Artificial Buddy by YoungKhun
VᴇʀꜱᴀEᴍᴇʀɢᴇ ʀᴇᴠɪᴇᴡ ꜱʜᴏᴘ。 — busy!
artificial buddy by youngkhun
title [4/5]
At first glance, the title is pretty strong. I don't really see anything wrong with it. Connecting it to the description, it seems like it relates to the story as well which is always a bonus, in my opinion. Overall, the title is very solid and I think it's fairly eye-catching.
description/foreword [4/10]
The first thing I have to say about the description is the length. It's a tad bit long and is clumped together in one paragraph. I'd recommend either shortening it slightly or making it into two paragraphs. As someone who gets distracted easily and loses track of my place when reading, I had to read it three times to fully get what it was saying--not your fault, mainly mine, but I do think descriptions shouldn't be a huge paragraph like that. When looking at your description, it might be able to even be split into three shorter paragraphs. As for what's in the description, it's not awful but does sound a little cliched. I can see where the title comes from though since the use of the word "buddy" kind of gives you an idea.
Now, when I look at forewords, the last thing I really want to see are pictures of the whole cast. Granted, people probably know who they are. If someone doesn't know who IU is, then they obviously haven't been around K-pop long enough. I always recommend not using pictures because there's really no need--looking at books, you won't find a picture list of the cast of characters. Writing is the way you express them, not through pictures. This isn't a children's book with pictures, it's for older kids/teens/adults. Not even that, but the cast list is pretty damn big. So all of the pictures are kind of obnoxious. Only recommendation I can really give is to remove the pictures. The cast will be introduced within the story AND are in the tags, so it's not very necessary in this case scenario.
plot [14/50]
As I said earlier, I didn't read all of the chapters and did skip around to view the later chapters very briefly so there may be loopholes in what I'm saying. If I say something and it's no longer accurate/changed in the story later on, feel free to let me know. I thought I should let you know just in case you find that I said something that's outdated later on.
The one problem I had when reading is trying to figure out what the plot actually is. By chapter 4, I was reading it and trying to decipher what the major problem here is. I can tell the crash had an impact on how things work, but I feel like some things are everywhere. Scattered might be a better word.
Also, it's weird that someone claiming to be the fanclub president of 2PM would just walk up to them, that's highly unrealistic and just flat out strange. Especially because it's... IU? That's just weird and why is she there anyways? And isn't it the company who chooses if they perform there or not, not her? Idols are heavily controlled by their companies in terms of that kind of thing so it doesn't really make much sense to me.
Also, something I wanted to address, is that you shouldn't address your readers in your stories. Ever. The reason I'm saying this is because of chapter 6. You say "Sad to say, no moments will take place this evening. I'm sorry for the readers", you should never address the readers, that's what the A/N at the end of the chapter is usually for. It takes away from the story and makes everything just... awkward and weird, to put it frankly.
I feel like you need to find a heavier focus on this story. Don't focus on any character too much BESIDES Nichkun and Wooyoung. 2PM can be mentioned, yes, but there shouldn't be much of them. I think the story would be better if you focused on those two and how the accident may have changed them, or the way they act towards each other, because right now, I really can't grasp what this story is about and that's not good since plot is one of the most important aspects in a story.
One thing I recommend, it's what I usually do, is plan the story out. How do you want each scene to go down? It can be a brief thing like "I want A to confess to B at ____ (location)", just something simple like that can help you keep your focus on the story.
What's the purpose of Khunfany? Just to make Wooyoung suffer? I don't understand why this is a thing, especially considering the beginning of the story. It's just... it just doesn't make sense. Is it because they actually dated? Like, just why, it doesn't make sense to me? Granted, I've been skipping around because I can't read all of the chapters so I might have missed something but I really don't get it as this is listed as Khunwoo, not Khunfany. Pretty cruel just to make a character suffer for the hell of it. I'm just confused and reading what happened after, I'm still kind of confused.
I think the story just need a more solid structure to follow. I'm not sure if you had/have one or not, but I would definitely recommend trying it out. It's helped me write a lot of my stories and the ones I haven't planned out end up being a mess (aka my embarassing old fanfictions on this account...) or they just don't turn out as good as they can be. It has the potential, it just needs a bit of fixing. And that's okay, books probably go through A LOT of changes before being published, it's just how it works.
