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Title: Only Sehun

Author: inspiritlocksmith

Title

You chose a rather simple title for your story, and I couldn’t help it but to keep on wondering why it was only Sehun. You, of course, have a reason why you decided to go with this title. And, I personally like more elegant titles with words that aren’t usually used. However, this rather simple title somehow connected to the story in which Luhan kept thinking and wondering about Sehun, it was as though Sehun was the only thing that was on his mind, hence the title, “Only Sehun”. Despite your simple title, it quite caught my attention, why? Because, your title holds a lot of meaning behind it, despite the fact that other authors in AFF might use this title, I couldn’t help it but to find myself wondering why it was only Sehun. All these questions about ‘why him?’ ‘Is there anything about him that makes him the only Sehun?’ crossed my mind.  

Foreword/Description

I like how you start the description with explaining lies, trust, and love. However, I find the color a bit distracting. It might be just me, but the color bright red is too … bright. And, you don’t need to bold the letters too.

Secondly, I like how you introduce your characters in the description. It let the reader to understand the character, to relate with them. But, you are not supposed to use capital letters after the semicolon (;) so, it should be like this; “Luhan; of joyous personas, eyes filled with bliss and permanent grins, a sunflower in the spring; yet it dies in the winter.”

And on the very last line, like what I said before, you don’t need to bold the letters.  

As for the foreword, it was good. I mean, I would’ve prefer if you added an excerpt of your story there, but, introducing the word ‘mask’ is a pretty good too. But, again, you don’t need to bold the ‘you can’t take it off once you wore it’ part. You can use italics instead of bold.

Appearance

Perfect font size, color, and type. And, to whoever made the poster for your story, thumbs up for them! Beautiful poster, I really like it.

Plot

The plot isn’t that fresh, but it’s not that original either. However, the story is only on the seventh chapter now and I’m sure you’ll be able to surprise the readers by the revelation Luhan’s background. Although, yes, I know that this plot was used by a lot of authors, it’s not that cliché either, because sometimes great authors can turn cliché plots and into not cliché ones – I’d love to comment more on this part, but I can’t. The story is only on its seventh chapter, and each chapter is quite short, so I can’t really say a lot about it. I’m just going to remind you that your writing style is great and your English is quite good too; you can use them to make your story not cliché.

Grammar

Although this story was well written and you have a good writing style, there are still some grammar errors, awkward sentences, and the lack of this one particular punctuation usage.

First of all, there’s this punctuation called dash (—) yes, you don’t use a lot of dash, and sometimes I think there are some parts in your story that needs dash instead of commas or periods. Okay, so, dashes are used to set off a word or phrase after an independent clause or to set off words, phrases, or clauses that interrupt a sentence.

And, although you used semicolons (;) on the description part, you didn’t use a lot of semicolons in the story. Semicolons are used to connect two similar and complete clauses, meaning that they are not always a good substitute for a period or comma. You have to be careful in how and where to use them.

And, usually numbers before 10 are considered to be typed in words (e.g. There were only five people in the dorm)

I also noticed that you used ‘towards’ instead of ‘toward’. Your story was written in past tense, and if you already decided to write it in past tense, you should keep on writing it in past tense. Meaning that you should use ‘toward’ instead of ‘towards’. There are also still some parts of the story that used present tense instead of past tense, so I think you should re-read it again and find the mistakes. Just remember that you should be careful with your tenses, if you want to make the story in past tense, make sure all your conjunctions and sentences match each other in the past form.

There are small grammatical mistakes here and there, but I’ll just point out two of them.

"Hey, where are you stationed at?" A boy, with a playful smile and flushed cheeks asked him. 

Correction: “Hey, where are you stationed at?” a boy, with a playful smile and flushed cheeks asked him.

You should also use a small letter instead of capital letter after a conversation that ends with a question mark (?) if it’s not a name, you shouldn’t use capital letter.

Sehun couldn't seemed to grasp the sadness that had widened from the moment he saw Luhan's distant appearance. 

Correction: Sehun couldn’t seem to grasp the sadness that had widened from the moment he saw Luhan’s distant appearance.

Remember, after you use ‘couldn’t’ or ‘could’ the next word should be written in their present form.

There are also some sentences that sounded a bit awkward; I’ll point some from the first few chapters.

            But despite his outer interior, he really wished for someone to see through it. 

Correction: Despite his masklike expression and his rather hard shell, he really wished for someone to see through it.

Honestly, I didn’t really get what you meant by ‘outer interior’. I thought maybe you meant Sehun’s hard shell, so I changed the sentence like that. You can also use expressions your characters have to describe how their outer shell looks. Please correct me if I’m wrong. You have to also choose to use either ‘despite’ or ‘but’ because they have the same meaning. In this case, I used despite, but you can also use but.

