept his back to him, pretending he was cleaning and organizing some pastels, when he was only doing it as a way to hide all the embarassment." This whole portion has a lot of commas, which makes it difficult to read. Whenever I encounter a comma, I find that I take a mental pause. That’s what commas are meant to function as: a separation of thoughts, or, a mental pause between two thoughts. Since there are so many commas here, I found that I paused every second and this bothered me. Consider formatting the section like this: “He didn’t turn to face the other; he kept his back to him, pretending he was cleaning and organizing some pastels. In reality, he was only doing it as a way to hide all the embarrassment.” Doesn’t that flow a bit better? Pay attention to your spelling, too (you misspelled embarrassment).  One more section that needs work in the comma/semicolon/period department is this: “Kai cleared his throat, he was going to talk, he opened his mouth to answer him, he was going to say something, but he was interrupted by his girlfriend, who was not really happy with Kyungsoo's intimate touch." Consider this, instead: “Kai cleared his throat; he was going to talk. He opened his mouth to answer, but was interrupted by his girlfriend, who was not really happy with Kyungsoo's intimate touch." Enough of the semicolon/comma stuff; I think you get it by now. I mentioned that your dialog could use some work. I won’t spend too much time on this because I already wrote a lot in this section, so here are my tips for you and I hope you’ll go through your story and fix the errors: put commas after dialog to connect them to the dialog tag (said, whispered, sighed, etc.) because they are part of the same sentence; don’t capitalize pronouns (he, you, she, etc.) after a comma when it’s part of a dialog tag, even if the dialog ends with a question mark or exclamation point; if there is a comma after dialog, a dialog tag must follow, no exceptions. Dialog aside, just pay attention to agreement, specifying who is talking and who ‘his’ and ‘him’ refers to, and be careful with the overuse of ellipses (these guys “…”). Finally, never begin a sentence with ‘and’! Sorry this section took so long, I’m a notorious Grammar Nazi. If you read the whole thing, though, I think you’ll find it to be a big help!

Originality: 8/10
I deducted points because I’ve seen a few stories that have a similar plotline, assuming what I was able to grasp from the story is what you had meant for me to infer. Other than that, your story was pretty refreshing and I like the idea of Kai being an artist!

Characterization: 11/15
There’s not really a lot to go on, but there is some detail to each of the characters. I know that Kai and Kyungsoo were childhood friends. I also know that Kyungsoo is a shy music student that wears big, chunky glasses (cute). I know that Kai is a stubborn art student that paints whenever he feels emotional. The two of them share a deep connection, and I can feel Kai’s pain when he looks back on the memories. I would’ve liked for there to be a bit more detail given to them, but the information you did provide is good.

Flow: 8/10
It’s a bit choppy in places due to all of the flashbacks that interrupt the story, but it’s nothing to pick at. The story is really short and the reader is meant to take in the information in that short amount of time, which is a bit troublesome and hinders the flow. All in all, though, the flow of your fic is pretty good.

Enjoyment: 3.5/5
I don’t really ship Kaisoo, but this story was nice. It was a bit short for my liking, so I deducted half a point for that. I took off a whole point, though, because I was very distracted by the grammatical errors that I found. That aside, I felt sad at the end of the fic and I really liked that you made Kai an artist rather than a dancer (seriously, I know he’s a dancer, but that’s so overdone). I enjoyed reading your fic!

Appearance: 3.5/5
The font is the right size and color, but it gets lost in the overwhelming amount of white space. There are a lot of spaces used to separate the paragraphs and the flashbacks, which isn’t the most pleasing thing to look at. Also, the description/foreword is a little dull due to the lack of color. I would suggest either making a background, or requesting someone make one for you, so that the reader isn’t overwhelmed by the amount of white space. 

total: 68.5/100

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