Also, I think the beginning of the story is good. It's mainly after the car crash happens that things seem to get out of hand. So I think you had a good start, you just, well, lost sight of what you were going for, I think. It happens, I've been through it, everyone has. I've had stories where the start was just ing amazing and then the ending fell so flat that I almost deleted the story because I found it so terrible. Writing isn't easy and learning/growing over the years is going to help you become a better writer. Practice makes perfect and this story isn't horrible, you have the potential to make something great -- everyone does -- it's just a matter of keeping focus and knowing/generalizing how you want your story to start, where the will happen, and how the story will end. While plans may change, having a guideline will surely help!
writing style/flow [8/20]
There were a few weird sentences at some points. It's not major mistakes, just minor, such as forgetting a word or adding one where it's not needed or something. Like, for example, in Chapter 2, it says:
"Do you want to have a karaoke with me?"
The reason this sounds weird is because of the 'a', you don't need to say 'a karaoke' because it's solely called karaoke on its own. Not even that, but you can't really 'have' karaoke. In this case, he's asking for him to DO karaoke with him, as doing karaoke is an action. So, it'd be:
"Do you want to do karaoke with me?"
I think the one thing I noticed about the grammar, which a lot of people who speak English as a second/third language do, is that it seems very proper. Now, that's not a bad thing, but I feel like sometimes people try to sound too proper. These two people, the characters, are supposed to be closer to each other. So, with the way they talk, they sound too professional/unnatural at times, even in a normal conversation. For example:
"You are my best buddy. I indeed want to stay here longer with you here someday."
This sounds very unnatural, especially if you read it out loud. It doesn't really sound like something you'd say to someone you're close to especially in person. To make it sound more natural, I'd use the word 'best friend', mainly because not many people call their friends "buddy", some do, most don't. I know the title is called "Artificial Buddy" but, you don't need to always use the word buddy in an attempt to keep the title valid. What I would say instead is:
"You're my best friend. I'd stay here longer with you if I could."
I think the main changer here is that fact that "You're" is used instead of "You are", because "You are" sounds too formal. You don't have to always say "you are" or "do not" instead of "don't" (as an example) because no one really uses them in face-to-face conversations. Or even online. I always say "you're" because it's quicker, sounds better, and isn't as formal sounding compared to the usage of "You are".
Another thing, if you're going to curse, just do it. Using "beetch" instead of "" is just in' weird. There's nothing wrong with using a curse word to emphasize something such as anger, everyone does it. Granted, some people, like myself, just curse a lot in general, but really, no need to censor it.
So, if we're speaking about it, I do think the word "buddy" should be used less. It sounds kind of awkward in the long run. Once or twice is fine, but every time is just odd. Like saying: "Hug me now buddy", that just sounds so awkward and unreal.
In chapter 3, you used to romanized version of Korean. If you're going to use Korean, I would actually use the Korean, not the romanization. If you go to Korea, everything will be in Hangul, not in romanization. It's just kind of cringe to see it in romanization. Plus, either way, most readers can't understand it regardless so using it the right way is better. For example, using "Saranghae" is cringe in my opinion. The story is in English, so I would stick to it unless using Hangul.
Last but not least, one thing I noticed is the usage of what I like to call "Roleplay talk". Now, the reason I call it this is because I was a heavy roleplayer since 2013 up until 2017, really. An example of this would be something like this:
"Turns away and gladly receives her hug."
There's no context to this, it's something you'd say while roleplaying or, something similar at least. This is a problem. In stories, you wouldn't do that. It'd be something like this:
"He turns away and gladly receives her hug."
Although it's just one word added, it completely changes the sentence and makes it more "story appropriate". Roleplay talk is not for stories.
As for the flow of the story, it's slightly messy. I feel like it goes from one thing to the next rather quickly, making it rather confusing. There are things that happen way too quickly and my slow brain can't seem to pick up on a lot of what's happening, leaving me rather confused a lot.
characterization [2/10]
My first question:
why are there so many characters?
It's hard to focus on anything that is going on sometimes. The main focus should be the two lead roles, Nichkun and Wooyoung, but I feel like I haven't seen much of them in the story minus the accident part--there's too much focus on nonimportant (using this word loosely) characters. Why do Kyungsoo and Jongin need to be there? So far, as of CH 6, they've been nothing but a waste of space in the story that isn't even supposed to be about them. 2PM I can understand, they're the band in question anyways, but why Krystal? Was that scene with IU really needed? Are these characters really necessary to the story? I honestly don't think so. Kyungsoo and Jongin's part where they argue over his "RS" with Krystal has zero purpose, why is it there? The readers shouldn't care about these two, it's not about them. I think there needs to be a better focus on the main two characters, rather than all the side characters that really haven't done much for the story so far.
