Back to Square One
http://www.asianfanfics.com/story/view/700064/back-to-square-one-angst-comedy-hunhan-kaisoo-drama00romance-devotions-exo00couples

About: Kai(Exo)+Kyungsoo(Exo), romance, angst, comedy, high school

Ahri
Finished 6/1/14

Title: 5/5 At first, I thought your title meant that Kai was starting over his life with new friends until you mentioned in one of the chapter (I forgot which one) that Kai was starting over with Kyungsoo and rekindling their relationship. Either way could work, I suppose, so that's a good title since it relates to your story discreetly. 

Foreword: 10/10 Okay, let's start with your foreword and the quotes, which are beautiful and really show the emotions of the characters. Your foreword about how strong humans are a great way to introduce your story and the main theme throughout, and you make it emotional enough for the readers to connect to it.

The problem is your description. Your specific advice is how to improve your story, and I'm going to start with improving the reader's first impression of it. Your description is so lackluster compared to the foreword and quotes which look about two levels above the description. The first two sentences, or paragraph, of your description is fine, but the questions do not look good with the strong words around it. They stand out poorly, but this is really more of a personal preference, so I can't really take points off for that. I just think that questions in the foreword, like "What will happen" for example, is not a good way to lead into the story because the readers will know what will happen, so it's better if you give sentences that tells them in vague details what will happen. It's like leading them into the story without giving them all the details, kind of like what you're doing with the foreword.

Plot: 19/20 In chapter 1.5, Kai's mother's death is a good twist, as cruel as this sounds, but it's a side-event that doesn't involve the main event, Kai and Kyungsoo. I just wish you would tell us the exact reason why his mother died. Was it cancer or a virus? I don't know if you reveal this later on in the story, but you should reveal it at that moment or the beginning of chapter two, when Kai is regretting his actions that day.

I don't really know what to say about your plot overall. You started with a cliché plot, about best friends liking each other, but your events fit in well, and your characters did wonders for your story. The side-plots, Luhan and Sehun, are also a great factor. I think it would be pretty cool if Minseok gets his own pairing with another person. I mean, it looks like Luhan is using him to get Sehun's attention, but I don't know if Minseok is aware of this (you probably revealed that though later on).

So, your plot is pretty nice, but I can't really feel a mood in it. A mood is probably the hardest thing to do in a story, but it will completely change any story, no matter how bad the story is (not that yours is bad; it's awesome) in a good way. I suggest (Specific Advice) to use either a seasonal mood since that's the easiest mood to use, but any other mood is fine. Just sometimes include a glimpse of the setting. For example, if you use a spring mood, you can write "They decided to have lunch under the cherry blossum tree (I think they have those in Korea as well). The wind was blowing gently against their skin as they indulged in the sandwiches Kyungsoo made last night. This was the first time they ate together so peacefully, and the light, springtime weather probably made it possible." I'm not good at moods, but you can see the the setting in this and somewhat feel the mood (at least, I hope you do). 

Characters: 20/20 I said this in the Flow, but you could make Kai's relationship with Sehun and Luhan's different from Kyungsoo's and have Kai be aware of it. They could be so different that Kai can't even relate Kyungsoo to the things he does, so it's more contrasting when Kyungsoo comes back, and you can give Kai a bigger struggle.

Your characters each have their own separate personalities, and that is very hard to do with so many people. Sehun's cold, Luhan's happy, Kai's depressed, and Kyungsoo's mysterious. It's hard to work so well with so many people, and I don't think you need to improve anything here because your characters are very well-described that they really make your story stand out.

I also like how at first Kyungsoo is trying to push Kai away until he learns of his mother's passing, and then he's too guilty to deny Kai, so that's a good way to improve their relationship.

Grammar and Spelling: 17/20 In chapter one, in paragraph 6, you switched to present tense and then a few times more later on. Remember to always keep your tenses the same, and I think you already know that, but that was just a petty mistake. Just look over your work once you're done with writing.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in chapter two, you keep writing "transferee student" and I searched it up, and transferee appears to be a noun? In that case, since you already have a noun, it's unnecessary to put another noun, like student, afterwards. Though, I could be wrong.

Otherwise, you don't have any spelling mistake or any run-on sentences. Your main mistake are tense changes which are very often.

Flow: 13/15 I mention this in the Structure, but at first glance, chapter one looks rushed since all of a sudden, Kyungsoo leaves, and Sehun comes in, but then your chapter 1.5 just evened everything out in a very organized way that leaves me thinking "Are there more of these timeline switches?" They are incredible, by the way.

After that though, it was just really sudden because Kyungsoo comes right back in without any warning (though the sneak peaks you gave at the end of each chapter kinda did warn me). One way you can improve this entrance (Specific Advice) is to focus on Kai's relationship slowly building with Sehun and Luhan more, like have them introduce him to new things that he had never encountered with Kyungsoo before. For example, take him to a beach. I don't know, but have them introduce Kai to new things that gives him a new image of Sehun and Luhan, so he doesn't compare them to Kyungsoo, kind of like his new life that's the opposite of his old one.

Enjoyment: 5/5 I love the characters; they are the main reason why you got full marks in this category.

Structure: 4/5 In chapter two, even though you wrote it in the author note, you should go back to chapter one to write the ages in the story.

At first, when I saw chapter 1.5, I was like "What is this?" I thought it was a continuation of chapter one, and I was going to say that you can just make it part of chapter one, until I read it. That was amazing. I love how you have chapter one with two events of different timelines, and then you go backwards to explain how Sehun and Kai met, and that is unique and a great way of putting your story together. Switching the timeline around is very hard to do, but you did it perfectly.

Nearing the end of chapter two, you wrote "3 years" like that. In a story, numbers should always be written out in word form as long as they are below 10.

Overall: 93/100 Your story doesn't have a lot of mistakes, just a lot of tense changes and a rushed flow. The plot is somewhat flat, even with the many events thrown in, but your diverse characters make up for it. You don't need a lot of improvements except for the mood, the best factor in a story. For example, in Harry Potter, as each season passes, you can actually feel the mood. During the winter, the mood is festive, and you can feel like you're sitting in an armchair in front of a fireplace, drinking pumpkin juice and eating a big serving of pie.