Standing up, he sighed at the proximity that he would never be as joyous as that boy with the doe eyes.

Correction: Standing up, he sighed at the proximity that he would never be as joyous as that boy with a pair of doe eyes.

This is actually just a suggestion. You can choose to use my suggestion or not, but I think it would be better if you add ‘pair’ when it comes to eyes.

            They are absolutely decadent!

            Correction: They are absolutely decent! // They are absolutely delicious!

Decadent actually means corrupt or self-indulgent. It doesn’t match with the sentence before ‘they are absolutely decadent’ which is ‘you should try them’. I don’t know if Chanyeol was being sarcastic here or you misspelled the word ‘decent’ into ‘decadent’. So, please correct me if I’m wrong.

After all, Luhan was sure no one wanted to be seen as a sad, sorrowful being that walked the earth with a pair of lost eyes.

Correction: After all, Luhan was sure no one wanted to be seen as a sad, sorrowful being with a pair of lost eyes.

At first I didn’t know how to correct this sentence, I almost wrote that you should change the whole sentence because it sounded so awkward. The use of ‘walked the earth’ and ‘with’ doesn’t match each other because it made it seemed like it was the eyes that was walking on earth.

            Would they not try their best to hide it?

            Correction: Why wouldn’t they try their best to hide it?

The cons of working around children was though there was laughter, there were bound to be cries.

Correction: The cons of working around children were—though there was laughter—there would always be cries.

I’m actually confused with this sentence. First, you seemed like you missed the dash, that’s why the sentence didn’t make sense to me at first. Second, ‘there were bound to be cries’ sounded weird and didn’t seem right.

You also used a lot of repetition. I’m just going to give you one example for this.

            There were only few people who really saw his smile. 

            He smiled to himself. 

            Correction: There were only a few people who really saw him smile.

                                   The edges of his lips curved upward upon that thought.

Overall, your English is quite good! But, remember to proofread your story again for there are still some similar mistakes aside from what I’ve pointed out for you. You can also request for a beta reader to help you with your grammar.  Play around with your sentence structures to see how you can rearrange sentences and add in different types to give diversity in your story. Diversity is good.

Flow

I have no problem in this part. The flow was good; it wasn’t too slow or quick. Good job!

Characterization

I should be honest with you that I really like discussing this part. I’m not an expert in characters either, and I also think that building up a character is difficult, especially in conveying their emotions. However, I’m very sensitive when it comes to character’s emotions and development, so I’ll give you my opinion for each character.

Luhan, in this story seemed to be like the other Luhan characters in other stories – always so cheerful and bright – however, that was what he seemed to be like at first. I was quite surprised by the way he judged Sehun based on his expression, saying that he was dark and was the epitome of death. And as the story goes on, Luhan – that seemed to be a very rational and prudent person – was only using his bright expressions and calming approach to everyone else to mask his real emotions. In here, he looked rather like a person that was used to lie to himself; for the sake of his real emotions to remain vague, he lied. And, I assume that maybe he had a traumatizing event that made him not believe in love, but you haven’t revealed much about his background yet, so questions like ‘why doesn’t he believe in love?’ lingered in my mind. I’d love to see his character grow and develop even more.

Sehun, unlike Luhan, his character was more dark and oblivious, but then again, he only seemed to be one of those typical Sehun character in other stories at the first place. And – the same as Luhan – this character developed into something else as the story goes on. He seemed to be more like a character that was misunderstood instead of the dark one. Despite his seemingly spiritless gaze and oblivious expression, his feelings were more sensitive than Luhan. He was caring and thoughtful, although in here, he was afraid to show those aspects of him; aspects that made him more benign as a person.

Your characters were very captivating and intriguing, especially Luhan and Sehun. At first they seemed to be like a character with only one layer – meaning that you can guess his personality right away – but if you look closer, they’re actually characters with multiple layers, and as the story goes one you removed those layers one by one, revealing their real thoughts and emotions. You showed multiple sides of the characters, making them more believable and realistic. Good job!

Comments/Enjoyment

Very well written story, despite the grammatical mistakes and some awkward sentences, this story was very well written. I’m not really a reader, but the first seven chapters of your stories only showed that they had some bromance moments, so I’m totally okay with it. Your story was a good read; keep writing on this writing style, and keep on doing what you’re doing with your characters. I’m sorry it took so long for me to review this story, I hope this is worth the wait. So, that’s my review. Please don’t feel down or offended by anything that I wrote here, I really didn’t mean to write anything too critical or rude. This is all based on what I’ve learned and my own opinion, so if you disagree with something I said, feel free to tell me about it. Hope this helped! Thank you for requesting and don’t forget to credit the shop!

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