I honestly feel like I don't know much about the main characters and who they really are, I just feel like there's not much expansion on them as people in the story. I just feel like everything is scattered.
My second question:
Where do all these characters keep coming from?
I feel like every time I look somewhere, there's a different character introduced/involved. All of JYPE isn't needed, nor is Tiffany, IU, or Krystal (just to name a few). In one of the chapters, Jaebum (I believe) came into the story and I feel like he came out of nowhere without an important role. He seemed like a 'filler' character, if anything.
personal enjoyment [1/5]
I was honestly just confused half of the time. Plus, I had a feeling I'd be a bit worried, especially with tags containing things such as "abuse, kidnapping, suicideattempt, murder, etc." I don't know how I feel about it, really. I'm more confused than ever, sure, but I don't see why all of this is necessary. I feel like it's just a bit of... overkill? I can understand why suicide can play into it, car accidents can be traumatic especially if resulting in a death, but kidnapping? Murder???? That's not really necessary and seems quite... extra. A lot of it seemed extra, really. This type of story, or the type of story I thought it was, doesn't fit half of these themes. I can understand liking darker stories, I'm guilty, but bombarding it with every bad thing possible seems a little silly.
I think the story could have potential, as every story does, but there's a lot of polishing that seemingly needs to happen and it's really not in the grammar. The grammar is the least of the issues, and is barely an issue at all minus a few things here and there. It's the plot I'm concerned over. The plot is quite lacking and that's not good. I can't even imagine how this story would try to end.
total of [33/100]
others: I hate giving low scores but it happens. It's not the end of the world and I'm just one reviewer honestly. Whether or not this helped is entirely up to how you take constructive criticism. You don't have to listen to me nor do you need to take my advice. If you have any clarifications to the questions I asked throughout that you want to share, I'd like to hear it since you would have a better understanding than I would.
Honestly, asking me to review your first story (I believe you said) might have been a bit of overkill since I can be very honest and blunt/brutal. It's mainly because I'm very passionate about writing and have been doing it for so long. I've taken a break recently, but yeah. Just remember that I'm here to help you, not hurt you. I love seeing people improve on their stories and I'm sure you will too if you try. I've written stories that could pass as a 10 year old writing them (war flashbacks, really) and improved over the years. It takes time so don't give up if you're passionate about writing, ok? I don't want to discourage anyone from doing what they love just because I wrote a harsher review.
At first glance, the title is pretty strong. I don't really see anything wrong with it. Connecting it to the description, it seems like it relates to the story as well which is always a bonus, in my opinion. Overall, the title is very solid and I think it's fairly eye-catching.
description/foreword [4/10]
The first thing I have to say about the description is the length. It's a tad bit long and is clumped together in one paragraph. I'd recommend either shortening it slightly or making it into two paragraphs. As someone who gets distracted easily and loses track of my place when reading, I had to read it three times to fully get what it was saying--not your fault, mainly mine, but I do think descriptions shouldn't be a huge paragraph like that. When looking at your description, it might be able to even be split into three shorter paragraphs. As for what's in the description, it's not awful but does sound a little cliched. I can see where the title comes from though since the use of the word "buddy" kind of gives you an idea.
Now, when I look at forewords, the last thing I really want to see are pictures of the whole cast. Granted, people probably know who they are. If someone doesn't know who IU is, then they obviously haven't been around K-pop long enough. I always recommend not using pictures because there's really no need--looking at books, you won't find a picture list of the cast of characters. Writing is the way you express them, not through pictures. This isn't a children's book with pictures, it's for older kids/teens/adults. Not even that, but the cast list is pretty damn big. So all of the pictures are kind of obnoxious. Only recommendation I can really give is to remove the pictures. The cast will be introduced within the story AND are in the tags, so it's not very necessary in this case scenario.
plot [14/50]
As I said earlier, I didn't read all of the chapters and did skip around to view the later chapters very briefly so there may be loopholes in what I'm saying. If I say something and it's no longer accurate/changed in the story later on, feel free to let me know. I thought I should let you know just in case you find that I said something that's outdated later on.
The one problem I had when reading is trying to figure out what the plot actually is. By chapter 4, I was reading it and trying to decipher what the major problem here is. I can tell the crash had an impact on how things work, but I feel like some things are everywhere. Scattered might be a better word.
Also, it's weird that someone claiming to be the fanclub president of 2PM would just walk up to them, that's highly unrealistic and just flat out strange. Especially because it's... IU? That's just weird and why is she there anyways? And isn't it the company who chooses if they perform there or not, not her? Idols are heavily controlled by their companies in terms of that kind of thing so it doesn't really make much sense to me.
Also, something I wanted to address, is that you shouldn't address your readers in your stories. Ever. The reason I'm saying this is because of chapter 6. You say "Sad to say, no moments will take place this evening. I'm sorry for the readers", you should never address the readers, that's what the A/N at the end of the chapter is usually for. It takes away from the story and makes everything just... awkward and weird, to put it frankly.
I feel like you need to find a heavier focus on this story. Don't focus on any character too much BESIDES Nichkun and Wooyoung. 2PM can be mentioned, yes, but there shouldn't be much of them. I think the story would be better if you focused on those two and how the accident may have changed them, or the way they act towards each other, because right now, I really can't grasp what this story is about and that's not good since plot is one of the most important aspects in a story.
One thing I recommend, it's what I usually do, is plan the story out. How do you want each scene to go down? It can be a brief thing like "I want A to confess to B at ____ (location)", just something simple like that can help you keep your focus on the story.
What's the purpose of Khunfany? Just to make Wooyoung suffer? I don't understand why this is a thing, especially considering the beginning of the story. It's just... it just doesn't make sense. Is it because they actually dated? Like, just why, it doesn't make sense to me? Granted, I've been skipping around because I can't read all of the chapters so I might have missed something but I really don't get it as this is listed as Khunwoo, not Khunfany. Pretty cruel just to make a character suffer for the hell of it. I'm just confused and reading what happened after, I'm still kind of confused.
I think the story just need a more solid structure to follow. I'm not sure if you had/have one or not, but I would definitely recommend trying it out. It's helped me write a lot of my stories and the ones I haven't planned out end up being a mess (aka my embarassing old fanfictions on this account...) or they just don't turn out as good as they can be. It has the potential, it just needs a bit of fixing. And that's okay, books probably go through A LOT of changes before being published, it's just how it works.
Also, I think the beginning of the story is good. It's mainly after the car crash happens that things seem to get out of hand. So I think you had a good start, you just, well, lost sight of what you were going for, I think. It happens, I've been through it, everyone has. I've had stories where the start was just ing amazing and then the ending fell so flat that I almost deleted the story because I found it so terrible. Writing isn't easy and learning/growing over the years is going to help you become a better writer. Practice makes perfect and this story isn't horrible, you have the potential to make something great -- everyone does -- it's just a matter of keeping focus and knowing/generalizing how you want your story to start, where the will happen, and how the story will end. While plans may change, having a guideline will surely help!
writing style/flow [8/20]
There were a few weird sentences at some points. It's not major mistakes, just minor, such as forgetting a word or adding one where it's not needed or something. Like, for example, in Chapter 2, it says:
"Do you want to have a karaoke with me?"
The reason this sounds weird is because of the 'a', you don't need to say 'a karaoke' because it's solely called karaoke on its own. Not even that, but you can't really 'have' karaoke. In this case, he's asking for him to DO karaoke with him, as doing karaoke is an action. So, it'd be:
"Do you want to do karaoke with me?"
I think the one thing I noticed about the grammar, which a lot of people who speak English as a second/third language do, is that it seems very proper. Now, that's not a bad thing, but I feel like sometimes people try to sound too proper. These two people, the characters, are supposed to be closer to each other. So, with the way they talk, they sound too professional/unnatural at times, even in a normal conversation. For example:
"You are my best buddy. I indeed want to stay here longer with you here someday."
This sounds very unnatural, especially if you read it out loud. It doesn't really sound like something you'd say to someone you're close to especially in person. To make it sound more natural, I'd use the word 'best friend', mainly because not many people call their friends "buddy", some do, most don't. I know the title is called "Artificial Buddy" but, you don't need to always use the word buddy in an attempt to keep the title valid. What I would say instead is:
"You're my best friend. I'd stay here longer with you if I could."
I think the main changer here is that fact that "You're" is used instead of "You are", because "You are" sounds too formal. You don't have to always say "you are" or "do not" instead of "don't" (as an example) because no one really uses them in face-to-face conversations. Or even online. I always say "you're" because it's quicker, sounds better, and isn't as formal sounding compared to the usage of "You are".
Another thing, if you're going to curse, just do it. Using "beetch" instead of "" is just in' weird. There's nothing wrong with using a curse word to emphasize something such as anger, everyone does it. Granted, some people, like myself, just curse a lot in general, but really, no need to censor it.
So, if we're speaking about it, I do think the word "buddy" should be used less. It sounds kind of awkward in the long run. Once or twice is fine, but every time is just odd. Like saying: "Hug me now buddy", that just sounds so awkward and unreal.
In chapter 3, you used to romanized version of Korean. If you're going to use Korean, I would actually use the Korean, not the romanization. If you go to Korea, everything will be in Hangul, not in romanization. It's just kind of cringe to see it in romanization. Plus, either way, most readers can't understand it regardless so using it the right way is better. For example, using "Saranghae" is cringe in my opinion. The story is in English, so I would stick to it unless using Hangul.
Last but not least, one thing I noticed is the usage of what I like to call "Roleplay talk". Now, the reason I call it this is because I was a heavy roleplayer since 2013 up until 2017, really. An example of this would be something like this:
"Turns away and gladly receives her hug."
There's no context to this, it's something you'd say while roleplaying or, something similar at least. This is a problem. In stories, you wouldn't do that. It'd be something like this:
"He turns away and gladly receives her hug."
Although it's just one word added, it completely changes the sentence and makes it more "story appropriate". Roleplay talk is not for stories.
As for the flow of the story, it's slightly messy. I feel like it goes from one thing to the next rather quickly, making it rather confusing. There are things that happen way too quickly and my slow brain can't seem to pick up on a lot of what's happening, leaving me rather confused a lot.
characterization [2/10]
My first question:
why are there so many characters?
It's hard to focus on anything that is going on sometimes. The main focus should be the two lead roles, Nichkun and Wooyoung, but I feel like I haven't seen much of them in the story minus the accident part--there's too much focus on nonimportant (using this word loosely) characters. Why do Kyungsoo and Jongin need to be there? So far, as of CH 6, they've been nothing but a waste of space in the story that isn't even supposed to be about them. 2PM I can understand, they're the band in question anyways, but why Krystal? Was that scene with IU really needed? Are these characters really necessary to the story? I honestly don't think so. Kyungsoo and Jongin's part where they argue over his "RS" with Krystal has zero purpose, why is it there? The readers shouldn't care about these two, it's not about them. I think there needs to be a better focus on the main two characters, rather than all the side characters that really haven't done much for the story so far.
I honestly feel like I don't know much about the main characters and who they really are, I just feel like there's not much expansion on them as people in the story. I just feel like everything is scattered.
My second question:
Where do all these characters keep coming from?
I feel like every time I look somewhere, there's a different character introduced/involved. All of JYPE isn't needed, nor is Tiffany, IU, or Krystal (just to name a few). In one of the chapters, Jaebum (I believe) came into the story and I feel like he came out of nowhere without an important role. He seemed like a 'filler' character, if anything.
personal enjoyment [1/5]
I was honestly just confused half of the time. Plus, I had a feeling I'd be a bit worried, especially with tags containing things such as "abuse, kidnapping, suicideattempt, murder, etc." I don't know how I feel about it, really. I'm more confused than ever, sure, but I don't see why all of this is necessary. I feel like it's just a bit of... overkill? I can understand why suicide can play into it, car accidents can be traumatic especially if resulting in a death, but kidnapping? Murder???? That's not really necessary and seems quite... extra. A lot of it seemed extra, really. This type of story, or the type of story I thought it was, doesn't fit half of these themes. I can understand liking darker stories, I'm guilty, but bombarding it with every bad thing possible seems a little silly.
I think the story could have potential, as every story does, but there's a lot of polishing that seemingly needs to happen and it's really not in the grammar. The grammar is the least of the issues, and is barely an issue at all minus a few things here and there. It's the plot I'm concerned over. The plot is quite lacking and that's not good. I can't even imagine how this story would try to end.
total of [33/100]
others: I hate giving low scores but it happens. It's not the end of the world and I'm just one reviewer honestly. Whether or not this helped is entirely up to how you take constructive criticism. You don't have to listen to me nor do you need to take my advice. If you have any clarifications to the questions I asked throughout that you want to share, I'd like to hear it since you would have a better understanding than I would.
Honestly, asking me to review your first story (I believe you said) might have been a bit of overkill since I can be very honest and blunt/brutal. It's mainly because I'm very passionate about writing and have been doing it for so long. I've taken a break recently, but yeah. Just remember that I'm here to help you, not hurt you. I love seeing people improve on their stories and I'm sure you will too if you try. I've written stories that could pass as a 10 year old writing them (war flashbacks, really) and improved over the years. It takes time so don't give up if you're passionate about writing, ok? I don't want to discourage anyone from doing what they love just because I wrote a harsher review.
With school starting back up again soon, I probably won't be doing many reviews, if at all. We'll see about it though. Thank you for everyone who has requested so far and over the years, I've really learned a lot from reviewing stories and shiz. ♥
Comments